National
Doug Ford is calling an election to save his political skin and Justin Trudeau’s government
Ford is the ultimate Red Tory, a faux conservative and faithful apologist for Trudeau
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has just called an election for two reasons: to keep himself in power and to keep the Liberal Party in charge of the Canadian government. Ford has been in the pocket of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for so many years. He has been his constant political companion, especially during the Covid pandemic when Ford stood rigidly by Trudeau over lockdowns and mandates. When Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to flatten the Freedom Convoy, Ford was there all the time, not just approving of Trudeau’s decision but becoming an active cheerleader for the Liberal government.
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Ford has done little to nothing for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada because he’s not a Conservative or a small-c conservative. Ford is a “Progressive Conservative” or Red Tory who is indistinguishable from a Liberal. His party’s name is an oxymoron but Ford is just a moron who pretends to lead something called the Ford Nation, feigning some degree of populism, while all the while serving the same elites that Trudeau is in bed with.
Ford has done his utmost to convice us that the Liberals have a border security plan. They do not. Spending $1.3 billion on the border OVER SIX YEARS is not a plan, it’s a poor excuse for policly. And just look at how the Trudeau government preserves these woke programs even as it kicks the can of border security way down the road. But Ford, who seemed to be pretending that he had actually seen this “plan” tried to suggest that the Liberals had the situation well in hand.
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“Minister [Dominic] LeBlanc laid out the plan. It’s a fabulous plan. Let’s get out there and tell the people of Canada they’ve worked hard on it. So what I said this morning after seeing the plan, it’s a solid plan, and it’s going to work,” he said, noting that Public Safety Minister David McGuinty was coordinating everything with all the relevant agencies and police forces.
“It’s a collective, collaborative group that are going to secure our borders. But the numbers that I have seen, it’s impressive, and the plan is impressive as well. Specifics about what this plan involves, I’ll leave that up to the federal government. I’ll leave, leave that up to Minister McGuinty to get out there and put the plan in front of the Canadian people. But it’s a solid plan,” Ford rambled on, adding that he had never even met McGuinty and “I wouldn’t know him if he walked through the door right now.”
The current tariff crisis with US President Donald Trump is all about Canada not securing its border and not doing anything to change that posture. Ford has been Trudeau’s echo since Trump first threatened to slap on the tariff, joined at the hip with him, supporting his Team Canada charade that is really Team Trudeau and welcoming a trade war with Trump. The Liberals, whether they go into the next election with Trudeau at the helm or not, don’t want to run against Poilievre and the Conservatives because they are 20 to 30 points behind in the polls. They want the next federal election to be against Trump because the only hope the Liberals have of winning is to pretend to be the party of Canada.
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This works well for Ford as well. He can parade around as the politician who puts his country above self but that is precisely what he is not doing. Ford wants a provincial election now because there is some profoundly bad news in the offing for Ford and his corrupt government. Trudeau has co-opted Ford on his electric vehicle agenda that has squandered $52.5 billion in taxpayer money and ensured that the premier stood by his side every time he was announcing another EV manufacturing plant in the Ontario. The future of EVs looked pretty certain six months ago when the Green New Deal was ascendant in the US and it looked like the gas-powered vehicle was slated for the planned obsolescence of stupid government decrees and environmental extremism.
The Liberals, whether they go into the next election with Trudeau at the helm or not, don’t want to run against Poilievre and the Conservatives because they are 20 to 30 points behind in the polls. They want the next federal election to be against Trump because the only hope the Liberals have of winning is to pretend to be the party of Canada.
Not so today. Trump has changed all of that with the stroke of a pen, ending all EV mandates and removing any future sanctions of the internal combustion engine in an executive order. EVs are essentially finished for now and no one is buying them. There is no market for the cars being assembled in Windsor and St. Thomas. These plants are destined for failure. That’s why Ford has to move now, before the closures begin and before the unemployment begins. Ontario will also be facing an economic catastrophe from Trump’s 25 percent tariff and all of Ford’s bluster and BS will have done nothing to prevent it. If Ford does not seek reelection now, his chances of winning another mandate will be extremely low.
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What really has Ford panicked is Trump’s talk about not needing to buy any cars made in Canada. That sounds like the dissolution of the Auto Pact that has been a mainstay of the Ontario economy for 60 years.
