Randall Denley: Why Doug Ford is likely to call an early election

For those who prefer a PC government in Ontario, it’s worrying to see the degree of complacency the Doug Ford government is exhibiting. With less than a year to go before a likely spring election, one would expect Ford to be upgrading his team, focusing on things that matter to people, and making sure he has a solid reason for people to give him a third term.

That’s not happening. The latest example is last week’s cabinet shuffle, which demonstrated just how weak the premier’s team is.

Capable veteran Todd Smith quit after just 10 weeks as education minister and is leaving politics. The move was certainly a disappointment for Ford, who is desperately short of ministers who deserve the description capable veteran. It wasn’t entirely a surprise, though. Smith has been in office for 13 years. He had also been moved from energy, where he did a good job, to education. For a PC politician, being education minister is about as attractive as juggling chainsaws for a living.

With a 36-member cabinet, already the largest in Ontario’s history, one would have thought that Ford would simply have promoted one of the remaining members. Ford made four moves instead. It wasn’t because he had a surplus of talent. Jill Dunlop moves from colleges and universities to handle education and its perpetually angry teaching unions. She is fresh off a lacklustre term as postsecondary minister. It’s a sector that is long overdue for a shake-up and rationalization, but it didn’t get it under Dunlop.

It just gets worse from there. A chap called Nolan Quinn is now the minister of colleges and universities. That’s quite a promotion from his previous role as associate minister of forestry. Quinn, 41, is a rookie MPP who has spent most of his working life managing a Dairy Queen in Cornwall.

Rather than forgo the vital associate forestry position, Ford rebranded it as associate ministry of forestry and forest products. The new woodman is Kevin Holland, another rookie whose prior claim to fame was serving for 31 years as mayor of the township of Conmee, near Thunder Bay. It has a population of 816 people.

Ford also promoted Graham McGregor, a 31-year-old rookie so lacking in life experience that his resume still cites playing minor hockey and working at summer camps. He will hold the novel title of associate minister of auto theft and bail reform.

Ford lacks an impressive cabinet, but they do call it the Doug Ford government. The thing with that is that Ford himself trails his own party in popularity. While the party is polling around 42 per cent voter support, according to the Angus Reid Institute Ford has an approval rating of just 31 per cent, tied for lowest in the country with New Brunswick’s Blaine Higgs.

If Ford does call an election next spring, he will immediately face two questions: what’s his plan and why does he need an election now?

The question of what he wants to accomplish is one that seems to perplex Ford himself. When he was first elected, he used to talk about tax cuts and balancing the books. Now, his only real interest seems to be building infrastructure. That’s useful, but not exactly inspiring. He would also have people believe that Ontario’s economy is booming under his leadership. It’s an exaggeration, at best. Unemployment is high and growth is lagging.

The Ford government deserves credit for making incremental improvements in health care, education and skills training. It has created a solid plan to expand the province’s energy sector. Unfortunately, its housing plan is unlikely to produce big results any time soon. It has taken only token steps to improve affordability, and its modest health-care expansion is not nearly enough to meet needs.

Despite its deficiencies, the Ford government is sitting pretty in the polls. At the end of July, the polling aggregator 338Canada predicted that if an election were held then, Ford’s PCs would rack up a stunning 93 seats, up from the 78 they hold now. Overall, the site projects a 99 per cent likelihood of a PC win.

For a politician that’s a compelling reason for an early election. The numbers won’t get better than that. If the polls hold up, there will be a spring election, but the premier can hardly cite the polls as a reason for going early. That would sound like crass opportunism.

Given the quality of his opposition, Ford might win the next election just by showing up, but the public should expect more than that, and so should he.

Randall Denley is an Ottawa journalist. Contact him at [email protected]