I think it is a very distinct symptom of what is wrong with both Ontario's provincial and Canada's federal political environments in general. The damn crap just keeps floating on top instead of sinking.
I would have more sympathy for your point of view if Ford had purchased the plane for all Ontario government officials, elected and unelected, to use, but I think this was pure vanity. He wants to swan down to the US, showing that he is a player, even though his interventions with the Trumpians have proven to be disastrous or slapstick. Ford rarely travels outside the GTA, preferring to be the "real" mayor of Toronto.
I hope he also flipflops on the Therme spa, speed cameras, and the ridiculous 401 tunnel.
I agree with you — this wasn’t a stupid purchase. Unlike most of what Doug Ford suggests, this was a prudent decision. The cancellation — and all of the sunk costs already into it and the “motivated seller” situation — just makes a bad decision all the worse. Ford loves the big, bold projects, yet doesn’t have the discipline, attention and smarts to pull them off (which is good, because most of them are pure foolishness). But like Trump, he brings about so much collateral damage, costs, and distraction with his idiocy that we spend more time focused on the foolish, instead of building something worthwhile.
Many, if not most politicians, have a flexible spine unless of course they see themselves as potentates who know far better what is best for their lessers( voters). On the other hand NDP types always are ready to provide the performative howls of outrageous indignation unless they are in office in which instance spending endless sums of tax payer dollars is quite alright.
The Challenger 650 can't land at most remote northern Ontario airstrips that seem to be one of the purchase's justifications. Not that Mr Ford actually goes to these places very often. Anywhere he DOES go is either well-supplied by commercial airlines, or needs to be traveled to so infrequently that a chartered aircraft could do the job.
Maybe his government should have bought a twin-engine turboprop or a Pilatus PC-12 ("Look... propellers. Not a jet!") Or maybe if he remembered former Alberta Premier Alison Redford's self-induced airplane scandals he would have thought twice.
(The staffer who came up with "Gravy Plane" deserves a raise.)
Thank you for pointing out that even though Ontario is a vast province an executive jet is useless for getting to most of it. If we have to cut OSAP, close rural clinics and have 45 kids in a classroom then surely we can't afford an executive jet. There's no reason why Doug and his top people can't fly commercial or charter a plane when necessary. I'd grant them business class but that's about it.
Ontario already owns a King Air 300, which can land just about anywhere. If he'd bought a Citation, he could use the Island Airport tomorrow, and medevacs already do. He'd need 2000 feet more runway to get a Challenger into YTZ.
Speed cameras don’t actually meaningfully change collision statistic according to the last research I saw. They don’t stick to the driver so there’s no real consequence.
Well that’s an easy fix - have law enforcement do more enforcement with tickets that actually give demerits and lead to insurance premium increases. (Though caveat, not sure I trust CBC reporting on this when there is broader pre-existing data about how little deterrence effect photo radar has. Unless this city was uniquely worried about phot radar.)
Better idea: give demerits to all listed drivers on the insured vehicle. These things have a way of working themselves out and people are generally pretty good at distancing themselves from a sinking ship… or a troublesome driver.
The simple fact is speeding is something that you shouldn’t do. End of story. So use technology to achieve that.
All the arguments to the contrary really boil down to one thing … selfish people who want to drive dangerously for their own selfish reasons.
It’s one thing if it’s a 17-year-old kid whose decision-making is generally driven by his penis rather than his brain. We expect stupid decision-making from the young and we structure society to contain the damage from their stupid decisions while they grow up.
Set the speed limits using actual engineering principles in that case. Ontario right now is notorious for hilariously low speed limits compared to peer jurisdictions.
As for demerits for the owner of the car? Yeah, that would never survive a Charter challenge. Charging someone for owning a vehicle used in a BS "crime" isn't ethical either.
I’ve know people who freely lend their vehicle and wouldn’t have a clue who was driving it. In an ideal world nobody would speed, but they can’t even stop people from tailgating which is a horrific problem all of its own. There should be consequences for speeding - I’m not defending speeders, but I don’t think photo radar actually is a consequence. There are people who treat it as a tax and still drive however they want.