But of course, he is also helping Trudeau to avoid an early election and the Liberals could well campaign in the summer or fall as the anti-Trump party. The Conservatives could be almost irrelevant by that time if they can’t differentiate themselves from the Liberals and demand that voters go to the polls to elect a legitimate government that can negotiate with the US instead of remaining with a snide, insouciant prime minister who continues to ignore the border security that the Trump has insisted we deliver on while continuing to fire insults his way.
Currently, the only Canadian politician who is really working for Canada is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who is actively negotiating with Trump. Unfortunately, Trump apparently doesn’t even know that Poilievre exists and is continues to talk about hockey great Wayne Gretzky becoming the next prime minister. Poilievre needs to correct this misunderstanding immediately, start traveling with Smith to Washington if necessary. But he has to become a part of the process and stop letting Trudeau and Ford blather on about retaliatory tariffs and the punishment they think they are going to administer to the US.
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The 1997 political comedy Wag The Dog featured a ruling president far behind in the polls engaging Hollywood to rescue his failing ratings. By inventing a fake war against Albania and a left-behind “hero”— nicknamed Shoe— the Hollywood producer creates a narrative that sweeps the nation.
The meme of hanging old shoes from the branches of trees and power lines catches on and re-elects the president. In a plot kicker, the vain producer is killed by the president’s handlers when he refuses to stay quiet about his handiwork. The movie’s cynicism over political spin made it a big hit in the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky days.
In the recent 2024 election the Democrats thought they’d resurrect the WTD formula to spin off senile Joe Biden at the last minute in favour of Kamala Harris. Americans saw through the obvious charade and installed Donald Trump instead.
You’d think that would be enough to dissuade Canadians who pride themselves on their hip, postmodern humour. But you’d be wrong, they don’t get the joke. Wag The Carney is the current political theatre as Liberals bury the reviled Justin Trudeau and pivot to Mark Carney. If you believe the polling it might just be working on a public besotted by ex-pat Mike Myers and “Canada’s Not For Sale”.
As opposed to Wag The Dog, few are laughing about this performative theatre, however. There are still two debates (English/ French) and over three more weeks of campaign where anything— hello Paul Chiang—can happen. But with Laurentian media bribed by the Libs— Carney is threatening those who stray— people are already projecting what another four years of Liberals in office will mean.
As the most prominent outlier to Team Canada’s “we will fight them on the beaches…” Alberta’s premier Danielle Smith is already steering a course for her province that doesn’t include going to war with America on energy. She asked Trump to delay his tariffs until Canadians had a chance to speak on the subject in an election April 28. Naturally the howler monkeys of the Left accused her of treason. She got her wish Wednesday when Canada was spared any new tariffs for the time being.
Clearly, she (and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe) have no illusions about Carney not using their energy industry as a whipping post for his EU climate schemes. They’ve seen the cynical flip in polls as former Trudeau loyalists hurry back to the same Liberal party they abandoned in 2024. They know Carney can manipulate the Boomer demographic just as he did when he called for draconian financial methods against the peaceful Truckers Convoy in 2022.
Former Reform leader Preston Manning is unequivocal: “’Large numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it.’“ So how does the West respond within Confederation to protect itself from a predatory Ottawa elite?
Clearly, the emissions cap— part of Carney’s radical environmental plans— will keep Alberta’s treasure in the ground. With Carney repeating no cancellation of Bill C-69 that precludes building pipelines in the future, the momentum for a referendum in Alberta will only grow. The NDP will howl, but there will be enough push among from the rest of Albertans for a new approach within Canada.
In this vein Smith even wants to approach Quebec. While it seems like odd bedfellows the two provinces most at odds with the status quo have much in common . “This is an area where our two provinces may be able to coordinate an approach,” Smith wrote this week. That could include referendums by the middle of 2026.
Perhaps the best recipe for keeping the increasingly fractious union together is a devolution of power, not unlike that governing the United Kingdom. While Westminster remains the central power since 1997, there are now separate parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that put power closer to the citizen, so that local factors are better recognized in decision making.
With so little uniting the regions of the country any longer, devolution might provide a solution. What form could decentralization take within Canada? A Western Canada Parliament could blunt predatory federal energy policies while countering the imbalances of Canada’s equalization process. Similar parliaments representing Quebec, the Atlantic provinces, Ontario and B.C. would protect their own special interests within Canada. Ottawa could handle Canada’s international obligations to defence, trade and international cooperation.
While the idea is fraught with pitfalls it nonetheless remains preferable to a breakup of the nation, which four more years of Liberals rule under Mark Carney and the same Trudeau characters will likely precipitate. Smith’s outreach case would be the beginning of such a process.
