Scheer has been criticized for concealing he is a dual American citizen, lying about his education and for inflating his professional credentials — snafus that have nothing to do with Ford said one of Ford’s confidant.
It is 1 week to the federal election, there is an ongoing debate on whose to blame if Scheer loses his bid for the Prime Minister’s office, and if Scheer will be able to hold on to his position as Conservative Party leader.
Ontario voters gave Doug Ford a blank cheque last year and elected him with an uncosted platform — just like Andrew Scheer was trying to get away with. How’s that working out?
Doug Ford said, I’m for the little guy, I’m for the people, I’m the guy that will put more money in your pocket. He promised Ontarians a new moon.
1 year later, cut to health, cut to education, cut to library services, cut to tree planting, cut to research. Due to the premier’s thousand cuts, his popularity dips.
Even as Trudeau goads Ford on a regular basis during the campaign, the premier’s vanishing act has become fodder for editorial cartoons and a sketch on CBC’s, This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
In the Oct. 1 show, Ford, played by Mark Critch, is depicted as an elusive Bigfoot lurking in the woods. Brandishing an Andrew Scheer election sign, a startled camper is able to scare him off.
Later, Ford’s notorious gas-pump stickers affixed to a tree are presented as evidence Sasquatch was in the vicinity. In comedy as in this campaign, the premier quietly looms large.
The premier did Scheer a favour last summer, delaying the scheduled return of the Ontario legislature from Sept. 9 until Oct. 28, one week after the federal election. That was to give the national Conservatives a clean runway in Ontario.
Ford’s government also averted a strike last week by 55,000 school support workers, ceding to most of the demands from the Canadian Union of Public Employees to the relief of parents, students, and the federal Tory campaign.
Ford, still bothered by being booed at the Toronto Raptors’ June victory celebration while Trudeau and Mayor John Tory were cheered, the federal campaign is a time to seethe privately and regroup.
For his trouble, Scheer has thanked the premier by refusing to utter his name in speeches, treating it as a four-letter F-bomb even while campaigning 700 metres from his Etobicoke home.
Adding insult to injury, the federal Tory leader conscripted Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to swoop into Ontario for 23 Ford-free campaign events, including in Ford’s riding of Etobicoke North.
Ford loyalists, speaking confidentially in order to discuss internal conversations, said the premier feels slighted by Scheer, who he invited to be the keynote speaker at the Ontario PC convention last November.
“He looks like the black sheep sitting in the corner simply because Scheer doesn’t want to make the narrative about Ford,” said one insider.
But another emphasized that if Scheer loses the Oct. 21 election, any Conservative failure to break through in Ontario should not be blamed on the provincial PC government’s record.