I live in a province that still has photo radar. It doesn’t change how I drive because I know the consequences of speeding. But they’ve gone so far as to put brilliant signage on the vehicles and presumably people are still speeding past even when the vehicles are labeled.
Vision zero lowered speed limits in residential areas - with good data to back it up. Survivability is much higher if hit by a car going 40 than 50 km/hr. But I think there should be more law enforcement for all the people who think the laws don’t apply to them. Pull over tailgaters. Pull over the people going across 3 lanes of traffic and weaving in and out dangerously. Pull over the speeders. It will cost them more and may actually become a true deterrent then.
The CBC was reporting on the contents of a City of Ottawa report. So it was not the CBC itself pontificating on this issue. it would be worth your while, I think, to read the article more carefully. I've included an excerpt of what I thought were the most relevant passages below:
QUOTE
Coun. Tim Tierney, who heads council's public works and infrastructure committee, said the data is only confirming what he can already see with his own eyes: a "massive drop" in compliance.
"You just go out in front of any school zone and you’ll see cars whipping by there," he said. "I wish the government would revisit, but unfortunately the ship has sailed."
He doubts that the giant signs will be anywhere near as effective as the cameras, but said he still wants to work with the province to find ways to slow motorists down.
One of the eight pilot cameras was on Meadowlands Drive, near St. Gregory Catholic School, and College Ward Coun. Laine Johnson said it made a real difference in keeping kids safe.
Like Tierney, she said the data was hardly a surprise.
"Now what we know for sure is that the province was making these decisions based on feelings and not on facts, because here we have the facts that these cameras were not a cash grab," she said. "They reduced speeds significantly, and without them compliance dropped."
'Atrocious' behaviour
Near another former speed camera site on Heron Road, several people shared concerns with CBC about the fact drivers are returning to their bad habits.
"[There]'s just a general fear of walking and knowing cars aren't doing what they should be doing," said Shyanne Parent, who was pushing one of her children in a stroller along the busy thoroughfare Wednesday.
For Mark Lacroix, the declining compliance rates are "atrocious."
"I thought they did a great job. They reduced speeding quite a bit," Lacroix said of the cameras. "I was really disappointed when Doug Ford took [them] away.... I get it on a highway, maybe you don't need a speeding camera. But in a school zone, I think it was a great idea."
Were the Ontario cameras permanent fixtures? Not the roving vehicles? We have a few in red light cameras here but our photo radar is roving vehicles. So people speed past them all the time.
(I guess it says a lot when I can’t be bothered to click a cbc link because I’ve lost all belief in their reporting. But still weight heavier to the general research than anecdotes from council who were already opposed to the change.)
On some rural roads I suspect they can make a difference in collision statistics. The week that Ford announced he was killing speed cameras I happened to be driving on a hilly, winding rural road in Simcoe county. There were signs mounted on the side of the road announcing coming speed cameras. Lots of homes along that road and probably lots of kids & school buses. IMO that's exactly the kind of places you need speed cameras - there's no way the OPP could patrol a road like that to any affect.
People going 50 in a 40 aren't the problem (especially now that some roads that used to be 60 are now 40 for no good reason).
I see morons blasting down the 401 at 180km/h weaving in and out of traffic without any enforcement in sight. I encounter drivers every time I go through Brampton and Mississauga who are so incompetent and unaware they should never have been issued a licence.
Like everything, we are too busy nitpicking perfect compliance out of people who largely intend to be in compliance with the law, and ignoring real bad faith transgressors.
Posted speed limits are often way too low due to "someone please think of the children" style governance. You should be able to go the speed of traffic at a safe speed for the conditions, without constantly being in a state of anxiety that the government is going to nail you for several hundred dollars for a technical infraction.
I thought that was a terrible decision. I think it should have been called a speeding tax, and they should have been installed everywhere with the following caveats. When I was growing up, the speed limit on the 400 series highways was 70mph. So set the speed limit to 120 where it belongs, and photo radar (not those stupid vans...just cameras set on the backside of overpasses) kicks in at 10kmh above that. Program the cameras to the time kids are in school, so for most places, 8am until 4pm on days school is in session, and then the limits go back up to the normal 40 or 50 for the street. Speeding is a choice. There is no way the police have the manpower to address it.
