In an era of vanilla politicians afraid to utter an intelligible sentence for fear of offending someone, Ford’s style is refreshing
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Ontario Premier Doug Ford has had himself quite a week. After delivering sharp kicks to bicycle lovers, homeless encampment residents, and the out-of-control Toronto District School Board, Ford topped it all off by promising an audacious solution to Toronto’s traffic gridlock.
If Ford’s goal was to sharply differentiate himself from his political opponents, then mission accomplished. The way he did it helps explain why his party is in power and the other two are not. It comes down to talking about things that matter to people in ways they can understand.
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Let’s start with cars. Ford’s a fan of them. So are Ontarians. There are more than nine million vehicles registered in the province. And yet, the NDP, Liberal and Green parties don’t care for cars unless they are electric. Even then, they’d rather see people get around by transit or bicycle.
Unfortunately for those parties, transit and bicycles are unlikely to solve the gridlock problem in Toronto. It’s not just a Toronto issue, either: anyone trying to drive across the province has to contend with the city’s traffic issues.
Ford is clearly going to make gridlock an election issue. He got started on Monday with a plan to limit bicycle lanes on major roads,........