That Doug Ford raged over his OPP protective detail, and then demanded his own vanity van, is not a federal crime.

Who cares if the man in the van travels in the style to which he is accustomed? So what if he berates the bodyguards who would take a bullet for him?

Ford professes to love cops, but he doesn’t have to love them all. He purports to be the premier for the people, but he is just a person — if not always a people person.

What the premier purports in public, and how he comports in private, are two different things. What matters most is how he distinguishes between private wants and public needs.

The opposition is lampooning the premier’s obsession with a specially customized van, outfitted with fridge and sofa, as a $100,000 “souped-up man cave on wheels.” The media are mocking his profanity-laced outbursts at the Ontario Provincial Police.

Trying to cast Ford as a boorish premier is surely pointless, post-election. Voters long ago sized him up and saddled up.

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People are missing the point. It’s not about his perquisites but his principles.

When Ford lashed out last summer, shortly after taking power, he resented the limits to his power: The premier wanted everyone to obey every caprice and abide by every command without question.

That’s how he rolls, whether in a mobile office or his Queen’s Park office. No one says “no” to Doug Ford — notwithstanding anything.

Which is why, when the premier didn’t like the look of his bodyguards, he let them know.

“I’ve asked for my own detail of officers who I trust already,” Ford griped, according to an OPP officer who emailed the complaint to his superiors.

“It feels like I’m not being heard, like I’m getting f---ed around by the OPP and I’m getting more pissed off,” Ford was quoted as saying. “I’m going to call the commissioner and sort this out. This is the last straw.”

The target of his outburst was then-commissioner Vince Hawkes: “If I have to, I will drive up there to see him face-to-face so he can see how serious I am about this. If he can’t sort this out then maybe a new commissioner can make it happen.”

The complaints emerged in a recent court filing by Brad Blair, the deputy commissioner who took over from Hawkes temporarily last fall and applied for the permanent job, but lost out to a longtime friend of the Ford family, Ron Taverner. Like many others within the OPP and outside the force, Blair expressed incredulity that the government had hired someone who didn’t qualify for the original competition because he lacked the required managerial experience (the job specifications were downgraded days later, whereupon, mysteriously, the previously unqualified Taverner emerged as the most qualified). The integrity commissioner is now investigating.

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Cronyism can’t contaminate the commissioner’s office at the OPP, which must maintain its independence. It may one day be called upon to investigate wrongdoing by the premier’s office (as happened under the Liberals), and the chief must speak truth to power, not be indebted to it.

The point is that Ford’s outburst last summer suggests a turning point in his thinking: “Maybe a new commissioner can make it happen.”

Which takes us to the premier’s peculiar obsession with a customized van, and his stated preference for driving versus flying:

“I’m the only premier in history that refuses to use the premier’s plane,” Ford protested this week, referring to the King Air turboprop operated by the ministry of natural resources.

Never mind that Ford flew on a chartered jet for a northern swing last fall. (A spokesperson noted the Progressive Conservatives paid the costs because of a party event along the way.)

In fairness to Ford, all he seeks is a van. He doesn’t aspire to the armoured trains that ferry North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to international summits.

Should we begrudge him seeking Wi-Fi in his dream van? Do we belittle him for wanting an old-fashioned DVD player after visiting the Mississauga customization company?

Surely our premier deserves Wi-Fi connectivity, or Blu-ray DVDs to unplug. Let the man have his van to see his fans.

There’s little point fussing about Ford using the F-word to his bodyguards. Worry when he mucks with police independence.

Don’t bemoan his aspirations for a single customized van in the OPP fleet. Beware his ambitions to remodel the entire force to his own tastes.

When you strip away the leather seats and customized couch, there’s a message Ford needs to hear:

As premier, and leader of the PCs, it’s your party and you can fly or drive if you want to. Just don’t take the province for a ride by giving your crony the keys to the entire OPP fleet and force.

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