Doug Ford Archives - Page 7 of 9

The countdown is on to get a gas tax cut in the province of Ontario.

Late last year, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he would keep his promise to cut the provincial gas excise tax by 5.7 cents per litre, nearly four years after he first made the commitment to Ontario voters.

After years of stalling, the Ford government says Ontarians will finally get relief at the pumps by the end of March.

During the 2018 provincial election campaign, Ford ran as a candidate who would stand up for taxpayers.

Ford told Ontario voters in 2018 that gas prices were too high, and that the government needed to do something about it.

“Every day, I hear from people who are fed up,” said Ford. “Fed up with being gouged at the pump.”

Ford said he recognized that high gas prices meant millions of Ontarians were having a difficult time with “no end or relief in sight.”

Ford promised to reduce gas prices by 10 cents per litre in his party’s election platform.

To achieve that goal, Ford pledged to scrap former premier Kathleen Wynne’s cap-and-trade carbon tax, which would take 4.3 cents per litre off the price of gasoline, along with a 5.7 cent per litre cut in provincial gas excise taxes, for a total tax cut of 10 cents per litre.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberal government imposed the carbon tax backstop on Ontario and robbed Ontarians of 4.3 cents per litre of relief at the pumps.

But by cutting the gas excise tax, Ford has a real chance of delivering meaningful savings to everyday Ontario families without interference from Ottawa.

Over time, saving 5.7 cents a litre will mean significant savings.

A family filling up a minivan and a sedan once a week stands to save over $390 a year through the premier’s government’s proposed tax cut.

At a time when millions of Ontarians are having a tough time just getting by, nearly $400 of savings could cover a couple of weeks of groceries for a family of four.

Cutting gas taxes is a good idea when one looks a breakdown of gas prices. Last month, drivers paid an average of 52.5 cents per litre in taxes when filling up their gas tanks, according to the government of Ontario’s own data.

That translates into $39.90 in taxes when a single mom fills up her minivan to drive her kids to school, buy groceries, and get herself to work.

That’s far too much of her hard-earned money going into government coffers.

What’s more, tax rates on gasoline will go even higher this April with the federal government’s planned carbon tax hike.

As Ontarians face soaring costs of living and higher prices on everything from food to gas to clothing, taxpayers need relief now more than ever before.

Ford can be the man who delivers if he keeps his promise.

It’s time for the premier to finally become the taxpayer champion that he once claimed to be.

After nearly four years of stalling, Ford needs to deliver on this election commitment.

He should do so immediately.

The clock is ticking.

Jay Goldberg is the Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

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.

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Every year, I’ve taken to these virtual pages to offer my take on the year that was — via a “hot or not” column — and offer my foolproof, very accurate predictions for the year ahead.

Last year, I was uncharacteristically wrong when I said there wouldn’t be an election in 2021 — although I did have the caveat that there certainly wouldn’t be one in the spring, as was then speculated, but the autumn might be more 50/50. Turns out there was an election in September. And it returned virtually the same result as 2019.

What do I think will happen in 2021?

Well, first and foremost, I am holding out hope that the omnicron variant will mark the end of the pandemic. I’m obviously not a doctor or epidemiologist, but I hope that a variant that is more transmissible but hopefully less virulent is how the virus punches itself out.

The federal government seems to be a stable minority. They need to take the cost of living rise more seriously, but they also cannot mistake the inflationary pressure as being the result of government spending, when it is caused by pandemic demand and supply chain disruption. Now is not the time to pull back on plans to invest in infrastructure and climate resiliency, as well as needed social infrastructure like child care.

The big political flashpoint will be the Ontario provincial election. Gun to my head today, I expect Doug Ford to win. His opposition is divided, lacking a message other than “not Ford” and, despite his flaws, the Premier has a certain je ne sais quoi appeal to many voters. He’s running on fixing traffic and building housing, messages that will appeal to the suburbs as the NDP fights to hold off the Liberals in Toronto. I’ve said before, but the best assets Ford has are a divided opposition, with two opponents who seem unable to… excite the public, to put it diplomatically.

