Ontario Premier Doug Ford Supports New Highway

Wendell Cox — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 11:56:59 -0500

Ontario’s premier Doug Ford indicated strong support for the new 60 kilometer (more than 35 miles) Highway 413 across the northwest suburbs of metropolitan Toronto. The highway would connect Vaughn, in York region with Milton, connective with Highway 401 west of Toronto International Airport. Highway 401, the MacDonald Cartier Freeway is one of the world’s busiest and widest highway, especially as it traverses within the northern city limits of Toronto, with from 12 to 14 lanes (see map at Toronto CTV News).

According to the Toronto Star, Ford “dismissed critics as downtown Toronto ideologues.” Ford told the Star: ““Just sitting there and telling people, ‘hop on your bicycle or get behind a horse and buggy and start driving,’ it doesn’t cut it.” The premier added “That’s the ideology of a lot of people that are from downtown Toronto making their comments about up here.”

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a founding senior fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, Houston, a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.

Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.

Ontario Moves Rightward, toward Populism

Wendell Cox — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 12:32:59 -0400

After a nearly 15 year lock on Ontario’s provincial parliament (“Queen’s Park”), the Liberal Party suffered the strong rejection of voters in the June 6, 2018 election. Triumphant in the last two elections, the Liberals won so few seats that they lost official party status.

Early on, it was clear that the Liberals were in trouble, and it appeared that the Progressive Conservatives (PC’s) would regain a majority at Queen’s Park, under the leadership of Doug Ford. The Globe and Mail had characterized Ford as having led a populist takeover of the Party. But Ontario voters have not always been predictable, and by the eve of the election many were predicting that the PC’s would not win a majority, and that the more likely outcome was a government led either by the PC’s or the New Democratic Party (NDP). The NDP has usually been the third strongest party in the province in recent decades, though held power from 1990 to 1995.

Liberal prospects had become so dim that incumbent Premier and leader Kathleen Wynne conceded defeat days before the election, but called for Liberal support sufficient to deny a majority government for either of the two other parties.

So, it was a surprise as the votes were reported, when the PC’s emerged with a strong victory, taking 76 seats. The NDP became the official opposition, with 40 seats. The Liberals took only seven seats, while the Greens won one. The popular vote rejection of the Liberals was stunning. Voters gave 40.5 percent of their votes to the PC’s, and 33.6 percent to the NDP. The Liberal vote was less than one-half that of the PCs (19.6 percent).

Ford, and his government are will move policy in not only a rightward direction, but also one that is more populist. The National Post said that: “Doug Ford positioned himself during the campaign as a defender of 'the little guy,' promising to lower taxes, cut hydro rates and eliminate the province’s cap-and-trade-system.”

Toronto Sun columnist Antonella Artuso provides an interesting day-after-the-election commentary summarizing reactions from the three party leaders, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others.