A (3:37)

And I know, too, I remember last year he had gained quite a bit of goodwill for how he handled the trade war with the US and just has that kind of worn off too?

B (3:46)

Well, it certainly seems to have. I mean, he was in the abacus tracking poll that abacus data does for the Star. It comes out every month. And in last August, he was at 53% in that in the poll. And the most recent one, he's at 37%. And that's the one that shows him statistically tied with the Liberals who don't have a leader. And Mr. Ford was really the first Canadian politician to pounce on Donald Trump as the boogeyman.

C (4:13)

We need to unite, and we cannot let President President Trump divide us. He'll be being sworn in in a week and then he's going to lay the tariffs on Canada. He's going to try to devastate our country. He's going to try to divide our country and we cannot have division in our country.

B (4:34)

It really helped him. It helped him get reelected in February 2025. Mark Carney's liberals basically plagiarized that playbook for the April 2025 federal election. And they were able to win not a majority then. They have one now, largely thanks to Donald Trump being this existential threat to Canada. Mr. Ford was really quick to see that. And he has been Captain Canada in the sense that he's the guy in the blue hat. Canada is not for sale. And he was the, you know, he goes to meet with governors in the US and talks about the perils of the trade war. And for sure, tariffs are a concern to the Ontario economy. But like everything Canadians are or Ontarians are looking at their pocketbook. They're looking at other issues beyond just the sort of Broader landscape of a trade war with the United States and Donald Trump being the villain in all of this and seeing that their own lives aren't necessarily getting better. Unemployment is higher here than it has been in a while. Prices are going up in Ontario as they are everywhere in Canada and in the US for frankly. But. And at a certain point, people start to look around and wonder who they can blame. And it seems more and more of them are blaming Mr. Ford.

A (6:02)

You mentioned Abacus Data there. David Coletto heads abacus data. He's a good friend of this show. He's saying that, like, two things have really hurt Ford ratings. First is this jet that we have to talk about. So Ford bought and then sold back to Bombardier within 48 hours of the news breaking, this jet that he had. But still, the gravy plane thing has really stuck, right? I mean, there was even this, like, I don't know if you saw it, this AI Lego video song like the ones we've seen about Trump during this war with Iran. Just all about the gravy plane.

B (6:39)

The gravy plane, the gravy plane. Buck a beer dog with a private lane.

A (6:49)

And what do you think it is specifically about this jet that really punched. Punched through. You know, a lot of people in my life were like bringing this up to me that I think maybe don't normally. Wouldn't normally be be talking about Ford.

B (7:05)

I was astounded that it punched through as quickly as it did. We broke the story on April 17 and two days later, as you say, on the Sunday, he announced. That was a Friday. So on the Sunday, a couple days later, he announces that they're getting rid of the plane.

C (7:17)

We took possession last week. I immediately sent that message out to the media. I heard from the people. And I'm the premier that listens to the people. If they don't like something, I'm not too shy to change my mind and say, okay, this isn't the time.

B (7:33)

But as David Coletto said, this punched through because it was so off brand. Mr. Ford had made a big deal in 2019 about getting rid of the old airplane, a propeller plane that the premier of Ontario used to use, a King Air. And he was boasting about how he's more in touch with people. He drives around in a van and talks to people. And he was boasting that he was the first premier in Ontario history to not use this plane. Well, you know, cut to seven years later, he buys a far more expensive plane, a jet for $28.9 million at 2016. It was used, but it's still very, very expensive. Bombardier Challenger, made in Quebec, in fairness. But he, he didn't. The story comes out in the Star and then he panics. I guess he starts getting, getting a lot of phone calls from people because of course, Mr. Ford gives out his personal cell number to the public. And I think he realized it was a bad move.

C (8:32)

I will take responsibility. As you said. I should have been out there Friday talking to the people. The people don't want it. That's fine with me. I don't mind the scrutiny.

B (8:43)

So I guess on one level he gets credit for being responsive. But as David's polling has shown, the damage was done. Right. People just said, what do you mean you bought a jet? This isn't who you are. You're the guy who supposedly travels in economy and understands and feels my. I mean. And Mr. Ford has built a brand. Even though he is a wealthy man, he's the scion of a rich family, he has created this brand of himself as an everyman who knows the price of milk, who goes to Tim Hortons even though he doesn't drink coffee, he drinks green tea. But everyone thinks he's a guy who has a double. Double. He, you know, people think he goes to the beer store to buy a six pack. He doesn't drink alcohol. I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot of, there's a lot of conundrums about Mr. Ford are interesting and the jet, I think, was one of them, because it just did not seem like a guy who understood and felt the pain of ontarians at a time when there's an affordability crisis.

