Premier Doug Ford appears to have a problem with boos.

Ford, who marks the first anniversary of his swearing-in a week this Saturday, was lustily booed at the Toronto Raptors’ victory celebration.

In contrast to the welcome for Mayor John Tory and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who were cheered by much of the throng at Nathan Phillips Square on Monday, the premier was greeted with boos and profane chants.

The poor reception has senior Conservative strategists worried about what might come next.

“The danger,” said one Ford loyalist, speaking confidentially in order to discuss internal deliberations, “is that people just tune you out.”

Monday’s boos followed the ignominy of Ford being jeered at the opening of the Special Olympics at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on May 14 and at the Collision international technology conference at the Enercare Centre on May 21.

The public displays come after seven polls in the past six weeks suggest Ford’s popularity is declining in the wake of the April 11 budget that announced numerous program cuts.

Pollster John Corbett, the first to track Ford’s plunge in a survey for the Star on May 6, was not surprised by the negative reception at one of the largest public gatherings in Canadian history with some people saying there may have been as many as 2 million people along the parade route.

“He’s really, really unpopular,” Corbett said Tuesday, noting his own polling shows Ford’s personal approval rating has dropped 11 percentage points in the past month and now sits at -53 per cent.

Only 18 per cent approve of his performance with 71 per cent disapproving and 11 per cent unsure.

“It’s not an arithmetical progression the way his popularity has been plummeting — it’s much more an exponential decline in popularity,” said the president of Corbett Communications.

“Eleven points in a month. You can’t get much below 15 per cent popularity, you just can’t,” he said, pointing to Ford’s 18 per cent approval.

Using Maru/Blue’s Maru Voice Canada online panel, Corbett Communications surveyed 1,555 Ontario voters June 4-5. It is an opt-in sample, but for comparison purposes a randomly selected sample of this size would have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Corbett said Ford, whose name was trending on Twitter after the jeers, should be concerned about where those boos came from at the Raptors’ celebration.

“A lot of the people in that square weren’t just Torontonians. They were from Oakville and Burlington and Barrie … and York Region — not just the city of Toronto,” he said, noting GO Transit announced that ridership for the parade far exceeded normal weekday levels of 200,000 commuters.

With Conservative MPPs representing most of those ridings in the 905 and the 705, that response should be considered “shocking,” added Corbett.

The senior Conservative strategists agree the boo-birds could be like canaries in a coal mine, a warning sign of things to come. They point to former NDP premier Bob Rae being jeered at the SkyDome after the Toronto Blue Jays won the 1992 World Series.

“We saw that with Bob Rae. People just stopped listening to him and he couldn’t catch a break for years,” the PC insider said.

Mindful the booing bothers Ford — a populist who styled his administration as “the government for the people” — opponents have started an online campaign to text “booooo” to the cellphone number he gives out publicly.

“Over a million people booed #Ontario Premier #DougFord at Nathan Phillips Square today, but why stop there?!” the Twitter blitz says.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The premier, who will be on a campaign-style swing in Sudbury on Wednesday, has been low-key since the house rose on June 6 until Oct. 28.

“We have work to do. We are not out there celebrating because we have a tremendous amount of work to do,” Ford said June 7.

“It’s going to be a very busy …summer.”

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

Read more about: