政策重构与权力争议
本届省议会春季会期，福特政府推动了多项重大政策调整，引发广泛关注与推行阻力。政府提议将位于多伦多的毕晓普机场（Billy Bishop airport）规划为特殊经济区，并以此获取更广泛的管理权限。然而，影响更为深远的则是针对教育委员会（boards of education）的改革，这直接限制了董事会信托人（trustees）的开支额度与报销范畴，旨在杜绝去年出现的各类高规格公费差旅争议。
此外，自由信息立法（Freedom of Information legislation，即第97号法案，Bill 97）的修订引发了极大争议。该修订实质性收窄了公众获取政府文件的范围，规定凡是在部长、议会秘书或其政治幕僚手中的文件，均无法通过省级自由信息法获取。此举虽然未完全封杀信息请求，但极大地限制了新闻调查与系统监督的空间。与此同时，政府 pivots 转向“保护安大略”（protect Ontario）的社区安全话语，计划扩张省级管辖的惩教设施（correctional facilities）。这一动作与政府对于取保候审（bail）政策的抱怨产生互动，旨在解决省级监狱系统因极端拥挤而不得不释放未定罪嫌疑人的痛点，但这是一个耗时且昂贵的系统扩建过程。
Original English Source
Well, there's been a few bills and other legislative matters related to the government's proposed expansion of the Billy Bishop airport here in Toronto. They are now looking to declare that a special economic zone, which, given the powers that the government has previously given itself will mean, will give them very broad powers with that, but one that probably will affect more people in their day to day lives will be the changes that the government has made regarding boards of education. Right. Obviously, boards of education, overseeing the management of schools all across Ontario. And now those trustees who sit on those boards are going to be much more constrained in what they can spend money on and what they can be reimbursed for. Some of those issues I believe we've discussed on the show before will include things like travel expenses. Obviously, there were a handful of very high profile cases last year that the government wanted to ensure do not happen again, and then, you know, we have to talk, I think, about the government's changes to freedom of information legislation.
Bill 97.
Yeah, the the bill substantially narrows what the public what kinds of documents the public can get access to functionally, it means that basically nobody in the Progressive Conservative Party, any document that is in the hands of either a minister or the parliamentary secretary or their political staff, can be accessed using the provincial freedom of information law. That doesn't entirely foreclose freedom of information requests, but it has substantially narrowed it, and we're already seeing the effects of that, both in terms of the journalism inquiries that have been made. And we will see that the effects of that ripple outward throughout the system.
Anything on correctional facilities and their capacity as well in the province.
Right. So the government has made this part of its you know, they're talking they're expanding the meaning of protect Ontario. They have pivoted to a community safety message, particularly in the last few months, and they are interested in expanding the number of correctional facilities that are provincially run. This has a interaction, I guess I would say, with the government's complaints about people being released on bail. Provincial jails are where people who have not yet been convicted of a crime are kept. And one reason why people do get released on bail is because Ontario's prisons are extremely, dangerously overcrowded. So one way for the government to put its money where its mouth is to to keep people behind bars and not released on bail, is to expand the prison system. But that is a lengthy and expensive process.
丑闻冲击与舆论应对
福特政府在春季会期经历了多次高规格丑闻的考验，其中首当其冲的是针对省长电话记录的自由信息请求案件。省长长期习惯使用私人电话处理政府业务，而非官方配发手机。经过信息与隐私专员（Information and Privacy Commissioner）及两级法院的裁定，法律要求其必须披露相关记录。然而，在省上诉法院判决出台后，政府选择通过修订相关立法来应对。这种做法引发了公众对其试图隐瞒信息的质疑。
另一个引发广泛关注的争议则是针对私人飞机的采购与撤销。政府曾尝试购置一架私人飞机供省长及内阁成员使用，但在引发强烈民愤后决定撤销该项目。飞机虽已退回给制造商庞巴迪（Bombardier）并获得了机款补偿，但政府仍在此过程中消耗了约20万美元的交易成本。反对党已多次要求省长个人偿还这笔款项，但其目前尚未承诺。这一事件被认为是福特政府品牌的重大危机，甚至在民调中使自由党一度超越执政党。此外，OSAP（安大略省学生援助计划）的改革同样触动了民意。福特政府逆转了前任自由党政府的改革方向，将学生援助更多转向贷款而非赠款，并解除了安大略省大学的学费上限，导致学生面临更高的债务负担与学习成本，引发了省议会外的多轮抗议。
Original English Source
Well, as you mentioned, this session was not without its controversies. The Ford government has faced some high profile issues. Can you let's let's go through a few, as you mentioned. Well, let's start with the FOI Ford's phone records. Tell me a little bit about that.
Right. So this was a case that was going on for many years. The Premier does government business with his private phone and does not use his government issued phone. And so journalists at Global News had used the freedom of information law to get access to his phone records. The first, the Information and Privacy Commissioner and then two separate courts said that under the law, as it is written, the Premier had. Or as it was written, I should say, the Premier had to release his phone records when that court decision came out from the Court of Appeals, the government seems to have decided that they would just rewrite the law. And that's how we got the the changes in legislation that we saw this spring that has obviously been controversial. You know, anytime you constrain what the public has access to in terms of these types of information, it looks bad. And, you know, it interacted with some of the other decisions that the government has made this spring with a lot of people sort of perhaps unfairly asking, you know, well, like, what are they trying to hide?
