The status quo (and Harper) are working cooperatively to put Doug in the PMO
By now, you’ve seen Doug Ford in his blue “Canada Is Not For Sale” MAGA hat. Like moths to a flame, Canadian newspapers and news outlets have neatly and efficiently aligned to showcase Doug in Captain Canada mode, “taking on” Trump and leading the Premiers in a “fight” against US tariffs and Canadian annexation.
For at least a year now, Doug’s multi-million dollar election-style advertising campaign has been unavoidable, depicting Ontario as a land of milk and honey, with a voiceover spilling a river of lies and half truths about the Ford government’s “successes.” (In the fiscal year that ended last March, the Ontario government spent $103.5 on its own propaganda, the most any Ontario government has spent on advertising in a year. The figures for this year will almost certainly be higher.)
Since late last year, Team Ford has been advertising in the US too, spending millions to depict Ontario (and Ford) in the most flattering light for American audiences. In recent weeks, Doug (who is rarely interviewed by Canadian media other than in a scrum, or the “one question, one follow-up” format of their press events) has been interviewed on CNN, Fox News, CNBC and on NBC News’ Meet the Press.
If you sense there’s an election coming, you’re right. But Team Ford does not seem to be preparing for an early Ontario election. They look like they’re getting their man ready to run for Prime Minister.
If you have followed us on social media, you’ll know we’ve talked about Stephen Harper’s plans for Ford for years. Well over a decade ago, in Diane Ford’s backyard, Stephen Harper talked about a hat trick - getting “their people” to lead all three levels of government: federal, provincial and municipal.
As reported in Robyn Doolittle’s Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story, the Ford family has planned on making one of their own Prime Minister for decades, as John Tory found out when he was summoned to meet the Fords before running to be mayor of Toronto.
As far back as 2019, a year into Doug’s first term, staffers and others in Harper’s orbit told us Harper intended to install Doug in the PMO, after enough pressure had been applied to remove Justin Trudeau, and after he had “finished off” Ontario.
For the last few years, we have interpreted this information to mean Doug would ultimately become leader of the federal Conservative Party, somehow replacing Pierre Poilievre. Our hypothesis was that once Poilievre had turned off everyone but the dimmest and meanest, or once Poilievre had imploded personally, Doug would be swapped in to offer a more folksy face on the fascism.
Over the last two weeks, since the resignation of Justin Trudeau on January 6th, we’ve been considering a different tactic. It has begun to dawn that perhaps Doug Ford will run against Poilievre for the PMO rather than replace him. What if the plan is to install Doug as the head of the federal Liberal party instead? As we have written about, the member parties of the IDU, as chaired by Stephen Harper, are big proponents of “owing all sides”, a trick they picked up from their partners in organized crime. If all parties are controlled by IDU members or an IDU proxy, the Russians, the oligarchs and organized crime don’t worry as much about the outcome of these elections, because they win either way.
The idea of Doug as leader of the Liberal Party only sounds crazy at the most superficial level. Until a few days ago, when Christy Clark announced she wouldn’t run, Ford wouldn’t have even been the only Harper plant in the Liberal leadership race. As outlined in this 2017 article from Press Progress, Clark (like Ford) was elected with the help of Harper’s people, and was staffed and advised by members of Team Harper. Clark’s chief of staff, Ken Boesenkool, was a senior advisor to Harper in the PMO. When he resigned as Clark’s chief, Bosenkool returned to work for Harper’s war room for the 2015 election. Many of the key figures of Team Harper (including Stockwell Day, Chuck Strahl, Nick Kouvalis) worked with and for Clark. (Team Ford is also a remix of Team Harper, as we’ve written about here and here.)
Canadian media owners, publishers and editors have been instrumental in the development of Doug’s public persona, creating a folksy, down-to-earth man of the people out of an illiterate former drug dealer from a well-known crime family, with decades of backroom relationships with police leaders and organized crime. Doug benefited from the persona Canadian media created for his brother, internationally famous crack smoker and former Toronto mayor, Rob Ford. In fact, once Rob was dead, Doug was able to put on Rob’s folksy persona like a costume, with the help of Canadian media.
Like Trump, Doug benefits from a media ecosystem which treats him as a normal person and normal politician, furnishing him with an air of credibility. By repeating Ford’s untruths, Canadian media gives them plausibility. Though it is 100% concocted, Doug’s folksy persona works. Many voters in Ontario will have voted in support of both Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford.
Canadian media have been providing Team Ford a critical service in the last few months, positioning and profiling him (via their story angles, headlines, word choices and photo choices) as a saviour of Canada, ready to “take on” Trump and lead Canada back to its former glory.
In recent days Ford has also been trying to create distance between himself and fellow Conservative premier, Danielle Smith, using her refusal to sign a joint response from the premiers to Trump as an opportunity to portray himself as a patriot and a statesman.
This recent tweet from Justin Trudeau, featuring Ford sitting next to Trudeau and Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc (who was expected to run for the Liberal leadership himself) at the First Ministers conference, is an interesting photo choice by the Prime Minister’s communications team. It visually suggests Ford is at the same level as the two federal politicians, and the framing gives the impression this trio is on the same team.
On social media we have often called Trudeau and Ford BFFs (best friends forever), for the frequency with which they make announcements together and for how often they are singing from the same song sheet. However, the warm relations between Trudeau and Ford cannot hold a candle to the ongoing love affair between Ford and Chrystia Freeland. Freeland and Ford have been a mutual support society for a number of years now.
Though it is difficult for dyed-in-the-wool partisans to accept, political party politics in Ontario has been dubious for quite some time. As we wrote about the 2022 provincial election, the “opposing parties” did not put up a fight during the campaign, and their leaders - DelDuca and Horvath - were both rewarded with mayoralties in organized crime hubs, along with “strong mayor” powers to do Ford’s bidding municipally despite any opposition from council or residents. It was DelDuca, as Minister of Transportation, who hired Phil Vester to oversee Metrolinx, to benefit the gangsters and oligarchs pretending to build the transit. The current leader of the Ontario Liberal party, Bonnie Crombie, who has been described as “Doug in a red skirt”, is affiliated with the same developers and “donors” as Ford.
The embrace of Mark Carney by Liberal party faithful is also curious. Carney is the monopoly man from Goldman Sachs, in essence. He is the chair of Brookfield Asset Management and Bloomberg, and sits on the board of Stripe, at a time when the public is cheering the shooting of CEOs. Carney was governor of the Bank of Canada for years under a Harper government, then went to the UK to become the governor of the Bank of England under David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson. Carney, who used his credibility to help Boris sell Brexit to Britain, has been in the belly of the IDU for a very long time.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, resigned after an effective coordinated attack by the far right and their media partners, both domestically and internationally. In the subsequent NZ election, her party was replaced in leadership by an IDU member party. At the time, we noted that effective removal of Ardern meant the resources of the IDU would now be turned towards the removal of Justin Trudeau. We expected the attack on Trudeau (from the media, particularly) to be particularly relentless, given that his removal, for IDU chair Harper, is very personal. It was Trudeau who removed Harper from office.
Having effectively ended Trudeau’s time in the PMO, Harper might find extra satisfaction in subverting the Liberal party as well, to make sure the interests of IDU members are protected no matter the electoral outcome. Doing that in the form of Doug Ford would just be the cherry on top.
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