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ontario news watch
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It has only been two weeks since Doug Ford won the election, and while he won't become Premier of Ontario until June 29, he's already making it clear there are going to be significant changes in how Queen's Park is going to be run under his leadership.

Last week Ford announced that he will reconvene the legislature in July so that he can enact some of his promises right out of the gate, instead of waiting until the fall.  Included on his to-do list: ending the never-ending York University strike, cutting the provincial excise tax on gas and scrapping the Liberals' cap-and-trade scheme.

Telling the Canadian Union of Public Employees to go pound sand will likely be the first of many battles with the various unions of the province, and Ford acting decisively on this long-standing dispute shows that he will have no problem fighting the public unions that backed Andrea Horwath's NDP this election and have played kingmaker for the past fifteen years.  If Ford is to be successful in saving the province billions of dollars, battles with the unions will be necessary.

Also revealed last week, Ford insiders are saying the new Premier will have less than the redundant-filled 28-person Wynne cabinet of the last government.  On top of reducing the amount of top-level salaries, this may indicate Ford is looking into scrapping some of the superfluous 30 departments and 6 non-portfolio offices that make up the current Ontario government.  Perhaps the Intergovernmental Affairs, Municipal Affairs and Housing departments could all be amalgamated into one department.  Perhaps Ontario doesn't need a Francophone Affairs department, there are only about 277,000 Ontarians speaking French at home, meanwhile countless other minorities don't have their own ministry, or Status of Women department, which only helps out one sex while in a lot of areas the other sex is faring far worse now.  There are some other questionable departments that I'm sure the Ford team is looking at discontinuing and consolidating, so don't be surprised if some of them get axed.  (The only problem for Ford in this area is that he has a very large caucus, so removing the number of cabinet seats would result in disappointing more people's expectations of being in cabinet.)

On Monday, Ford continued to show his commitment to reigning in spending by declaring a hiring freeze on the public sector, excluding front-line workers like teachers, police, nurses and firefighters.  Ontario has a bureaucracy that has become bloated under the Liberals.  As National Post columnist Andrew Coyne and other experts have pointed out, hiring freezes can be an effective tool in balancing the books in a province where the population is increasing, meaning more money coming into the government from a greater number of taxpayers.

But even more important symbolically speaking — although minuscule in the grand scheme of things financially speaking — is Ford ending free meals for MPPs and print subscriptions to newspapers.  On Tuesday, in his first caucus meeting, Ford bought pizza for his MPPs and said they'll need to bring their own lunches paper-bag lunches.  This is a stark contrast from the Wynne or Trudeau Liberals, that claim to fight for the middle class while living lavishly on the taxpayer's dime.  Ford is sending a clear message that he expects his MPPs to have respect for taxpayers' wallets and purses.

However, taking care of the pennies will in now way end up with the dollars taking care of themselves in a province drowning in a debt of $320 billion, probably more once the PCs get a good look at the Liberals' creative math.  Ford's started off on the right foot, but he's only at the base of what is the equivalent of scaling a debt the size of Mount Everest.

Photo Credit: Jeff Burney, Loonie Politics

Written by Graeme C. Gordon

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.