Consider it a settling of accounts. Premier Doug For and his government are continuing a flurry of announcements before Ford calls an election on Tuesday. According to the premier’s schedule, he will visit Lt.-Gov. Edith Dumont at 2 p.m. on. Tuesday and recommend that she dissolve the legislature, which will set in motion Ontario’s 44th general election.
Before we get to the election campaign, though, Ford and his team will have more announcements to go with the flurry we’ve seen the last few days.
Ford will join Chief Sonny Gagnon of Aroland First Nation for an announcement at Queen’s Park about the Ring of Fire project in the province’s far north. Work has begun on a road in the region to bring economic development along with health and other services. After more than 20 years of being talked about, action is happening in the Ring of Fire and Ford will take a victory lap before the election starts.
Before Ford takes to the podium, his economic development minister, Vic Fedeli, will make an announcement in Guelph about another investment into the auto sector and a promise of 2,300 new jobs.
On Monday, Health Minister Sylvia Jones appeared with Dr. Jane Philpott — the former federal Liberal health minister, who had written a report and devised an action plan to expand access to family doctors. An investment of $1.8 billion to connect two million people to family doctors over the next four years.
Also on Monday, the Ford government announced that they will build 27 HART Hubs for addictions treatments instead of the nine that were originally announced earlier this year. There were announcements about new jobs in Cambridge, protecting existing jobs in Kapuskasing, economic development in Kenora, skills development in Toronto, jobs in North Bay and new funding to move people out of homeless encampments.
Those were just the announcements from Monday and don’t include announcements like the transit expansion in Brampton announced last week or the hydro investment in Thunder Bay. The Ford government has been making announcements one after the other, it’s like the scenes in The Godfather II where the Corleone family settles their accounts, it’s fast and it’s ruthless.
Clearly these are a series of political announcements coming out as government announcements but that is the way our system works for better or for worse. Not that this means everything is going Ford’s way in the days before the election. A report from the Financial Accountability Office could cost the government headaches.
The report looked at the cost to speed up the expansion of beer and wine in corner and big box stores by one year and estimated the move drove up the costs by $612 million. The report is being disputed by the government and the Convenience Industry Council of Canada but it’s the type of report that could give the opposition ammunition to attack the government with.
Ford wasn’t the only leader trying to make news. Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles had a couple of nuggets as well, including her first campaign promise — no more tolls on Hwy. 407.
“Doug Ford talks a big game about fixing congestion, but the fact is that for seven years, he hasn’t done anything about it,” Stiles said in a video announcing the promise.
“I will remove all tolls off the 407 permanently.”
It’s the kind of big, bold promise that despite its huge cost could attract the attention of voters. The video announcing the idea also had the most pep, style and pizzazz than we’ve seen from the NDP in some time. They are clearly stepping up their game after some lacklustre campaigns in the past.
We can expect Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie to jump on the FAO report about the cost of booze expansion, an issue she’s been on for the last several months.
The latest polling from Leger for Postmedia released last week has Ford’s PC Party at 46% voter support, Crombie’s Liberals at 22% and Stiles and the NDP at 19%. That may seem like an insurmountable lead for Ford with election day coming on Feb. 27, but things can always change.
Always remember, voters are fickle, polls can change and campaigns matter.