It would have been so simple.
All Premier Doug Ford had to do in his Aug. 20 keynote address at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference in Ottawa was to stick to the script.
While the text of his prepared remarks appears designed to assure community leaders their municipalities would not be subject to the type of restructuring imposed mid-election on the City of Toronto, a one-word addition allowed Ford to keep his options open and municipalities on edge.
Calling his move to slash the size of Toronto council and cancel elections for several regional chair positions “unique decisions,” Ford stated, “we do not have plans for similar legislation in our near future.” The prepared remarks indicate Ford was expected to say “in our future,” so the addition of the word near was either an routine slip up, as a government press wrangler told reporters immediately afterward, or a calculated ad lib, designed to keep everyone guessing on the new government’s intentions.
If the latter, the move calls to mind U.S. President Donald Trump’s vacillations on Russian election meddling down south. Trump was sent out by handlers to read from a teleprompter an extremely nebulous sounding excuse for supporting the Russian version of events over that of the U.S. intelligence community, but he couldn’t leave it at that.
“Let me be totally clear in saying that … I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion,” Trump said, reading from a prepared script, before adding, “It could be other people also. There’s a lot of people out there.”
Ford has at times drawn comparison to Trump, which his supporters are quick to dismiss as alarmist. However, in terms of communications tactics, it’s hard to ignore some similarities.
No official statement clarifying Ford’s remarks was immediately issued. It’s also worth noting that even Ford’s vague assurances fly in the face of a July 27 announcement by Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark that the province would undertake a review of regional governments across the province this fall. What’s the point of such review if no similar legislation is planned?
So will your municipality be subject to administrative restructuring or even amalgamation before this government’s term is up? Perhaps we’ll know some time in the near future. Or perhaps not.