I don't know if the rumours are true that he killed it because his daughter was getting caught all the time, but it provided a consequence for breaking the law. Around schools, it is a safety issue. Just be honest about it upfront, and call it a speeding tax.
Apparently he is spineless when it comes to standing up to his friends who want planning decisions that enrich them regardless of merit. Think Science Centre, 413, green belt, and more MZOs than ever before. We are approaching Duplessis levels of corruption with this guy. In Ontario for crying out loud.
Lord knows, this is not praise of Donald John Trump!
But .... I think this TACO thingy is a bit silly.
What I am getting at is DJT's schtick is to always demand, demand, demand right up front. The bigger the demand, the more people start worrying about what will happen when whatever consequence ultimately happens. Then, he starts negotiations; again, unreasonable, loud, brash, yada, yada, yada. Finally, the other side talks DJT's people down and a "difficult but reasonable" deal is struck - but without the other side realizing that the final deal is worse than they initially thought things would be. In other words, DJT is simply negotiating in public.
DJT's problem, however, is that the world has caught on and his approach is not as useful as it used to be. Nevertheless, I wouldn't say at all that he chickens out, rather it is that people believe the initial rhetoric which is meaningless so any comparison to the final deal is negotiating to get a "better" deal than DJT might otherwise get.
Oh, Doug Ford? Yeah, that is always chickening out; he can't take criticism so he won't stand his ground when there are determined opponents - even if he is right in his position. Although, he frequently doesn't manage to find "right." Either on the political spectrum or in a fair evaluation of the merits of a particular decision.
I think this is exactly right - on both Trump and Ford.
I also find it strange that people would say Trump "chickened out" when he didn't follow through on his "threat" to vapourize Iran - like, what, you *wanted" him him to carry out that threat?
It was clear from the start that Trump was just "negotiating in public", including the "51st state" nonsense. Anyone who took that seriously needs their head examined.
But of course every time he does this he is burning his country's credibility and reputation for increasingly diminished returns. Also his tactics only work from a position of total dominant strength, and as soon as he actually needs something it not only falls apart but past use of this tactic make future negotiations impossible (see anyone else helping out in the Straight of Hormuz).
I maintain that he is actually a poor negotiator who could have achieved better results by being less of a complete asshole at every possible turn, but he just can't help himself.
I agree with you on Ford - he's not even negotiating, he's genuinely flip flop reacting having been blindsided that there would be predictable pushback to any of his ideas.
They should have sold this to the public as an aircraft that would be used to improve services, like getting emergency workers to crisis situations, fire crews to wildfires, water treatment specialists to remote communities - that kind of thing. If the politicians want to tag along, fine. But in our leader-centric way of doing government, spending millions to shuttle the premier around was seen to be sufficiently important to justify the expense.
The truth is that the premier (and no politician really) has any operational role and spending all this money to improve the quality of photo ops was never going to fly. I'm glad this blew up in their faces. All of our dear leaders should take note.
I saw real value in making it easier for Ford, or any of his successors as premier, to do the job efficiently and safely and securely by getting from the capital in Toronto to wherever he needs to go as quickly as possible. That is not something I consider a frill. I know many of my cheap-ass fellow Canadians will clutch their store-brand discount orange juice and lament the extravagance, but I hate that. This is how we wound up with hundreds of billions in infrastructure deficits and a prime ministerial residence that is about to fall down...
END QUOTE
I am in complete agreement with Matt Gurney WRT the airplane purchase (and Canadians' short-term thinking when it comes to spending money to improve the efficiency of government operations, such as this jet would have afforded).
More generally, it strikes me as odd to lament the expenditure of CAD 30 million on such an aircraft when Ontario voters seem content to let the government ***waste*** CAD 7 billion or more annually on subsidizing the cost of electricity for people and businesses in this province.
That's right.
The government of Ontario allocates about seven billion every year to subsidize EVERYONE's electricity bills.
