Ken Boessenkool is a partner in Meredith Boessenkool Policy Advisors, the executive director of Conservatives for Clean Growth and co-founder of the Common Good Project.
In 2018, Doug Ford won the race to become the leader of the Progressive Conservatives of Ontario, and in that role, he led the party to an election victory and became Premier. Over six years, Mr. Ford has convinced his party, his caucus and his province (twice!) that he is the Ontario PCs’ rightful standard-bearer.
Yet a question has been raised: is he a conservative?
Conservatism as an ideology is best understood as a fusion of Burkean social order – the idea that institutions such as family, community and, yes, government, matter – with Hayekian economic liberty, by which individual freedom to make choices and face consequences is maximized. So a lot of attention has been paid to the Ford government’s recent spending, either in absolute terms or in relation to the economy. In March’s budget, the deficit was projected to grow to $9.8-billion in the coming year; program spending will now equal 17.89 per cent of GDP, the most in provincial history.
But Mr. Ford has made progress on fronts that would please Burke and Hayek.
Mr. Ford and his government created the generous Ontario Childcare Access and Relief from Expense (CARE) refundable tax credit, which puts cash and choice in the hands of parents around child care. He created the Low-Income Individuals and Families Tax (LIFT) tax credit, which provides a wage subsidy to low-income workers – a conservative approach that encourages work. More recent moves made to encourage private-surgery centres have driven down some surgery wait times to the lowest in the country; increasing privately delivered surgeries is a rarely noted and boldly conservative move in the health care realm. And the fiscal tightening enacted in the Ford government’s early budgets created fiscal room when the pandemic hit. These real cuts mattered – a lot.
But what about all that spending? First, about $7-billion of the deficit comes in the form of electricity subsidies to address energy affordability; in the old days, those would have just been hidden in the books of provincial crown corporations. Second, the level of immigration in Ontario has spiked to unsustainable levels, driven by the federal government; these new residents drive up spending long before they drive up revenues. And third, while the recent inflation gives revenues a boost through nominal GDP, it also drives up costs; it will take time for wages and personal income taxes to catch up.
In short, real per-capita spending presents a much more, er, conservative, picture.
Also, much of the new investment isn’t going toward social services, but rather to infrastructure, industrial policy, skills development and policing. The new spending, then, is conservative spending.
And if Conservatives are hell-bent on eliminating the federal carbon tax on consumers – Mr. Ford currently oversees the industrial carbon price – they’re going to have to find other ways to reduce emissions, even if that means using the government’s ability to spend and regulate. (Hey, it’s not my first choice, but those are the other options.) The Ford government has made big bets on electric vehicles and nuclear as its non-carbon-tax path to reducing emissions.
It has also led the way in expanding the conservative voting coalition to private-sector union members. These natural conservative voters have for too long felt alienated from Conservative parties, but former minister Monte McNaughton’s modest yet forward-looking moves on training and worker supports have attracted Ontarians into the Conservative column.
But conservatism is also a disposition. It’s not just what conservatives do that’s important, but how they do it. At the centre of the conservative “how” is a sense of gratitude for the traditions of the past and how they manifest in today’s institutions.
Mr. Ford wears his conservative disposition on his sleeve. It comes across as “good customer service,” which emerges from his experience selling labels in his family business. Now, you won’t find the phrase “good customer service” in the classic conservative texts, but it fundamentally reflects the conservative disposition to do best what we do best – and with gratitude. Mr. Ford’s customer-service approach to politics moderates his government. He is no radical – which would be the opposite of conservatism – nor is he a populist rage farmer or anti-business reactionary. In the age of Donald Trump, who wouldn’t recognize the conservative disposition if it smacked him in the face, this matters.
Mr. Ford’s conservative modesty, his focus on customer service, his expansion of the voter coalition, his social and economic record – these things aren’t just worth celebrating, they’re worth emulating, in conservative parties across Canada. After all, Mr. Ford wins, and wins big, as a Conservative. That’s something not a lot of conservatives can say.