Last year, while Conservative MPs in London held a confidence vote on Theresa May’s leadership, in Ontario, Conservative MPPs (Members of Provincial Parliament) were competing with each other to be the first to leap up and give rousing standing ovations each time the populist premier, Doug Ford, or one of his cabinet ministers spoke in the house.

Although Ontario’s parliament was modelled on Westminster, the contrast could not be greater. While the British parliament continuously puts checks on its leader’s power, in Ontario, the premier’s rule is so absolute that it’s been revealed that Ford’s chief of staff, Dean French, watches for Conservative MPPs who do not quickly leap to their feet for ovations.

Six months ago, running on a rightwing populist platform that was long on rhetoric but short on specifics, Doug Ford, the elder brother of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, was elected with a majority Conservative government. Ford has hit the ground running. Claiming a strong mandate for his non-existent platform, Ford has eliminated environmental, worker and consumer protections, cut public services, cut education funding, and teed up public assets for a mass selloff. These typically neoconservative policies are concerning, but what’s truly frightening about Ford’s reign is the way he is concentrating power in his own office and is trampling over the democratic norms of Ontario’s parliament.

In his first six months in office, he has subverted municipal elections, voted to suspend the charter rights of the people of Ontario, fired government watchdogs, made himself the arbiter of what is “free” speech on college and university campuses, opened the door for corporate funding of his next campaign, appointed his friend as commissioner of the Ontario provincial police, and appointed political allies to lucrative posts while firing political opponents.

The most egregious breach of Ontario’s democratic norms occurred when Ford changed the rules of several municipal elections in the middle of the campaign period to satisfy personal vendettas. In mid-campaign, he cancelled some regional chair elections that left his political rival and former Conservative leader, Patrick Brown, three months and thousands of dollars into an election campaign that no longer existed. Ford also changed Toronto’s city council election from a race for 47 seats to a race for 25, a move that allowed him to exact revenge against some of the progressive councillors who, eight years ago, had stripped his brother, then mayor Rob Ford, of his powers when Rob’s addiction to crack cocaine became public.

But Ford went further than just cancelling elections and changing rules mid-campaign. When his election interference was challenged in court, he introduced a new bill to circumvent the court decision by suspending the charter rights and freedoms of the people of Ontario. That bill went through a first reading and was dutifully supported by all Conservative MPPs, although when a 77-year-old woman was taken from the public gallery in handcuffs for protesting about the suspension of her charter rights, the Conservatives’ ovations and applause were somewhat muted.

Ford has also trampled over the separation between politicians and police. On 17 October, the day cannabis became legal in Canada, Dean French reportedly instructed the police to raid cannabis shops because he wanted to see “people in handcuffs” on the TV news. Ford then appointed his longtime family friend Ron Taverner as the new Ontario provincial police commissioner – the force that is responsible for investigating any potential wrongdoing by the government or the premier himself.

Although Ontario’s legislature has 124 elected members, only Ford is calling the shots. His municipal election interference bill was drawn up without consulting the ministry of municipal affairs, and when the bill to suspend Ontarians’ charter rights was announced, even the attorney general seemed surprised, although she dutifully defended the direction set by Ford’s office.

But no matter the scandals or even the forced-march vote to suspend charter rights, Ontario’s Conservative caucus cannot call for a vote of non-confidence in the leader. By Conservative party rules, Ford can only be taken from his position through “death, retirement or resignation”.

Under Ford, a majority government is translating into a four-year elected tyranny. The glimmer of hope in all of this is that people are starting to mobilise and there is renewed interest in replacing first-past-the-post elections with proportional representation, a move that would prevent a repeat of the one-man rule Ontario is currently suffering.

Chris Glover is an opposition MPP in the Ontario legislature with the New Democratic party