Yet Peter Bethlenfalvey, Ontario's finance minister, cries about a CAD 14 billion annual deficit and then makes all sorts of cuts to education and hospitals on that basis.
Ford's government seems to pride itself on implementing bad public policy.
I’m sure Doug didn’t really want to leave the shadow of Forest Hill, Rosedale, and The Beaches and venture out to the boonies where hairy armpitted deplorable worker bees live. They might ask him to explain why he gets his policies from Ottawa Liberal Headquarters instead of acting like a real Conservative. The plane was the equivalent of a top hat worn by a newly freed slave overseer in the 1860s to try to impress his both his underlings and the wealthy property owners.
His latest betrayal was a response to the Canadian Sport Shooting Association where he endorsed the Federal Liberal gun confiscation position by refusing to say that people not turning in firearms would not go to jail.
The guy isn't a conservative. He's an Ontario style progressive conservative. Big difference. They are basically just nanny state socialists in slow motion.
To me the term “progressive conservative” is an oxymoron. And to me Doug ford is a moron. The Forrest Gump of Canadian politics with phoniness thrown in.
If Dougie's crew are nanny state socialists they're not very good at it. They seem to be trying to hold the pillow over the face of public education and universal Health Care. I think they're more right-leaning grifters than anything else.
What taxes do you propose we raise or programs we cut to increase funding to education and health?
Ford is already running bigger deficits than Kathleen Wynne, and each of our public systems are still dealing with Trudeau's uncontrolled population boom.
I'm not saying anything one way or another about the plane. Buying it came completely out of left field and went away just as quickly and randomly.
I'm responding to the frequent allegation of a conspiracy by conservatives (and in Ford's cases, conservative-adjacents) to slowly strangle these services so they can bring in ever-elusive private options.
If a politician leans crooked there's a lot of money to be made doing just that. I'm sure that Dougie wanting to protect his cabinet correspondence from Freedom Of Information is the honest thing to do. It's not like he has a criminal past or anything
Wouldn't it be nice if he did a "DACO" on the tunnel under the 401 too? Maybe now that he doesn't have his jet he won't disregard the proper studies on the island airport expansion - just foolish wishing on my part!
I don't take the 401 tunnel at all seriously and neither should anyone. It would take 100 years and cost more money than there is in the entire world. This is a city that takes years and hundreds of millions of dollars to dig an elevator shaft for a subway station.
If the jet purchase actually made financial sense why wouldn't Ford and his people lay out the case to the public BEFORE they bought it? I suspect it doesn't make sense and he knows it. Exevutive jets can be rented when necessary. Doug just doesn't want to look like a peasant when he flies into private US airports in a turbo prop. Also now we know why he wanted to extend the runways at Billy Bishop. They say the plane was to be headquartered at Pearson but I'm sure it would fly to Billy Bishop to pick up the anointed ones. Ford also doesn't take advantage of the beautiful and vibrant Toronto waterfront so he wouldn't care if it was ruined.
One has to ask, any connection between Ford wanting the Island airport to accommodate jets and the purchase of a jet? A whole lot easier for him to get to Billy Bishop from Queen's Park, no?
Despite his flaws I always saw his flip-flopping as a positive thing. He does something dumb? He gets criticized and ends up backing down. Most other politicians would double down and do the dumb thing with twice as much gusto. At least he seems to listen to the people some of the time, which seems more often than those politicians do.
It’s depressing that Doug Ford has been around as long as he has
I think it is a very distinct symptom of what is wrong with both Ontario's provincial and Canada's federal political environments in general. The damn crap just keeps floating on top instead of sinking.
I would have more sympathy for your point of view if Ford had purchased the plane for all Ontario government officials, elected and unelected, to use, but I think this was pure vanity. He wants to swan down to the US, showing that he is a player, even though his interventions with the Trumpians have proven to be disastrous or slapstick. Ford rarely travels outside the GTA, preferring to be the "real" mayor of Toronto.
I hope he also flipflops on the Therme spa, speed cameras, and the ridiculous 401 tunnel.
