Front Burner - Cuts and leaks in Doug Ford's Ontario

Episode Date: February 6, 2019

It's only Wednesday, but Ontario premier Doug Ford has already had a jam-packed week. On Monday, an unnamed civil servant was fired and the police were notified in relation to a leak from inside the ruling Progressive Conservative government. That leak put controversial healthcare policy proposals into the hands of the opposition party. Today on Front Burner, Toronto Star Queen's Park bureau chief Robert Benzie breaks down what Doug Ford has been up to as premier of Ontario and explains why the politician has captured the attention of Conservatives across the country.

Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and most of all true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey, I'm Michelle Parisi, the woman behind Alone, A Love Story. Season 3 is coming out on February 5th.

Love, sex, travel, motherhood, it's all in there. You don't expect anything less from me by now, do you? So put on some tea, make some space under the blankets, and get ready to hunker down with the final season of Alone, A Love Story. Hello, I'm Jamie Pussow. So it's only Wednesday, but Ontario Premier Doug Ford has already had a jam-packed week. An Ontario government staffer has been fired for leaking confidential documents. On Monday, an unnamed civil servant was fired and the police were notified

after a leak from inside the ruling progressive conservative government. A leak that put some pretty controversial health care policy proposals into the hands of the opposition party. policy proposals into the hands of the opposition party. Those documents show how Ford's scheme completely privatizes inspections, laboratories, licensing. We will not be privatizing any of the services referenced today by Andrea Horvath. This is just the latest example of a government that's moving fast. It can be hard to keep up. Today, I'm talking to the Toronto Star's Queen's Park Bureau Chief, Robert Benzie. He's here with me now to explain what Doug Ford's been up to

and why he's captured the attention of conservatives right across this country. Mr. Ford is, I would argue, the most powerful and famous conservative in the country. That's coming up on FrontBurner. That's coming up on FrontBurner. Rob, hello. Hi, Jamie.

Thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure. So Monday was a pretty crazy day at Queen's Park, even for Queen's Park standards these days. Can you take me through what's gone down. Well on Monday Andrea Horvath, the NDP leader, released a bunch of documents that she has obtained that show or purport to show progressive conservative government's plans for health care reform. We are confident that the people who provided it were doing so for a particular purpose and that was to and and that was to make sure that Ontarians are well aware of the way that this government is handling the health care system. And those documents, it turns out, may have been illegally obtained,

and the Ontario Provincial Police have been called, and a civil servant has been fired for allegedly leaking them. Wow. I've seen news reports that seem to suggest that these documents show that the Ontario, Ford's Ontario government, the progressive conservatives, were thinking about privatizing some parts of the health care system. Inspections, laboratories, licensing, the medical devices program, assist devices program, and Orange Air Ambulance. These are critical government functions that Ontario families count on. Well, here's the thing about these documents.

It's like a half-baked cake, and it's now being served to people. The government hasn't baked the cake yet. They haven't iced it. They haven't put birthday candles on it or anything. They're still figuring out what they're going to do with the health care system. But there is this draft legislation, this 81-page bill that was leaked to the NDP last week, and that's the bill that got the person fired. But we don't know if it's official, if you know what I mean, if this is a final plan. The government says nothing has been finalized. The problem for the

government is that the opposition is defining the narrative because they're reading into every little thing that's in it as saying, this means potential privatization. This means selling off the air ambulance service. All these other things that are, you know, there's some blue sky stuff in the document or in the different documents that have been released. And some of it you could read into. It will increase privatization. But remember, the Ontario government is bound, like all governments in Canada, by the Canada Health Act. And we can't have two-tier health care just willy-nilly. And Health Minister Christine Elliott says that's not the route that they're going.

What I know Ontarians care about is whether they will have to pay for services or whether those with means can pay to skip the line. The answer is no today. The answer will be no tomorrow. And will be no the day after that. The problem she has is she's playing defense while Andrew Horvath, the NDP leader, is playing offense. Right. And this is such a political football, right? Like talking about privatizing health care is like a third rail issue in Canadian politics.

Totally. It's something it is motherhood issue. Everyone goes crazy when you start talking about this. What does this leak tell us, if anything, about Doug Ford's Ontario government, the fact that this was leaked in the first place? This kind of a leak, Jamie, is unusual. I mean, we don't really see bureaucrats leaking very much. Usually the leaks that we get are from political people. This is unusual. And I've never seen in all my years at Queen's Park draft legislation actually leaked. It's a real egregious thing. I don't know if it speaks to the fact that it's a new government and they haven't

gained the trust of some in the civil service and this is not going to help that relationship, that's for sure. Or it's just a rogue person who felt that this was a good way to embarrass the government. It's not cool, though, for a public servant to do this. Public servants sign an oath when they take their jobs and they're well paid and get good pensions and benefits and all that. And part of that is that they are going to abide by their political master's wishes. I understand people are saying, oh, this poor whistleblower has been fired.

