Toronto Life – December 2018

photographs: freeland, tory by

markian lozowchuk;

atwood,

drake by

getty images;

peterson by

daniel ehrenworth

66 toronto life December 2018

head on the back. Karla was smiling and congenial,

in a dark T-shirt and a Michael Ford button.

This was likely the closest I was ever going to get

to the premier, so I hung around for a long time.

People kept coming, kept saying hello. Finally, I saw

Karla was alone for a minute and introduced myself.

She grimaced. I said, “Can I ask you a question or

two?” She said no. I asked anyway: “Has Doug

changed at all since he became premier?”

“Not at all. Doug is the same. A gem. One of a kind.

We’re lucky to have him.”

“What’s he like when he’s not working?”

“He’s always working.”

“He never takes a break? Plays golf? Goes for a

swim?”

“He’s always working. Always brainstorming. He

treats everyone with respect and that’s what everyone

needs. Especially these days.”

The former Rebel Media commentator Faith Goldy,

then a mayoral candidate, walked in and threw her

arms around Randy. I thanked Karla and went back

outside. People were still lined up to the back of the

hall, still waiting for Ford. (Later, to great controversy,

Goldy and her all-male entourage would also pose with

him.) A large man caught my eye and, in response to

the endless selfies, said, “Wow.” We talked a bit. His

name was Binder Singh, and he was a 48-year-old

entrepreneur from Brampton. I asked him if he had

been to any previous Ford Fests. Singh said, sure, that

he’d known the Fords for about 20 years. He was san-

guine about Doug’s election. “How often do you change

your car?” he asked me. “Every five, 10 years? Same

thing with government. You need a change.”

I asked Singh the same question I asked Karla, if

Doug had changed. He smiled, knowingly. “Yeah, bro,”

he said, “he’s losing his freedom.” Singh explained:

he’s surrounded now by conservatives, lobbyists,

corporations. He needs to please other people. Doug

looked after his guys, he had that loyalty. But that meant

that those guys, guys who hadn’t been elected, also

wanted to tell him what to do.

Singh pointed at Dean French, who was standing

onstage, helping to usher people into position or off-

stage. I wasn’t so sure that Doug had lost his freedom,

exactly, but a metaphor started to form before my eyes.

On one side of the stage were the people, the people

that Ford couldn’t stop talking about, the people that

he needed and who needed him, who would line up

for hours just for the brief chance to shake his hand,

to put their arm around him, to bathe in the radiance

of that smile. And then, there was French, shuffling

them off the stage, sending them back to their lives,

where they would wait for Ford to do something for

them, to save them some money, to make things sim-

pler. Even if the people felt, for a minute, part of it, it

was still a political machine. “Every politician elected

to govern is eventually made a hypocrite by govern-

ment,” the strategist Chad Rogers said to me. How

long would it be before the anti-politician, the anti-

Brown, the anti-Wynne was made a hypocrite? Doug

never stopped smiling.

with america on sabbatical as global

defender of human rights, Freeland has

leapt into the void. In August, she called out

MBS, the power-mad Saudi prince, for jailing

a women’s rights activist. When he levied sanc-

tions, kicked out Canada’s ambassador and

ordered all Saudi students to leave Canada,

Freeland doubled down, stating that Canada was

“very comfortable with its position.” A month

later, she appeared on a panel called “Taking on

the Tyrant,” which featured a video montage

of Trump alongside autocrats like Syria’s Bashar

al-Assad and China’s Xi Jinping. The timing

didn’t help her relationship with POTUS, who

was growing frustrated with the stalled NAFTA

talks. “We don’t like their representative very

much,” he said of Freeland, who remained charac-

teristically unfazed. For the umpteenth time in

2018, she visited Washington in pursuit of a

favourable agreement for Canada. Finally, in Octo-

ber, she secured a deal that protects Canada’s vital

industries and, rebrand aside, isn’t so different

from its predecessor. friends in high places: In

April, Freeland hosted all the G7 foreign minis-

ters for brunch at her Summerhill house.

chrystia

freeland

Minister of Foreign Affairs

The F

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