I agree with you — this wasn’t a stupid purchase. Unlike most of what Doug Ford suggests, this was a prudent decision. The cancellation — and all of the sunk costs already into it and the “motivated seller” situation — just makes a bad decision all the worse. Ford loves the big, bold projects, yet doesn’t have the discipline, attention and smarts to pull them off (which is good, because most of them are pure foolishness). But like Trump, he brings about so much collateral damage, costs, and distraction with his idiocy that we spend more time focused on the foolish, instead of building something worthwhile.
Many, if not most politicians, have a flexible spine unless of course they see themselves as potentates who know far better what is best for their lessers( voters). On the other hand NDP types always are ready to provide the performative howls of outrageous indignation unless they are in office in which instance spending endless sums of tax payer dollars is quite alright.
The Challenger 650 can't land at most remote northern Ontario airstrips that seem to be one of the purchase's justifications. Not that Mr Ford actually goes to these places very often. Anywhere he DOES go is either well-supplied by commercial airlines, or needs to be traveled to so infrequently that a chartered aircraft could do the job.
Maybe his government should have bought a twin-engine turboprop or a Pilatus PC-12 ("Look... propellers. Not a jet!") Or maybe if he remembered former Alberta Premier Alison Redford's self-induced airplane scandals he would have thought twice.
(The staffer who came up with "Gravy Plane" deserves a raise.)
Thank you for pointing out that even though Ontario is a vast province an executive jet is useless for getting to most of it. If we have to cut OSAP, close rural clinics and have 45 kids in a classroom then surely we can't afford an executive jet. There's no reason why Doug and his top people can't fly commercial or charter a plane when necessary. I'd grant them business class but that's about it.
Ontario already owns a King Air 300, which can land just about anywhere. If he'd bought a Citation, he could use the Island Airport tomorrow, and medevacs already do. He'd need 2000 feet more runway to get a Challenger into YTZ.
Canada has long had a surfeit of politicians and a deficit of statesmen. Where is Lester Pearson, now that we need him?
Ford did get rid of the speed cameras. I was pleased with that decision.
Being one of the people endangered by this decision, I am not.
Speed cameras don’t actually meaningfully change collision statistic according to the last research I saw. They don’t stick to the driver so there’s no real consequence.
Yet the City of Ottawa has documented a serious increase in the violation of posted speed limits in clearly marked school zones.
C.f.: Arthur White-Crummey, Speeding surges at former camera sites, city data says: Compliance in 8 school zones fell from 87% to 41% just 3 months after cameras turned off, CBC News, 15 April 2026, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/speeding-surges-at-former-camera-sites-city-data-says-9.7164440#:~:text=Show%20More,according%20to%20the%20city%20data.
Well that’s an easy fix - have law enforcement do more enforcement with tickets that actually give demerits and lead to insurance premium increases. (Though caveat, not sure I trust CBC reporting on this when there is broader pre-existing data about how little deterrence effect photo radar has. Unless this city was uniquely worried about phot radar.)
Meh.
Better idea: give demerits to all listed drivers on the insured vehicle. These things have a way of working themselves out and people are generally pretty good at distancing themselves from a sinking ship… or a troublesome driver.
The simple fact is speeding is something that you shouldn’t do. End of story. So use technology to achieve that.
All the arguments to the contrary really boil down to one thing … selfish people who want to drive dangerously for their own selfish reasons.
It’s one thing if it’s a 17-year-old kid whose decision-making is generally driven by his penis rather than his brain. We expect stupid decision-making from the young and we structure society to contain the damage from their stupid decisions while they grow up.
In an adult? Pathetic. And dangerous.
Set the speed limits using actual engineering principles in that case. Ontario right now is notorious for hilariously low speed limits compared to peer jurisdictions.
As for demerits for the owner of the car? Yeah, that would never survive a Charter challenge. Charging someone for owning a vehicle used in a BS "crime" isn't ethical either.