A (9:43)

Yeah, I always think it's so funny when he talks, he talks about beer so much, but then you find out that he doesn't drink. It's just he doesn't eat red meat either.

B (9:52)

Ford does not eat beef or pork. He worked in a killing floor of a meat packing plant as a young man and that, that he literally saw how the sausages are made. So he's not interested in eating red meat, which, it's not like he's a vegetarian or anything like that, but he's, he. It is interesting to a lot of people that think that he's a, a beer and a steak and a burger kind of guy. I mean, his staff have told me funny stories about Ford trying to turn them on to veggie burgers, you know, like, and how disgusting those veggie burgers tasted. And he was convinced that they were quite delicious, you know, the ones made of, of beets and things like that. I know, go figure. Doug Ford, the tree hugger.

A (10:28)

You know, I did not know. You know, Gravy plane is obviously a play on his late brother, former Toronto mayor Rob Ford's gravy train, which was what he called overspending, government overspending and misuse of public coffers.

B (10:44)

The only person tough enough to go down to city hall and put an

C (10:47)

end to the wasteful spending and put

B (10:49)

an end to the dream. Dream.

A (10:52)

I think a lot of people to this day still compare both of these brothers a lot. And Rob, while incredibly scandal ridden throughout his tenure.

B (11:02)

Exactly.

C (11:04)

Yes. I have some look to crack cocaine

A (11:06)

did seem to be able to hold on to this man of the people image. And like, do you think that Doug does struggle with that stuff more than his brother does?

B (11:14)

Yeah, I mean certainly they are very different. I mean Premier Ford is a much more disciplined person than his late brother was. He doesn't have addiction issues, he doesn't do self destructive things the way that his brother did. And he is a different man in many, many levels. However, he has used his brother's image and I don't, I'm not saying he's exploiting it, I think he believes it as it, but he has sort of ridden that, you know, I'm, I'm for you, I understand your pain. I deal with people directly.

C (11:48)

I could pull my phone out right now, I'll show you. I am like every minute, minute and a half, I'm behind 9,323 messages. There's no politician in the world that gives out his number. And as accessible as I am, and I call as many people as I

B (12:07)

can back, he does talk to constituents. I know constituents who he's phoned just like his late brother would call them and say, look, I know you're having problem with the drainage. Thanks to the city work that's being done down the street. Now you could make an argument, Jamie, that maybe the head of a government, that a $230 billion corporation, 68,000 direct employees and a million more indirect employees should have other things to do beyond talking to people about their specific concerns. And even Mr. Ford's own staff would sometimes say that. But he himself feels that he doesn't want to be isolated from and insulated from the concerns of everyday people. That's why the private jet, sorry, the executive jet, the Premier's office gets very upset when we call it a private jet. When it's an executive jet. Like big difference anyway, that's why. But that's why it has been so damaging, because it is just so not who people thought that he was. I mean, he is the guy who buys his clothes at Walmart kind of thing or buys his suits at Moors. And when there was a Moore's sale on, he would be going around with the flyers telling his staff, you know, hey, guys, there's a good deal on suits right now. I mean, that. And that is his. Who he. I think he believes he is. But, you know, you've been in power for eight years. He does travel a lot. I can understand how you could lull yourself into thinking, I need this airplane.

A (13:40)

If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. So in addition to the jet, Coletto points to the other big issue impacting the Ontario PCs right now in the polls is something that they have not backed off of, and that is their new changes to the Freedom of Information act, which is really interesting because you don't usually see the Freedom of Information act moving poll numbers. So what's happening here exactly, Jamie?

B (14:36)

I think they thought that this would be an issue that would be similar, something that journalists would care about and opposition politicians would care about. And I did, too, when they announced that they were going to change the Freedom of Information laws that have been in place since the 1980s, so that the premier's correspondences, phone records, all ministers and parliamentary assistants and their aides, those would be protected from release right now, or at least until a few Fridays ago, you could theoretically get access to these. We're often denied. You and I have been reporters a long time. You know what it's like. You get back these redacted sheets from the various Freedom of Information coordinators at different ministries. Now, the government even admits that 95% of stuff will still get released, but 5% won't. So the 5% that won't tends to be the juiciest stuff.

