Randall Denley: Ford helping Carney's Liberals won't help him take over the federal Conservatives

So much for Ontario Premier Doug Ford staying out of the federal election. Ford’s catty condemnation of federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s campaign was unhelpful not just to Poilievre, but to Conservatives generally — and even to Ford himself. For weeks, Ford campaign manager Kory Teneycke has been banging on about how bad the federal Conservative campaign was, arguing that it should be all about American tariffs, just like the provincial campaign he ran in Ontario in February. For those who believe Ford harbours ambitions of federal leadership, it would be easy to assume Teneycke was a proxy sent out to hurt Poilievre’s chances and pave the way for Ford to take his place as the next Conservative leader. Alternatively, Teneycke’s ego might simply have overwhelmed his discretion. Either way, Ford still had plausible deniability as long as someone else was doing the talking. That ended Monday, when Ford said Teneycke was “the best campaign manager in the country. And to be very frank, if Kory was running that campaign I don’t think Mr. Poilievre would be in the position he’s in right now. “It’s still a lot of time left. We still have debates. At the end of the day, the people will decide which way they want this country to move forward. But sometimes the truth hurts,” Ford said.

• 'The truth hurts': Poilievre wouldn't be losing if he had my campaign manager, Doug Ford says
• Randall Denley: Tax cuts are better tariff defence plan for Ontario than handouts

The right answer would have been something like, “Kory’s entitled to his professional opinion. I’m not taking sides in the election. Voters will decide who they want to run the federal government.” If Ford does see himself as the next Conservative leader, he’s doing a poor job of laying the groundwork. Why would he think that Conservatives would choose a backstabber who’s never lifted a finger to help the party? Sure, Ford has longstanding personal grievances about federal Conservatives not treating him with respect , but it’s petty to take revenge in the middle of an election campaign. Did the premier stop to consider that a lot of the people who voted for him in February are federal Conservative party supporters? He’s letting his own people down. For Ontarians with conservative values, Ford’s three consecutive majority governments have been a sweet chocolate with a bitter centre. It’s great to have a party with the word “conservative” in its name running the government, but the hitch is that Ford isn’t much of a conservative. At best, he’s a mildly blue Liberal. After winning his first election, it didn’t take Ford long to forget about balancing the budget, reining in the size of government or implementing the income tax cut he’d promised. Instead, he’s increased spending by about one-third since he took office, and run up the debt. It’s not just Ford’s approach to spending that’s confounding to conservative Ontarians. It’s the way he shuns actual Conservatives and cosies up to Liberals. One need not be a Conservative to understand that the federal Liberals under Justin Trudeau did a bad job of governing the country. They’ve admitted it themselves as they reversed their policies on housing, immigration and the carbon tax. And yet, with the exception of the carbon tax, Ford has been a great fan. Ford was so eager to make nice with new Liberal Leader Mark Carney that the premier couldn’t even wait until Carney was sworn in. The two had breakfast together and Ford later said, “I can tell you one thing, Mark Carney (has an) extremely astute business mind. He understands numbers.” Ford went on to speculate that Carney would “get along very well” with U.S. President Donald Trump because “they both come from the same financial sectors.” It doesn’t end there. Ford invited prominent Liberal cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland to his new cabinet’s swearing in. It seemed like an odd choice for a Progressive Conservative political event. To make things worse, the advice that Teneycke is giving Conservatives, endorsed by Ford, would help the Liberals, not the Conservatives. An election about tariffs plays right into the Liberals’ chosen ballot issue and into Carney’s perceived strength. Poilievre is campaigning primarily on affordability and the economy, issues more durable than the tariff tussle with Trump. Despite that, Conservatives are behind in the polls. A superficial examination suggests they must be doing something wrong. And yet, Poilievre’s poll support (at 38 per cent according to the latest Postmedia-Leger poll ) is just slightly less than the number that won Stephen Harper a Conservative majority in 2011. It’s difficult for the Conservative party to get more than 40 per cent of the vote. That’s enough to win when the Liberals and NDP split the rest, but NDP support has collapsed into the single digits. That’s why Poilievre is behind the Liberals. Even men as wise as Doug Ford and Kory Teneycke would find it difficult to overcome that problem. National Post randalldenley1@gmail.com Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.