The Ford-Carney alliance, seemingly forged during the federal election, has continued since then, with the Prime Minister staying overnight at the Premier’s cottage during a meeting of first ministers in July in Muskoka, Ont.Liam Richards/The Canadian Press
John Ibbitson is a media fellow at the Fraser Institute and a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday for a “heart-to-heart” talk, as the Premier calls it, about U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
That meeting demonstrates an old but vital political truth: Canada works best when Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill work together.
Since the 1960s, voters in the vast ring of suburbs surrounding Toronto’s downtown core have chosen both the federal and Ontario governments. They choose simply because there are so many millions of them, and because suburban voters elsewhere in Ontario and in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland tend to vote the same way federally.
In the April 28 federal election, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives made inroads in York Region and other parts of the 905 – the suburban cities outside Toronto, named after their first area code. But the Liberals dominated Toronto itself and much of the rest of the 905, winning a strong minority government.
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The same voters that elected the Liberals federally had delivered Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives their third majority government two months earlier.
During the federal election campaign, Mr. Ford’s campaign manager, Kory Teneycke, criticized Mr. Poilievre. “He looks too much like Trump. He sounds too much like Trump. He uses the lexicon of Trump,” he told an audience in Toronto. When asked about that accusation, Mr. Ford replied, “sometimes the truth hurts.”
Mr. Poilievre had distanced himself from the Ontario Premier, apparently believing that Mr. Ford was conservative in name only. This was a huge mistake. Mr. Poilievre needed Mr. Ford’s voters to win. The federal Conservatives should have been cheek-to-jowl with the Ontario PCs.
Instead, Mr. Ford had a well-publicized breakfast in March with Mr. Carney, then prime minister-designate. That breakfast, and the criticisms coming from the Ontario PCs, helped seal the federal Conservatives’ defeat.
After the federal election, the Ford-Carney alliance continued. The Prime Minister stayed overnight at the Premier’s cottage during a meeting of first ministers in July in Muskoka, Ont.
And Mr. Ford never hesitates to praise Mr. Carney, saying in July, “I’d hand the keys of a business over to the Prime Minister… he’s given it everything he possibly can.”
Mr. Ford also says things that Mr. Carney is unable to say, because Canada and the United States are continuing their difficult trade negotiations.
Mr. Trump is “probably the most disliked politician in the world in Canada,” the Premier told CNN earlier this month, “because he’s attacked his closest family member.”
Things weren’t always so close between the Ford Progressive Conservatives and the federal Liberals. In Justin Trudeau’s first term, Mr. Ford fought relentlessly against the carbon tax imposed by Ottawa on Ontario and other provinces that didn’t meet federal goals for reducing carbon emissions.
But that changed as Mr. Ford grew in political maturity and the COVID-19 pandemic created a national health and economic crisis. The two governments worked closely together in responding to that crisis, with Mr. Ford repeatedly referring to then-deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland as his “good friend.” And Mr. Carney’s first act as prime minister was to scrap the carbon tax.
As others have noted, Ontario voters like to have one party in power in Ottawa and a different party in power in Toronto.
At times this has led to confrontation: between Liberal premier Oliver Mowat and Conservative prime minister John A. Macdonald in the years after Confederation, and between PC premier Mike Harris and Liberal prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin at the turn of the millennium. In both instances, Ontario sought and won greater provincial autonomy, benefiting all provinces.
But Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill have more often worked together. For example, in the 1960s, PC premier John Robarts agreed to back Liberal prime minister Lester Pearson’s proposed Canada Pension Plan, abandoning an Ontario-only plan.
And the 1980 National Energy Program that the Alberta hated so intensely was designed, in part, by Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government to protect Ontario residents and industries from rising oil-and-gas prices, at the behest of PC premier Bill Davis.
And as we saw, Ontario and Ottawa cooperated closely in responding to the COVID pandemic, and are now cooperating in confronting President Trump.
Mr. Ford is very aware that any Laurentian compact between the Ontario and federal governments must not alienate other premiers, especially the Premier of Alberta. At the moment, fortunately, Mr. Ford and Danielle Smith are on the same page.
In the months ahead, Queen’s Park and Ottawa will work together on protecting and diversifying Canada’s economic future. The voters of suburban Ontario wouldn’t have it any other way.