Scenes from the Plowing Match
Also: Crombie finally drops a housing platform, big birthdays, and what happens in Vegas...
ABOVE THE FOLD
SPOTTED AT THE PLOWING MATCH — MPPs donned 10-gallon hats and rubber boots to woo rural Ontarians at the annual International Plowing Match in Bowling Green — a big to-do in Ontario politics. Some choice scenes:
Premier DOUG FORD and Oppo leaders hopped on tractors to compete for furrow-plowing supremacy. Ford got major laughs when he quipped: “I do not want to hit the media by accident.” Then: “Where’s COLIN D’MELLO?”…
Oppo Leader MARIT STILES was cheered when she mentioned New Democrats will protect the Greenbelt — while the Tories sat strained-face…
No jeers for Ford at the opening parade, like there were in 2019, but no major cheers either — and nothing compared to the boos then-premier KATHLEEN WYNNE received in 2016, amid sky-high hydro bills…
The Greenbelt land swap was front and centre, with many farmers voicing their opposition to the hot-potato move…
Outspoken Tory MPP LISA MaCLEOD throwing social media shade at Ontario Liberal party president KATHRYN McGARRY for holding up a pro-Greenbelt poster. “Maybe she can tell us why they tried to shut down church suppers in rural Ontario back in ‘06, or why they annually cut the Agriculture budget or why they destroyed prime agriculture land with wind turbines?”…
To which one cheeky reporter replied: “This you?”, with a link to MacLeod’s leaked 2018 mandate letter that ordered her to help families with children on the spectrum, who are still struggling…
Ford-branded granola bars making a comeback…
In case you missed it: Here’s what was top of mind for the agricultural and rural leaders.
GRITS GO FISTICUFFS 2.0 — Wannabe Liberal leaders go head-to-head in an off-shoot debate at Toronto Metropolitan University today — and to set the stage, we’ve got the skinny on the latest fight: housing.
SCOOP — Frontrunner BONNIE CROMBIE is poised to release her housing policy platform today — and it’s about time, according to at least one of her rivals. Yesterday, NATE ERSKINE-SMITH called out Crombie for her lack of a housing policy — which made for an awkward moment when she hesitated to raise her hand after the candidates were asked who had released a platform at the Thunder Bay debate. Every other candidate’s hand shot up immediately.
Shots fired: In an open letter addressed to the Mississauga Mayor — who will take an unpaid leave of absence from City Hall as of October 7 — Erskine-Smith slammed her city’s less-than-stellar record on housing starts that is “at odds with the [Ford government’s] housing task force recommendations.”
“We will not be a credible alternative to the Ford Conservatives if we do not have a trusted plan to build housing. With your record on housing over the last decade, it may be difficult to earn that credibility and trust. But it has to start somewhere, and it should start with embracing the province’s task force recommendations at a minimum,” the letter reads.
Team Crombie clapped back: A senior adviser in Crombie’s camp isn’t sweating it.
“Mayor Crombie has had a housing plan since 2014 when she was elected to transform Mississauga from a suburb into a thriving urban community,” they said. “She had people running against her saying, ‘Oh, you want to urbanize, you want to bring all this density and all these tall towers.’ And she basically said, ‘Yeah, we do. In fact, we’re gonna build transit and reclaim the waterfront as well’…She was ahead of the game.”
“Now, will she admit that everything hasn’t been perfect? Yes, but there are more levers to pull at Queen’s Park than there are at City Hall.”
Teaser: Crombie’s incoming housing platform was informed by some of the foremost planning experts in the country, and will lay out how she can “use the expertise she’s built over the past decade to deliver the housing Ontario needs,” the source said.
“There’s some good stuff on how you straighten out approval processes, incentivize building, address NIMBYism and great stuff on affordable housing and homelessness.”
Team Shamji, too: QUITO MAGGI, the Mainstreet pollster who’s working on ADIL SHAMJI’s campaign, also scoffed at Erskine-Smith’s letter, pointing out the late-in-the-game housing measures from the federal Liberals, where Erskine-Smith sits.
“Breaking news: ‘Maverick’ Liberal MP calls on opponent to conform and support DOUG FORD’s task force,” Maggi posted on X, tongue-in-cheek.
The debate stage: That’ll make for juicy fodder at today’s debate, moderated by Star columnist Martin Regg Cohn. If you, like me, were hoping for more blood after the first party-sanctioned debate, this is where you can expect fireworks, as Cohn is a sharpshooter of a moderator that will hold the candidates’ feet to the fire. It kicks off at noon. RSVP.
CLIPPINGS
— WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS: “Three Wynn Las Vegas hotel employees say their records contradict the story an Ontario Minister gave the Integrity Commissioner about a chance meeting in the hotel’s lobby with a developer whose land was later removed from the Greenbelt — claiming the pair, along with a former aide to Premier Doug Ford, actually got massages at the same time.”
More juicy tidbits from CTV News: “Minister Kaleed Rasheed and Amin Massoudi got the ‘Good Luck Ritual’ massage and developer Shakir Rehmatullah got a custom massage at the same time in the Spa at Encore, 4 p.m. on Feb. 1, 2020, which the hotel describes as a ‘truly opulent experience,’ the three hotel employees said.”