MPPs will be back at Queen’s Park on Sept. 14 as Premier Doug Ford rules out prorogation

Thestar.com
Sept. 1, 2020
Robert Benzie

The day before kids go back to school, MPPs will be going back to the legislature.

Premier Doug Ford insisted Monday that the Progressive Conservatives have no plans to prorogue the house.

That means MPPs will return to Queen’s Park on Sept. 14, on the eve of students and teachers across Ontario resuming classes in person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March.

“We aren’t going to prorogue. We need to be there working around the clock,” Ford told reporters during a campaign-style swing through an Etobicoke auto parts factory.

“And we all have been working even if we aren’t at Queen’s Park,” said the premier, who is in the midst of an eight-week provincial tour that will take him to 38 of Ontario’s 124 ridings.

“We have a lot of items to get done, so, we won’t be proroguing. We’ll be working all the way through,” he said.

There had been prorogation talk for the provincial Tories, who are midway through a four-year mandate.

That would have enabled Ford to press the reset button and table a speech from the throne to outline a new agenda for Ontario, which, like most jurisdictions, has been upended by COVID-19.

More than 2,800 Ontarians have died from the coronavirus in the past six months with almost 1.2 million jobs lost at the peak of a pandemic that has plunged the province into an economic recession.

The Conservatives, who are projecting to spend a record $186.7 billion this year, are saddled with a $38.5 billion deficit, by far the largest shortfall in Ontario history.

But unlike Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government, which prorogued parliament until Sept. 23 and will face a confidence motion on a throne speech that could trigger a federal election, Ford has a majority.

The Tories will not face voters until June 2022 and the premier has told the Star he is ruling out a snap election before then.
“We’re going to year four,” he said on July 14.

Despite that assurance, some jittery Liberal strategists remain convinced Ford will pull the plug early in order to capitalize on his resurgence in public-opinion polls due to his handling of the pandemic.

In July 2019, the premier had a 20 per cent approval rating with 69 per cent disapproval -- and 11 per cent unsure -- for an overall -49 per cent.

A year later, in this past July’s Campaign Research poll for the Star, Ford had a 66 per cent approval with 27 per cent disapproval and six per cent unsure for an overall 39 per cent rating. That’s a swing of 88 percentage points in 12 months.

Senior Grits, speaking on background in order to discuss internal deliberations, believe the premier may want to go to the polls early to get out in front of any looming economic hardship.

They note that New Brunswick Tory Premier Blaine Higgs, a Ford ally, called a snap election for Sept. 14 that could see the minority Conservatives there returned with a majority.

“If the PCs win re-election in NB, watch out,” warned a high-ranking Liberal strategist.

Under Ontario law, elections must be held every four years, but the Tories could easily use their majority to amend that legislation for a snap vote.