The dye has been cast. Ontario’s Doug Ford has pulled the plug, and we will have an election in Ontario on February 27th, barely four weeks from now.
There are those who think this early election that Ford is calling is only for selfish reasons and that he is putting folks in Ontario through an unnecessary election.
Liberal-leaning Toronto Star journalist Martin Regg Cohn doubled down on that in Thursday’s Toronto Star, saying, in part, “Ford cast himself as a viable protector against a volatile U.S. President. He did it – he called an early election no one wants, at a time no one imagined.”
Regg Cohn goes on to say, “as the Progressive Conservative leader blames Donald Trump for an unnecessary election his believability will be doubted on issues closer to home… Ford claims with a straight face that he needs a bigger mandate to spend ‘tens of billions’ bailing out Ontario’s economy, and protecting its workforce, yet he conveniently ignores the public pledges from his opposition rivals to provide a united front in the Legislature.” [When it comes to facing Donald Trump].
I can almost see my Liberal and New Democratic friends nodding their heads in agreement at this point, with all of this, but I respectfully disagree.
First, dealing with what some media pundits and Ford’s opponents regularly refer to as a snap election, it is not. Yes, it is an early election, but everyone who reads the news knew it was coming ever since Donald Trump, with his threats against Canada, was elected President of the United States and especially after he upped his game on those threats after he assumed office. The leaks for an early election were all over the place.
Second, the hard fact is that the ballot issue on February 27th, will be the effect of tariffs and economic warfare on Canada coming from the Trump Administration. There is simply nothing more important than that.
The question for the people in Ontario, the province that potentially will be most seriously affected by Donald Trump’s shenanigans, is who will be best able to deal with that.
Third, the concept that Premier Doug Ford should count on Opposition leaders to back up his response to the Trump Administration is suspect at its best and laughable at its worst. It simply would never happen. Ford would have to get agreement from them on everything he proposed, and with all of the partisan beliefs, that simply would not be in the cards.
Premier Doug Ford does not need a mandate from the Opposition leaders. What he needs is a clear mandate from the people of Ontario to do what needs to be done to protect Ontario’s interests.
When Doug Ford was elected with a majority government for the second time in 2021, the reality of Donald Trump, again becoming President of the United States, was much less evident, and his threats against Canada were non-existent. The mandate that the Progressive Conservatives received at that time did not envision the scope or the immanence of what the Trump Administration is threatening now against Canada and Ontario.
In calling the February 27th election, Doug Ford said, “I am asking the people of Ontario for a strong, stable, four-year mandate to do whatever it takes to outlast and outlive the Trump Administration – to protect Ontario – to protect auto workers.”
Whichever political leader wins the election in February, they will desperately need that mandate from voters to do “whatever it takes” to protect Ontario’s interests and play a leading role in defending Canada against a despotic American president. The time for leadership with a mandate is now, not 18 months from now.
Everyone will have their opinion about who that leader in Ontario should be, including myself. But it is the electorate who will make that final decision, and as the old saying goes, the voters are never wrong.
Doug Ford has not been a perfect Premier. In fact, I don’t know of anyone who has been, with the possible exception of Frank Miller and Ernie Eves, neither of whom were in office long enough to make any real mistakes!
In Ford’s case, the legacy media has done a good job jumping on everything, real or perceived, they believe he has done wrong. There are no secrets there. Yet, he is still going into this election with a double-digit lead. One needs to ask why.
Could it be, in part, because he has stepped into a leaderless void in Canada when we have a lame-duck government in Ottawa, particularly as Chair of the Council of the Federation, which includes every provincial and territorial premier in Canada, as well as speaking out forcibly against the Trump threats as Premier of Ontario? Or could it be that his oh-shucks’ demeanor and his lack of pomposity cause many people in Ontario to just like the guy and are happy to keep him in office?
One thing I have learned over many years is that elections are fickle things. You can never be absolutely sure how they will turn out until the ballots are counted. On top of that, I am sure Doug Ford’s opponents remember what happened when former Premier David Peterson, also high in the polls, called an early election. It can indeed be risky.
All the same, risky or not, I believe that Doug Ford was correct in calling a provincial election now. Given the current challenges between Canada and the United States, a majority mandate in Ontario is needed as soon as possible to allow the government to take extraordinary measures if and when needed. Only the people can decide who is the best person to lead that government under current circumstances.
I certainly have my opinion about who that individual should be, and I continue to believe that the growing conflict between Canada and the United States is our greatest challenge and that this election in Ontario is very likely the most important poll of the people in many decades.
I am well aware that others will have different opinions, and that is a good thing. After all, on this side of the border, we are still a democracy.
Hugh Mackenzie
Hugh Mackenzie has held elected office as a trustee on the Muskoka Board of Education, a Huntsville councillor, a District councillor, and mayor of Huntsville. He has also served as chairman of the District of Muskoka and as chief of staff to former premier of Ontario, Frank Miller.