C (15:33)

Okay, so what, what I'm saying is we're duplicating what the federal government's doing and provinces right across the country.

B (15:42)

And that's not wrong. It is the same or very similar to what's done in Ottawa. But the problem is there have been lots of criticism over the years about how little transparency there is federal. Federal government. So now we're going to have less transparency here at Queen's Park. And that's a problem because, again, it's off brand, as David Coletto said. It's just. It makes you look like you've got something to hide.

A (16:04)

Am I right to say that some of this centers around Ford's private phone? And just like, how does that fit into the story here?

B (16:10)

It. It all fits. It's all because of that. So he. He uses his own personal cell phone to conduct government business. It's again, part of his brand. He. He will make a speech. He did it the other. On Saturday in Michigan. He was getting an honorary doctorate. And he made a point of telling the students at Saginaw State that he hands out his cell number.

C (16:31)

It's 647-612-3673. And I give you that number. So when you come to Toronto, we get to roll out the red carpet and just treat you like gold. My phone number is on the Internet now, and my phone number never, ever stops ringing around the clock.

B (16:50)

It's mostly people texting him. And he does receive hundreds, if not thousands of texts most days. And he responds to lots of them. You have to acknowledge that. But in doing so, he's conducting government business, official business, on a private device, and that means there's less scrutiny on it. So some journalists here at Queen's park had gone to the privacy commissioner to try to get those. Those records released. The privacy commissioner went to court and the court said, you should release your.

C (17:22)

Your.

B (17:23)

Your phone records. And Ford is fighting it and was going to be fighting it all the way to the Supreme Court, but instead he's now going to. Not. He just changed the law so that his phone logs. It's not. He's. He. He says, oh, my personal calls with my constituents about their private health information is what would be released. And that's not the case at all. It would just be the number. It would show that he had 10 texts from this particular number on this particular day. And a lot of us were interested to see who was texting him. It's not just people from the public who have this number also. It's people who may be conducting government business. So it just looks like they've got something that they don't want the public

A (18:01)

to know about, maybe worth mentioning here. When they were debating this law in the provincial legislature. The Premier actually made some pretty nasty remarks towards Liberal MPP and former journalist Stephanie Smythe that he had to like apologize for. Right?

B (18:16)

Yeah, he. Yeah, yeah, he publicly apologized. Steph Smythe used to work for CP24 here in Toronto and Ford knows her really well. She used to interview him, interviewed his brother, interviewed his mother. But he got very upset when she was asking about the FOI stuff. And then he had this really vicious attack.

C (18:35)

Do you know why the members down here? Because CP24 didn't want her anymore. Bottom line, simple. That's why she's down here. And she was just a promoter for liberal agenda, NDP agenda when she was doing interviews. You think there could be anything else? That is the facts. That is the truth. Yeah, it hurts, doesn't it? It hurts when you aren't wanted.

B (19:00)

He later apologized for her in private, but then he was asked on, on Monday to, to publicly apologize and he hasn't repeated in public what he said in private to her to say sorry. So that's interesting. But it showed how, how rattled he was by all of this FOI stuff.

C (19:17)

Cabinet confidentiality, personal conversations. That's not for a public to review of someone that may send me something that's very, very personal. That's confidential. I was sworn for secrecy on personal confidential information coming out of my Kinstidt office or on a cell phone.

A (19:51)

I want to talk about some of the other issues swirling around Doug Ford and his government right now. There's his plan to extend the Billy Bishop Island Airport in Toronto. And while his government insists that they won't take over all of the city's islands, which have kind of multiple well frequented beaches, businesses and homes, some are worried about that. And just to put into perspective here, the proposed Runway extension itself is longer than the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. So just talk to me a bit about the kind of opposition that this is being met with right now.

B (20:22)

Well, so far it's an interesting issue because the provincial government doesn't believe that this is an unpopular and they're not going to back off on it. The private jet was one thing. Allowing jets to land at Billy Bishop they don't believe is hurting them because they've looked at a lot of public opinion polling.

C (20:38)

We will be taking over the airport. We will be compensating the city for it.

