BREAD, NOT CIRCUSES

Ford needs to focus

Premier Doug Ford is all about gimmicks first, governing second.

An example of that couldn’t be more glaring than his recent pipe dream of turning Niagara Falls in Vegas north.

Let’s call it another of the premier’s visions complete with an observation wheel. How exciting.

This one ranks right up there with tunnelling under Highway 401 to relieve traffic congestion in the Greater Toronto Area.

You might say that Ford lives in the world of Butch Cassidy who told his partner the Sundance Kid, I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.

Forget the fact Ontario’s economy is teetering, thanks in part to Trump tariffs, the health care system is stretched to the limits, the social safety net is in need of repair and the education system is in a constant state of chaos thanks to the Ford government imposing its own brand of reading, writing and arithmetic.

Meanwhile, the premier’s Captain Canada suit has long lost it lustre after being slapped down twice by the equally truculent U.S. president. Not only that, Ford’s practice of routinely sticking his nose in Toronto’s business hasn’t earned him any brownie points with the residents of Canada’s most populous city.

That means, or should mean, that Ford is going to have to get down to the business of running the province — a little less honkytonk and a lot more nose to the grindstone,

My former Star colleague Martin Regg Cohn, in his recent column, noted that Ford remains popular despite economic issues on the horizon.

“Despite the economic decline, Ford’s Tories remained remarkably popular through most of 2025. He won a commanding majority of seats in February’s provincial election and soared to 53 per cent in public opinion polls over the summer and fall,” he wrote.

But Cohn said that can change in a heartbeat now there is a whiff of scandal enveloping his office.

“Against that backdrop of political wedging, Ford is winging it in his day job. With the postsecondary system in crisis, his government has diverted $2.5 billion toward a “skills development” drive now mired in controversy — his labour minister having overruled bureaucrats to bankroll loyal union leaders in the building trades who had endorsed Ford enthusiastically in the February election.”

It could well be Ford is being advised to get his act together and thus the 14-week winter break before the legislature returns. But will he be able to keep his big beautiful visions to himself?

I suspect there will be many backroom deals over the lengthy break that we will never hear about until it’s too late.