Ford swearing-in ceremony will include outdoor festivities for the public

Thestar.com
June 25, 2018
Robert Benzie

Douglas Robert Ford will be sworn in as Ontario’s 26th premier Friday followed by an outdoor public celebration at Queen’s Park that thousands are expected to attend.

The Progressive Conservative chief, who defeated Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals in the June 7 election, is taking a leaf from the last leader to end a political dynasty in Ontario.

Almost 33 years to the day after Liberal David Peterson ushered out 42 years of Conservative rule with a swearing-in ceremony on the front lawn of Queen’s Park, Ford will similarly signal the conclusion of nearly 15 years of Grit governance.

Ford, whose campaign slogan was “for the people,” will be sworn in by Lieutenant-Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell inside the main foyer of the legislature and then again outside for the benefit of the public, rain or shine.

Conservative sources told the Star the open-air ceremony is designed to underscore the incoming premier’s belief that citizens should be encouraged to “participate in their democracy.”

“I govern through the people, I don’t govern through government,” Ford said repeatedly during the spring election campaign.

On June 26, 1985, some 5,000 people attended Peterson’s swearing in outside the legislature.

“Peterson decided that (lieutenant governor John Black) Aird would swear in the new Liberal government in the early summer air, a public event that would herald a new open and accessible government,” wrote former Star columnist Rosemary Speirs in the 1986 book, Out of the Blue.

“He had been shaken by the cynicism he’d discovered among voters in the recent election -- a widespread belief that government was beyond reach, that the ordinary citizens’ voice was not heard and that Tories would always be in charge at Queen’s Park,” recorded Speirs.

Now the Tories are back in charge at Queen’s Park for the first time since 2003, Ford, just 20 years old when Peterson took office, wants to rekindle the sense of optimism that can come with a changing of the guard.

He has looked at what the former Liberal premier did when taking over after decades of Tory rule and is hopeful thousands will show up.

Other than renting chairs, there is minimal additional expense to the outdoor festivities, in part because Queen’s Park was already gearing up for the annual Canada Day celebrations July 1.

That means the stage and P.A. systems will be set up.

But security is expected to be tight -- with some brief road closures -- as has become the norm at most large-scale public events in this era.

The premier-designate and his top aides, meanwhile, are spending this week putting the finishing touches on his new cabinet, which will be unveiled Friday.

His executive council will be smaller than that of Wynne, who had 28 members overseeing 30 departments.

That will mean streamlining and merging some ministries as Ford has promised to cut 4 per cent of government spending -- a $6 billion annual reduction.

It is expected the new cabinet could have 20 members, including the premier, with perhaps 12 men and 8 women, a similar gender ratio to Wynne’s executive council.

With 76 MPPs in the 124-member legislature, the Tories have a lot to choose from.

“That’s going to be the toughest decision,” Ford, himself a rookie MPP, said June 10.

Because as many as 56 members of the Tory caucus will not make the cabinet cut, he and his aides are trying to manage expectations.

At a closed-door session last week, caucus was reminded that, in former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty’s first cabinet in 2003, neither Wynne nor eventual deputy premier Deb Matthews made the ministerial cut.

Newly elected Tories were told by former ministers John Baird, a key member of Ford’s transition team, and Janet Ecker that in former PC premier Mike Harris’s first 1995 cabinet, many future party stars -- including Jim Flaherty, Tony Clement, and Tim Hudak -- were also left on the backbenches.

At a May 28 campaign event, Ford indicated that his cabinet could include candidates Christine Elliott (Newmarket-Aurora), Rod Phillips (Ajax), Caroline Mulroney (York-Simcoe), Peter Bethlenfalvy (Pickering-Uxbridge), Greg Rickford (Kenora-Rainy River), and Doug Downey (Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte).

That same day, he also touted MPPs Lisa MacLeod (Nepean), Raymond Cho (Scarborough North), and Vic Fedeli (Nipissing) as potential ministers.