Now that Doug Ford has convincingly won the “Trump tariff” election I am left wondering what he intends to do with his new mandate. 
The Progressive Conservative platform, published only days before the election and after people had already cast their ballots in advanced voting, is now required reading.
Some of Ford’s promises are, of course, total non-starters. There is absolutely no possibility that Ford can
“Deliver a new driver and transit tunnel expressway under Highway 401 to provide a new, faster route through Canada’s busiest and most gridlocked section of highway, helping thousands of daily commuters get where they need to go faster.”
It’s a non-deliverable $100 billion dollar commitment aimed at construction workers who are some of Doug’s most fervent supporters.
More billions on health
On health – where he again promises to spend billions - will the Ford Government underwrite the cost of a new Southlake? Unless the Provincial Government’s longstanding policy is changed, the Province will not pay for the land acquisition costs for new hospitals. So that means Southlake has got to find the money for its second site out of its own resources – or rely on a benefactor. It is not as if the Province is short of money:
“A re-elected PC government will continue to deliver on its ambitious plan for hospital expansion, with more than $50 billion to build or upgrade 50 hospitals across Ontario.”
Ford says he will be
“Encouraging municipalities to also accelerate and bring forward billions of dollars worth of planned municipal public infrastructure project tenders for roads, bridges, water and other infrastructure builds and repairs to get more people working faster and improve our economic competitiveness.”
Streamline
And to help them spend all these billions of dollars Ford says the Government
“will further streamline Ontario’s environmental assessment process”.
I wait for details on that one.
There are, of course, all sorts of measures that never rated a mention in the PC Platform but will be dumped on us out of a clear blue sky. What if municipalities don’t move quickly enough to deliver on Ford’s agenda? What will he do? Abolish them or force them into mergers with their neighbours?
Who knows?
Gallagher Murphy walks on water
Anyway... as we all now know Dawn Gallagher Murphy has been returned as our MPP in Newmarket-Aurora.
She endured bad publicity but followed the old dictum: "Never explain. Never complain".
She took it all on the chin and it worked.
She got 47.4% of the vote with Chris Ballard trailing on 41.9% – a difference of 2,425 votes (but down from her winning margin of 5,602 in the June 2022 election). 
By the time of the next election we shall have forgotten all about the racist banter, the bullying and harassment.
Squeezed
The NDP and Green vote was squeezed but it wasn’t enough to make a difference. The NDP vote dropped from 12.7% in 2022 to 6.3% yesterday. The Green vote went down from 5.6% to 2.5%.
The New Blue Party, which could have eroded the PC lead, took only 1.2% of the vote down from 3.6% in 2022.
Province wide, Ford’s Progressive Conservatives took 42.9% of the popular vote – up from 40.8% in 2022.
Non voters win
More people in Newmarket-Aurora didn’t vote in yesterday’s election than did.
Turnout Province wide was 45.4%. In Newmarket-Aurora 44.6%. (Based on Elections Ontario unofficial figures)
First-Past-the-Post is brutally efficient in delivering majority governments from a minority of the vote. As the table shows, it takes 119,364 votes to elect a Green MPP and 27,460 to elect a PC MPP. The more concentrated the vote geographically the higher the seat count.
Celebration
Last night the NDP was celebrating its return to Official Opposition status getting 27 seats on the back of 18.5% of the vote. The Liberals got 14 MPPs with 29.9% of the vote.
It seems to me the Liberals and NDP have got to reach some kind of accommodation to stop both parties from running against each other in winnable seats, splitting the vote and letting the PCs in through the middle.
Easier said than done.
But not impossible.
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