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Doug Ford has a fairly consistent habit of blinking under pressure

I’m been pondering this a lot in recent days. A series of polls have come out, showing that the Ontario PCs are shedding public support fast. That could have played a part in the government’s decision to back down. But I honestly wonder if a better explanation isn’t a savvy campaign by his opponents at Toronto’s city hall. They did all the usual stuff you do in a political spat — they did media interviews and started petitions and tweeted a lot. But they also specifically targeted Ford’s home base — the folks that make up Ford Nation. Toronto released figures breaking down precisely how many childcare spots would be lost in Ford’s home riding, which were repeated over and over by Ford’s critics. Toronto Mayor John Tory shared conversations he’d had with working-class people who were going to be hurt by the cuts.

And, wouldn’t you know it, the cuts were reversed.

Reversing the cuts, at least for now, was a good thing. Making changes mid-year, once budgets and taxes were set, was needlessly disruptive. There’s nothing conservative about blowing up a budget mid-budget. Ontario’s fiscal situation is urgent, but there’s still time to make the necessary changes responsibly.

There's nothing conservative about blowing up a budget mid-budget

That being said, the big picture here is more interesting. Why do the PCs keep finding themselves on the retreat? Why is Ford in particular seemingly so vulnerable?

Because it’s not just the recent reversal. Before this, the Ontario government announced big changes to Ontario’s funding for childhood autism treatment. After sustained backlash from affected families, the province retreated. The province announced major cuts to French-language programs; after Franco-Ontarians loudly protested (including a PC MPP who quit caucus to sit as an independent), the government reversed some (admittedly not all) of the cuts. Just last month, after being bombarded with social media posts from teachers who said they’d been made surplus and let go after Ontario altered the maximum size of a classroom, the government stepped up with $1.6 billion to make sure no teachers lost their jobs.