B (20:44)

And on top of that, they also have a tacit agreement from Prime Minister Mark Carney's liberals. Now the federal government actually has the final say on whether Billy Bishop can be expanded because the airport is running by the. It's owned and operated by the Toronto Port Authority, which is a federal agency. Now, the Toronto Port Authority wants the expansion to go ahead. It's unpopular at City Council here in Toronto, but I'm not sure it's as unpopular with federal Liberal MPs. And remember, 23 of the 24 Toronto MPs are Liberal. We had Pierre Poliev, the Federal Conservative leader. He was in Toronto on the weekend saying that his party supports the airport. Instead of having to fly to Pearson and then fight your way through traffic in a taxi or an Uber, you'll be able to fly right to your downtown destination. And that will reduce traffic on our highways and therefore pollution for the country. I also think it would be great for the economy. It will bring more tourism through Toronto. Carney has called it an interesting idea. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens because there is some opposition in downtown Toronto to this. But I don't know if it's as explosive an issue as perhaps the opposition parties here at Queen's park hope it is.

A (21:59)

The NDP leader met with waterfront residents

B (22:02)

and supporters showing opposition to the Doug Ford government's airport expansion plans.

A (22:08)

She's also upset that the plan would allow the province to take the entirety

B (22:12)

of the Toronto Islands.

A (22:13)

Though the government says it won't do that. It would also take over. I do want to do education with you quickly. The Ontario government has also recently passed the Supporting Children Children and Students act, which gives the province more power over school boards. They threatened to abolish the school board trustees altogether at one point, but has since kind of walked that back. But what are some of the concerns people have with, with this legislation?

B (22:38)

Well, I mean, it undermines local democracy. I actually, this is one fight, Jamie, that I did not understand why they were undertaking it. And I, I don't think it's something that Premier Ford was driving as much as Education Minister Paul Calandra. Mr. Callander, for whatever reason, had had a be in his bond it about school board trustees. And for sure some school boards are not well run. There's, I think, seven in Ontario that the province has taken over as appointed supervisors. And I've talked to some of the folks who are, who are supervisors on these boards and they are finding all sorts of problems because it is a level of government with not a lot of scrutiny. There's not a lot of media attention on school boards the way that there used to be across the province. So that's why here in Toronto, the school board is now basically run by the province because they just didn't feel that it was. They were doing a good job operating it. But it's sort of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. To say you're going to muse, as Calander did, about getting rid of school board trustees altogether. Then they found out there were all these constitutional headaches that they couldn't get rid of Catholic school board trustees, they couldn't get rid of French language school board trustees. I mean, it all goes back to the British North America act kind of stuff. So it's just, I think Ford himself did not like this fight. Calandra did like it. And in the end, they're cutting down the size of school board trustees. Trustees will continue to play a role, but that role will change significantly. We will introduce a salary cap, reduce the number of elected trustees to more

C (24:05)

than 12, no more than 12 per

B (24:07)

board, and eliminate most expense accounts, except for modest, clearly defined budgets in rural and remote boards. I mean, I think it's one of these things that could have gotten out of control though, because if you take away their a democratically elected level of government, it's not a good look. Even though it's entry level politics, it's just not a good look.

A (24:29)

You know, these moves that they're making around education, is there a sense that what they're doing is actually going to help fix issues in the education system, or is there a sense that this is making things worse?

B (24:42)

I don't know, Jamie. I mean, another one that they did was changing the OSAP Ontario Student Assistance Program so there'll be fewer grants and more loans. And at the same time, they lifted the tuition freeze that had been in place, which was popular with parents and students, but not popular since it was in place since 2019 with colleges and universities because they couldn't raise fees and therefore their salaries and their energy costs and all these other things were going up, but they couldn't bring in more money. And then at the same time, foreign students have been limited by the federal government. So there's a whole bunch of problems with that post. Secondary faces and then, yeah, you have primary and secondary education also facing challenges. So it's almost like, you know, we're in the second year of the third term, so they've been in government for eight years. All of the stuff starts to pile up and it becomes trickier and trickier to deal with it.

A (25:51)

I also want to touch on a scandal from the last few months that the Stars editorial board called, quote, too brazen to be believed, and that has to do with the handling of the Ontario Skills Development Fund, an initiative overseen by the Labor Minister meant to fund organizations working to train and hire more Ontario workers in the wake of the pandemic. Which seems like a good thing. But what's been uncovered about how that. What has been uncovered about how that fund has been used?