I’ve know people who freely lend their vehicle and wouldn’t have a clue who was driving it. In an ideal world nobody would speed, but they can’t even stop people from tailgating which is a horrific problem all of its own. There should be consequences for speeding - I’m not defending speeders, but I don’t think photo radar actually is a consequence. There are people who treat it as a tax and still drive however they want.
I live in a province that still has photo radar. It doesn’t change how I drive because I know the consequences of speeding. But they’ve gone so far as to put brilliant signage on the vehicles and presumably people are still speeding past even when the vehicles are labeled.
Vision zero lowered speed limits in residential areas - with good data to back it up. Survivability is much higher if hit by a car going 40 than 50 km/hr. But I think there should be more law enforcement for all the people who think the laws don’t apply to them. Pull over tailgaters. Pull over the people going across 3 lanes of traffic and weaving in and out dangerously. Pull over the speeders. It will cost them more and may actually become a true deterrent then.
@IceSkater40:
The CBC was reporting on the contents of a City of Ottawa report. So it was not the CBC itself pontificating on this issue. it would be worth your while, I think, to read the article more carefully. I've included an excerpt of what I thought were the most relevant passages below:
QUOTE
Coun. Tim Tierney, who heads council's public works and infrastructure committee, said the data is only confirming what he can already see with his own eyes: a "massive drop" in compliance.
"You just go out in front of any school zone and you’ll see cars whipping by there," he said. "I wish the government would revisit, but unfortunately the ship has sailed."
He doubts that the giant signs will be anywhere near as effective as the cameras, but said he still wants to work with the province to find ways to slow motorists down.
One of the eight pilot cameras was on Meadowlands Drive, near St. Gregory Catholic School, and College Ward Coun. Laine Johnson said it made a real difference in keeping kids safe.
Like Tierney, she said the data was hardly a surprise.
"Now what we know for sure is that the province was making these decisions based on feelings and not on facts, because here we have the facts that these cameras were not a cash grab," she said. "They reduced speeds significantly, and without them compliance dropped."
'Atrocious' behaviour
Near another former speed camera site on Heron Road, several people shared concerns with CBC about the fact drivers are returning to their bad habits.
"[There]'s just a general fear of walking and knowing cars aren't doing what they should be doing," said Shyanne Parent, who was pushing one of her children in a stroller along the busy thoroughfare Wednesday.
For Mark Lacroix, the declining compliance rates are "atrocious."
"I thought they did a great job. They reduced speeding quite a bit," Lacroix said of the cameras. "I was really disappointed when Doug Ford took [them] away.... I get it on a highway, maybe you don't need a speeding camera. But in a school zone, I think it was a great idea."
END QUOTE
Were the Ontario cameras permanent fixtures? Not the roving vehicles? We have a few in red light cameras here but our photo radar is roving vehicles. So people speed past them all the time.
(I guess it says a lot when I can’t be bothered to click a cbc link because I’ve lost all belief in their reporting. But still weight heavier to the general research than anecdotes from council who were already opposed to the change.)
There's a financial consequence. Enough of those will change a behaviour, won't it?
On some rural roads I suspect they can make a difference in collision statistics. The week that Ford announced he was killing speed cameras I happened to be driving on a hilly, winding rural road in Simcoe county. There were signs mounted on the side of the road announcing coming speed cameras. Lots of homes along that road and probably lots of kids & school buses. IMO that's exactly the kind of places you need speed cameras - there's no way the OPP could patrol a road like that to any affect.
People going 50 in a 40 aren't the problem (especially now that some roads that used to be 60 are now 40 for no good reason).
I see morons blasting down the 401 at 180km/h weaving in and out of traffic without any enforcement in sight. I encounter drivers every time I go through Brampton and Mississauga who are so incompetent and unaware they should never have been issued a licence.
Like everything, we are too busy nitpicking perfect compliance out of people who largely intend to be in compliance with the law, and ignoring real bad faith transgressors.
Posted speed limits are often way too low due to "someone please think of the children" style governance. You should be able to go the speed of traffic at a safe speed for the conditions, without constantly being in a state of anxiety that the government is going to nail you for several hundred dollars for a technical infraction.
People could always just slow the F down. I also didn't like how Ford seemed to be pro-vandal.