Hugh has also served on a number of provincial, federal and local boards, including chair of the Ontario Health Disciplines Board, vice-chair of the Ontario Family Health Network, vice-chair of the Ontario Election Finance Commission, and board member of Roy Thomson Hall, the National Theatre School of Canada, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Locally, he has served as president of the Huntsville Rotary Club, chair of Huntsville District Memorial Hospital, chair of the Huntsville Hospital Foundation, president of Huntsville Festival of the Arts, and board member of Community Living Huntsville.
In business, Hugh Mackenzie has a background in radio and newspaper publishing. He was also a founding partner and CEO of Enterprise Canada, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm established in 1986.
Currently, Hugh is president of C3 Digital Media Inc., the parent company of Doppler Online, and he enjoys writing commentary for Huntsville Doppler.
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Omgosh!
Illegal!!
Doh!
Rob Adam’s
It is not Canada’s responsibility to insure ileagal goods cross to the United States!
It is their border agents that are not diligent.
And thankfully Ford is not running the country and hopefully will not be running our province soon either.
I for one will not forget how he lined his pockets and developers pockets. I would dare say he is the poster boy for nondemocratic mandates!
Let’s not forget he got in with an election saw just over forty percent voter turnout out.
So, basically the auto workers.
I understand the importance of this election. However, as a Snowbird I am truly disappointed. This is probably the first time I will NOT be able to vote.
Due to the short time frame, it is impossible for me to vote from the country I am in now and will be until the end of April.
It is unfortunate there is no way people like me can vote via the internet.
Ford started his reelection campaign long before Trump was elected. That is just a ruse.
He is counting on short term memories, buying votes.
His actions re assisted living during COVID, breaking promises re hospitals, his obvious desire to go for 2 tier healthcare or privatization of it , his move to put alcohol in corner stores costing us millions to beak a contract instead of waiting one year to change things. There is so much more. He is untrustworthy so vote for anyone but Ford.
The commentary puts forward many reasonable assumptions. But if we assume for now that Trump’s tariffs are to force Canada into securing it’s border to stop the illegals and to stop the drugs, then this is very much a Federal issue, not a Provincial one. While the fallout will definitely affect Ontario, the action must come from the Feds. Neither of Trump’s demands are unreasonable. In fact, it’s something the Feds should have been doing for our neighbor, our friend and biggest trading partner, all along. The fault for this current situation falls squarely on the shoulders of the little narcissist in Ottawa and his spineless Party faithful.
In that respect, I think Ford’s early election is unwarranted, more so now because we’ve been granted a reprieve to get our act together. He already has a majority government and there would be ample time to reinforce his majority, and receive a mandate from the people, if things do get worse.
It’s interesting, and very telling, that Ford feels he needs to receive a mandate from the people despite already having a majority. In contrast, we have a Prime Minister, who doesn’t have a majority, and doesn’t have a mandate for his actions, that has told Canadians he intends to step down, has prorogued parliament, and, in this perceived time of crisis, refuses to recall parliament so this emergency can be dealt with properly. That should be the bigger story.
Which brings me to the last sentence in the commentary. ‘After all, on this side of the border, we are still a democracy’. Nothing could be further from the truth. We haven’t had a democracy in Canada for a long time. That’s because our political system is weak and can easily be abused. We’ve seen Trudeau take advantage of those weaknesses for the last 10 years and PMs before him did the same, although they were more discreet about it. Our system allows one person, the PM, to select senators, judges, the Governor General and the head of the RCMP, among other things. If the PM is challenged by a member of his/her party, an MP elected by the people, that MP gets fired and their political career is essentially over – so they don’t challenge. This current government also ‘owns’ the mainstream media. The people’s wishes essentially get ignored. Trudeau didn’t have a mandate to send billions of tax money to Ukraine. He didn’t have a mandate to take us from peacekeepers to war mongers. He didn’t have a mandate to cede our sovereignty to the WHO, which he tried desperately to do. He didn’t have a mandate to flood the country with immigrants. He didn’t have a mandate to enforce travel bans based on fake science. The list goes on. What we should expect him to do is enforce our borders, and he failed to do that. He sent billions to foreign interests but did little to protect our friend and neighbor to the south of us. He hasn’t had a mandate to do many of the things he’s inflicted on us. And, the people that should hold him accountable are all appointed by him, and therefore beholding to him for their jobs. The people’s voice gets ignored. That’s not democracy, but we’ve been conditioned to think it is.
I think you mean the “die” has been cast
Search “Ford seen on video saying he was ‘100% happy’ Trump won U.S. election — until tariff threat”
Seriously?
Doug Ford is no different than the orange man.
Many rational people couldn’t understand how Trump could possibly win over Kamala Harris.
Many rational people like myself can’t understand how the likes of Ford and his corruption can still have so much support.
It seems the majority of Ontario voters are no different than the majority of US voters.
Also the word is “die” not “dye.” Wow. Does no one proofread their work any more?
““The die is cast” is an idiom that means a course of action has begun and cannot be changed.”