"It's never too late to do the right thing."

That was former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty's favourite talking point when forced into a policy reversal — like the cancelling of gas-fired power plants — that left political opponents and pundits accusing him of flip-flopping.

As Premier Doug Ford marks the first anniversary of his election victory this Friday, he is following that tradition of backtracking.

Ford has made a flurry of U-turns, which he justifies with his own climbdown mantra.

"We're a government that listens," he said last week.

His is certainly a government that pays heed to public-opinion polls, protests and petitions.

In contrast to former Tory premier Mike Harris, who remained defiant amid anti-government rallies on the front lawn of Queen's Park a generation ago, Ford likes to be liked.

"Doug is the glass jaw of this government," confides a senior Progressive Conservative government official, speaking confidentially in order to discuss internal deliberations.

"He has a big heart and can be a bit of a soft touch with a sob story," the insider added, noting Ford's penchant for publicly sharing his cellphone number makes him accessible to anyone via text.

Indeed, the premier said Friday he has 1,933 messages on his old BlackBerry Classic phone and he does his "darndest to help everyone."

The Star has learned Ford has quietly paid visits to at least one Toronto hospital — when a patient texted him about the care being given — and a local long-term care facility, where he promised to help the person who contacted him.

He also personally intervened last October when an Ottawa-area man was still being charged by Enbridge for natural gas after his house was destroyed in a tornado. Ford contacted the firm's CEO to ask the company to stop billing the frustrated homeowner.

"When he has trouble sleeping, he stays up reading texts and replying to them," said another Tory source, stressing the premier is able to differentiate between pleas from individuals and organized blitzes by aggrieved groups.

"You guys think 'for the people' is a shtick, but it's not — that's who he is," marvelled the Ford confidante.

As a populist and not an ideological conservative, the premier willingly alters course when the winds change.

That flexibility enabled him last Monday to cancel the retroactive funding cuts to municipalities that adversely affected public health, child care and paramedic services, which Toronto Mayor John Tory claimed would cost the city $177 million annually.

Ford, who suffered a public-relations battering at the hands of Tory and other civic leaders over the cuts, said he wants to "work together collaboratively" with Ontario municipalities.

"I wish we were right 1,000 per cent of the time," he said, conceding that "no one said it was going to be easy" taking office after almost 15 years of Liberal rule.

The policy snafu that has bothered Ford the most was the funding of services for families of children with autism.

In February, the government announced a revamp of the Ontario Autism Program, which was intended to clear a wait-list of more than 20,000 children in need of help.

But that meant clawing back support for children already receiving service, leaving families to largely foot the bill of what can be very expensive behavioural therapies.

And changes to how children qualified, based on age and family income, particularly outraged those in the autism community.

They launched protests — including a huge rally at Queen's Park that could be heard inside the legislature and inundated Tory MPPs and Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod with complaints.

The government scrambled to pour more money into the program and in early May announced consultations that would help shape further reforms to the system, moving toward one based on need.

Nadia Verrelli, a professor of political science at Sudbury's Laurentian University, said the government's recent about-faces are directly a result of its plunging popularity in the polls.

"They are aware of that, so they are responding," she said. "They say they are not — but it's quite coincidental that polls come out showing they aren't as popular as they were when they first got elected, and then they are 'listening.' "

Verrelli said it's likely Ford didn't expect these issues to impact the PC poll numbers.

"It seems to me that if they were listening to parents, to the pressure of parents, (the initial autism) changes would not have been an option," she said.

But these are not fatal errors by the government because "it's the first year of a four-year term," Verrelli added. "Even if it does make them look bad, it's the cycle of politics — the first two years are when you do all the bad things, and the last two years are when you give money back."

"They would have looked worse if they didn't reverse their plans — if they continued to act in defiance of the polls," especially on the autism and public health files. "Because they are responding to that, they can demonstrate, as they are saying, they are listening to the mayors, and listening to families."

Because it's not uncommon for governments to amend plans, she emphasized these instances merely prove "they missed the mark more so than they are unprepared" to be in office.

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Ford's bid to install his friend, Toronto police Supt. Ron Taverner, 72, as Ontario Provincial Police commissioner was a controversial patronage appointment that failed to launch.

Taverner withdrew his bid to be OPP boss amid an ethics investigation that would eventually clear the premier of any wrongdoing but found "troubling aspects" in a "flawed" hiring process.

However, legal action by ousted OPP deputy Brad Blair, who had been hoping for the top job, exposed an embarrassing pitch by Ford's office to secure a police van for the premier's use, equipped with $50,000 in custom upgrades, including a reclining leather couch, a 32-inch flat-screen TV with Blu-ray DVD player and a minifridge.

A retreat that garnered less notice was Ford's campaign vow to "scrap" the sex-education curriculum and redo it.

That was to appease the social conservative supporters who made him PC leader last year.

But after widespread consultations only minor tweaks were made and the health lesson plan being brought to schools next fall is similar to the one Ford crusaded against.

On another educational front, Colleges and Universities Minister Merrilee Fullerton initially announced students could opt-out of ancillary fees that can add as much as $2,000 a year in costs.

However, Fullerton said fees for anything to do with safety, health or wellness — including athletics — would remain mandatory. Soon after, she allowed that transit passes would also be on the list of things students must pay for, because schools need to buy passes in bulk to get discounted rates.

The government has not, however, yet budged when it comes to funding for student governments, which it has accused of being havens for "crazy Marxist nonsense," keeping those fees optional.

In January, Ford's government slammed the brakes on a plan that critics warned would have put Ontario's Greenbelt and prime farmland around Toronto at greater risk of development.

Under the original version of Bill 66, called the Restoring Ontario's Competitiveness Act, municipalities were to be given the power to bypass existing development restrictions to shorten the time it takes to approve and build housing and business projects creating at least 50 jobs.

But the Ontario Federation of Agriculture called it a "direct attack" on family farms and Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark subsequently announced the reversal in a series of three Twitter posts, saying the province "has listened to the concerns raised by MPPs, municipalities, and stakeholders."

There was more backtracking last week when the Ford government bowed to pressure from Toronto's mayor and others by saying a casino at Ontario Place is now "off the table" as options for redevelopment of the former waterfront amusement park continue to be explored.

Finance Minister Vic Fedeli had refused to rule out a gambling house last fall, saying "we're going to look at every single possibility to make that a world-class centre, and I would say nothing is off the table."

The firm rejection of a casino came as the province issued a formal "call for development" seeking submissions from potential developers of the 155-acre site across from the Canadian National Exhibition grounds by Sept. 3.

Speaking to reporters Friday, Ford acknowledged running Canada's second-largest government is complicated — and that things are always fluid.

"There's a lot of moving parts," he said. "It's like drinking from a fire hose."

Robert Benzie is the Star's Queen's Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

Rob Ferguson is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robferguson1

Kristin Rushowy is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow her on Twitter: @krushowy

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