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Quynn Phillips's avatar

I am reminded of a story I once read about Emperor Napoleon, who was considering whether to promote one of his generals to the rank of Marshal and he asked his advisors whether the general had the qualities to be a Marshal. "He is brave as a lion," said one advisor. "He's very smart", said another, "and rarely makes mistakes." A third pointed to his charisma and said that his troops adored him.

"Yes, yes," said the Emperor impatiently. "That's all very well, but is he LUCKY?"

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Tony F.'s avatar

Doug Ford may be a lot of things, but he isn't an ideologue. One of The Line editors, I think, nailed it when they said that he isn't a politician, he's a salesman -- one that wants to do whatever deal is in front of him.

That is reflected in the flip-flops in policy as he seems to follow public opinion. Sometimes it felt like Ontario crowdsourced our COVID response in slow motion. The government would do a thing. Polling would show the public hated it; experts would explain why it was a terrible idea. A week or two later, the government would flip flop, repeating the process until things got better and/or public opinion settled down. Ideologues don't do that.

It's a pretty inefficient way to govern. Moreover, this Ontarian is left with a strong sense that certain groups (donors, big companies with good GR teams) tend to get a lot more "deals" than anybody else. It's probably why Costco and Walmart seemed to be impacted the least by pandemic restrictions while Mom-and-Pop shops had to figure out curbside service. It's probably why we're getting a new highway that nobody except a small group of developers (and probably construction companies) want. I'd call it corrupt, except I honestly think it's just Doug trying to get a deal -- running Ontario like its a super-sized label company.

What's significant about this election is that the PCs took ridings from the NDP, which doesn't happen very often in Ontario and points to a real shift as places where skilled trades or manufacturing are important start to look at the PCs. They earned that shift, it's no fluke. The labour minister has worked hard over a number of years on programs to promote skilled trades and built real relationships. A lot might be odd about this election, but those wins were the result of some hard work and good strategy. We'll see if they can hold those ridings.

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