Dear Doug Ford: You Don’t Get to Pick a Fight and Send the Bill to the Rest of Canada
Ontario elected Doug Ford. Saskatchewan didn’t. So why are 40 million Canadians being volunteered for his personal cage match with Donald Trump?
Dear Premier Ford,
I realize Ontario is Canada’s largest province by population, and apparently somewhere along the way this has caused some confusion.
So, before you tell Donald Trump to kiss another portion of your anatomy, threaten electricity supplies, offer to campaign against Republicans, call the President a dictator and loser, or otherwise conduct Canadian foreign policy from whatever microphone happens to be nearest, there is one small jurisdictional detail we should probably clear up.
You are the Premier of Ontario.
Not Canada.
The rest of us live here too.
And when you poke the world’s most famously poke-responsive bear, he doesn’t impose tariffs exclusively on Etobicoke.
That distinction seems particularly important this week because Ford’s approach to international diplomacy has apparently developed three distinct stages.
Monday: “Kiss my ass.”
Tuesday: Things got a little heated.
Wednesday: “We got to simmer things down.”
Three days.
Apparently Ontario foreign policy now comes with a cooling cycle.
On Monday, Ford was calling Trump a “dictator,” a “loser” and the “king of bankruptcies.” He said he had more brains in his baby toe than Trump had in his entire body. He told the President of the United States to “kiss my ass.” He talked about making Americans “feel pain,” raised cutting off electricity and mused about campaigning against Republicans.
Then Trump did what Donald Trump has been doing with roughly the subtlety of a malfunctioning air horn for years.
He responded.
Trump personally attacked Ford, called him “Flunky Ford,” invoked his late brother Rob, threatened that things could get “far WORSE” for Canada and threatened 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian-made cars, trucks and auto parts beginning January 1.
Suddenly everyone discovered indoor voices.
Ford went on CNN Tuesday and conceded things had become “a little heated” and “a little personal.”
No shit, Doug.
There’s an old diplomatic technique for preventing international disputes from becoming “a little personal.”
It involves not telling the President of your largest trading partner to kiss your ass.
By Wednesday, Ford was saying he didn’t want to “heighten this fight at all.”
Sir.
You called him a dictator on Monday.
This is roughly equivalent to throwing a lawn chair through your neighbour’s window and returning Wednesday morning to suggest everyone work harder on neighbourhood harmony.
And none of this means Donald Trump is justified in imposing tariffs on Canada because Doug Ford hurt his feelings.
Trump is responsible for Trump’s decisions. His tariffs are his. His threats are his. His insults are his.
But that doesn’t magically make Ford’s behaviour intelligent.
Those two propositions can exist simultaneously. Apparently Canadian politics has reached a stage where acknowledging two facts at once qualifies as advanced calculus.
Ford has every right to defend Ontario.
He has every right to criticize American trade policy.
He should fight like hell for Ontario autoworkers, manufacturers and businesses.
But there is a considerable difference between vigorously defending your province and appointing yourself Canada’s freelance foreign minister with anger-management issues.
International trade negotiations are federal territory.
Doug Ford does not negotiate trade agreements for Canada.
And to be fair, Ford isn’t the only premier who occasionally seems to forget where the provincial job description ends. Wab Kinew and David Eby have also been remarkably eager to freelance in this Canada-U.S. fight, making pronouncements and political interventions whose potential consequences don’t necessarily stop at the Manitoba or British Columbia borders.
But Ford has turned it into something approaching performance art.
Premiers absolutely should defend their provinces. They should lobby Washington, advocate for their industries and hammer Ottawa when Ottawa gets it wrong. What they should not do is behave as though eleven separate Canadian foreign policies are operating simultaneously, each dependent on which premier found a television camera before breakfast.
Because Trump doesn’t retaliate against Doug Ford, Wab Kinew or David Eby personally.
He retaliates against Canada.
And the rest of us don’t get a veto before being handed the invoice.
Ford does not represent Saskatchewan.
He does not represent Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia, Quebec or the Atlantic provinces.
Yet when this relationship deteriorates, the consequences don’t politely remain within Ontario’s borders.
A Saskatchewan farmer doesn’t get to staple a note to his shipment saying:
PLEASE FORWARD TARIFF TO DOUG. I WASN’T AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE.
A Manitoba manufacturer doesn’t get an exemption because its premier refrained from telling Trump where to place his lips, despite trafficking in Epstein conspiracy theories.
Neither does a B.C. exporter, an Alberta energy company, a Quebec business or anybody else whose livelihood depends on access to the American market.
