Ontario’s top bureaucrat criticizes Doug Ford over Washington trip
Ontario’s top bureaucrat is admonishing PC Leader Doug Ford and his staff for allegedly trying to use his Washington D.C. trip last week to the party’s advantage in the election campaign.
Ford went to Washington on a two-day anti-tariff push, his first of two trips to the U.S. capital during the campaign. Ontario taxpayers covered the costs of meetings and events on the ground, while the PC Party paid travel costs for Ford and the campaign workers who accompanied him.
The head of the Ontario Public Service,� Michelle DiEmanuele, ordered Ford’s top political adviser not to use video from the trip as campaign material, and says Ford’s government office wrongly designated two PC Party campaign workers on the trip as government staff, according to an email obtained by CBC News.
Last Friday, Ford’s social media accounts posted a video with footage from the Washington trip, including closed-door meetings with U.S. business and political officials. The video concluded with the PC Party logo and campaign slogan “Protect Ontario.”
Later that day, Ford’s posts were deleted and the video was re-posted without the party branding.
A PC spokesperson said at the time that the logo and slogan were removed “out of an abundance of caution.” However, DiEmanuele’s email casts doubt on that explanation, and lays out a different version of events.
PC leader Doug Ford took his Ontario election campaign tour to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to make Ontario’s case against U.S. tariffs, while the other major party leaders continued campaigning across the province. CBC’s Mike Crawley breaks down the details.
“When I became aware that the video was posted on social media with the Progressive Conservative Party Campaign slogan and Party logo, I immediately reached out to the Premier’s Chief of Staff to request that the video of the mission not be used for campaign purposes,” DiEmanuele says in an email sent Thursday to John Fraser, a Liberal candidate and longtime MPP.
The Ontario Liberal Party provided CBC News with a copy of the email, which was a response to a complaint by Fraser last week.
Campaign workers’ attendance ‘should have been flagged’
In the email, DiEmanuele says she has asked Ford’s chief of staff Patrick Sackville to consult with Ontario’s integrity commissioner on “the appropriate use of video and photographic images of the Premier and ministers on government business during the election period.”
As the province’s top bureaucrat, also known as the secretary of cabinet, DiEmanuele plays a role in ensuring that Ford and his cabinet ministers do not use government resources for partisan purposes. The integrity commissioner, J. David Wake, provides MPPs advice on ethics and conflict of interest and can investigate complaints made by MPPs.
The email also says that the Premier’s office — which continues to function during the election period — listed the two PC Party campaign workers gathering video and photos of Ford as provincial government staff, but did not tell DiEmanuele.
“Their attendance should have been flagged internally and further assessed as part of the election period protocol,” she says.
Both DiEmanuele and Wake gave Ford the green light to go to Washington after determining the trip qualified as urgent government business. Both the Liberals and NDP have asked the integrity commissioner to review whether aspects of Ford’s trip crossed any ethical lines.
Asked to respond to the concerns raised in DiEmanule’s email, PC campaign spokesperson Grace Lee provided a statement to CBC News.
‘Fast and loose with the rules,’ say Ontario Liberals
“Like the prime minister and other premiers, the premier is always accompanied by a photographer and videographer,” said Lee. “Out of an abundance of caution and respect for taxpayers, the party paid for the travel and accommodation expenses for the staff currently involved in the campaign who traveled with him to Washington.”
A spokesperson for the Liberal campaign says Ford “plays fast and loose with the rules.”
Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford has said the province will build a tunnel under Highway 401 if he’s re-elected. But as CBC’s Lane Harrison explains, one expert says it could be the single-most expensive Ontario election promise in the last ten years.
“You can’t trust a word he says,” said Ontario Liberal press secretary Bahoz Dara Aziz in an email Friday to CBC News. “He has zero regard for Ontario taxpayers, and even less for the rules and conventions of our democracy.”
Fraser had complained to the head of the public service that Ford’s Washington trip was “a major, coordinated effort by the Progressive Conservative Party to leverage government resources in order to give themselves an unfair advantage in this election.”
DiEmanuele’s response dismisses some of Fraser’s complaints, including concerns about Ontario public servants’ involvement in the Washington trip.
“The support provided by Ontario public servants to the Washington mission was reviewed by our Election Period Committee and was consistent with the organizational and logistical support public servants provide on government missions,” DiEmanuele says in the letter.
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