Not now, Donald, we're busy

Why does Doug Ford think *this* is the time for an election?

In my half-century on this earth I’ve been disappointed by too many politicians to count, while the number of politicians who’ve pleasantly surprised me can be counted on one hand and still have enough fingers left to make an obscene gesture.

Doug Ford, premier of Ontario, is among that select group. Once the lesser known Ontario politician named “Ford,” he and his legendary and/or infamous late brother were hardcore right-wing populists who reminded me of a certain other right-wing populist politician now threatening to nuke the Canadian economy for no particular reason and also seize Greenland while he’s at it.

But once he started governing, he was generally pretty good at it. And during the lead up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Ford has been a stalwart defender of Canadian industry and sovereignty, even going on Fox News to make his country’s case while somehow resisting the urge to smash through the monitor and wring the host’s neck.

And let’s not forget the hat. Oh, my heart, the hat.

So, yeah, I’m glad Doug Ford is in charge of Canada’s most populated, economically dominant province right now.

Too bad he’s going to distract himself with an unnecessary election:

Premier Doug Ford confirms he will be calling an early provincial election next week, paving the way for Ontarians to head to the polls at the end of February.

“I will be seeing the lieutenant governor on Tuesday,” Ford said at a press conference announcing a transit expansion project in Brampton on Friday morning.

The premier pointed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to implement 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian goods as justification for an early election in the province.

Ford currently has a majority government and the next fixed election date in Ontario was set for June, 2026.

“We need a mandate from the people to fight against Donald Trump’s tariffs. He’s coming against our families, our businesses, our communities,” Ford said.

Trump has said those tariffs could be implemented as early as Feb. 1.

Yes, while you Americans plod along with fixed election dates, Canadian Prime Ministers and provincial premiers can call an election pretty much whenever they damned well feel like it, within five years of assuming office.

And there’s long tradition of federal and provincial governments across the country, of all political stripes, taking advantage of a favorable political environment (usually involving a dispute with another government) to send everyone back to the polls long before they’re legally required.

It’s selfish and cynical, and it usually works brilliantly.

But when it goes wrong, it goes really wrong. And the most notorious example of an early election call blowing up in the incumbent’s face just happened to be in Ontario.

…Over the course of the 37-day campaign, Peterson failed to convince voters that he had been right to call an election only three years after winning an overwhelming majority. That, combined with an existing scandal, targeted protests by groups angry with the government, and the suggestion of political entitlement resulted in Ontario’s first NDP government.

During that opening press conference, Peterson struggled to provide a convincing explanation for the early election. He claimed that, especially after the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, Ontario faced “profound changes in this country and the world” and that he needed to protect the province in the event of a national-unity crisis. He dismissed suggestions that he was being an opportunist and trying to capitalize on polling results that put Liberal support at 50 per cent. “There is no good time,” he said. “I don’t have to apologize for consultation with the people at this time.”

[…]

The results of the September 6, 1990, vote stunned everyone. The NDP swept into office, gaining 37.6 percent of the vote and going from 19 seats to 74. The Liberals fell from 93 seats to 36, while the PCs went from 17 to 20. Pundits scrambled to account for the results. The Globe and Mail’s Michael Valpy referenced a term that had frequently been applied to Peterson during the campaign: yuppie. “Whether or not the Liberals were a yuppie government,” he wrote, “they looked like a yuppie government, the Premier looked like a yuppie premier and the troubles they got into over election financing and links to the development industry were real 1980s yuppie problems.”

The smart money says Ford and his PC party will stomp come election day. Despite my own misgivings about this election call, I’d certainly vote for them.

But nothing is guaranteed.

And even if victory were guaranteed, well, is this really the best time to spend campaigning?

It’s bad enough that the Prime Minister is a lame duck and that his party is in a leadership battle while the President of the United States is still publicly musing about absorbing Canada and no one is really sure if he’s just trolling.

This is when we need Doug Ford playing bad cop to Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s good cop and working 24-7 to stave off Trump’s tariff threat. He can’t do that if he’s running to win the majority government he already has for another eighteen months.

In fact, if the tariffs drop on February 1, right in the middle of the campaign, it could make Ford look ineffective and distracted.

Smith has taken a lot of heat for seemingly cozying up to MAGAworld to save her province’s oil industry while her fellow premiers talk tough. I dunno. History suggests sweet-talking Trump and playing to his ego is the best way to get what you want from him, hence his startling policy and rhetorical reversals.

Either way, it seems to me you can denounce Smith for deviating from a strategy in which Ottawa and all of the provinces are united, or you can decide to call an election and/or a party leadership contest at this exact moment. But not both.

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Don’t seek too deeply

And now, some fun with DeepSeek, China’s purportedly revolutionary AI model which is said to outperform American AI programs despite being created at a fraction of the cost.

How did they do it? I’m no expert on this stuff, but they probably saved some time and energy by making sure there are certain subjects DeepSeek doesn’t dare talk about.