The municipal elections will see continuity for the most part with a dash of change. I expect both Toronto Mayor John Tory and my friend Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie to run for re-election and win handily, again. Both have done good jobs, and a third term would cement their legacies. That leaves the open mayoral seat in Ottawa as the one to watch. I expect a dark horse candidate from the business community or even another level of government to emerge, denying the mayoralty to the councillors and ex-mayor already jockeying to succeed Jim Watson.

In Ottawa, look for Mark Miller and Anita Anand to quietly be the “get stuff done” cabinet ministers who move the ball down the field on two tricky files, Indigenous reconciliation and national defence. Both are competent, unflashy ministers who put in the elbow grease and build relationships with their sectors.

In terms of zeitgeist, I perceive a pent-up demand to get results on infrastructure — particularly housing, transit and those critical community amenities like trails, parks, community centres, urban renewal. COVID-19 has kept us close to home, and we’ve seen the flaws in our neighbourhoods, even as we have grown used to not having to commute every day. Put those things together, and there is a real desire to fix perennial infrastructure problems. Plus, there’s been a migration of young people from the city to the suburbs and exurbs, and that comes with a new demand for quality service in our medium-sized towns.

Recovery and progress: if there are two thematic desires I have for the New Year, those are them.

Happy New Year to you and yours.

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If your wallet is feeling lighter, it’s not just because of the rising cost of living and inflation.

Ontario’s political parties have teamed-up to take $14 million out of taxpayers’ pockets this year, and they’re just getting started.

Back in 2014, former premier Kathleen Wynne introduced the per-vote subsidy. Under Wynne’s plan, political parties would get a set amount of money from taxpayers every three months, to be spent on whatever the parties want, including lawn signs and attack ads.

Thanks to Wynne’s program, Ontario’s political parties have taken nearly $100 million out of taxpayers’ wallets in the past seven years.

But Wynne isn’t the only politician who deserves some coal in the stocking.

When he was running to replace Wynne three years ago, Ontario Premier Doug Ford promised to scrap Wynne’s political welfare handouts.

Promise made, promise broken.

Ford has been in office for more than three and a half years, and Ontario’s political welfare program is alive and well.

In fact, political welfare is thriving like never before.

In February, Attorney General Doug Downey announced the Ford government planned to keep Wynne’s political welfare system in place. He also announced that the amount of money Ontario’s political parties receive under the program would increase to historic new highs.

That means not only did the Ford government fail to repeal political welfare, as promised, but it’s also made it even more costly.

When Downey announced this policy reversal, he blamed the pandemic, claiming that the economic climate meant Ontario’s political parties couldn’t fundraise as much as they would have liked to.

All three of the opposition parties at Queen’s Park have chosen to go along with the Ford government’s plan to suck money out of taxpayers.

Ford’s team also quietly introduced a new gravy train for Ontario’s political parties ahead of the 2022 election. The four parties are set to receive $10 million in taxpayer loans for them to spend during the 2022 campaign.

Taxpayers will literally be loaning money to political parties for the privilege of being forced to watch the kind of TV attack ads that make us want to throw our televisions out the window.

But new evidence posted on Elections Ontario’s website shows that the Ford government’s decision to blame the pandemic for breaking its election promise is just hot air. The government’s own legislation keeps the system in place until at least the end of 2024.

If the government wants to blame the pandemic, it certainly can’t use that excuse to justify a three-year extension of the program.

The fact that Ontario’s political parties are crying poor is also a load of hogwash. Last year, in the thick of the pandemic, Ford’s Progressive Conservatives raised $3.4 million. The Liberals and the NDP raised millions as well.

Do those numbers suggest that political parties really need our help?

There are literally thousands of things hard-earned taxpayer dollars could be better spent on.

The average Ontarian is set to pay $1,850 in provincial sales taxes this year. With the $14 million going into Ontario’s political parties’ pockets, over 7,500 Ontarians could have had a sales tax holiday for the entire year.

Does that sound like our politicians have their priorities straight?

Ontario’s politicians are using the pandemic as a weak excuse to justify raiding the treasury.

