TORONTO, ON – Ontario Premier Doug Ford is claiming responsibility for torrential rains that Tuesday night, saying he summoned the chaotic weather event to “punish Toronto residents for their insubordination”.

The summoning, which battered the city for three hours, comes in response to protests regarding Ford’s recent City Council cuts. The rains were reportedly summoned during business hours Tuesday afternoon, using an arcane ancient ritual of unspecified and likely necromantic origin. According to anonymous sources, Ford prepared by “burning the Toronto flag and smoking the ashes.”

Ford reportedly targeted his mystical deluge at services he has previous expressed disdain for, namely public transit. Sources close to the premier report that, upon seeing footage of trapped streetcars and flooded subway stations, he bellowed “And thus, our mighty SUVs shall do donuts around the TTC’s watery grave”, then proceeded to cackle maniacally for twenty-five minutes.

Toronto Hydro similarly lost its power supply from Hydro One at approximately 9:30pm, causing blackouts for nearly 16,000 residents. Premier Ford released a statement today, reminding us that the power was quite literally in his hands.

The flooding was found almost exclusively in Liberal or NDP ridings, which may have been strategic, though some experts speculate that was just a byproduct of focusing the rains on Toronto, given almost no ridings voted for him.

“I’m somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that my tax dollars are going towards biblical revenge,” says one High Park resident. “If Doug Ford wants to smite people, that’s fine, but not on the public’s dime.”

“May the floods scour the streets of disloyalty, and cleanse those who may still pledge fealty to the false Gods, Wynne and Horwath,” Ford said in his official statement, delivered from Etobicoke by raven Wednesday morning. “May your fields be washed of sin and may the rains sow seeds to nourish the dawning of a new day in Ford Nation.”

Ford’s communications department has dispatched an email to conservative party members, warning them to prepare for future plagues, with helpful instructions on how to use their buck-a-beer empties to build rafts.

Queen’s park insiders report that Ford is searching for his next plague with which to smite Toronto, and is considering boils, locusts, or personally-administered noogies.