None of this would be necessary were the populations of Eastern Canada and B.C.’s lower mainland remotely serious after snoozing through the Trudeau decade. The OECD shows Canada’s 1.4% GDP barely ahead of Luxembourg and behind the rest of the industrialized world from 2015-2025. As we’ve said before the Boomers sitting on their $1 million-plus homes are re-staging Woodstock on the Canada Pension and OAS. As with Wag The Dog, they’re not getting the joke.
When the Boomers award themselves another four years of taxapalooza and Mike Myers and the other “Canada Not For For Sale” celebs head south to their tax-avoidance schemes how will the Boomers say they’ve left Canada better off for anyone under 60? We’ll hang up and listen to your answer on the TV.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
From The Audit
State capacity is the measure of a government’s ability to get stuff done that benefits its population. There are many ways to quantify state capacity, including GDP per capita spent on health, education, and infrastructure versus outcomes; the tax-to-GDP ratio; judicial independence; enforcement of contracts; and crime rates.
But a government’s ability to actually implement its own policies has got to rank pretty high here, too. All the best intentions are worthless if, as I wrote in the context of the Liberal’s 2023 national action plan to end gender-based violence, your legislation just won’t work in the real world.
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So I thought I’d take a look at some examples of federal legislation from the past ten years that passed through Parliament but, for one reason or another, failed to do its job. We may agree or disagree with goals driving the various initiatives, but government’s failure to get the work done over and over again speaks to a striking lack of state capacity.
The 2018 Cannabis Act (Bill C-45). C-45 legalized recreational cannabis in Canada, with a larger goal of regulating production, distribution, and consumption while reducing illegal markets and protecting public health. However, research has shown that illegal sales persisted post-legalization due to high legal prices and taxation. Studies have also shown continued use among children despite regulations. And there are troubling indicators about the overall impact on public health.
The 2021 Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act (Bill C-12). The legislation aimed to ensure Canada achieves net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 by setting five-year targets and requiring emissions reduction plans. However, critics argue it lacks enforceable mechanisms to guarantee results. A much-delayed progress report highlighted a lack of action and actual emissions reductions lagging far behind projections.
The First Nations Clean Water Act (Bill C-61) was introduced in late 2024 but, as of the recent dissolution of Parliament, not yet passed. This should be seen in the context of the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act (2013), which was repealed in 2021 after failing to deliver promised improvements in water quality due to inadequate funding and enforcement. The new bill aimed to address these shortcomings, but a decade and a half of inaction speaks to a special level of public impotence.
The 2019 Impact Assessment Act (Bill C-69). Passed in 2019, this legislation reformed environmental assessment processes for major projects. Many argue it failed to achieve its dual goals of streamlining approvals while enhancing environmental protection. Industry groups claim it created regulatory uncertainty (to put it mildly), while environmental groups argue it hasn’t adequately protected ecosystems. No one seems happy with this one.
The 2019 Firearms Act (Bill C-71). Parts of this firearms legislation were delayed in implementation, particularly the point-of-sale record keeping requirements for non-restricted firearms. Some provisions weren’t fully implemented until years after passage.
The 2013 First Nations Financial Transparency Act. – This legislation, while technically implemented, was not fully enforced after 2015 when the Liberal government stopped penalizing First Nations that didn’t comply with its financial disclosure requirements.
The 2019 National Housing Strategy Act. From the historical perspective of six years of hindsight, the law has manifestly failed to meaningfully address Canada’s housing affordability crisis. Housing prices and homelessness have continued their rise in major urban centers.
The 2019 Indigenous Languages Act (Bill C-91). Many Indigenous advocates have argued the funding and mechanisms have been insufficient to achieve its goal of revitalizing endangered Indigenous languages.
The 2007 Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA). Designed to protect whistleblowers within the federal public service, the PSDPA has been criticized for its ineffectiveness. During its first three years, the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner (OPSIC) astonishingly reported no findings of wrongdoing or reprisal, despite numerous submissions. A 2017 review by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates recommended significant reforms, but there’s been no visible progress.
There were, of course, many bills from the past ten years that were fully implemented.¹ But the failure rate is high enough that I’d argue it should be taken into account when measuring our state capacity.
Still, as a friend once noted, there’s a silver lining to all this: the one thing more frightening than an inefficient and ineffective government is an efficient and effective government. So there’s that.
The fact that we’re still living through the tail end of a massive bout of inflation provides clear testimony that Bill C-13 (COVID-19 Emergency Response Act) had an impact.
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