A week or so ago, on the Glenora ferry, an OPP officer knocked on my car window and asked for my ID. He explained that the Trump election and the threat of tariffs required increased vigilance. It made me wonder what was going on. After all, I was not crossing a border. I was travelling across the Adolphus Reach.

At that moment, everybody was talking about Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods. Would they ruin our economy? Would our leaders cave in?

The tariff threat has receded, at least for now. But make no mistake: the threat is real. Tariffs of 25 percent on Canadian, and Ontarian, goods exported to a trading partner ten times our size would devastate our economy. Did Premier Ford call the election to get ahead of that devastation? No politician would survive it. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s continued insistence that the entire country become his 51st state is of course unnerving. He seems to be initiating an economic war against us.

But I’m still puzzled about why an OPP officer should have been knocking on car windows on the Glenora ferry. Was I supposed to feel reassured that the provincial police were “on it”?

Or was it Doug Ford who wanted us to know he was “on it”?

In many ways the tariff threat was a gift to a politician running for re-election. The tariff war is shocking and motivating and attention-getting. It’s the perfect platform: simple, straightforward, perfect for social media. Its immediacy drowns out all other issues.

We’ve seen this before.

Remember when Donald Trump—not yet in office again—required Republicans in Congress to block a Democrat immigration bill that answered many right-wing objections to the current policy?

Why did he do this?

Because Trump wanted to campaign on the issue. If it had been resolved, he would not have had the platform.

Hmm, I wondered, as the ferry pulled into Glenora, has Doug Ford studied under the master?

He has certainly expressed his admiration. When asked in 2018 if he was a Trump supporter, he replied: “absolutely, I wouldn’t waver.”

A hot mic moment just last week had him declaiming yet again that he supported Donald Trump over Kamala Harris. “Election day, was I happy this guy won? One hundred percent.”

But then came the tariffs, he said. Like a knife in the back.

Ford has called a “snap election” — but that is something he’s been threatening for months. His tough-guy “Fortress Am-Can” policy is the centerpiece.

The tariffs were announced, it seems, just in time.

Premier Ford is on the move. Actions speak louder than words, he insists. He is “ripping up” the province’s contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink, he is taking American bottles off the shelves at the LCBO.

This political gift offers the Premier and his party the appearance of being concerned about Ontarians. Nobody wants the dip in the economy—inflation and unemployment—that tariffs would produce. But by making this the major issue, Ford can very deliberately take the oxygen away from what are, in fact, much more important, long-standing issues facing Ontarians.

Issues his government has created.

The Ford government’s shocking dismantling of public education, healthcare, affordable housing and environmental protections over the past seven years, policies we are seeing writ large south of the border, allies Premier Ford with President Trump.

Ford has been deploying tools straight out of the Trump playbook all along. And, like Pierre Poilievre, he is now being exposed by the dismaying display of the rapacious forces of private greed and monopoly capital now unleashed in the United States.

Public education, healthcare, affordable housing and environmental protections require long-term investments that transcend election cycles. They require both basic good will, and a belief in the importance of good government.

Ontario now boasts the most underfunded colleges and universities in Canada. All are closing programs this year and next. Our public schools are a shambles. Public schools have lost over $2 billion from core education funding since the premier came into office.

Then there’s healthcare. There are one million more people without a family doctor now than when Ford took office, and the Ontario College of Physicians projects four million doctorless Ontarians by 2026. On top of underfunding Canada’s world-renowned public healthcare system, Ford’s moves to privatize key services have further undermined it.

New housing has been a non-starter under Ford, despite his developer-friendly promises: new builds have fallen to rates not seen since 1982 — while other provinces pull ahead, most notably Alberta, whose government is also Conservative.

Environmentally speaking, the Greenbelt controversy stands as a symbol of Ford’s attitudes, while Ontario’s energy production has regressed from 92 percent non-emitting sources to 75 percent.

Yet it is hard to look beyond the present moment. Too many of us are living hand to mouth. Politicians know this. This is why they campaign on the price of eggs. Ford’s own neglect of everyday life in Ontario has left the province fragile, its people impoverished. Fully 25 percent are now regularly visiting food banks! That’s before any trade war.

Ford’s dismantling of public services has, in fact, made us more vulnerable to the coming trade war than we ought to be. And now he is campaigning on the promise of a rescue.

There will be constant pressure over the next two weeks to make Trump and his tariffs the only election issue. In a way, perhaps they are: we should recognize that Ford has far more in common with Trump than not. 

Like him, he is the absolute last thing anyone needs any more of.