Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 02

46 / Canadian Government Executive // March/April 2018 A fter being elected leader of the Ontario Progres- sive Conservative Party, Doug Ford told the press: “you won’t see me in here too often.” He was refer- ring to Ontario’s legislature. This statement is per- haps unsurprising given that his leadership win has dropped him right onto the campaign trail, with the next election being less than three months away. As Ford explains, you don’t get votes in Queen’s Park; you’ve got to go to the people. If this attitude prevails for the rest of the campaign period, it’s of virtually no consequence. After all, Ford does not yet have a seat in the legislature and, if he plans to become Premier, his time is best served shaking hands and making promises. But what about after the campaign? Mr. Ford has some experience as an elected official, having served as a Toronto City Council- lor for four years. But City Council is a whole different ballgame from provincial politics. A Progressive Conservative government would mean that Mr. Ford would be Premier, the first minister in a Westminster system of government that operates largely on the basis of conventions rather than laws. Also, as Premier of Cana- da’s largest province, he would immediately become an influen- tial member of the Council of the Federation, where Canada’s 13 Premiers work in collaboration to strengthen intergovernmental relations across the country. Canada is defined by its rich and sometimes paradoxical existence as both a parliamentary system and a federation. How would Premier Ford interact with these institutions? First, let’s consider the realities of the parliamentary sys- tem. The powers of the Premier are broad in scope and are re- strained almost exclusively by unwritten conventions, which are binding in a political, but not a legal, sense. For example, the Premier’s power to govern is held in check by the conven- tion of responsible government, which holds that the govern- ment must enjoy the confidence of a majority of the members of the legislature in order to govern legitimately. By convention, budgets and Speeches from the Throne are considered matters of confidence, but this isn’t written in law anywhere. The final calculation on whether confidence has been lost is in the hands of the Premier himself, and this calculation is fundamentally po- litical. It depends on what he thinks he can get away with. Mr. Ford has made no secret of his populist leanings and his desire to connect directly with voters; however, in a Westminster sys- tem, the legislature is where the government derives its legiti- macy. There is no such thing as a direct relationship between the Premier and the voters because we do not vote for a Premier. We vote for Members of Provincial Parliament to represent us. How would Ford’s style of politics and leadership respond to this institutional context? Would he accept the results if he were to lose a vote on a measure that he felt had the support of On- tarians? How would he reconcile his populist ideology with the Westminster world? As Ontario’s Premier, Mr. Ford would be among the most in- fluential players at the Council of the Federation table. Relation- ships between provincial Premiers determine the strength of the federation to a large extent, and the Ontario-Quebec relationship in particular has historically set the tone for other interprovincial interactions and alliances. When the Premiers of the two largest provinces are in sync, great things can happen on the fundamen- tal issues of policy that lie within provincial jurisdiction. How would Mr. Ford conduct relations with Quebec? La belle province is headed to election this year too, and polls indicate that change is coming. The Coalition Avenir Quebec is in the lead, and a num- ber of Liberal cabinet ministers have already indicated that they will not reoffer. The CAQ leans to the right, expressing support for entrepreneurialism, decentralized health care, and autonomy while rejecting Quebec’s receipt of equalization payments. Would there be a natural alliance between Ford and CAQ leader Fran- cois Legault? Also, Jason Kenney is running to be the Premier of Alberta, though the election isn’t scheduled till 2019. Mr. Ford has already indicated his desire to work with Kenney on fighting the carbon tax. Their cooperation could reset the Ontario-Alberta re- lationship after the long-term chill that set in with the National Energy Program. This is all hypothetical, of course, but it is not too early to con- sider some of the practical implications of a Doug Ford govern- ment. If he were to become Premier, his navigation of the federal/ parliamentary matrix would no doubt be informed by advice from both political staff and public servants. It is unclear at this point who would staff the Premier’s Office under Ford’s leadership, and whether he would be inclined to draw upon experienced staffers who know the ins and outs of Queen’s Park or, instead, hire new staff who are close to him and who share his goals and beliefs. Whatever happens, a Progressive Conservative win in Ontario would create a collision between political populism and parlia- mentary governance. On the intergovernmental side, elections elsewhere around the country could produce natural alliances for Mr. Ford, both in the West and Quebec. L ori T urnbull is the interim director of the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University and a fellow at the Public Policy Forum. THE LAST WORD Will the Ontario PCs be able to literally keep it together? By Lori Turnbull