RUN AWAY FORD

SEPT. 8, 2017: At the Ford family’s famous annual barbeque, Doug Ford announces he will enter the 2018 City of Toronto mayor’s race against incumbent John Tory.

JAN. 24 2018: Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown, looking unusually dishevelled and distraught, calls a late night media conference to announce that a news outlet will air the stories of two young women accusing him of sexual misconduct. He denies all wrongdoing and says, “I’ll be at work tomorrow.”

JAN. 26, 2018: The newly-chosen interim PC leader Vic Fedeli – Brown having been shown the door – says the party will hold a quickie leadership campaign in the lead-up to the June 7 provincial election.

JAN. 29, 2018: Doug Ford, the former City of Toronto councillor and brother to the city’s late mayor Rob Ford, pivots abruptly from the municipal campaign and enters the PC Leadership race, promising to protect the party from political “elites” and “backroom politics.” He’ll be joined in the race by Christine Elliott, Caroline Mulroney, Tanya Granic Allen and, briefly, Brown.

MARCH 10, 2018: Ford emerges out of a leadership convention – so chaotic and confusing that they didn’t even drop the celebration balloons from the ceiling – with the win, propelled along by the support of Granic Allen who held sway over a chunk of the social conservative vote. It’s believed he just inched out Elliott, who went on to be his health minister.

JUNE 7, 2018: After a campaign in which access to him by the media was carefully controlled, Ford fought off the orange NDP wave to win a substantial majority. In less than five months, Ford went from a mayoral candidate in tough against a popular incumbent to the elected Premier of Ontario.

JUNE 29, 2018: Premier Doug Ford officially sworn in although he’s already taken steps to axe the Liberal cap-and-trade program as promised during his election campaign.

JULY 11, 2018: “Six million dollar man” CEO of Hydro One, board of directors, gone. Ford recalls Legislature for rare summer sitting, ends long-standing York University strike, introduces legislation to cut the size of Toronto Council roughly in half, and threatens to invoke Charter notwithstanding clause after court rules he can’t involve himself in the municipal election so close to the vote.

AUGUST 2018: Ford announces he’s bringing back buck-a-beer by Labour Day, but elementary schools will begin the new year using the old sex-ed curriculum.

SEPTEMBER 2018: Ford’s ministers say they’ll reverse Liberal plan to sell recreational cannabis in government stores, set up private store system and move to scrap planned $15 minimum wage.

DECEMBER 2018: Appointment of Ron Taverner to head up the OPP announced, then pulled three months later as opposition NDP accuse Ford of putting his family friend in charge of the provincial police service.

FEBRUARY 2019: Government unveils new autism services program, many parents furious. Major revamp of health care system announced, leaving some hopeful and some fearful.

MARCH 2019: Finance Minister Vic Fedeli announces April 11 budget that will lay out government plan to balance books and cut taxes.

aartuso@postmedia.com