Campaigns matter. They test the major party leaders under stress and duress, forcing them to face voters, supporters and reporters.

A leader’s tour requires dexterity and clarity — and scrutiny. Leaders tour the province day after day to deliver their message — not always on message — and a leader who fails to measure up does not deserve to be premier.

Voters are judges, but how to exercise judgment if you cannot bear witness by attending any campaign events, let alone all of them? That’s why reporters shadow the leaders — to bear witness, hold them to account, question their claims, and report the news.

Against that backdrop, last week’s news that Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford has cancelled his party’s chartered media bus for the campaign is as revealing as it is concealing.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

If a politician falters on the stump and no journalist is around to record it, does it make the news?

That’s one of the reasons why reporters pay their way to join media charters that piggyback on party leaders during a campaign. It’s not just to grab the gotcha moment, but to provide context and consistency.

In Ford’s case, limiting access to journalists is part of an emerging pattern since becoming leader. His staff typically cut off his news conferences after four or five questions, deploying damage control measures when he loses his way.

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Ford owes the media nothing, and reporters will doubtless find their own way, hopscotching across the province to keep up. But his attempt to dial down access speaks volumes.

By contrast, it speaks well of Ford’s predecessor as PC leader, Patrick Brown, that he approved carefully laid plans for a media charter similar to what the Liberals and New Democrats are organizing. Instead of a convoy of buses, the NDP’s Andrea Horwath is making the most of a shrunken press corps by sharing one bus, giving reporters even more access.

So what is Ford’s play here? He doesn’t play well with others, especially journalists.

Consider Ford’s past outbursts against three female journalists, calling one a “lazy ass” (while pregnant), another a “little bitch,” and accusing a third of a “jihadist attack.” Is proximity to the press a provocation?

Or consider Ford’s penchant for wandering onto unfamiliar territory, even on home turf. At a weekend meeting with Somali-Canadians in Toronto, he praised a police anti-gang initiative that gained notoriety for the discredited tactic of “carding” visible minorities (triggering a minor uproar at the meeting, video of which has gone vaguely viral).

Explaining why he’d be the only major party leader to skip a Black community debate on Wednesday, he pleaded a busy travel schedule — and then got carried away boasting, shamelessly, about his unrivalled bona fides: “There’s no other politician in this country — no other politician outside of Rob Ford — who has supported the Black community more than I have.”

Doubtless he’d rather not be seen by reporters handing out $20 bills to adult tenants at a Toronto Community Housing Building, as he did while a municipal councillor (he hung up on a Toronto Star reporter who asked about it in 2013).

Or Ford might have to explain why he kept quiet about new allegations that Tory MPP Michael Harris was sexting a Queen’s Park intern seeking employment. Despite boasts of “zero tolerance” and immediate action, Ford still hasn’t explained why he waited nearly three days — and allowed Harris to claim health reasons for not running again — before expelling him from the PC caucus hours after the Star’s Robert Benzie made inquiries Monday morning.

Doubtless he’d rather not be asked again about a 2013 Globe and Mail story alleging he was a drug dealer selling hashish up until about age 22 in his Etobicoke neighbourhood. Ford denied the accusations and later threatened to sue (the Globe says he never did).

It’s a safe bet that PC campaign headquarters is worried voters might rehash the hash question in the coming election campaign, given that it came up in the recent leadership campaign. Just ask Ford spokesperson Melissa Lantsman, who was supporting rival candidate Caroline Mulroney when he launched his bid for the top job in his mother’s basement:

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“Is this the same basement where Doug Ford sold hash out of?” Lantsman tweeted last January.

Was she questioning a questionable past? Lantsman now tells me it was a “tongue in cheek tweet during the height of a leadership race,” when she wasn’t yet supporting her current boss. “Leaderships are tough races, and once they are over we always come together ... I’m proud to serve on Doug Ford’s team.”

But why delete the tweet later if it was just a joke? “Nothing to add,” said Lantsman, whose current job title is “Head of War Room Communications” — a reference to the party’s campaign operation at headquarters.

Whether the tweet was tongue in cheek or too close to the bone, Lantsman’s War Room has grounded the media bus. Be that as it may, the best way to prevent any politician from taking voters for a ride is to remember that campaigns matter.

Martin Regg Cohn is a columnist based in Toronto covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @reggcohn

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