B (26:18)

Well, it's what's been uncovered mostly by my colleague Moira Welsh here in our bureau at Queen's park, is that bureaucrats were overruled when they were saying certain applicants for this $2.5 billion fund, bureaucrats said they weren't qualified or their applications weren't good enough to merit being funded. And the minister personal overruled them and intervened. So the optics of that are really, really bad.

A (26:46)

And what was the common denominator? Lobbyists.

B (26:49)

Lobbyists with connections to this government, to

A (26:52)

this premier and to this minister. David Pacini's been involved in picking recipients with ties to Progressive Conservatives who scored low in the criteria for funding.

B (27:01)

Pacini told News 1010 last week he intervened to get a grant to a company. He was photographed with the director of that company in rinkside Maple Leaf Sea. The NDP complaining that he attended a wedding in Paris for a lobbyist for that same company after it got seven and a half million dollars. You know, there are ongoing Integrity Commissioner investigations into that. So that the last chapters on the Skills Development Fund debacle have not been written yet. The Minister, Dave Puccini, is still in place. He insists nothing untoward has happened. Doug Ford has said that this program has helped thousands of people, but we haven't really seen what those results are yet. I mean, Moira looked into it and it's, you know, a lot of the jobs that they say they've created are temporary posts at best. So. And we also found that dozens of groups that endorsed the Progressive Conservatives in the last election received money.

A (27:57)

You know, this isn't the first time that this government has seen corruption allegations lobbed against them. I'm thinking of the Green Belt scandal, for example. And, and do you think that there's a cumulative effect here too?

B (28:10)

For sure. I mean, it's the barnacles of government. They start to collect on you. And the Green Belt investigation started. The RCMP started investigating the green belt in October 2023. They're still doing a criminal probe. They've interview interviewed dozens of people. I would be very surprised if no one gets charged in that. And so that's a shoe that's still got to drop. And every government that's been around For a long time we saw it with the Trudeau government federally, the Liberals in Ottawa, they start to get long in tooth, right? And there's only so much you can do to change the channel, to change the narrative before things start to just be really, really difficult to cope with. And we saw this. The previous Liberal government here at Queen's park was in power for almost 15 years. They had a really, really good run. And maybe these guys will have as long a run, I don't know. But at a certain point, people just get sick of looking at a certain politician and say it's time for a change. And that's the number that they're worried about. Right now. It's still low, relatively speaking, I think 52%, something like that say time for change. If that number gets to 60, then they've got a problem.

A (29:12)

You know, you mentioned the Liberals who have been in the political wilderness for several years now. There's currently technically a leaderless party though. They're somehow on par with the Conservatives right now, which is interesting. And so just talk to me about the prospects for them. Could they mount a stronger opposition against Ford? What can we expect to see here?

B (29:33)

Yeah, they could, Jamie, but a couple of things are happening. The polls that are showing them up are in part because the Liberal brand has been decontaminated by Mark Carney. Carney has really given the Ontario Liberals a big halo because the Federal Liberals are popular. The provincial Liberals used to tell me that when Justin Trudeau was unpopular because the Federal Liberal brand was unpopular, that was really hurting them. So now they see the opposite happening. Carney is popular currently and that is helping any generic Liberal party in Ontario right now. Now could that change? Sure. The Liberals are in a leadership race. It's officially underway. But there's only one greenlit candidate so far. But there will be others coming and they're going to be decided. That'll be decided on November 21st. So they're happy and excited. I was speaking with John Fraser, the interim leader today, and he feels that there's a buzz around the party that there hasn't been in, in many years. But they have a lot of work to do and they still have baggage left over from their 15 years in office that the New Democrats who are the official opposition here at Queen's park love to bring up and Ford's Tories love to bring up. So there are, you know, there is a lot, there are a lot of things that have to happen before the Liberals are back in office here at Queen's Park.

A (30:49)

Okay. That feels like a good place for us to end. Rob, thank you so much for this. It was a pleasure.

B (30:55)

Always a pleasure, Jamie.

A (31:04)

All right, that's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

B (31:20)

For more cbc podcasts, go to cbc ca podcasts.