Taxpayers can’t let them get away with it.

Ontario’s politicians need to be held accountable.

Ford was right when he said that taxpayers shouldn’t have to see their hard-earned tax dollars pad the pockets of political parties.

Before the next election, taxpayers want to see the old Doug Ford make a return to Queen’s Park and finally take political parties’ hands out of the taxpayer cookie jar.

Jay Goldberg is the Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

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Some say the biggest question about Canadian politics in the 2022 new year is whether PM Trudeau will still be PM when the year is over.

Others — especially among Ontario residents — might point to the impact of the June 2, 2022 Ontario provincial election on Canadian federal politics.

Setting aside the unique position of the Bloc Québécois federally, Ontario and Canada have broadly similar political party systems.

In both cases there are Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats, and Greens. And the Greens, while sometimes contributing effectively to the broader public debate, are only slightly represented in popularly elected parliaments.

P.J. Fournier’s latest 338Canada poll aggregations for Ontario (“Last update: November 24, 2021”) and Canada (“Last update: December 12, 2021”) suggest key similarities and differences between the provincial and federal party systems north of the Great Lakes.

Very broadly, at this moment in the early 2020s New Democrats are more strongly represented in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario than they are in the Canadian House of Commons.

And the fate of Andrea Horwath’s Ontario New Democrats on June 2 could be one channel of provincial election impact on Canadian federal politics in 2022.

In greater detail, in Ontario, 338Canada suggests, an election held late last month would give the Ford Conservatives 35% of the province-wide vote and 55 seats in a 124-seat Legislative Assembly — for a perhaps short-lived Conservative minority government.

Meanwhile, the Del Duca Liberals would take 41 seats with 30% of the vote. The Horwath New Democrats would win 27 seats with 26%. And with 5% province-wide Mike Schreiner’s Greens would again take his one seat in Guelph.

The Trudeau Liberals won their own (second) minority government in the recent real-world Canadian federal election on September 20, 2021.

But 338Canada suggests that in a federal election held in the middle of December 2021 Liberals would do slightly better — and even win the barest of majority governments, with 170 seats in a 338-seat House (and 34% of the cross-Canada popular vote).

Meanwhile, the Erin O’Toole Conservatives would take 111 seats with 31% of the vote. Jagmeet Singh’s NDP would win 27 seats with 19% ; the BQ would take another 27 seats, all in Quebec of course; and the Greens would win 3 seats with 6% of the cross-Canada vote.

Broadly (again), in Ontario at the moment polls are suggesting close to equal popular support for Liberals (30%) and New Democrats (26%). And this suggests Conservatives can win at least minority governments with 35% of the popular vote.

Federally, Liberals (34%) have considerably more support than New Democrats (19%). And this suggests Liberals can win at least minority governments with 34% of the popular vote.

There have been several strong federal Liberal minority governments in Canadian political history, led by the likes of Mackenzie King, Lester Pearson, and Pierre Trudeau. And Stephen Harper ran two long-lived federal Conservative minority governments in the more recent past.

In Ontario William Davis managed two stable Conservative minority governments long ago in the 1970s. But these seem more like potential models for the Trudeau Liberals in Ottawa today, than anything seriously relevant for the Ford Conservatives.

In one way or another Liberal minority governments in Ottawa have typically depended most on some ultimate support from New Democrats (and before them the old Progressives of the 1920s and 1930s), to remain in office for any length of time.

Yet, as matters stand in any case, which of Liberals, New Democrats, or Greens in 2022 would support a Ford Conservative minority government in Ontario for any time at all?

And what impact could struggles over this issue in a province with almost 40% of Canada’s population have on Canadian federal politics — and the Liberal minority government in Ottawa?

Finally, if the Ford Conservatives do win at least a minority government this coming June 2, largely just because votes for the opposition Liberals and New Democrats are almost equally divided, could that nonetheless strengthen the Conservative cause in Ottawa?

Or will another longstanding political tradition prevail? Often enough Ontario voters have liked to hedge their bets (and even boost their freedom, a little?) by voting for one party federally and another provincially.

