Front Burner - Is Ontario Premier Doug Ford a problem for the federal Conservatives?

Episode Date: June 11, 2019

In a rare move, the Ontario legislature will take a break until October 28th, one week after the federal election. So why the extended break? Political watchers say that might have to do with Premier Doug Ford’s dismal poll numbers, and how they might affect federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s chances this coming election. Power & Politics host Vassy Kapelos explains.

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Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. The Ontario Legislature is pretty quiet right now, officially on summer holiday. Today is the last day the Provincial Legislature sits before a summer break, and it's been a busy year for the Ford government. The Legislature usually breaks for the season around this time every year. But what is a bit outside the norm is that it's coming back several weeks later than initially scheduled. Ontario provincial politicians were expected to return to the legislature in September, but today Ford's team pushed that to one week after the federal election in October. So why this extended break? And how much does that have to do with

federal conservative leader Andrew Scheer's chances for the coming election? That's what we're going to talk about today with my colleague Vashi Capello, host of CBC's Power and Politics. This is FrontBurner. Okay, guys. We're going to get to my conversation with Vashi in a second, which we recorded earlier on Monday. But I just want to acknowledge, around 11.40 last night, we really thought this is going to be a Raptors podcast. Man, that game.

One point. But look, it's okay. It's okay. We've got another shot on Thursday, then another shot on Sunday, and we're going to get this. So let's get to my conversation with Vashi, which is actually so great. And then I promise we will do a Raptors victory pod. All right, Vashi Capellos. Vashi, hello. Hi, Jamie. Good. Welcome back to the pod. And you're here in person today. This is so exciting to have you in front of me. So I have been very immersed in Raptors news. And I have to admit this Ford development, it almost passed me by last week. Essentially, he announced that he's going to extend the legislative break in Ontario for five months, longer than that break would normally be. And he made this announcement at this hotel near Pearson Airport last week.

And tell me more about that. So this was a surprise because we knew that the legislature was going to rise. Obviously, it's the summer break. We did not think it would be this long. So he's not coming back until after the federal break. We did not think it would be this long. So he's not coming back until after the federal election. So his message during this press conference was, we're taking time off from the legislature. We're going to keep working. And we've done so much. We have accomplished more in one year than most governments achieve in their whole mandate. Here's all the pro-business stuff. We got rid of cap and trade. We cut red tape. He sort of listed off the accomplishments, but that was sort of overshadowed by all of the questions surrounding why did he take this

extended break? Right, because they were supposed to come back at the beginning of September. That's normally when they would come back. And so have you ever seen anything like this happen before? Not at the provincial level. I think, I mean, there usually are other reasons. Sometimes federally there's an election coming, so it ends up being six months or, you know, there's things like that. But the fact that this seemed to coincide with the federal election campaign is what I think, you know, imparted a sort of sense of, huh, among people who heard that the legislature was rising. It's very early and it's still, they've just been in office for one year. It didn't really seem to necessarily add up to everybody.

And so I think that's why there are some questions. We should talk about what preceded this too. Since their April budget was tabled, there's been these flurry of cuts. The government slashed funding for Southern Ontario Library Service and Ontario Library Service North by half. PCs have cancelled the 50 million tree program. School boards were informed by email on Friday that a special fund was being cut by $25 million. The most recent ones Ford announced he actually would backtrack on cuts to municipalities and public health units across the country. We've come up with a conclusion that we're going to work together.

We're going to maintain the funding throughout this year. We knew, for example, going in when they were elected, that they felt like the size of the deficit, which is huge, we can't understate that, was a priority for them. Right. They're saying it's $13 billion. Yeah, they're saying it's $13 billion. Yeah. They're saying it's $13 billion. I mean, there was a whole math thing during the campaign. The Liberals said it was smaller.

They said it was because of accounting. Anyway, it ends up being many billion dollars, right, which for a province the size of Ontario is a big deal. It's the way in which they decided to tackle this budget that preceded this announcement from the Premier last week and the controversy that ensued. So they made a lot of decisions that seemed to a lot of people not to be the most well thought out about how they would save money. Right. And they got a lot of backlash for them.

You know, I know another criticism of this government in Ontario is not just the cuts themselves. It's the communication of the cuts. It's how this plan is rolled out. Yeah, very much so. They're just sort of saying we have to slay the deficit. They're not explaining why. The deficit is big. It's important to understand why that's a problem, right? Like the deficit is big. The debt is huge.

