In seniors, frailty is a set of symptoms pertaining to the approaching end of life. In politics, it is the weaknesses other politicians will recognize as the key to defeating a politician at the polls. Premier Doug Ford in Ontario has all the symptoms. It does not guarantee that he will be defeated. It still needs the agent of his demise.
The agent who can best defeat Doug Ford is currently running for the leadership of the Ontario liberals. Her name is Bonnie Crombie. This is not to downgrade her opponents for the job of Ontario leader. They can each bring a special skill set to the task. What they are less competent to do is to understand what makes incumbent Doug Ford run. That is Ms. Crombie’s home turf.
In a recent opinion article in the Toronto Star, a writer posited that the “Greenbelt scandal won’t bring down Ford.” The writer’s opinion appeared to be based on a collection of opinion polls that claimed that people distrust politicians anyway. It seemed that the writer was telling us that since all politicians are crooks, they were expected to try to get away with stunts such as Ford tried with the Ontario Greenbelt. What the writer ignored, first of all, was his own recognition that municipal politicians had a somewhat better reputation with the poll respondents.
And that is Ms. Crombie’s lucky charm. She is a successful municipal politician in addition to her term as an MP in Ottawa. She understands the special place that developers hold in our city halls across Canada. She knows that Doug Ford’s only previous political experience was under his late brother Rob’s tutelage at Toronto City Hall. His best friends in politics are developers and their lawyers. There is little he can put over with Ms. Crombie.
It is also why he wants the Ontario liberals to choose someone other than Crombie as their new leader. It is also why he is unlikely to be accommodating in letting her get elected to the legislature in a by-election after the December announcement of the new leader. Ms. Crombie knows how to ask the right questions in the legislature.
And there is a second corollary to the low expectation of politicians. Mr. Ford must have missed the lesson that said: “Don’t get caught.”
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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