What a difference a five-month break can make.

MPPs return to Queen’s Park after the longest recess in a quarter century to a different political landscape in Ontario.

Since they last convened on June 6, Premier Doug Ford has radically altered his cabinet, shuffling 12 ministers and demoting his former finance minister just 10 weeks after tabling the Progressive Conservatives’ first budget.

Ford has also parted ways with his controversial chief of staff, Dean French, who resigned suddenly in June after a cronyism scandal erupted.

Most significantly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals were re-elected — albeit with a minority — thanks largely to Ontario voters.

Privately, some Conservative MPPs were rattled by the Oct . 21 results because Trudeau made the campaign in Ontario a referendum on Ford and his government’s policies.

The prime minister, who has since reached out to the premier and pledged to work together, successfully used him to frighten voters away from federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.

Ford, who abandoned a controversial push to reform regional government on Friday and averted a strike by unionized school support workers this month, appears to have gotten the message that his 16-month-old administration needs a reboot.

“The tone has to change,” the premier said in exclusive interview at the Star’s Queen’s Park offices.

“I think all of us, when you first come into the job, you take off out of the gates and then you learn. You learn by your mistakes,” said Ford, who has professionalized his office since French’s departure, installing Jamie Wallace, a respected former Toronto Sun executive and one-time Queen’s Park press gallery president, as his chief.

“If I can use this word, we all mature in the role that we’re in and you just try not to make the same mistakes,” he added.

That should be welcome news to spooked Tory MPPs, who admit they heard lots of complaints about the Ford government during their five-month sojourn.

Speaking confidentially in order to discuss internal deliberations, one said the provincial Conservatives should be mindful of the lessons from last Monday’s federal election.

“We’ve got a big problem if this continues — it will be a bloodbath in 2022,” said the MPP, already fearing the next provincial election.

In the so-called “Ford nation” belt of ridings in Etobicoke, Mississauga, and Scarborough, the Liberals romped to victory, sweeping every one.

Even in the premier’s home constituency of Etobicoke North, where Ford last year received 19,055 votes — or an impressive 52.5 per cent of those cast — Liberal Science Minister Kirsty Duncan received 26,147 votes, an even more remarkable 61.3 per cent.

Despite the sobering results, Ford, who delayed the resumption of the legislature from its planned return Sept. 9 to help the federal Tories, insisted he didn’t cause Scheer to get thumped by Trudeau in Ontario.

The premier said the same voters who elected him in 2018 re-elected the prime minister last week and they expect the two levels of government to “work together.”

“They understand that during the campaign you’re out there, you’re going back and forth. But as soon as you get in government they don’t want to see the fighting. They want to see people working together,” he said.

“Governing is always hard. We have a packed agenda moving forward.”

As the fall legislative session begins, Ford said he is “hopeful” a negotiated settlement can be achieved with teachers to avoid job action.

On Nov. 6, Finance Minister Rod Phillips, who the premier tapped to replace Vic Fedeli four months ago, will table the fall economic statement, which is expected to show the books are in better shape than predicted.

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As a sop to Fedeli, now economic development minister, he will continue to sit beside the premier in the legislature in the place traditionally occupied by the treasurer. Phillips will sit a few chairs away.

One person who should welcome Ford’s promised change in tone is Speaker Ted Arnott, who has asked MPPs to dial down their rambunctious behaviour in the house.

Arnott, who was elected as a Tory MPP but does not caucus with the governing party, is fed up with the “repeated and contrived standing ovations” during the legislature’s daily question period.

He said such cheerleading does “not lead us to a higher standard of parliamentary decorum.”

The Tories are not the only party in the house that will be doing some soul-searching.

Over the summer, the Liberals lost two of their seven MPPs.

Nathalie Des Rosiers retired to become the principal of Massey College at the University of Toronto and Marie-France Lalonde jumped to federal politics as the newly elected Liberal MP for Orleans.

Byelections will be held over the winter in Ottawa-Vanier and Orleans to elect their replacements and the Liberals, who were in power from 2003 until Ford’s Tories wiped them out last year, will choose a new leader on March 7.

The official opposition New Democrats also face challenges after the federal NDP fared poorly in Ontario last week, failing to win any Toronto seats and losing two Windsor-area ridings, one to the Liberals and another to the Conservatives.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath repeatedly evaded questions on what that means for her party heading into the next provincial election, saying “I’m going to leave that punditry up to you folks to try to figure out what exactly happened there.”

She called for an end to the “gratuitous applauding” by government members of their colleagues in question period, which has too often inflamed debate.

“What I would hope is that everybody goes into the legislature, including Mr. Ford and his cabinet and all of the government members — and my own — with our big girl and big boy pants on and behaving like adults.”

Green Leader Mike Schreiner, who has shunned the raucous behaviour in the legislature, said he hopes an improved tone can lead to more co-operation on issues like the environment, climate change and housing.

“We must all do better — the government and opposition parties — to find common ground,” he said. “We were elected to build Ontario up, not tear each other down. I will continue to put collaboration over confrontation, solutions over attacks.”

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

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