And the money that the province, that you and I and all taxpayers in this province end up paying just on interest payments, so not even paying down the debt, just on the interest, is so much money that could be going towards all these programs on education and health care. And the government never once has really explained that to people. They said, OK, we're going to erase the deficit, you know, by 2023. But it wasn't exactly clear how they were going to get there. And then over the next almost two months, it's like one day you find out there's money going from libraries. The next day you find out there is money getting cut from public health. And then John Tory's mad. And then there's money getting cut from, you know, trees. The 50 Million Tree Program is the Ontario

government's initiative to plant 50 million trees across the province by 2025. So it was very sort of like, it didn't seem like there was a logical sort of thought through approach to it. And therefore, the reaction, while incremental, ended up building to a point that we saw manifest. You hear people talk of sort of a lack of strategy and also that these cuts are coming when there have already been plans made. Like, so for example, people are really angry right now because the government has cut funding to summer festivals people love, one, but also because they've already planned these festivals that are supposed to be happening this summer. John Tory was angry about this as well because there had already been public health budgets that have been implemented. These are dramatic cutbacks which leave the city government

with only two alternatives, especially when they're done retroactively in the middle of the budget year, which is to cut services or to raise taxes. Yeah. And it wasn't just John Tory. That was the interesting part. It was basically mayors from cities across the province, because what happens is cities work on a different fiscal calendar than the provinces. So they had all passed, not even just set, but passed their budgets. So they had said, okay, we're getting, let's say, for example, $300 million this year for public health, which is like vaccinations and programs and schools and things like that. They had planned for that. And then they were told after the fact, actually, we're cutting X amount from that, which Toronto said amounted to like more than $60 million, for example. So their argument was, okay, we get the size of the deficit, we get that there have

to be cuts, but can we work on this for next year rather than just deal with the after effects once we've already passed our budget? And we should mention one big cut that we didn't mention when we were going through this list of cuts earlier is cuts to education. Changes in the curriculum, especially with the larger class sizes, is something that I'm pretty worried about. So they're upping class sizes and downsizing the number of teachers. And this has also made people really upset. Yeah. And again, just from the government's, I mean, we should be fair. They haven't actually decreased the amount of overall funding to education. It's just increasing at a much sort of smaller percentage than it has in past years. So it almost amounts to a cut. So they're insisting that we're still giving more money. The problem is it's just a bit.

So as a result, school boards, they're looking at their own budgets, which are not what they anticipated they would be. So they are having to lose teaching positions. And yes, class sizes in certain instances have increased, and that also impacts things. in certain instances have increased, and that also impacts things. So when we talk about these flurry of cuts and the flurry of this activity, you know, how has it affected this government in the polls?

It has really, really affected them. There is no way to understate it. I mean, for a number of months, the premier enjoyed sort of really high levels of popularity. The government was doing pretty well. And this changed the game dramatically. They saw a massive hit in the polls due to the reaction to the cuts and the way in which they all played out. I know our colleague, our Grenier CBC poll analyst is saying 30-35% support. We'll be back in a second. Discover what millions around the world already have. Audible has Canada's largest library of audiobooks, including exclusive content curated by and for Canadians. Thank you. of the Audible membership are free, including a free book. Go to www.audible.ca slash cbc to learn more.

Okay, so we haven't been able to get to all of the cuts in this conversation. We've done quite a few of them, but we also did an episode about this a few weeks back with Mike Crawley, or calling Mike Crawley, and you can find it in our feed. And so we know that these cuts have negatively affected Doug Ford's polling numbers.

We know that people in Ontario are angry about that. And it is hard to believe, but it is now federal election season, and we know that people from the federal Conservative Party are starting to get out into their communities and knock on doors. And what do we know about what they're hearing when they're out there?

So this is how I think from my perspective, I first became alerted prior to even those polls coming out that something was amiss. And that's because in my conversations with Conservatives on the Hill, they started freaking out. Really? About Doug Ford. Okay. So there's a lot of reasons for that. I know we'll get into them. But yeah, their reaction was, I'm going to the doors. And other people who are running as candidates for us, particularly in the 905 area, are

going to the doors. And immediately people are just associating conservative, conservative. And the Doug Ford name is not helping us right now. And what are they hearing? What are people saying to them? They're worried that the conservatives federally are going to be doing the same thing with budgets. Lots of people don't understand or just have busy with their lives. So they're not like, oh, this kind of funding for my school is coming from the province.

This is coming from the feds. They're just saying to themselves, these are governments in charge of sort of my kids' schooling, my health care, and I'm getting the sort of sense of being worried that the federal conservatives, if they were to become, you know, the government, they're going to do the same kind of thing. When we take all this together, the fact that the government isn't sitting until after the federal election,

that Ford, at that press conference at the hotel, he said he's not going to get involved in the federal election. He says he's got enough to do here. Right from the get-go, I said I'm not going to get involved in the federal election, and we're going to continue working hard for the people of Ontario. We have our plates full, each and every one of us. And also what we know about what conservatives are hearing when they're door knocking. All of this has really led to the idea that the federal conservatives asked Ford to step back here.

And like, what are they saying about that? What's Scheer saying about that? So Andrew Scheer, the leader of the federal conservatives, says he didn't do that. From my conversations with conservatives, there was no sort of specific ask. My understanding is the relationship between the federal conservatives and the Ford office is not that great, anyway, thanks to the francophone issue, which I'm sure you've discussed.

This government, the Ford government, made some pretty big moves when it came to French language services in Ontario. The first, a French language university in Toronto will not be built by this government. They have to worry about francophone interests.

