0:31 Raptors victory parade: Doug Ford walks onstage to thunderous boos

Raptors victory parade: Doug Ford walks onstage to thunderous boos

And if you don’t believe the polls, go back to the footage of Ford being introduced to a million Raptors fans earlier this week at Nathan Phillips Square and listen to the loud and lusty boos as Ford was introduced. Sources say this cabinet shuffle was already in the works before Monday’s Raptors celebration, but the hostile reaction of a Toronto crowd to this Toronto-based premier surely sealed all deals.His government’s unpopularity starts with an unpopular budget and subsequent bungling by the government in marketing whatever virtues were in that budget. It has not even been three months since Fedeli tabled that budget, and clearly, someone in Ford’s inner circle was blaming him for that.But blame should have also gone to the rookie MP Peter Bethlenfalvy who, as president of the Treasury Board, badly managed its implementation. It’s no secret around Queen’s Park that Bethlenfavly, a former Bay Street banker, had been actively campaigning for Fedeli’s job, but in this shuffle, he should consider himself fortunate not to have been moved.

READ MORE: Premier Doug Ford to shuffle his cabinet on Thursday

0:24 ‘Autism isn’t the largest file, but it’s the most sensitive’: Ford

‘Autism isn’t the largest file, but it’s the most sensitive’: Ford

1:06 Ford comments on former Ontario Finance Minister Victor Fedeli’s cabinet move

Ford comments on former Ontario Finance Minister Victor Fedeli’s cabinet move

Ford’s government has predictably picked fights with public-sector unions. To conservatives, that’s a virtue, not a failing. It’s less virtuous for much of the general electorate. But, unpredictably and with rather disastrous results for Ford’s personal popularity, the government also picked fights with parents of autistic children.And it was not just the picking of the fight with parents, it was the way his minister on that file, Lisa MacLeod, carried on that fight, demonizing these parents and belittling their concerns. She was demoted Thursday, losing the post of social services minister as Ford put her in charge of tourism. Ford, trying to make the best of it, noted that MacLeod will now oversee fixing up Ontario Place.Lisa Thompson is out as education minister after Ford’s inner circle finally conceded there was no worse communicator in his cabinet than Thompson and to have any chance of avoiding an all-out war with the province’s teachers, someone else needed to have the file.Stepping into the education file is Stephen Lecce who, at just 32 years old, narrowly eclipses the feat of the legendary former Ontario premier Bill Davis, who took that very same job when he was just 33. Lecce is clearly a rising star and has considerable political juice as a result of this appointment.The Davis comparison— which TVO host Steve Paikin first pointed out — may yet be a little early, but there was another successful Ontario conservative politician sitting in the swearing-in room Thursday at Queen’s Park to whom Lecce may be compared. That would be John Baird, who had just turned 30 when Mike Harris made him his minister of community and social services back in 1999. Baird, of course, would go on to become Stephen Harper’s reliable “Mr. Fixit” in the federal cabinet. Lecce himself also worked for Harper as a communications aide.The other politician to now watch in Ford’s cabinet is Rod Phillips, who had been the province’s environment minister and is now the finance minister. On the environment file, Phillips demonstrated that not only could he take a difficult file, master it and communicate his brief effectively but that he also was a true team player. (One Queen’s Park watcher told me that too many ministers look like hostages when dealing with the Queen’s Park press gallery, but not Phillips.)Ford has three years until his next date with the same voters who booed him on Monday. If he’d like to change their opinion, he would be wise to discount the counsel of his own staff — the ones that got him in this mess in the first place — and spend more time listening to the counsel of ministers Phillips and Lecce.David Akin is the chief political correspondent for Global News.