Well, it's not really a whistleblower in a sense because there's nothing necessarily nefarious happening here or illegal. All governments study all sorts of issues. And if governments can't trust the public servants that work with them to not leak everything they get, I can see why it would be tough for a new administration. And this administration has had enough self-inflicted wounds without having those inflicted by its public service. To pick up on this idea of self-inflicted wounds, one of the reasons that we wanted to talk to you today was to sort of get this big picture sense of what's happening in Doug Ford's government because there has been a flurry of activity since he took office and if we could start today with Doug Ford himself. So you know most Canadians first met him through his brother the late Rob Ford. Today an unprecedented council meeting call to strip a disgraced mayor of

most of his budget and his powers quickly turned into a showdown between the Ford brothers and pretty much everyone else. Rather than this kangaroo court, I'm getting to my question, thank you. Okay, Councillor Ainslie, you got your own issues. Doug was a Toronto City Councillor during Rob's very tumultuous time as Toronto's mayor, but in the eight months since he took office as Premier, he's really taken this starring role, this centre stage role, And what are we learning about him? Well, I mean, he has always been a disruptor in the sense that he wanted to affect change and be a bit of a bull in a china shop for good and bad. He came to City Hall eager and full of ideas, like a monorail and ferris wheel on the waterfront.

We have folks from all over the world right now calling us with billions of dollars to invest. But he is in some ways an accidental premier because remember, Jamie, this time last year, he was not even the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. And then on June 7th, he was elected premier. So his own party didn't really get a chance to know him. This victory belongs to the people. And tonight, the people of Ontario have spoken.

And of course he came into power last year after the Liberals had been in power for 15 years, like a long time. Yeah, I mean he won the change lottery because everyone was looking around for something new and he just popped his head in the door and there he was. I, Doug Ford, swear that I will duly and faithfully and to the best of my skill and knowledge execute the powers and trust proposed to me as Premier and President... What themes would you say have dominated his leadership so far? He wants to be a change agent, and I think he is a change agent in the sense that he got a majority here. They won 76 seats of the 124 in the legislature.

But he has seized the day, and he has taken the election results as his mandate to say people wanted austerity, people wanted big change. You sent a clear message. You voted for a plan that respects you and respects your hard-earned money. I think people for sure wanted change. I'm not sure they voted for austerity. I think they voted the way that they did because they were sick of Kathleen Wynne and the Liberal Party. But I don't necessarily think that people were voting for cuts or changes to the way their healthcare system or their education system, things like that, in a radical way during the campaign. It was very much about get rid of Kathleen Wynne. This government is the most politically corrupt government this country has ever seen.

And we're just going to tighten our belts a little bit and we're going to move forward. Can we go through some of these big cuts that have happened since Ford came to office? He talks a lot about what he says is a $15 billion deficit. So what has he done? The first cuts that we've seen are ones that he didn't promise. The biggest one was, of course, in the middle of the Toronto city election, cutting the number of city councillors from 47 to 25. That was not something he ever spoke about. I mean, there's been some trimming of $25 million to school boards that school boards could spend it on whatever they wanted.

Others say it was on vital programs. That's the beginning, though. The government hasn't really made the financial cuts that they're going to make. They claim to have found about $3 billion in savings, but they've also cost themselves about $2 billion by getting rid of cap-and-trade, which is the environmental alliance

that Ontario was in with California and Quebec. After 15 years of being gouged at the pumps, gouged by high taxes and cap and trade, the people of Ontario want relief. That was bringing in a lot of money to the provincial coffers. All of that money was supposed to go to environmental programs. Well, some of that money still has to be spent, Jamie, but they don't have the income to cover it. So that's cost them money. But he is responsible for the fact that gas is at least five cents cheaper than it would have been. So gas prices would probably have gone down anyway, but they've certainly gone down more because of the elimination of the cap and trade levy, I guess you could call it, that was on gas and natural gas as well in home heating.

natural gas as well in home heating. I'm trying to get a sense of what kind of cuts would have to happen in order for this government to do what they've said that they're going to do, which is balance the books. Well, last week we had this strange situation where they talked about full-day kindergarten. Full-day kindergarten was something that the liberal government introduced after the 2007 election. When it was finally implemented, they realized how much it was costing. And the liberals themselves had a cost-cutting exercise in 2012 by economist Don Drummond. And the number one recommendation was

get rid of full-day kindergarten. It would save you $1.5 billion. McGinty at the time said, no way. They weren't going to do it. They didn't get rid of it. Kathleen Wynne, his successor, didn't get rid of it. And certainly no one, Patrick Brown, when he was leader of the Tories, didn't talk about getting rid of it. And Mr. Ford has never talked about getting rid of it. But then last week, you had this bizarre situation where the education minister, who is herself doing some consultations on changes to the education system, was asked about full-day kindergarten. And she said, well, we can guarantee it'll be around next September. And then everything else we're still looking at.

