Simplistic? Yes. Unrealistic? Most likely. But if nothing else, Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford's proposal to open "a big chunk of" Ontario's Greenbelt to development was a signal that he was aware of the province's housing supply needs, and willing to tackle land-use restrictions. That is, until he engaged in a day's worth of "consultations with the people of Ontario" more likely, read one too many critical tweets and recanted.
Admittedly, sticking to this idea wouldn't have been easy. The Ontario Liberals, who for their part plan to expand the Greenbelt if re-elected, accused Ford of promoting urban sprawl, pointing that, according to a 2016 report from the Neptis Foundation, 45,000 hectares of land around the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) are ready for development as if that wouldn't be sprawl itself and that development in the Greenbelt would put farmland and water systems at risk. Ford could have responded by saying that the GTHA's crushing home prices demand development in the Greenbelt and those additional 45,000 hectares. He could have met his critics halfway, promising only to halt further expansion of the Greenbelt. But the speed with which he backtracked suggests he was less concerned with practicality than politics.
What will Ford do if he is pilloried for other pro-density ideas? We've seen what residents of single-family neighbourhoods do when threatened with multi-family developments on their block. We've seen what residents of multi-family neighbourhoods do when threatened with towers high enough to create more shadows. We've seen what heritage proponents will do for the sake of buildings that look like this. Whether you want to build out or build up, you'll probably upset someone for whom "character" is more important than affordability. Put enough somebodies together and you get, in Ford's mind, "the people." And he is nothing if not "for the people," however mercurial or counterintuitive they may be.
But while his hired hacks praise his commitment to public opinion, any of Ford's supporters who believe he is a fundamentally free-market candidate have new cause to be wary. Either he's more than happy to drop his own promises the minute they become inconvenient, or he's too ill-informed to make feasible promises in the first place. Or both.
Fiscal conservatives already have plenty of reasons to mistrust Ford. His ideas for spending reductions firing the CEO of Hydro One, cutting funding for the CBC, finding enough "efficiencies" to slash the budget and keep the government payroll intact, pledging an inquiry on top of an audit have roundly run up against, respectively, the limits of the power of the office he seeks, excessive idealism, and plain nonsense. All of these promises sound better than they are, which may be enough to get Ford elected, especially considering who his chief opponent is. But how long will he last if he rises to power on a tide of support from low-information budget hawks, only to become a dove in his first months?
That the initial Greenbelt promise was delivered to a room full of developers also raises fears that Ford might be susceptible to crony capitalism. His version may not be as overt as, say, granting $42 million to Honda, currently valued at $59 billion. But he has a history of letting governance and business bleed together just a little too much. At the very least, the video that sparked the Greenbelt mess suggests Ford will tell a crowd what they want to hear if enough of them are in the same room with him. In this sense, the Liberals may have a point when they compare Ford to Donald Trump, who is renowned for changing his mind based on the most recent advice he hears.
And, of course, there's no better example of Ford's scattershot approach to economic matters than his continued support for a three-stop Scarborough subway. This is one thing you can count on him to keep doing: prioritize infrastructure in Toronto's inner suburbs over infrastructure in the far more stressed Toronto proper. Anyone attracted to the light of his "Open for Business" sign may soon be repelled by his notion that downtown needs more car traffic.
Ford's Greenbelt flip-flop is his prospective government in miniature: unable to stand up to scrutiny, and unwilling to stand up to disagreement. Wynne-bashing Populists may see a bright future, but committed fiscal conservatives should strap in for Ford more years of disappointment.
Written by Jess Morgan
