Ford aims to turn blue collars blue

PCs vie for traditional NDP ridings with a union-friendly pitch not seen from Tories since 1970s

Call it the Big Blue Collar Machine.

Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives are taking aim at traditional NDP ridings in the June 2 election with a union-friendly pitch not seen from the Tories since the era of former premier Bill Davis’s Big Blue Machine in the 1970s.

Ford is in the midst of a five-day blitz into New Democratic strongholds in Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, London and St. Catharines after touring Windsor last week to herald new electric-vehicle investments there.

“Andrea Horwath and the NDP have abandoned blue-collar workers in favour of ideological activists,” the Tory leader said Friday in Niagara Falls where he touted the endorsement of the local mayor as well as of six skilled-trades unions.

But the New Democratic leader questioned how Ford expects to peel off working-class votes given his past freeze of the minimum wage, his salary cap for nurses, and his lukewarm embrace of pandemic paid sick leave.

“I really have no idea what Mr. Ford thinks he can do,” Horwath said Friday on a Zoom news conference from her apartment in Toronto, where she is recovering from COVID-19.

“Working people know that Doug Ford’s not on their side ... he won’t make sure that wages are decent,” she added, taking shots at the many PC candidates who are refusing to attend local debates against their rivals.

“Doug Ford may be trying to pick up NDP ridings, which I don’t think he’s going to be very successful at ... and what we’re doing is going into Conservative ridings for the most part because we think that there are people who are very disappointed with how Doug Ford has dealt with this province.”

In January, Ford boosted the minimum wage by 65 cents to $15 an hour, with another 50-cent increase slated for October. It would be indexed it to inflation thereafter.

Horwath is promising an immediate $16-an-hour minimum wage, rising $1 annually to $20 in 2026. The Liberals have pledges a hike to $16 by January.

A senior Conservative source told the Star that Ford is targeting three NDP-held ridings in Brampton, as well as York-South Weston, Humber River-Black Creek, Oshawa, Timmins, James Bay, Kiiwetinoong, Algoma and Thunder Bay.

“It’s all about rebuilding the economy with big infrastructure projects that create jobs. It sounds like a cliche, but it really is all aimed at better jobs and bigger paycheques,” the insider said, speaking confidentially in order to discuss strategy.

“The NDP is all about subsidies, not creating wealth. They’re trying to straddle the downtown, leftwing, very progressive voters with blue collar workers who want to be paid well for a day’s work,” the source said.

Unlike most previous Conservative leaders, Ford appeals to and appears most comfortable around working-class people — even though he’s the scion of a wealthy family.

That’s why he and Monte McNaughton, the labour minister, have devoted a lot of energy to bolstering skilled trades training and apprenticeship programs

“As we build roads, highways and bridges and attract investments in clean steel and electric vehicles, the Ontario PCs will get more workers into the skilled trades to help build Ontario,” the Tory leader insisted, adding the province lost some 75,000 registered apprentice positions between 2013 and 2018 under Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne.

Campaigning in Ottawa, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca appeared to dispute Ford’s claim to be a working class hero.

Del Duca pointed out the Tory leader was at his Muskoka cottage for a February weekend of snowmobiling while the so-called “Freedom Convoy” blockade was disrupting downtown Ottawa.

The Liberal leader slammed Ford for not doing enough to tackle the horn-honking trucker convoy that left the city “under siege from an illegal occupation” for weeks.

“Doug Ford was nowhere to be seen,” said Del Duca, who hopes to make Liberal gains in the national capital after his party was reduced to seven seats in the 124-member legislature after the 2018 election.

“The people in this community know ... he’s not for the people of Ottawa — and neither are his local MPPs,” he said.

“Because in those moments when that help from Queen’s Park was necessary, was expected, should have been flowing, they didn’t step up.”

But Del Duca bristled when asked what he would do if he fails to win back the riding of Vaughan-Woodbridge that he lost to Tory Michael Tibollo in 2018.

“First of all, I’m going to win my seat.”

Andrea Horwath questioned how Ford expects to get workingclass votes given his past freeze of the minimum wage, his salary cap for nurses, and his lukewarm embrace of pandemic paid sick leave