Canadians are already too slow and under productive. Time is money.
Sure, you can clean the toddlers out of your grill on your own time after work. 🤣
I thought that was a terrible decision. I think it should have been called a speeding tax, and they should have been installed everywhere with the following caveats. When I was growing up, the speed limit on the 400 series highways was 70mph. So set the speed limit to 120 where it belongs, and photo radar (not those stupid vans...just cameras set on the backside of overpasses) kicks in at 10kmh above that. Program the cameras to the time kids are in school, so for most places, 8am until 4pm on days school is in session, and then the limits go back up to the normal 40 or 50 for the street. Speeding is a choice. There is no way the police have the manpower to address it.
I don't know if the rumours are true that he killed it because his daughter was getting caught all the time, but it provided a consequence for breaking the law. Around schools, it is a safety issue. Just be honest about it upfront, and call it a speeding tax.
Apparently he is spineless when it comes to standing up to his friends who want planning decisions that enrich them regardless of merit. Think Science Centre, 413, green belt, and more MZOs than ever before. We are approaching Duplessis levels of corruption with this guy. In Ontario for crying out loud.
Lord knows, this is not praise of Donald John Trump!
But .... I think this TACO thingy is a bit silly.
What I am getting at is DJT's schtick is to always demand, demand, demand right up front. The bigger the demand, the more people start worrying about what will happen when whatever consequence ultimately happens. Then, he starts negotiations; again, unreasonable, loud, brash, yada, yada, yada. Finally, the other side talks DJT's people down and a "difficult but reasonable" deal is struck - but without the other side realizing that the final deal is worse than they initially thought things would be. In other words, DJT is simply negotiating in public.
DJT's problem, however, is that the world has caught on and his approach is not as useful as it used to be. Nevertheless, I wouldn't say at all that he chickens out, rather it is that people believe the initial rhetoric which is meaningless so any comparison to the final deal is negotiating to get a "better" deal than DJT might otherwise get.
Oh, Doug Ford? Yeah, that is always chickening out; he can't take criticism so he won't stand his ground when there are determined opponents - even if he is right in his position. Although, he frequently doesn't manage to find "right." Either on the political spectrum or in a fair evaluation of the merits of a particular decision.
I think this is exactly right - on both Trump and Ford.
I also find it strange that people would say Trump "chickened out" when he didn't follow through on his "threat" to vapourize Iran - like, what, you *wanted" him him to carry out that threat?
It was clear from the start that Trump was just "negotiating in public", including the "51st state" nonsense. Anyone who took that seriously needs their head examined.
But of course every time he does this he is burning his country's credibility and reputation for increasingly diminished returns. Also his tactics only work from a position of total dominant strength, and as soon as he actually needs something it not only falls apart but past use of this tactic make future negotiations impossible (see anyone else helping out in the Straight of Hormuz).
I maintain that he is actually a poor negotiator who could have achieved better results by being less of a complete asshole at every possible turn, but he just can't help himself.
I agree with you on Ford - he's not even negotiating, he's genuinely flip flop reacting having been blindsided that there would be predictable pushback to any of his ideas.
They should have sold this to the public as an aircraft that would be used to improve services, like getting emergency workers to crisis situations, fire crews to wildfires, water treatment specialists to remote communities - that kind of thing. If the politicians want to tag along, fine. But in our leader-centric way of doing government, spending millions to shuttle the premier around was seen to be sufficiently important to justify the expense.
The truth is that the premier (and no politician really) has any operational role and spending all this money to improve the quality of photo ops was never going to fly. I'm glad this blew up in their faces. All of our dear leaders should take note.
QUOTE
I saw real value in making it easier for Ford, or any of his successors as premier, to do the job efficiently and safely and securely by getting from the capital in Toronto to wherever he needs to go as quickly as possible. That is not something I consider a frill. I know many of my cheap-ass fellow Canadians will clutch their store-brand discount orange juice and lament the extravagance, but I hate that. This is how we wound up with hundreds of billions in infrastructure deficits and a prime ministerial residence that is about to fall down...
