The thinking of the center right faction seemed to be that, to rule in Ontario, especially if you hoped to build a dynasty, it was wise to sit on a sweet spot just right of center. The far right group took a different tack. They believed that there was no sense in winning if you can't do some seriously revanchist things. Otherwise, you are really just a light blue liberal party. 

 

For many Ontarians, especially progressives, it will seem ridiculous to call the Ford regime any kind of centrist, even center-right. Ford is already privatizing healthcare about as fast as he can get away with, without sparking riots. He is underfunding education by at least $3 billion and blaming school trustees. This government is accused of corruption weekly, with pay-to-play donors making off like the mob. He’s trashing bike lanes, falling way behind on climate commitments, and slowly privatising the LCBO. Nevertheless, these Troglodyte ‘Project Ontario’ types are attacking Ford from the far right. They see the same Ontario as progressives, lack of housing, unemployment rising, inflation, but their prescription is even more neoliberalism, the very thing that caused the crisis. 

 

This isn't new. All parties have their factions. BC Conservatives have both financial-urban, real estate types and rural social conservative knuckle draggers. Alberta has the TBA MAGA style faction, and the Libertarian Danielle Smith crowd and so on. Various disgruntled right wingers have tried to move Premier Ford to the far right, The Ontario Party and the New Blue Party both tried forming new, right wing parties. Both parties have failed to get much traction as socially conservative, populist parties. New Blue peaked at less than 3%. 

 

This new grouping behind Project Ontario is not attempting to create a new party, but instead looks like an organizational hub, partly think tank, partly activist group, with some aspects of the American Heritage Foundation, or some aspects of TBA in Alberta. The attendees are right wing writers, former staffers with the most well known being MP Jamil Jivani, buddy of MAGA VP JD Vance. The right wing mouthpiece ‘The Hub’ seems aligned with this group. Another prominent attendee was Matthew Spoke, a real estate developer, which is hardly surprising, and his brother Chris Spoke. Spoke is also associated with ‘’Canada Strong & Free’’ and the Manning Center. 

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Although Project Ontario excoriates ‘’woke ideology’’, it seems more concerned with classic, far right economic issues common to Neoliberalism - privatization, deregulation and tax cuts which date back to the Reagan Thatcher era, 45 years ago. 

 

The new group met at the Gardiner Museum, Queen’s Park Crescent. and Bloor St, September 29. The group is pushing the funding of private and religious schools.They are not fond of what they call ‘’ideology and identity politics’’ in schools and favour ‘’merit and equality of opportunity’’.They also openly want two tier, increasingly private, healthcare. The group seems to want Ford to ‘’use up some of his political capital’’ on these hard right issues. To Ford this must sound like ‘’take a lot of risks with unpopular, far right policies’’ and court defeat in 2029. Most progressives believe that, with a dose of sodium pentothal, all conservatives would admit to favouring a serious libertarian regime of mass privatization, deregulation, and tax cuts for the rich. 

 

Surely someone will soon point out John Tory’s disastrous election campaign against Liberal Dalton McGuinty, which was lost due to Tory’s suicidal policy on funding for all religious schools, a guaranteed loser. 

 

Project Ontario Manifesto

 

https://thehub.ca/author/projectontario/

 

What should progressives of any stripe make of Project Ontario? On one hand, Ford dismissed them as far right Yahoos, which is accurate. On the other hand, Project 2025 in the US, was dismissed as extremist nonsense as well. And is proving to be the official playbook of Trump 2.0. Ford is already relentless on his health privatization, why would he not at least nibble at public education? If the privatization piece is too much, he can take a run at the anti woke agenda to keep the ‘’yahoos’’ inside the tent. 

 

It’s easy to dismiss Doug Ford himself as a big doofus, but he is either a doofus with unusually sharp political instincts or he hires the right wing brain trust, Kory Teneycke, Chris Froggatt types who do know how to win in Ontario. Trump is unbelievably stupid, but he’s the president not Kamala Harris. Many are old enough to remember Mike Harris ‘’Common Sense Revolution’’ dismissed as a far right fever dream. A few months later he was Premier from third place. Forewarned is forearmed.