TORONTO – Ontario Premier Doug Ford said being worked like a “rented mule” prevented him from getting involved in the federal election.

Ford, who stayed out of the public eye for much of the Canadian election, said he told Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer that he was too busy fixing a mess he inherited.

“I was very clear with Andrew right from the beginning. I said ‘Andrew, I can’t get involved. I’m not going to get involved. I’m busy fixing the mess that we inherited and we are going to continue doing that and the hard work is paying off,” Ford said three days after Canadians elected a Liberal minority government.

In his first interview since Canadian voters took to the polls, Ford told CP24 his staff has been working him extremely hard since the provincial legislature began its extended break back in June. The legislature is set to resume on Oct. 28.

He added that Scheer never actually asked him to get involved in his campaign.

“Never once did he ask me to,” Ford said. “Right at the beginning of the campaign I told him, ‘I’m too busy. I can’t get involved. Good luck.’”

In the outcome of the Oct. 21 election, the majority of Ontario ridings turned red, including all 25 in Toronto.

When asked if campaigning alongside Scheer would have changed that outcome at all, Ford said Canada is in a “real tough situation right now,” as it is more divided than ever before.

“I can’t say that, I’m just busy fixing the mess that we inherited and making sure that we focus on jobs and that’s what we did,” he said.

“What we did see in this election is that this country is divided like I’ve never seen before. We are going to unite this country. Ontario has to step up and unite this country. What I always say is that what’s good for Canada is good for Ontario and what’s good for Ontario is good for Canada.”

Ford says he has confidence in Trudeau

Looking back on the campaign trail, which led to a victory for Trudeau, Ford said he thinks the prime minister did a “very good job.”

“As a matter of fact, I support all the leaders,” he said. “People don’t realize how hard it is no matter if it’s the NDP, Green, PC, Libs they all work very hard so I have a great deal of respect.”

Ford said he spoke with Trudeau the day after the election.

“We had a good conversation and I was pretty blunt, I told him ‘we are done with the politics now, I get it, not a problem,’” he said. “People expect us to work together.”

Ford added that there are “some common areas” the pair agree on.

“We can be collaborative with each other,” he said. “We have $144 billion worth of infrastructure and $90 billion of that is going into roads and bridges and transit throughout the province.”

“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a lot of promises and I’m going to assure you that I’m going to hold him to those promises to make sure he fulfills them and supports the people of Ontario.”

I want to congratulate Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau on his re-election, and congratulate all federal leaders on a hard fought campaign to ensure Canadians' voices are heard on the important issues facing this country. #onpoli #cdnpoli #elxn43 — Doug Ford (@fordnation) October 22, 2019

When it comes to hard feelings between the premier and the prime minister, Ford said he’s been in the game long enough that he is able to “put the politics aside.”

“They can say what they want but at the end of the day a tremendous amount of people that voted for him, voted for me.”

Ford went on to praise Trudeau’s commitment to helping fund the provincial government’s planned Ontario Line subway project.

“People in this province expect all three levels of government to work together no matter what political strip they come from.”

Throughout his campaign, Trudeau repeatedly invoked Ford’s name and policy decisions when warning voters of the consequences of electing a Conservative government.

Speaking publicly for the first time since being elected back into office, Trudeau said he is ready to work with Ford on issues affecting Ontario residents.

“We had a very cordial conversation and we agreed that we need to work on the priorities of Canadians,” Trudeau said in French through an interpreter.

Controversies during campaign trail

While Ford stayed out of the limelight during the campaign, controversies arose within the Liberal and Conservative parties that Ford had not commented on at the time.

Speaking on Thursday, Ford responded to questions of how he reacted to a photo of Trudeau in brownface and Scheer having dual citizenship with the United States.

“That was the prime minister deciding to do that and it was a mistake, he apologized, and let’s move forward, the people decided we are going to move forward and focus on governing, not worrying about those other personal issues,” he said.

“There’s a lot of Canadians that have dual citizenship from all over the world actually so that was up to him (Scheer) and I guess he revoked that, but, again, people don’t worry about that, they worry about having good health care, having good education, jobs, that’s the most important thing to people.”

Ford says he will continue to fight carbon tax

Meanwhile, following Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath urging the premier to “back away” from his carbon tax court challenge, Ford said he’s still going to continue pursing it.

“We’ll see it through and see what happens,” he said.

“We have a good plan and we are going to stick to it. We don’t believe in taxing people, we believe in putting money back in people’s pockets.”

On Wednesday, Horwath said the federal election showed that people are concerned about climate change from coast-to-coast.

“Here we have Mr. Ford still fighting against the environment. He needs to back away from that, drop that wasted energy and time.”

For the last year Doug Ford has wasted millions in public money on a partisan campaign against putting a price on pollution.



Stop wasting money.

Stop wasting time.⏲️

Stop wasting energy.⚡️



Start fighting the climate crisis to win. https://t.co/PibxD7XWyI — Andrea Horwath (@AndreaHorwath) October 23, 2019

Ford’s Progressive Conservatives promised to spend $30 million to fight the federal government’s price on carbon emissions and mounted a court challenge soon after taking office.

“We have a great plan,” Ford said on Thursday. “We have to make sure life is more affordable, making sure we are more competitive in business.”

In June, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled against the Ford government arguing that tackling climate change is a federal responsibility and that the government is imposing a regulatory charge, not a tax on emitters – a decision that Ontario is appealing to the Supreme Court.

Horwath called the challenge a bad first step.

“You don’t start a new relationship with a newly-elected government by bringing back your court challenge on carbon taxes,” she said.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trudeau said climate change is a top priority for Canadians right now.

“They returned us to government but with a clear requirement to work with our priorities that Canadians spoke clearly to during the election campaign, particularly affordability and climate change,” he said.

The newly re-elected prime minister said he’s going to “take the time necessary” to reflect on how to best serve Canadians in fighting the issue of climate change.