Further Thoughts on Ontario Politics

 Canada has had utterly unqualified populist leaders before: on the conservative side, Aberhart is the obvious example.  (Diefenbaker had at least had some experience before he became leader, though he qualifies on the populist criterion.) On the less conservative side, there's my distant relative (on my father's side) Amor De Cosmos. On the unqualified but reasonably competent populist side, there's my other distant relative (on my mother's side)  E. C. Drury. So Doug Ford would not be utterly unprecedented as premier. 

 

That said, it's looking as though God either loves the Liberals or hates the Tories. Not only did they elect Ford leader, they did so in as incoherent and incompetent a manner as they could possibly have managed.

 

(Who the hell was responsible for a weighting system which would be generally acceptable only when it matched the popular vote, anyway? Reports set Elliott's popular vote margin at about 5% of the total, which is substantial. It certainly makes it easier for Elliott supporters to peel off if they view Ford as not only offensive but illegitimate.)

 

The Ontario PC's have consistently shown that their base is far enough to the right to be out of touch with the general electorate. They selected Hudak, a social conservative, to succeed Tory, and lost twice to McGuinty and then Wynne in races that should, in theory, have been winnable. When they selected Brown, it was because he seemed to be the most socially conservative candidate, and an outsider to boot. When Brown at least left his successor a reasonably decent platform to run and govern on, all the candidates trashed the agenda to appeal to the base.

 

(One social conservative I know, sane enough to be appalled at Ford's win, nevertheless thought that Elliott should have aligned with Allen because, in their view, there was a lot of untapped dislike of the (now rather old) sex education changes, so it would not hamper Elliott. Reality disagrees: most people either approve, or do not care, or consider the very minor changes no big deal.) 

 

There are at least two narratives that Ford's win can be put into. The first is that of a populist uprising arm in arm with Trumpism and Brexit; the second is of a declining and resentful minority refusing to adjust to the modern world, because they live in a different world. These aren't entirely exclusive, but I find the first unlikely in this case simply because too many indicators mark Ontarians on average as middle-of-the-road and a mode of populism corresponding to that would be more upbeat and inclusive in tone (think of an actually competent Justin Trudeau with more of a mission and better speeches but a similar view of life, the universe, and everything). 

 

Ford can probably deliver one riding in Toronto - his own. However, all his greatest negatives as well as his strengths are in the GTA, where voters already have a clearer sense of him; whether Ford Nation voters will come through for other candidates in numbers making up for voters who will drop considering voting for the party because of Ford is an open question.

 

In general, though, Ontario elections aren't won in the same way that leadership races, or even presidential elections, are. There are ridings which are essentially committed to one party, which you would expect to see change only in the case of a sweep by one party. Most elections are decided by a relatively small number of voters distributed through a minority of ridings - principally in suburban areas or small cities poised between urban and rural populations. But the three-party situation in Ontario renders the effect of electoral shifts rather different from that in a two-party system: in a two-party system alarm at an opponent on the other side of the spectrum has little effect; in a three-party one it may reinforce at a riding level those candidates viewed as most likely to defeat the candidate representing the source for alarm. (Translation here: NDP voters hold their noses and vote Liberal; this happened in the last federal election.) 

 

Ford is not, by conventional standards, well-positioned to appeal to the swing ridings - fairly socially progressive, fiscally cautious, sensitive to both programmes and taxes. Nor is a party which has little time to pull together an alternative platform (one which will, presumably, lack any revenue from carbon taxes (polls have shown that concern for the effects of anthropogenic climate change is now a factor in a majority if voters), propose tax cuts which can be balanced only by program cuts, promise a subway in every pot plus highway expansion as its transportation policy, and try to make hay with sex education on the education front) and none to get it vetted and costed out. Any appeal the Conservatives make will have to be founded on dislike of the Liberals, and that alone. 

 

Current polls show the Conservatives ahead, but they did so last election as well; campaigns in the past few years have made a big difference. It would be dangerous to think of Ford as unelectable, but he certainly will have a harder row to hoe than Elliott would have.