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Relief is here, premier-designate Doug Ford told his raucous new caucus at Queen’s Park on Tuesday morning as they prepare to take over the provincial government next week.

Ford gave a quickie version of his stump speech from the Progressive Conservatives’ successful campaign before closing the meeting of six dozen Tory MPPs, most of them raw rookies, to outsiders.

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“We’ll be the envy of North America when it comes to business, when it comes to creating jobs, when it comes to living in the greatest place on Earth, and that’s Ontario,” he promised.

Let’s take stock.

Ford’s big promise is jobs, especially manufacturing jobs. Ontario’s unemployment rate is 5.7 per cent, nearly the lowest it’s been in a generation, but with big disparities between urban areas and more rural ones. Manufacturing employment specifically is down about 300,000 jobs over the past 15 years.

Reversing this will not be easy, if it’s possible at all.