'There’s a lot of uncertainty that nobody expected,' Wynne says of Ford's first year as premier

As Doug Ford marks one year in power at Queen’s Park, former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne said she believes Progressive Conservative voters are now thinking “wait a minute, that’s not what I voted for.”

“During the campaign he (Ford) made it sound really simple to do the things he was going to do,” Wynne voiced on Friday. “He said there’s not going to be any loss, there won’t be any disruptions, but the fact is that there is a lot of anxiety – there is a lot of concern in the province.”

“There’s a lot of uncertainty that nobody expected.”

The Don Valley West MPP stepped down as the leader of the Ontario Liberals following the June 7, 2018 election, which saw Ford take a majority government.

Since then, Wynne said Ford has mixed up his priorities.

“Obviously I am bias but the prioritizing of beer over kids with Autism, convenience store selling beer over public health, I mean those don’t make any sense to people,” she said.

“I’m worried about the priorities of this government.”

On top of having off priorities, Wynne said Ford is using his time as premier of the province to be the mayor of Toronto.

“If I lived in another part of the province – and I’ve talked to people in other parts of the province – it’s pretty annoying that the focus is on Toronto, even though it’s negative, and I think that people wonder what that is about,” she said. “It has a personal vindictive overtone to it.”

“The fundamental problem is that picking a fight with municipalities makes no sense. It does not make for good governance, it doesn’t help people get great services, it just means that things are slowed down.”

A Mainstreet Research Poll released at the end of May put the PCs in third place behind the Liberals and the NDP, making Ford less popular than Wynne at the end of her time as premier.

Just 22.4 per cent of decided and leaning voters would cast a ballot for the PC party if an election were held now, according to the poll.

The poll also found that 33.9 per cent of decided and leaning voters would support the Liberals, despite not having a permanent leader, and 24.2 per cent would vote for the NDP under Andrea Horwath.

One day before marking one year since the PCs took over, Ontario’s elected representatives began their extra-long summer back, not returning to Queen’s Park until Oct. 28.

The legislature typically rises in early June before resuming shortly after Labour Day, but instead this year it will resume after the federal election, which is set to take place on Oct. 22.

Wynne said she thinks this move will take Ford out of the public eye for enough time.

“I think pulling him back from the public sphere, although he will be doing events, he won’t be in the bright light of the mainstream media, so I think that’s a strategy. I think they definitely want to get him out of the limelight.”

The Ontario Liberals are expected to meet this weekend at their annual general meeting and decide how they will go about choosing a new leader to replace Wynne.

“I think there are a lot of good candidates already in but I think there are also people who haven’t yet declared they are going to run and I think you’ll see once we get into the fall you are going to see more people coming out and saying ‘you know what, we’ve got a lot of work to do in this province come 2022,’” Wynne said.

Ford spoke in Mississauga to mark his one year in office at 1 p.m. Friday.