And so that caused a real rift. Things behind the scenes did not go well. And so there aren't exactly, you know, huge lines of communication open. So it wasn't like Mr. Scheer said, guys, you cannot campaign for me. But at the same time, there is sort of a sentiment among provincial conservatives and people in Doug Ford's office that they want to see Andrew Scheer elected. And so there is an acknowledgement, a tacit sort of acknowledgement that them being involved at the front lines of this campaign would not necessarily be helpful to Mr. Scheer. Okay. And so let's talk about that, how Doug Ford could actually hurt Andrew Scheer. These Ontario ridings, how important are they to the federal Conservatives? I cannot underscore how important they are.

They are the key to Andrew Scheer's path to victory. The 905 traditionally has a tendency to want to vote Conservative in the past. It depends on the election, but certainly the votes are there. Let's just say they're sort of ripe for the picking. When the liberals were rushing to power in the last election, they were able to garner a lot of popularity there. They were able to garner votes, take them away from conservatives. This is an opportunity for Andrew Scheer to do the opposite, reclaim most of those ratings. They need to essentially sweep the 905 when you take in all the sort of calculations across the country in order to win the next election.

So there is no way to underscore or understate how important the 905 is to them. And then, of course, it feels like other people or other groups are picking up on the sentiment as well. So there's an ad that ran Game 5 NBA playoffs last night. It's by this group called Engage. I don't know a lot about this group. Yeah, they're basically a conglomerate of interest groups who don't want to see Andrew Scheer get elected. So it's people like Unifor, who you'll remember, led by Jerry Dias. You'll remember you probably heard their name a lot in the question period because Andrew Scheer has lamented the fact that they are going to be on sort of a board that ends up picking the criteria for media funding.

They're part of this. We don't know to what degree or sort of all the groups that are involved, but they have one main point, and that is to make sure Andrew Scheer doesn't get elected. So that's what the ad reflects. Conservative Andrew Scheer.'t get elected. So that's what the ad reflects. Conservative Andrew Scheer. He's hiding something. He'd follow Ontario Premier Doug Ford as he slashes health care and education. Scheer will never stand up to Ford. And this ad, you know, essentially paints Andrew Scheer as like a yes man to Doug Ford.

Totally. They're really picking up on this narrative. Yeah. And I mean, it's the federal liberal narrative as well. And they want voters in Ontario to have one message. If you're feeling the effects of the cuts that Doug Ford's government enacted, you're going to feel the same way if you elect Andrew Scheer. Their message is simple. They're the same type of politician. They're going to do the same thing with the budget. And that's why you've seen sort of the Conservatives even acknowledge that insofar as Andrew Scheer came out and was like, oh, wait, we're not going to balance the budget in two years

like I promised before. It's going to take us at least five now. He said it's because of liberal mismanagement. But in actuality, what he's doing is acknowledging the fact that people are worried that his government would act like Doug Ford's. You know, it feels like not so long ago that there was that cover of McLean's magazine. Do you remember that? The Resistance. Yes, The Resistance with Scott Moe, the premier of Saskatchewan, Brian Pallister, the premier of Manitoba,

UCP leader, now premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, Doug Ford, Andrew Scheer, all conservative men on the cover in these suits, like the Avengers or something. And it felt like this united conservative front. And so I'd be curious to get your perspective on what's happening with that now. I wouldn't diminish, you know, people who voted for the conservatives, I think, on the provincial level. And I think there is still, I mean, if you look at the polls federally, there still is a lot of support for the federal conservatives, too. I think Doug Ford is sort of the Achilles heel right now, given what's happened with the budget. If you look conversely over at Alberta, Jason Kenney is riding high on one of the highest, you know, I think, according

to Angus Reid, maybe double check me, but one of the highest levels of popularity for a premier across the country. So, you know, they are they have coalesced around the issue of the carbon tax. And what you said before about sort of where the debate is now could definitely affect the power of that sort of concerted group. But I think that there is something to it. We have seen change at the provincial level in a number of instances. We know from the polls that there is sort of a tiredness with the federal liberals. It depends what the issues are. It depends how things are going to go. But I think that there is something to the fact that all of these sort of conservative premiers have been elected. I don't know if it translates to the federal level for sure. Each province is its own

unique place. Doug Ford is an Achilles heel for the Conservatives right now, but that doesn't mean that it will always stay that way. Right, right. It could definitely change. And I mean, the Globe and Mail is also reporting that Jason Kenney will be campaigning for Andrew Scheer in Ontario. So it is maybe the resistance is alive and well. And just Doug Ford is taking a break for now. Yeah, he's taking a bit of a break and it may work.

You never know. Who knows? Great, Vashi. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thanks, Jamie. I couldn't help but notice that it wasn't just anti-conservative ads that ran during last night's nail-biter and heartbreaker of a Raptors game.

Anti-Trudeau spots also went to air. And this one echoed another campaign you might have seen last election. A group of people sitting around a table checking out Trudeau's resume and deciding he just wasn't ready for the job. Then he threw his own trip to India. So embarrassing. Well, I hate the way he treats women. He fired two of them for standing up to him over the SNC-Lavalin affair. And seeing that spot, it really echoed what Vashi and I were

talking about, which is that clearly both these parties think that Toronto and the people around it will make a huge impact in the upcoming election. That's all for today. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to 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. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.