END QUOTE
I am in complete agreement with Matt Gurney WRT the airplane purchase (and Canadians' short-term thinking when it comes to spending money to improve the efficiency of government operations, such as this jet would have afforded).
More generally, it strikes me as odd to lament the expenditure of CAD 30 million on such an aircraft when Ontario voters seem content to let the government ***waste*** CAD 7 billion or more annually on subsidizing the cost of electricity for people and businesses in this province.
That's right.
The government of Ontario allocates about seven billion every year to subsidize EVERYONE's electricity bills.
Yet Peter Bethlenfalvey, Ontario's finance minister, cries about a CAD 14 billion annual deficit and then makes all sorts of cuts to education and hospitals on that basis.
Ford's government seems to pride itself on implementing bad public policy.
Good points.
This episode illustrates why 24 Sussex Drive is crumbling into the dirt.
I’m sure Doug didn’t really want to leave the shadow of Forest Hill, Rosedale, and The Beaches and venture out to the boonies where hairy armpitted deplorable worker bees live. They might ask him to explain why he gets his policies from Ottawa Liberal Headquarters instead of acting like a real Conservative. The plane was the equivalent of a top hat worn by a newly freed slave overseer in the 1860s to try to impress his both his underlings and the wealthy property owners.
His latest betrayal was a response to the Canadian Sport Shooting Association where he endorsed the Federal Liberal gun confiscation position by refusing to say that people not turning in firearms would not go to jail.
The guy isn't a conservative. He's an Ontario style progressive conservative. Big difference. They are basically just nanny state socialists in slow motion.
To me the term “progressive conservative” is an oxymoron. And to me Doug ford is a moron. The Forrest Gump of Canadian politics with phoniness thrown in.
If Dougie's crew are nanny state socialists they're not very good at it. They seem to be trying to hold the pillow over the face of public education and universal Health Care. I think they're more right-leaning grifters than anything else.
What taxes do you propose we raise or programs we cut to increase funding to education and health?
Ford is already running bigger deficits than Kathleen Wynne, and each of our public systems are still dealing with Trudeau's uncontrolled population boom.
I propose that Ford doesn't spend $28 million that we obviously don't have on a plane we obviously don't need.
I'm not saying anything one way or another about the plane. Buying it came completely out of left field and went away just as quickly and randomly.
I'm responding to the frequent allegation of a conspiracy by conservatives (and in Ford's cases, conservative-adjacents) to slowly strangle these services so they can bring in ever-elusive private options.
If a politician leans crooked there's a lot of money to be made doing just that. I'm sure that Dougie wanting to protect his cabinet correspondence from Freedom Of Information is the honest thing to do. It's not like he has a criminal past or anything
Wouldn't it be nice if he did a "DACO" on the tunnel under the 401 too? Maybe now that he doesn't have his jet he won't disregard the proper studies on the island airport expansion - just foolish wishing on my part!
I don't take the 401 tunnel at all seriously and neither should anyone. It would take 100 years and cost more money than there is in the entire world. This is a city that takes years and hundreds of millions of dollars to dig an elevator shaft for a subway station.
If the jet purchase actually made financial sense why wouldn't Ford and his people lay out the case to the public BEFORE they bought it? I suspect it doesn't make sense and he knows it. Exevutive jets can be rented when necessary. Doug just doesn't want to look like a peasant when he flies into private US airports in a turbo prop. Also now we know why he wanted to extend the runways at Billy Bishop. They say the plane was to be headquartered at Pearson but I'm sure it would fly to Billy Bishop to pick up the anointed ones. Ford also doesn't take advantage of the beautiful and vibrant Toronto waterfront so he wouldn't care if it was ruined.
One has to ask, any connection between Ford wanting the Island airport to accommodate jets and the purchase of a jet? A whole lot easier for him to get to Billy Bishop from Queen's Park, no?
Despite his flaws I always saw his flip-flopping as a positive thing. He does something dumb? He gets criticized and ends up backing down. Most other politicians would double down and do the dumb thing with twice as much gusto. At least he seems to listen to the people some of the time, which seems more often than those politicians do.