Could this ultimately mean that any kind of return of Ford Conservatives at Queen’s Park in 2022 will at least be good for the Trudeau Liberals, now greeting the new year on the banks of the Ottawa River?

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“What fresh hell,” the PM said, channeling us all as we stare down the threat of this omicron variant interrupting another holiday season.

“What fresh hell,” say I, as I prepare to write my annual year-end “hot or not” and prediction columns.

Here’s the first: my little annual tradition (defined, from my collegiate days, as “anything two men of college recall happening more than twice”) of who’s up, who’s down, and who really bothered me this year.

Justin Trudeau: Hot

The PM’s act might be wearing thin on a significant segment of the population, but his gamble to call an unnecessary election paid off, giving him his third straight win, and second straight almost-a-majority-but-not-quite mandate. He seems a bit disengaged, but his handling of COVID-19 has been a solid “good enough”, and whether he tries to keep governing for the long term or is into legacy mode, no one can deny he might be a bit greyer, but it’s still working for him.

Erin O’Toole: Not

He lost, when his job was to win. He also seems blithely unaware that he lost. I heard him speak, introducing former PM Brian Mulroney at the Churchill Society. It was unfair — the Tory grandee outclassed him in a way that was almost, inadvertently, mean.

Chrystia Freeland: Not

Count me as one Liberal not sold on her as heir apparent. She is losing the opening round of her tussle with Conservative rabble rouser Pierre Polievre. He might be over the top, and generally wrong on the economics, but he has a message about the cost of living most normal people can relate to, and even cheer on. Freeland, meanwhile, seems kind of annoyed that she has to explain why she is right, and others are wrong. Lecturing isn’t leading.

Pierre Polievre: Hot

See above.

Doug Ford: Hot

Love him or hate him or really hate him, the vast majority of Ontarians think he’s done OK this past year. It’s been far from perfect, but his heart is seemingly in the right place, and he gets things right, even if it’s on the third try. He also has a real message about housing affordability and traffic congestion. If he could fix his government’s seeming disdain for kids’ education and future, he’d be cruising to reelection. As it stands, he likely will win reelection next June, thanks in no small part to the utter lack of any spark in his two main opposition parties (see below).

Andrea Horwath & Steven Del Duca: Not

The two opposition leaders in Ontario are either invisible and being outflanked by the Tories on labour rights and housing affordability, or unexciting and without a seat. Rather than taking the fight to the Tories, the NDP and Liberal leaders seem to be shadow boxing each other for who comes in second, fighting over a downtown progressive vote at the expense of the suburbs, and trailing a Premier they despise in all key leadership metrics, from caring to competence. It’s not good. Neither oppo leader seems to have a message other than reacting to what Ford does. If they split the vote, as seems likely today, Ford will run up the middle. His opponents may be the best assets he has.

Rachel Notley: Hot

Meanwhile, in Alberta, the former Premier shows all opposition leaders how it’s done. She’s kicking Jason Kenney’s butt, and has a clear contrast message, clear leadership qualities and seems ready to govern if given the chance. Her only problem? The election isn’t tomorrow.

The Curse of Politics: Hot

The best political podcast in Canada — David Herle, Jenni Byrne, Scott Reid and a lot of swearing, Marvel comics references and old war stories — continues to delight, inform and make jogging or car drives more enjoyable. If you’re not listening, you should be.

John Tory: Hot

Calm, competent, kind, shows up to everything, cheerleads the city — the guy has grown on me, and the majority of his voters. If he runs for a third term, he’d win, and cement a legacy as Toronto’s longest-serving mayor. If he doesn’t, there’s no real heir apparent to step into the big shoes he’d leave. I hope he runs again.

Anita Anand: Hot

She’s the cabinet MVP, and the woman who got us all vaxxed, and she’s already righting the ship at DND.

Agree, disagree? Let me know…after the holidays.

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Taxpayers have good reason to be frustrated with Premier Doug Ford’s handing of Ontario’s finances.

The auditor general’s recent report shows just how cavalier the Ontario government has been in writing cheques from the taxpayer chequebook.

