The Toronto Sun likes to blast the “unelected” public health officials informing pandemic policy in Ontario. But who’s really calling the shots in Doug Ford’s government? Allison and Jonathan look at the sway held by pollster Nick Kouvalis and PC campaign manager Kory Teneycke. Not only are they unelected — they don’t even work there.
With electricity demand set to rise and Pickering’s nuclear plant set to close, Doug Ford’s government is now scrambling to keep the province’s lights on.
The province has got a housing crisis, and the only prescription is… more mayoral powers?? Allison and Jonathan probe the comically flimsy pretense under which Doug Ford has fundamentally, if casually, reshaped how Ontario’s two largest cities are governed. Because what doesn’t quite kill Toronto and Ottawa, apparently just makes their mayors stronger.
Allison and Jonathan talk with Jacobin’s Luke Savage about why the NDP so often provokes indifference, while its American and British counterparts sometimes seem poised to spark revolution. Might a new leader succeed where Andrea Horwath did not?
Plus: The Premier’s new cabinet offers unprecedented representation by members of the Ford family. Because it’s 2022.
The PCs are up seven seats from last time, and the opposition parties are down two leaders. We were going to record this from Doug Ford’s election-night event, but Jonathan wasn’t allowed in. So he and Allison met up after to talk about life in the Second Age of Ford, and what it means when a vindictive government also believes it’s a vindicated one.
As Doug Ford campaigns against fumes, his opponents are increasingly running on them. Less than a week away, the election’s outcome is hardly a foregone conclusion, but the Liberals, at least, have reached chicken-suit levels of desperation. Are they telling us there’s no candour available in all of Del Duca’s vista? Also, Allison and Jonathan consider whether Doug Ford has actually “evolved” (he hasn’t) and why the Star’s Queen’s Park columnist is so convinced that he has.