That’s the part missing from the chest-thumping.
Doug gets the applause.
Canada gets the exposure.
And Ontario voters get to enjoy the satisfying spectacle of their premier “standing up to Trump” while everyone else gets involuntarily enrolled in the consequences.
Then there’s electricity.
Ford has repeatedly threatened to cut off Ontario electricity exports to the United States. Last year Ontario briefly imposed a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity exports to New York, Michigan and Minnesota before removing it after Trump retaliated with another tariff threat.
Ford has even said he would cut the electricity off completely “with a smile” if things escalated far enough.
Except Wednesday brought another fascinating development.
Now Ford says:
“I can’t do it alone.”
Apparently not.
He says Ontario isn’t the only province exporting electricity and that any such action requires a “Team Canada approach.”
Exactly.
So where the hell was Team Canada when you were calling the American president names?
Apparently Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia need to be consulted before electricity retaliation, but Doug’s mouth enjoys exclusive provincial jurisdiction.
And then we arrive at perhaps my favourite little contradiction.
Ford says Ontario won’t run its anti-tariff advertisements in the United States during the November midterms because he doesn’t want to “heighten this fight.”
Very statesmanlike.
Except Ford has also said he hopes the Democratic Party can “get their act together,” encouraged Americans not to elect candidates who would “kill your jobs” and said he’d go door-knocking himself if he could.
So Canada, a country currently capable of detecting “foreign interference” whenever somebody overseas sneezes near an election, now has the Premier of Ontario publicly discussing whom Americans should elect.
But definitely don’t run the advertisements.
That might look political.
I realize there is an argument behind Ford’s strategy.
Ontario is enormously exposed to American trade, particularly through the automotive sector. Canada and the United States have deeply integrated economies. Retaliation can create political pressure inside America by making tariffs hurt Americans too.
Fine.
Then make that argument.
Show Canadians the strategy.
Coordinate it nationally.
Calculate the leverage.
Decide what specific Canadian objective the retaliation is supposed to achieve.
And perhaps, as an experimental diplomatic innovation, stop conducting international relations like two guys being separated outside a Legion hall.
Because the stakes are considerably larger than Doug Ford’s approval rating.
Businesses are making investment decisions.
Manufacturers are deciding where to put production.
Workers are wondering whether their jobs will exist next year.
Families are already being crushed by housing, groceries, taxes and debt.
Ottawa is spending and lending billions trying to cushion businesses and workers from the trade damage already inflicted.
And now Ford wants to swagger around threatening electricity, insulting Trump and discussing American elections while insisting everyone else should adopt a “Team Canada approach.”
Team Canada is not Doug Ford grabbing the microphone while the rest of the provinces hold his coat.
It means recognizing that Ontario’s political theatre can create consequences for people who never voted for him.
And frankly, Ontario voters need to understand that too.
I understand why watching your premier tell Donald Trump to “kiss my ass” feels satisfying.
For approximately eleven seconds, it probably feels fantastic.
But international trade policy is not an X reply.
There is no prize for the premier who gets the most retweets before somebody loses a factory.
Trump has an ego.
Everyone knows Trump has an ego.
Trump knows Trump has an ego.
Presumably several uncontacted tribes in the Amazon have gathered enough information to form a preliminary opinion about Trump’s ego.
So perhaps deliberately antagonizing that ego while your country is trying to negotiate access to a market upon which millions of Canadian jobs depend isn’t the brilliant act of resistance some people seem to think it is.
It might simply be stupid.
And expensive.
Especially when the same man doing the antagonizing comes back 48 hours later telling everybody that we really need to “simmer things down.”
Doug, you don’t get to light the barbecue with gasoline and then arrive carrying a garden hose demanding recognition for your commitment to fire prevention.
Ontario elected you to govern Ontario.
Do that.
Fight for Ontario.
Advocate for your workers.
Push Ottawa relentlessly.
Demand better negotiations.
Challenge American policy.
Coordinate retaliation where it actually serves a strategic purpose.
But stop confusing bombast with leverage.
Stop inserting yourself into American partisan politics.
Stop volunteering Canadians outside Ontario for consequences they had absolutely no role in provoking.
And for the love of whatever remains of Canadian prosperity, stop treating Donald Trump like the drunk guy at the end of the bar whose honour you have personally been selected to challenge.
Because if your own conclusion after Monday’s performance is that everyone now needs to lower the temperature, there is an awkward possibility worth considering.
Maybe the temperature wasn’t the problem. Maybe it was the guy playing with the thermostat.
Melanie in Saskatchewan