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Scott Stinson: Doug Ford gets closer to the (Liberal) majority he covets

Ford would have been heartened by news that Carney had taken a step closer to majority status by adding Marilyn Gladu to his expanding Liberal tent

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It is easily forgotten, as Donald Trump thunders around the china shop on a daily basis, but the original reason why Doug Ford sought to call an early election last year wasn’t so he could don a Captain Canada hat and strengthen his hand in trade negotiations with a newly antagonistic ally.

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It’s because he was afraid of Pierre Poilievre.

Scott Stinson: Doug Ford gets closer to the (Liberal) majority he covets Back to video

More to the point, he feared having to run for re-election this year while a Poilievre government — the prospect of which was a stone-cold lock 18 months ago — was in Ottawa. That raised the spectre of Conservative job cuts and austerity talk, plus some culture-war stuff that Ford has studiously tried to avoid, and the potential for shrapnel that might wound a Conservative premier, even one with progressive as a modifier.

That fear, it would turn out, was wildly misplaced. Not only did Poilievre not become prime minister, as the Canadian electorate rushed to the familiar embrace of a Liberal who was mercifully not Justin Trudeau, but Mark Carney has overseen backroom machinations that have him on the verge of a parliamentary majority pending federal byelections next week.

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It’s a state of affairs that appears to suit Ford just fine.

During his recent trade trip to Texas, the Ontario premier all but endorsed the Liberal candidates in the coming byelections — two in Toronto, one in Montreal — by telling the Toronto Star that he “just believe(s) in majority governments” and that the “certainty” such a thing would provide in Ottawa would be ideal as the United States reconsiders its trade relationship with, well, everybody.

Ford would have been heartened, then, by Wednesday’s news that Carney had taken a step closer to majority status by adding former Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu to his Liberal tent that evidently has no sides and just stretches on to the horizon.

Gladu is such a strident conservative that having her anywhere near his caucus would give Ford the flop sweats, but her move means a Liberal majority could only be thwarted by losses in both Toronto ridings next week, which is about as likely as a Stanley Cup parade in Toronto in June.

Ford is correct that a Liberal majority might help trade negotiations a little, but Carney has been governing like he has one for a while now, and none of the opposition parties have been clamouring for an election. Does anyone really think that Trump’s approach to trade talks will be significantly influenced by the number of Liberals in Carney’s caucus?

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Besides, it’s clear that Ford’s admiration for Carney goes far beyond the pragmatic. In that same interview with the Star, the Premier called the prime minister a “very astute business person,” a “sharp guy” and “a good man.” You get the sense he’d pledge a daughter to Carney in marriage if such things were still done.

When Ford is asked about Poilievre, meanwhile, he generally refers to him as a person who exists. And sometimes worse than that.

The enmity between the federal and Ontario Conservative camps is no secret, and was blown into the open during the last federal campaign, when Ford whisperer Kory Teneycke used various spicy adjectives to describe Poilievre. The “truth hurts,” Ford said when asked about them. Meow.

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But, with Ford and Carney now likely to hold their offices for several years without interruption, the question becomes whether the federal and Ontario conservatives will ever present a united front against the Liberals in Ottawa. Neither side campaigned for the other in their most recent elections, even though they are both pro-cop, anti-tax populists, the result of an apparent blood feud that began in the premier’s office and saw some staff depart for Team Poilievre.

There were signs of detente recently. Steve Outhouse, the relatively new campaign manager for Poilievre, is said to have reached out to leaders like Ford and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston to mend fences.

But now it might be quite some time before Outhouse has any kind of campaign to manage. And, when the doors open at Queen’s Park next Monday after an Easter break, the premier will almost certainly be asked about his hopes for the federal byelections taking place that same day. It is a safe bet he will not advise anyone to vote Conservative.

Last fall, with the federal Tories still smarting from losing an election that it once seemed they couldn’t possibly lose, Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, said he didn’t think “Doug Ford or people in his administration believe they have an ideology.” The MP for Bowmanville—Oshawa North also said he thought that Ford’s only real goal was to “have and maintain power for as long as possible.”

Why, that sounds a lot like a certain federal party that has been in the news this week.

sstinson@postmedia.com

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