SATURDAY,FEBRUARY22,2020 | THE GLOBE AND MAIL O A
D
oug Ford is in the soup
again. This time, his trou-
bles arise from a decision
by his Progressive Conservative
government to bring in updated
licence plates for Ontario motor
vehicles. A simple matter, you
might think. Except for Mr. Ford
and his crew, even a minor an-
nouncement can bring a refresh-
ing plunge into the bouillabaisse.
The government rolled out the
new plates at the start of the
month. They have a new design –
white numbers and letters on a
blue background instead of blue
on white – and a new slogan – “A
Place to Grow” instead of “Yours
to Discover.” Officials said the
plates would be more robust than
the old ones, which sometimes
peeled and had to be replaced.
They would have a “fresh, more
dynamic look.” They would use a
brighter, high-definition material
that was a “proven technology”
across Canada.
Mr. Ford himself was photo-
graphed at agovernment office
where motorists were collecting
new plates. “I’m excited to an-
nounce that Ontario’s new, more
durable license plates are now
available at your local @Service-
Ontario!” he tweeted.
There is just one tiny problem.
They can be hard to read, especial-
ly at night. Some motorists and
police are finding the plate num-
bers disappear in a reflective glow
when headlight beams hit them.
Given that the whole point of li-
cence plates is to be visible, this
would appear to present a diffi-
culty. Mothers Against Drunk
Driving Canada said that easy-to-
read plates are “obviously crucial”
if people are to report impaired or
dangerous drivers. The Ontario
Association of Chiefs of Police
weighed in, too.
The opposition parties had a
field day with PlateGate, as social
media promptly christened it.
The NDP’s Jennifer French re-
marked in the legislature that, “I
thought Ontario was a place to
grow, not a place to glow.”
The smart thing for the Ford
government to do would have
been to say, oops, sorry, we’ll fix
this. Instead, it at first defended
the glow-in-the-dark plates. Gov-
ernment and Consumer Services
Minister Lisa Thompson said that
they had been through rigorous,
exhaustive testing and “we have
absolute confidence in our
plates.” As reporters looked on
agog, she even said it was never an
option to stay with the old “Liber-al plates,” which in fact have been
around for longer than the previ-
ous Liberalgovernment. Liberal
plates?
All of this made it doubly hu-
miliating whenthe government
had to back down and concede
that, yes, the plates had issues af-
ter all. Its new approach is to
blame the supplier. The Premier’s
office said he has complained to
3M, which says it stands by its
products and is working to reme-
dy the problem. Drivers with the
new plates will get new, new
plates to replace them.
Anyone who has followed the
Ford government since it took of-
fice in June, 2018, will discern a
pattern: ill-considered move fol-
lowed by sudden reversal. An edi-
torial in this paper described its
style as “ready, fire, aim.” Mr. Fordseems to have a positive talent for
getting into trouble. From his de-
fence of the naming of his friend
to head the provincial police to
the axing of a program to plant 50
million trees, he has rarely been
out of it. He abandoned plans to
revamp regionalgovernment and
ditched an attempt to take over
ownership of the Toronto subway.
He saw his chief of staff resign
when it came out that he had ties
to two people who got appoint-
ments (quickly revoked) to cushy
jobs representing Ontario in New
York and London – a bad look for a
premier who says he runs a gov-
ernment “for the people.”
The problem isn’t that Mr. Ford
is a modern-day Attila, laying
waste to government services.
Given how spendthrift his Liberal
predecessors were, doubling theprovincial debt in only a decade,
some sort of retrenchment was
inevitable. Ontario now spends
more on debt interest than on
postsecondary education, the
Fraser Institute reports.
His cuts are not as deep as some
feared, and many have been re-
versed under pressure. The gov-
ernment will not even balance
the books until 2023, at current
rates of spending. It is promising
to spend billions on mass transit,
a welcome pledge for booming
Toronto.
The trouble is more a matter of
simple competence. Canada’s
most populous province needs a
steady hand on the helm. Instead,
it has a government that can’t
even bring in new licence plates
without landing head first in hot
broth.DougFord’screwcan’tseemtogetanythingright
Evenforsomethingas
simpleaslicenceplates,
basiccompetencehasto
becalledintoquestion
OneofPremierDougFord’svehiclessitsoutsidethelegislatureonThursday,sportingoneofthelicenceplatesthataredifficulttoreadwhenthesun
goesdown.Afterdenyingtherewasaproblem,thegovernmenthasconcededtheplateswillhavetobereplaced.FRANKGUNN/THECANADIANPRESSMARCUS
GEE
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