With his over-the-top patronage pork, Doug Ford has hit bottom.

Or has he? Let’s dig a little deeper into the premier who once vowed to “Stop the gravy train” but got caught licking his chops — and now claims to have cleaned up his act.

The scandal erupted last month when four cronies were posted as the province’s trade envoys abroad. Two of them were personal pals of Dean French, the premier’s longtime comrade-in-arms and chief of staff (until French took the fall for the fiasco).

The new agent-general for New York turned out to be a 20-something lacrosse player named Tyler Albrecht — a pal of French’s lacrosse-playing son. The London plum went to Taylor Shields, a cousin of French’s wife.

The official story is that once Ford learned the tawdry family details — you know, from the media — he made things right. Thanks to his single-minded ire, the two hires were fired — and French was finished.

But there’s more to the story than that.

Read more:

Dean French drops libel lawsuit against MPP Randy Hillier

Ford’s chief of staff orchestrated pension board shakeup the day before he resigned

Doug Ford revamps campaign team after ‘French connection’ cronyism scandal

First, no one is plucked into public service at the whim of one man, one chief of staff, one scapegoat. In our collective system of cabinet government, any and all so-called “order-in-council” appointments such as these are scrutinized and approved by the premier and his Council of Ministers.

Neither the devil nor Dean French made them do it. They did it to themselves — and us.

The idea that Ford was blindsided by French, and that cabinet didn’t see this coming, is as laughable as it is execrable. They signed up to do better than just sign off on patronage pigginess without a second thought — until they got caught.

In the aftermath, Ford ordered a fresh review of recent appointments (having forgotten that he was in charge from the first). Several of the most egregious hirings have been reversed, yet the premier has yet to rescind the two other American postings he made last month:

The new Dallas agent-general will be Jag Badwal, who “has more than 23 years of experience in real estate,” according to the news release. No other relevant professional qualifications cited, possibly because they forgot to note Badwal’s years of faithful service on the Progressive Conservative executive, culminating with his role as party president last year.

The new Chicago envoy will be Earl Provost, for whom the press release suggests ample government experience but omits one salient fact: He was chief of staff to the premier’s late brother, Rob Ford, when he was mayor of Toronto.

Quite apart from the patronage angle, why are we dispatching new envoys — to the U.S. and U.K., of all places — to hold the hands of entrepreneurs and investors? After all, Americans and Britons speak our language — not just English, but economic openness.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Have your say

These are not emerging markets. We are not talking about Sukarno’s Indonesia or Mao’s China in the 1960s, when the phones didn’t work and business was transacted at a government-to-government level; back then, trade envoys opened doors for our entrepreneurs.

If an emerging Ontario business truly depends on a newly arrived realtor like Badwal or a repurposed Ford factotum like Provost to help them find their way in Dallas or Chicago, our economy is doomed.

Ontario once bankrolled a network of 17 international offices around the world, including Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Frankfurt and Milan. In the 1980s, one could stroll in London’s high-rent district past Ontario House, Maison du Quebec, Nova Scotia House and offices from the Prairie provinces — all competing for attention and, allegedly, business. There were six rival provincial offices in Hong Kong, and five separate posts in Tokyo.

Isn’t that why we have federal embassies and high commissions abroad?

Our last premier, Kathleen Wynne, appointed ex-Liberal minister Monique Smith to be Ontario’s representative in Washington, at the very time that our federal government had sent David MacNaughton — a former principal secretary to Wynne’s predecessor, Dalton McGuinty — to be our ambassador to the U.S. Surely MacNaughton could simultaneously safeguard Canadian and Ontario’s interests?

Not to be outdone, Ford personally appointed PC loyalist Ian Todd last year to be Ontario’s own man in Washington at $350,000 a year — $75,000 more than Smith under the Liberals, and a fair bit more than MacNaughton (whose ambassadorial pay band is $248,000 to $292,000).

Back in 1993, the NDP government of the day did the right thing — the very thing Ford should be doing today: It closed all 17 of Ontario’s international posts, saving $17 million from the annual budget (worth about $27 million in today’s dollars).

Our then-minister of economic and trade development, Frances Lankin, argued that Ontario no longer needed “an outdated network of offices” in the era of the fax machine and something new called “electronic mail.”

That’s the kind of language one might have expected from Ford’s Tories today, not just the New Democrats of a quarter-century ago. Instead, the premier who promised to cut waste is building a bigger empire, at greater expense, with worse patronage than his predecessors.

Caught in the act, Ford blames his underlings for overreaching. And hopes we won’t notice what he’s still trying to get away with.

Read more about: