Sandford Borins

One of the great put-downs in the history of political debates was Lloyd Bentsen’s of Dan Quayle, “I knew Jack Kennedy. … Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” I never thought I would be applying similar logic to praise Mike Harris, but here’s why it fits. One of the Ford Government’s first moves was to fire…

Premier-designate Ford has decided to take Ontario out of the cap-and-trade carbon pricing agreement with California and Quebec, without specifying a clear alternative. As discussed in an article (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-if-not-carbon-pricing-in-ontario-which-works-well-then-what-mr/) in The Globe and Mail by Beugin, Drummond, Hodgson, and Cappe on June 22, this destroys with the stroke of a pen almost $3 billion in…

In my post of April 8 (“Questioning Doug Ford’s Resume), I wrote that if Doug Ford wanted to prove his business acumen, he would release audited financial results for the family business (Deco Labels and Tags). Of course he hasn’t, but Renata Ford’s bombshell lawsuit has provided what she claims is evidence of his mismanagement.…

Duverger’s Law is one of those empirical generalizations in social science that doesn’t have the force of laws of physics. It states that plurality-rule elections (such as first past the post) structured within single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system. The US conforms to this law while Canada is an exception. Right now, Duverger’s…

Though party leaders’ debates are intended to inform voters about the party’s policy positions, what voters often take away is an overall impression of the candidates. In my view, Kathleen Wynne came across as “proffy,” Andrea Horwath as “chippy,” and Doug Ford as “bullshitty.” By “proffy,” I mean that Kathleen Wynne was knowledgeable, measured, thoughtful,…

Doug Ford hasn’t said a lot about universities, but what he has said should set off alarms. What he did say (reported on May 8 in The Globe and Mail) is that his government would police free speech on Ontario campuses. Ford’s dog whistle here is to his base, who apparently believe that universities are…

In the first party leaders’ debate Doug Ford said to Kathleen Wynne, “You’ve got a nice smile on your face.” In the second, he repeated the “compliment,” saying “I still like that smile.” In the first debate, Wynne replied, “So do you.” In the second, she turned away and after the debate said “I’m not…

What will be the fate of Ontario universities under a Ford Government? Here is my best guess. The Conservatives have not yet produced a detailed platform. We know that they want to balance the budget and do it by cutting spending. Ford talks about “finding efficiencies.” This based on the dubious assumption that there is…

With the official start of the Ontario election campaign two weeks away, I’ve been looking at what each of the three major parties are doing on social media.  Underlying my casual empiricism is the hypothesis, supported by a growing body of evidence, that a party’s online popularity measured by indicators such as viewcounts and page…

After looking at Doug Ford’s Wikipedia page and reading his 2016 book Ford Nation, I have questions about three areas of his resume: his role in the family business, his lack of post-secondary education, and his approach to politics. Doug Ford describes himself in the book as an “independent Canadian business leader,” and has claimed…