Deachman: ‘The people’ have spoken to Doug Ford, but there’s no sign he’s listening

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Reports were coming in of a rare sighting of an Ontario premier in Ottawa last week, like an errant booby bird accidentally blown in from the faraway tropics of Lake Ontario.

At first I didn’t believe it, but last Monday’s visit from Doug Ford was intentional, at least judging by Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s gift to the premier of a welcome mat (unless, I suppose, it was just the nearest thing available when Ford rang Sutcliffe’s bell).

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Assuming that there was forethought involved, the gift could be taken a couple of ways. Presumably, it was simply an inviting gesture. After all, what says “Come on in!” better than a welcome mat, right? Well, OK, maybe a warm embrace and a peck on the cheek, but eww.

For the less charitable among us, though, the welcome mat could be read as a pointed gesture, almost a sarcastic straw middle finger aimed at delivering the message: “Where the heck have you been all this time?”

For Ottawa and Eastern Ontario, we well know, have long been Ontario’s doormat, a desert that never gets its share of water. We’re like Oliver Twist in the workhouse, asking for more, please, only to get yelled at or, more often, ignored.

Ford’s announcement while in town serves as a reminder of that inequality. The province, having finally seen a light, is opening a regional office here, a “central link” between Ottawa and the premier, his cabinet and government. It’s as though we’re Ontario’s equivalent of St. Pierre and Miquelon, a distant outpost to be kept for who-knows-what reason — maybe simply to have another governorship to bestow upon friends and cronies? Does the premier not know that we’re actually in Ontario? He shouldn’t need to open some kind of consulate here. Rather, just govern a little more equitably.

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Oh, but what’s that you say? This office will be headed by a Ford crony? Ah, it’s becoming clearer now.

Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about Sean Webster, whom Ford has appointed to run the province’s local branch plant, which will come with a price tag of $1.7 million annually. He was an executive with Canopy Growth Corporation, and has held senior positions in the pharmaceutical industry, including at Shoppers Drug Mart and Eli Lilly. According to his LinkedIn profile, Webster has been a member of the Shaw Centre’s board of directors since January.

“He’s well-known in Ottawa,” Ford said, “and he’s going to be a touch-point person,” whatever that means.

If Webster is well-known in Ottawa — a characterization I’d be inclined to challenge — it’s for running unsuccessfully for the Conservatives in last year’s provincial byelection in Kanata-Carleton, following Merrilee Fullerton’s resignation from both cabinet and her seat in the legislature.

During the subsequent campaign, Webster was roundly criticized for refusing to take part in the all-candidates debate, saying his time would be better spent canvassing door-to-door. That’s long been a common excuse to duck out of such debates — forums where political hopefuls face greater public scrutiny and always those questions, questions, questions — but it’s a difficult position to defend. An all-candidates debate will get your message out to more people than will door-knocking for two hours, plain and simple.

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At any rate, the riding was the Tories’ to lose, and they did. The will of the people and all that. Yet now Webster is the beneficiary of a presumably handsome patronage appointment.

Which brings us back to the premier, whose “For the People” TV ads have lately interrupted my enjoyment of the NHL playoffs, as Ford made his pitch to voters in a couple of byelections.

“Well, it’s the people,” he explains as he does up his necktie and readies for another long and hard day’s work. “That’s what gets me up every single morning.

“That’s what I’m here for,” he adds, “to listen and to do what we can to try to help the people.

“You can’t always get it right,” he concedes at the end of the ad. “And let me tell you, when I don’t, I hear from the people.”

Why, it seems hardly a year ago that the people of Kanata-Carleton made their voices heard when they removed a welcome mat they’d had outside their doors for years. Now, having shown up on our doorstep a few times recently, let’s hope he doesn’t pull the rug out from under Ottawa in future.

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