The government of Ontario’s emergency pandemic response put thousands of businesses on the brink of bankruptcy. Thousands of others were forced to shut down for good. So, the province stepped in to provide financial support.

However, the rushed nature of the government’s new aid programs risked a lack of due diligence. There was a clear danger that money would end up in the wrong places.

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s recent annual report reveals massive waste.

Lysyk revealed two major problems with the government’s pandemic aid for businesses.

First, the Ford government gave $210 million to businesses that were ineligible to receive pandemic funds.

Second, the Ford government overcompensated some businesses to the tune of $714 million.

That means thousands of businesses across the province received more in pandemic aid than they would have made if COVID-19 had never hit our shores.

This wasn’t just a problem in the early days of the rollout of pandemic aid in early 2020. These big-spending programs went on for nearly two years.

According to Lysyk, the government never corrected course.

“We concluded that, on the whole, the ministries did not design effective and efficient systems and procedures to deliver cost-effective programs to only eligible recipients,” said Lysyk in her report.

Even more damning is that the government still doesn’t know whether pandemic aid went to the right businesses, or whether the support programs were even effective.

Lysyk stated the government “did not confirm that the programs it launched were effective in helping businesses in accordance with the defined objectives because it did not establish outcome-based measures for those programs.”

That’s like trying to cook a delicious holiday meal without using a recipe or tasting it before serving it the in-laws.

The government still does not know if pandemic aid programs have been effective nearly two years later.

Every taxpayer dollar that goes to the wrong place will be put on our children and grandchildren’s massive government debt credit card tab.

If support programs were ineffective, or money was going to the wrong places, the government abdicated responsibility by failing to meaningfully evaluate its ongoing pandemic response.

The Ford government was not alone. Auditors general across the country will likely issue similar reports.

But Ford came into office in 2018 promising Ontarians that he would carefully watch every penny of taxpayer money and ensure that money would be spent wisely.

His reputation is on the line.

To correct course, the government needs to immediately review ongoing pandemic programs to ensure that Ontario taxpayers are getting value for money.

Lysyk recommends the Treasury Board Secretariat retrace the government’s steps and account for all of its pandemic spending to get a better sense of where the money went and whether it was effective.

In addition, the government should launch an internal inquiry into exactly what went wrong with the government’s pandemic response to make sure Ontario is ready to confront future crises.

Even before the pandemic reached Ontario, Ford’s standing as a champion for taxpayers was on shaky ground. The government’s lack of due diligence in its pandemic response is another blow. Now Ford needs to get the province’s spending under control.

Jay Goldberg is the Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

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When Ontario Premier Doug Ford was running for office, he promised to deliver tax relief for Ontario families and businesses.

“We have a very simple theory,” said Ford during the 2018 provincial election campaign. “Put money back into the taxpayers’ pocket instead of the government’s pocket, because we believe that the taxpayers are a lot smarter at spending their money than any government.”

If that’s really how Ford feels, he has a strange way of showing it.

Taxpayers were promised that the second income tax bracket would be reduced by 20 per cent.

Three years later, an income tax cut is nowhere in sight.

Ford also pledged to deliver relief for drivers at the pumps.

While Ford did repeal the previous government’s cap-and-trade carbon tax scheme which lowered gas prices by 4.3 cents per litre, the Progressive Conservative government has yet to reduce the gas excise tax by 5.7 cents per litre, as promised.

For months, Ford has told taxpayers a gas tax cut is coming. But, according to the premier, Ontarians will have to wait up to another four months to get it.

With near-record-high prices at the pumps, Ontarians need relief now. It’s time for Ford to end his political posturing and finally deliver relief for hardworking families.

During the 2018 election campaign, Ford also promised to cut corporate taxes.

Reducing the corporate tax rate from 11.5 to 10.5 per cent would “enable businesses to create good paying jobs and attract businesses back to Ontario,” said Ford in 2018.

Ontario needs to attract businesses now more than ever. Nearly two years into the pandemic, Ontario has yet to fully recover its lost private sector jobs. Government jobs, on other hand, are up to the tune of tens of thousands.

