Honeymoons come and go with the political season. With good reason.

A year ago, Doug Ford savoured his summer of love. Riding high in the polls, our new premier could do no wrong as he veered right with two key promises:

Buck-a-beer. Cheap gas.

Both were founded on falsehoods designed to buy votes no matter the cost, but Ford staked enormous political capital and personal credibility on these campaign promises. They embodied Ford’s brand as a man of the people who claimed to helm Ontario’s “Government For the People.”

A year later, the numbers aren’t looking good for Ford — both fiscal and political. Virtually every opinion poll shows Ford’s popularity has plummeted as his credibility has dissipated — not least because two of his signature promises from last year lie in ruins today.

First, the false promise of cheap beer:

Ford’s campaign team seized on the buck-a-beer slogan to build on Ford’s man-of-the-people persona — notwithstanding his abstinence from alcohol — while conveying his sensitivity to pocketbook issues, no matter how picayune. But the fine print of the promise told a different story.

In fact, the Tories weren’t promising beer at $1 a can, just the possibility of it — by removing an old Liberal minimum pricing policy designed to discourage excess consumption (akin to higher cigarette prices reducing smoking). Whatever your views on beer pricing as social engineering, Ford’s promise was premised on a fatal flaw — an outdated price point.

By 2018, most brewers could not realistically produce beer for a buck. When the new PC government realized there were almost no sellers at that price, it frantically tried to induce brewers to do its bidding — by giving away promotional opportunities and LCBO preferences for free (in other words, at government expense) to promote buck-a-beer.

A new report by Jessica Smith Cross in the Star’s sister publication, Queen’s Park Briefing, details the panic that set in as Ford plunged ahead. When reporters asked about the cost to the province, the LCBO stalled for time — but internal emails released under a freedom of information request show that generous incentives were granted at the treasury’s expense in a desperate attempt to make more brewers bite.

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Only three companies ever participated, albeit briefly, because no amount of political rhetoric or government subsidies could overcome business realities: It costs about 34 cents just for the can — without the beer, labour and transportation expenses — leaving brewers with margins (or losses) that were unsustainable.

Which is why buck-a-beer came up empty. Ford’s second empty promise — cheaper gas — also didn’t add up:

Campaigning for the PC leadership in early 2018, Ford seized on “Ax the tax” as a slogan to drive a wedge among Tories whose party had previously backed carbon pricing — promising to spare them the estimated 4.4-cent-a-litre cost. But the numbers tell a wildly different story.

When he won the June 2018 election, Toronto gas prices averaged 131.9 cents a litre; five months later, by the time Ford finally got around to cancelling cap and trade, gas prices had already tumbled to 114.5 cents without him doing anything, and bottomed out at 92.7 cents a litre last February (according to gasbuddy.com). To put that in perspective, Ford’s overblown promise to deliver a 4.4-cent reduction was dwarfed by the real-world plunge in gas prices of 39.2 cents a litre during that period.

By dismantling cap and trade, Ford automatically triggered a federal carbon tax backstop to replace it — leaving motorists no further ahead. Predictably, just before the federal tax kicked in on April 1, Ford and most cabinet ministers issued social media alerts urging people to fill up to save big money — but once again, market pricing put the lie to carbon pricing. In fact, prices went up far more than the amount attributable to a carbon tax — peaking at 130.4 cents in late April before tumbling back down 113.4 cents a litre last week (when it spontaneously dropped by just over 4 cents — roughly the amount Ford fussed over with the carbon tax).

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The bigger point, which puts the lie to Ford’s misplaced hype over the past year, is that global market forces matter more than a premier’s force of will. Yet rather than accept political and economic realities, Ford has budgeted $30 million for a bizarre campaign to fight the federal carbon tax with an advertising campaign and legal battle.

The false promise of buck-a-beer and cheaper gas are not the only explanations for Ford’s honeymoon ending so fast. It takes a special persona to be booed at a Special Olympics event, a high-tech conference, a Raptors victory celebration, and a Rolling Stones concert (when Mick Jagger invoked his name).

Politicians who overpromise and under-deliver invite disillusionment, because voters want their leaders to lead. Not mislead.

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