Doug Ford would like you to think he has the solutions to all the problems you didn’t even know you had.

The premier likes to depict a world full of simple problems, and sometimes made-up ones, for which he has complex solutions which inevitably benefit him and his desperate craving to stay in power and be liked. The root of the strategy is to create the problem, the straw man, and then take it down; it’s a perfect self-fulfilling circle of deceit with power as the main goal. 

Ontario taxpayers are on the hook for a series of TV ads currently being broadcast which promote government accomplishments such as building more homes, combatting illicit public drug use, closing encampments, and fighting crime. These “problems” are mostly not true. The province is years behind in building new homes. Public drug use is a result of either addicts being homeless and/or the province purposely closing most safe injection sites creating more public drug use. Encampments are down, and so is crime on just about every metric. But not to worry, Doug has solutions. 

To help “solve” the housing crisis Ford’s solution was to try and develop select parcels of the Green Belt, a pristine watershed with no services or public infrastructure to support new suburbs. Of course, that “solution” was preceded by the premier’s developer buddies buying up those specific parcels of land with the foreknowledge that the province was about to lift the development restrictions. The point here is that Ford took a real problem, the housing crisis, and portrayed it as Ontario’s lack of new housing in the Green Belt.

In 2022, the province enacted the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act. At first, it applied to just Toronto and Ottawa, but it has since expanded to 200 Ontario municipalities. Ford says he is going to appoint regional chairs to which many towns and cities will be subordinate. These chairs will work for the premier and not be elected, and they will also possess these extraordinary powers: The Act allows the mayors, and ostensibly regional chairs, to overrule majority votes of municipal councils and to implement what the legislation vaguely describes as “provincial priorities”, i.e., Doug Ford’s will.

A recent Toronto Star analysis found that of the 4,200 strong mayor decisions issued since the law’s inception, only two per cent were aimed at housing creation. Some mayors have actually used their newfound authority to block housing and densification. Doug Ford portended his desire for one person rule in his 2016 autobiography, Ford Nation: Two Brothers, One Vision, where he wrote of his desire for “One person in charge, with veto power, similar to the strong mayoral systems in New York, Chicago, and L.A.” Never mind the housing never materialized, at least the centralized power did. 

The omnibus Justice Act currently in the legislature includes provisions allowing the province to direct police service boards to ensure they adhere to “provincial priorities.” This is an affront to the long-standing principle that the government does not direct the police. The impartiality of law enforcement is critical to a functioning democracy. The potential that a sitting premier could order the arrest of those who disagree with them is too real. Will the premier force the police to arrest drug addicts, vagrants, and that elusive criminal element responsible for fewer crimes? Stay tuned. 

On education, the premier has taken over a raft of school boards for dubious reasons. The “problem” at the Toronto Catholic Board was that the board chair bought themselves a computer monitor and a phone charging cord. The solution: takeover the board and install your own unelected leader. Then maybe sell some surplus school lands to someone you may know, while the real estate market is depressed. 

In each case, Doug Ford oversimplifies a problem and then makes hasty generalizations as a form of verbal manipulation. He then crafts elaborate, overzealous solutions to the strawman problem that invariably results in a nefarious outcome where he benefits with more power for power’s sake.

READ MORE EDITORIALS:

• EDITORIAL: Dougy and the jets (May 2026)
• EDITORIAL: The “Get it Done Act” should get Ford out (Feb. 2024) 
• EDITORIAL: The man who will never be mayor struggles to be premier(Apr. 2026)
• EDITORIAL: Take from the poor and give to the rich (Mar. 2026)
• EDITORIAL: ‘An international relations earthquake’ (Feb. 2026)
• EDITORIAL: Poilievre endorses Trump’s actions; he should never be PM(Jan. 2026)
• EDITORIAL: Toronto has matured; Doug Ford has not (Dec. 2025)
• EDITORIAL: Governing by gut, not facts (Oct./Nov. 2025)
• EDITORIAL: Pierre is in a political pickle (Sept. 2025)
• EDITORIAL: Fact over fiction: Ford’s Bill 212 fails on its merits (Aug. 2025)
• EDITORIAL: No experience necessary managing a school board (July 2025)
• EDITORIAL: Bill 5 recklessly endangers Ontario (May/June 2025)
• EDITORIAL: Thou shalt not park in a bike lane (Apr. 2025)
• EDITORIAL: Bike lane facts Ford knew (Mar. 2025)
• EDITORIAL: Poilievre’s perfect storm (Feb. 2025)
• EDITORIAL: An election designed to distract voters (Jan. 2025)
• EDITORIAL: Bill 212 causes congestion (Dec. 2024)
• EDITORIAL: Fact-checking Ford (Oct./Nov. 2024)
• EDITORIAL: An injection of ignorance (Sept. 2024)
• EDITORIAL: Road safety for some, sometimes (Summer 2024)
• EDITORIAL: Ford’s boozy billion-dollar blunder (June 2024)
• EDITORIAL: Ford needs to step up and lead for once (May 2024)
• EDITORIAL: The Vacant Home Tax: A multi-mayor failure (Apr. 2024)
• EDITORIAL: Ford‘s actions “reflect a juvenile understanding of the role of the judiciary” (Mar. 2024)