If Ford truly believes in cutting business taxes to help spur economic growth and job creation, he should do it.

The income, gas, and corporate tax cuts were the three central pillars of the Progressive Conservative plan for tax relief in 2018. In terms of delivering on those priorities, Ford is zero for three.

A little more than six months from now, Ford will be asking Ontario voters to hand him the keys to Queen’s Park for another four years.

Ford has crisscrossed the province in recent months claiming “promises made, promises kept” as he makes billions of dollars in pre-election spending announcements.

But Ford seems to keep his promises only when it comes to spending tax dollars.

He has failed time and again to reduce the tax burden for hardworking Ontarians. While Ford keeps telling taxpayers that the government is the “worst place you can hand your money over” to, he’s spending taxpayer dollars at a record pace.

The government’s fall economic update showed that spending is going up in literally every sector of government.

Three years into his four-year term, Ford is proving himself to be a free-spending premier of historic proportions.

He’s saying yes to spending and no to tax cuts.

Since the 2018 election, Ontario’s provincial debt has exploded by over $30 billion. That includes more than $5 billion of new debt before the pandemic ever hit Ontario’s shores.

Ford promised to fight for taxpayers, but the province already spending more than $1 billion per month paying interest on the provincial debt. He’s actually taking money out of the wallets of future generations.

Ontarians elected Ford three years ago to cut their taxes. It’s time for Ford to do the job he was sent to Queen’s Park to do.

Jay Goldberg is the Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

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The “2021 Ontario Economic Outlook and Fiscal Review” released this past November 4 at least seemed to make one thing clear.

With the next provincial election only seven months away, the document underlined the evolution of the original “For the People” regime advanced by Premier Ford back in 2018 into the reformed “Working for Workers” Ontario PC government today.

Working for Workers is only one of three main 2021 Outlook policy themes. The other two are “Protecting Our Progress” and “Building Ontario.”

But it is the lead implementing action of Working for Workers — “to increase the general minimum wage to $15 per hour effective January 1, 2022” — that has grabbed headlines.

As it happens, this is something the Wynne Liberals had scheduled for three years ago. And the original Ford For the People regime cancelled the increase in September 2018 (along with freezing the earlier $14 per hour minimum wage for two years).

As urged by various observers in various ways, the Ford government’s earlier minimum wage policy can only cast doubt on the depth and sincerity of its broader Working for Workers theme in the fall of 2021.

At the same time, many were also surprised when two prominent union leaders showed up in support of Premier Ford’s pre-Outlook announcement of the minimum wage hike, on November 2 — Unifor’s national president Jerry Dias, and the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Smokey Thomas.

CBC News has suggested that this “can only be seen as a big political win for the PCs.”

A somewhat different report in the Globe and Mail urged that even the full slate of Working for Workers actions in the 2021 Ontario Economic Outlook “do not go nearly far enough … It’s like handing out lollipops when people need a three-course meal.”

Still, Jerry Dias and Smokey Thomas sharing a stage with Doug Ford can make even a cynical observer wonder about the current regional political mood.

Moreover, it is not just in Ontario that some conservative politicians are nowadays working to build new connections with workers. This past spring The Independent in the United Kingdom was asking : “The working class is voting Tory. Why?”

The headline went on: “The political world is turning upside down, with Conservatives winning more blue-collar votes and Labour seducing the middle classes.”

Just this past September another Globe and Mail headline advised Canada’s most populous province (with a Union Jack still in the canton of its old imperial-colonial provincial flag) that “Boris Johnson faces dissent in Tory ranks over his embrace of big government.”

Yet despite much apt criticism, the latest opinion polls are showing that Johnson’s worker-friendly Tories still have a slight lead over the Labour Party, with Liberal Democrats and Greens well behind.

Meanwhile, back in North America, the November 2 somewhat surprise election of Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin as Governor of Virginia can also be read as adding weight and heft to Working for Workers in the current Ontario PC lexicon.