Mr. Ford said the same thing the next day. And we just want the best for the students. It's very important. I can assure you one thing. Any decision that's made is going to be better. It's not going to be worse. So you had this weird limbo. It's kind of like a trial balloon, right?

Well, yeah. Yeah, but as trial balloons go, it was like the Hindenburg. I mean, it just devastated a lot of people because for a lot of families, all-day kindergarten is a big budget item for them because daycare is so expensive in Ontario. So if the government did get rid of full-day kindergarten, it would save a lot of money, but it would cause a lot of havoc. Finally, on last Friday afternoon, the education minister said, we're not getting rid of it. But they left people in limbo and in a panic for a week. And that just speaks to a kind of, I don't know if it's a message discipline or if it's an issues management issue or if it's just a new government that doesn't really understand

there are ramifications to shooting your mouth off about something. I think what I'm struggling with here is whether the deficit is $10 billion or $15 billion, I think what I'm struggling with here is whether the deficit is $10 billion or $15 billion, like Doug Ford says, how do you bring that down without going after core services that the province delivers, like education, like health care? It's very hard to do, Jamie. There are 68,000 people who work for the Ontario Public Service, but there are another million or so people who work as teachers, as doctors, as police officers, as firefighters, and so on, that are all on the public purse. So if you want to save money, you have to have fewer workers. Now, Mr. Ford, during the campaign, was specific that there would be absolutely no job losses. And I know some Tories have privately told me they wish he hadn't said that, but he did say that. I talked to senior conservatives who are very worried about them overreaching

and doing all of these cuts. And then three and a half years from now, when there's an election, getting walloped and chased out of office. And then a new party, whether it's the Liberals or the NDP or the Greens or whoever, form government and take credit for all the changes. Oh, that's interesting.

Do you have a sense that the people who support him, regular people in Ontario, are supportive of some of the cuts that he's trying to make, these cost-saving measures, even if it goes after core services? You know what? I don't know about that, Jamie, because one of the things that the government did was cancel the minimum wage increase that was supposed to go up to $15 on January 1st. This would be a perfect example. Yeah. Yeah. It's frozen at $14. A lot of low-income people support Doug Ford. And so I think that some of his supporters who voted for him were a bit taken aback when they didn't get a raise

that they might have been expecting. Now, having said that, to mitigate that, Mr. Ford's government has lowered taxes for low-income people, but it's still, you know, they would have gotten the equivalent of a $2,000 a year raise. Now they're saving $1,000 in their taxes. So they're still out $1,000 because they didn't get the raise. You know, Doug Ford has also been making a name for himself nationally in opposition mainly to Trudeau.

And, you know, I just have this image of the McLean's cover a couple of months ago, which was, you know, the premiers of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Jason Kenney, who's running to be premier of Alberta, Andrew Scheer, and then Doug Ford. And they were billed as like the resistance, all conservative, all white guys in suits. What's Doug Ford's place in Canada's conservative movement? It looked like a Moorish suit ad. Good for McLean's. I got a lot of buzz from that. Having said that, Mr. Ford is, I would argue, the most powerful and famous conservative in the country. And that's why Justin Trudeau's government loves talking about Doug Ford, because he's a polarizing figure to liberals and they figure that it will help them motivate their voters this fall when they need

them to be motivated. Mr. Ford, by the same token, loves bashing Mr. Trudeau's liberals because the New Democrats at Queen's Park are just not as high profile a target. Do you think that there are like larger political ambitions for Ford? You know, could we at some point in the future see Prime Minister Doug Ford? Well, I mean, I know that his team, some of them were musing about that early on. You know, they thought things were going swimmingly. And if Trudeau wins another majority this fall, Mr. Scheer may not get another kick at the can. And if that happens, there will be a move from some quarters to have Mr. Ford be federal Tory leader. Now, they talked about that. The

Ford's guys talked a lot about that privately last fall. And I think that was when they were still finding being in government was new and fun. Now they're finding the drudgery of government and the tough part of government. And I'm not sure that there's going to be that same enthusiasm necessarily to leave being the second most powerful politician in Canada to go and become an opposition leader. Rob, thank you so much. My pleasure, Jamie. We'll be back in a second. Discover what millions around the world already have.

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The first 30 days of the Audible membership are free, including a free book. Go to www.audible.ca slash cbc to learn more. Just another thing worth noting that put Premier Doug Ford in the news this week. Liberal MP Adam Vaughn faced criticism for tweeting, quote, let's just whack him, in relation to the Premier's position on full-day kindergarten. Some took the tweet as a gangster-style cult of violence, but Adam Vaughn says it was just a joke and that he was referencing the carnival game whack-a-mole. He has since apologized.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was,

please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back.