Think Doug Ford is still a right-wing populist?


Two populist premiers have just been re-elected in Canada’s two most populous provinces with stronger popular mandates than four years ago.

How did they do it?

Ontario’s Doug Ford and Quebec’s François Legault both won power in 2018 by going on gut instincts and political disruption. They may be cut from the same cloth, yet Canada’s two most powerful premiers are not peas in a pod.

Not anymore. Despite starting out on the same wavelength, they quickly diverged — leaving their provinces worlds apart.

How could two politicians with such similar ideologies and idiosyncrasies take such different trajectories? And still savour such lopsided victories when voters held them to account?

It’s easy to forget how harmonized Ford and Legault were when they first took over government.

Both declared war against the federal Liberals. They each treated foreign migrants with suspicion and derision.

Both bragged about business affinities and possibilities while putting labour in its place. They each insisted systemic racism was absent from their provinces.

Both pressed every populist button to win popular support in 2018. But mindful of their different political landscapes, they chose opposing pathways over the next four years.

In almost every way, Ford backtracked — changing tack and taking back his words. Legault, by contrast, doubled down every day.

Ford cozied up to Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, never missing an opportunity for a photo opportunity at ribbon cuttings with his favourite PM. While Legault endorsed the federal Conservatives in the last election, Ford wouldn’t go near them.

After Ontario’s premier dismissed the idea of systemic racism, he reversed himself the next day. Quebec’s premier stuck to his guns, continuing to insist his province was a racism-free zone.

After Ford mused aloud about immigrants taking jobs away from Ontarians, and then badmouthed border-crossers, he realized it didn’t play well and changed his playbook. Legault hasn’t stopped stoking fears about the perils of immigration for Quebec’s economy and society, not to mention banning head coverings and other religious symbols in certain public settings (which prompted a public rebuke from Ford).

While Ford parroted Legault’s big business sloganeering, he later pivoted to court private sector unions. When Ontario’s announcement of roadside checkpoints in mid-pandemic provoked a public furor, Ford quickly dismantled the plan; when Legault imposed nightly COVID curfews, his government ignored street protests.

Legault remains indifferent to criticism and reluctant to admit mistakes. Ford loves to be loved and hates being hated, let alone booed in public as he was pre-pandemic; he will do whatever it takes — even admit mistakes or backtrack on cutbacks — to win back public affection.

On the surface, Quebec’s electoral map reflects the global trend to political polarization. But the divisions are not so much about ideology but identity; not national unity but diversity; and the chasms are less about ephemeral party lines than about enduring geographical lines.

The great dividing line in Quebec is between urban versus rural — much like it is in Ontario and elsewhere. The Island of Montreal accounts for only two of the 90 seats won by Legault’s right-leaning Coalition Avenir Québec across the rest of the province.

Quebec’s rural-urban split is more than merely demographic, it’s mostly linguistic and cultural. While multicultural Montreal is outward-looking and welcoming, the rest of the province worries about the trend lines — and rallied to Legault’s push for religious restrictions and language laws.

But that’s where the similarities end. While Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives have long relied on their bedrock rural support to make up for their shortcomings in the big cities, Ford’s urban roots helped the Tories penetrate the Greater Toronto Area — winning every seat in the 905 outside of Oshawa, and more of the 416 than his rivals.

Two afterthoughts on the elections in these two provinces:

Legault’s CAQ campaigned in 2018 on a promise of electoral reform, culminating in legislation last year to enact proportional representation through a hybrid system called Mixed Member Proportional, “so that every vote counts.” Last year, he dropped the idea, blaming the pandemic and dismissing it as interesting only “a few intellectuals.”

His broken promise failed to diminish his vote count this week, nor did it depress the overall electoral turnout — which remained roughly the same at 66 per cent in the last two elections. In the aftermath of Ontario’s June 2 election, when voter turnout fell to a record low 43 per cent (down 13 points from 2018), critics claimed the absence of proportional representation was to blame.

Given the remarkable constancy of the Quebec turnout, that blame game for Ontario’s rising apathy seems a stretch.

Even if electoral reform is going nowhere in either province, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be learned. In the National Assembly, opposition parties with 12 seats or 20 per cent of the popular vote gain official recognition — which means more money and time in the daily question period.

Ontario’s Liberals placed second in the popular vote with 23.85 per cent, but finished third with only seven seats, thanks to the vagaries of the system — and lost out on official status. There is no reason Queen’s Park can’t update its own rules to rectify the anomalies in party status — just as Quebec, New Brunswick and other jurisdictions have done by setting 20 per cent as a realistic threshold.

Martin Regg Cohn is a Toronto-based columnist focusing on Ontario politics and international affairs for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @reggcohn

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