In Virginia as in Ontario the working class in the 2020s is in some respects an increasingly rural/small town (and/or exurban/suburban) phenomenon. (See also small-town Pennsylvania in the new US TV series “American Rust.”)

Ontario finance minister Peter Bethlenfalvy alluded to this side of the broader picture when he presented his 2021 Ontario Economic Outlook and Fiscal Review to the Legislative Assembly.

As reported by the Toronto Star Mr. Bethlenfalvy complained that “Liberals and New Democrats are fixated on ‘downtown activists’ instead of suburban commuters. ‘It is time to get the 413 built.’”

This new superhighway strategy may remind a few much older voters that there was recently a large commemoration of the late widely (and justly) admired Ontario PC premier William Davis, in the provincial capital city.

And the Ford government’s fresh financial emphasis on building more GTA superhighways — 413 and the Bradford Bypass — points to a 2022 election strategy almost the complete opposite of Brampton Bill Davis’s winning “Stop the Spadina Expressway” campaign of 1971.

All that, however, was 50 years ago. Times have changed, especially with the apparent newfound workers’ profile induced by the global pandemic. And maybe, in a global village where Boris Johnson is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Doug Ford does not seem quite so not-quite-right as Premier of Ontario.

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The clock is ticking on Ontario Premier Doug Ford. He promised Ontarians “the party is over with taxpayers’ money.” Now he needs to keep his promise to get spending under control before time runs out and the next election starts.

While some may try to argue that Ford has not had a chance to fix the province’s financial problems due to the pandemic, the Progressive Conservative government increased spending by $5 billion during its first year in office.

Ford outspent former premier Kathleen Wynne before COVID-19 ever hit our shores.

When Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy presents the government’s fall economic update later this week, it will be the Ford government’s second to last chance before the next election to show Ontarians that the Progressive Conservatives can keep their promises.

How can Ford prove to Ontarians that he really can stand up for taxpayers?

There are at least four key moves the Premier and his government can make.

First, restrain spending.

The pandemic showed that our health-care system needs some improvements. But that doesn’t excuse the soaring government spending Ontarians have seen in nearly every other area of government.

Two years ago, the Ford government spent a total of $164.8 billion. This year, it plans to spend $186.1 billion.

Any increased spending, other than in health and long-term care, should be temporary and pandemic related. If the Ford government reduces spending to pre-pandemic levels in ministries other than health and long-term care, taxpayers could save $15.2 billion.

That would go a long way in eliminating the province’s $33.1 billion deficit.

Second, Ford needs to cut taxes to keep his election promises.

Ford promised to lower the second income tax bracket by 20 per cent. That could save an Ontario taxpayer up to $827 a year. For hardworking Ontarians trying to make ends meet amid rising costs of living, that money could go a long way.

That one tax-cutting promise would cover over a month’s worth of groceries for a family of four, even at today’s inflated food prices.

Ford also promised to cut Ontario’s gas excise tax from 14.7 cents per litre down to 9 cents per litre. For a family filling up their minivan once a week, that would save over $200 per year.

Third, the premier needs to end corporate welfare, once and for all.

Ford spoke against corporate welfare during the 2018 election campaign, but his government handed over nearly $300 million to the Ford Motor Company for factory renovations, even though Ford is a wealthy company on the Fortune 500 list.

Ford also handed out $55 million to the profitable Maple Leaf Foods.

Ontarians don’t want to see their hard-earned taxpayer dollars handed over to rich corporations.

Finally, we need end political welfare.

Ford told Ontarians that giving $12 million a year of taxpayer money to political parties with no strings attached was wrong.

“I do not believe the government should be taking money from hard-working taxpayers and giving it to political parties,” said Ford just three short years ago.

But rather than scrapping the program, Ford has put it on steroids. He’s made the program more costly and even arranged for Ontario’s four major political parties to take a $10-million payday loan courtesy of Ontario taxpayers just weeks before the next election.

Ford still has time to redeem himself.

By pursuing these four policy avenues, Ford can show that he still intends to fight for everyday Ontarians.

With only months left before the next election, it’s time for Ford to get cracking.

Jay Goldberg is the Interim Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

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