It seems there is a growing rift between Doug Ford, premier of Ontario and Pierre Poilievre, leader of the federal conservatives. It is a bumpkin versus an idealogue. It is a street fighter versus a sleaze. They are not even in the same weight class.
And it is not only the Volkswagen battery plant that stands between them. Ford has already professed his admiration for deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland. He considers her his pal. Yet there is this shrill voice from the Ottawa cowboy screaming that Volkswagen is a waste of money. Poilievre is a half-ton trucker himself.
And you cannot expect Justin Trudeau not to keep rubbing salt in that wound. You would think he is toying with Ford just to annoy Calgary-educated Poilievre. It might cost the Canadian taxpayers a few billion dollars but it should pay off handsomely down the road. After all, what is Poilievre doing about the environment? What would he ever do but deny global warming?
Poilievre only drinks the Kool-Aid of the tar sands. Doug Ford goes with the flow. Of course, Doug looks after his pals. He gives up Ontario wetlands and good farmland to serve his developer buddies from Toronto city hall. He constantly shafts Toronto to revenge the treatment of him and his late brother when they were both in city hall.
But it is the liberals in Ottawa who are dealing with industry to bring more jobs to Ontario. Of course, it would help if the province had the housing for workers and they could afford to live there.
What seems to be annoying Poilievre the most is Mr. Ford’s saying that he stood shoulder to shoulder with the Ottawa liberals to invoke the Emergencies Act and sending the ‘Freedom convoy’ home to pout. Those truckers were Mr. Poilievre’s friends and he needed their votes to win the federal conservative leadership.
On top of that, Ford ordered the longest lock-downs in Ontario during the pandemic as well as making all his conservative candidates in the last election have their COVID shots. Pierre Poilievre and Doug Ford are not kindred spirits.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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