Right. All right. One that's gotten a lot of attention is the Ford government's private plane. Yes. Tell me a little bit about that.
So this was a. An attempt and then a reversal to procure a private jet for the use of the Premier and cabinet. The plane was bought, was never used, was then returned to Bombardier. The company refunded the government the costs of the plane itself. But there were something like $200,000 in just transaction costs that the government incurred. The opposition parties have asked the Premier to personally repay those costs to the Crown. The Premier has not yet committed to do so. And, you know, it was a notable moment for a few reasons. One, it really did. Mark one of the few times we've seen the opposition parties, in this case, the Liberal Party, pull ahead of the Progressive Conservatives. And, you know, a lot of people saying that it may have permanently damaged the Premier's brand.
And very quickly, let's talk OSAP, because that was one of the first protests that we actually saw outside of Queen's Park earlier this year, when we saw students protesting outside of their. What do we need to know about that?
Right. This was a change in the way that the government provides student assistance. The former Liberal government had really restructured OSAP so that it was much more grant based. People did not need to go into enormous amounts of debt to go to post-secondary education. The Ontario government, the current Ford government, has now reversed some of those changes so that students will get fewer grants and will get more assistance in the form of loans. That's going to be more difficult for them to bear. The did this at the same time as they lifted the cap on tuition at Ontario universities. So university is both going to get more expensive, and more of those costs will have to be paid with loans instead of grants. And so students were predictably upset by those changes.
反对党策略与政治突围
面对拥有多数席位、执政剩余三年的福特政府，反对党的抗衡策略显得至关重要。执政党在本次会期中展现了“淹没战术”（flooding the zone），密集推动包括《市政问责法》（Accountability Act for municipal councillors）在内的多项立法。NDP党魁马里特·斯泰尔斯（Marit Stiles）通过组织大量针对省长办公室的邮件攻势，积极动员民众参与政治，在第一季度筹集了超过20万加元的捐款，并充实了党内的选民数据库。
这种参与度的提升为反对党提供了展示差异化治理纲领的机会。NDP通过实地巡回竞选、推动议题式竞选（如针对食品杂货税收的政策讨论），试图从更高的政策视角深入到选民的生活痛点，展现出既具备政策高度又具有共情的领袖姿态。然而，民调显示NDP的支持率在17%左右徘徊，如何将这种基层动员转化为选民意图（voter intention）的大幅增长，是反对党面临的核心挑战。
Original English Source
Kim, with a majority government three years left in his term, what are the challenges in opposition?
Well, there's so much to react to, right? The Premier has been very good this session of flooding the zone. So many pieces of legislation, some that have been lingering for a while, that he finally got through, like the Accountability Act for municipal councillors. That is a substantially game changing piece of legislation in a positive way. There are other pieces of legislation that perhaps less so in particular around oSap and how that is funded and what that means for the next generation of students going forward. So he they certainly had a very busy legislative agenda. So there's lots for the opposition to react to. What was great about that from an opposition perspective, I guess, was there was so much to react to and so many different ways that Ontarians were now engaging, and particularly with Marit Stiles and the New Democrats, they've been able to respond with lots of emails into the Premier's office directing people of how they can get involved. They've had, you know, 200,000 plus dollars in donations in Q1, lots of new data into the into party databases. And more than that, it gives Marit Stiles an opportunity to say what she would do differently as premier. And people are getting to see her both the the feisty and cheeky side, but also a potential premier in waiting.
Well, we're not just seeing Mars as well. We're seeing, you know, Ontarians out there as well. We've seen several protests across the province. How can the NDP actually move the needle when it comes to voter intentions?
Well, and that's that is the conversation, right? Going out and taking the summer to go on tour. She's done a lot of tour caucus members have been out on tour developing those riding associations. What's always fascinating to me when I see polling data, what you need to understand about New Democrats is that when we start getting into that 22, 23, 24%, that's when big swaths of the province start flipping and voter intention. Well, the government will do what the government is going to do, and we will oppose where it's required to oppose. But being able to flip those and become the next government. That's the that's the the the challenge and the opportunity. And what we've seen of late from the NDP, in particular, their social media and other places and on the ground is being able to seize those opportunities.
民意稳定性与未来演变
根据Abacus于5月20日的最新民调显示，尽管公务机争议持续发酵，进步保守党（Progressive Conservatives）的支持率依然达到41%，自由党（Liberals）为31%，NDP为17%。观察家指出，福特擅长通过公开道歉来缓解执政危机，这在以往的案例中往往能有效平复民愤。然而，关键疑问在于，这些持续的争议是否已经为进步保守党设定了未来的支持率上限，并疏远了那些原本在自由党与NDP之间游离的中间选民。
自由党目前正处于激烈的领导权竞选中，多名党内候选人的竞争虽然提升了党派活力，但党派未来的走向仍取决于新领袖的选择及其能否在未来几年坚持不懈地推动议题。观察家分析，福特政府依然坚持其“福特国度”（Ford Nation）式的保守主义、民粹主义与零售政治（retail politics），这种模式虽有争议，但被视为其连续三届获得多数政府的核心公式。对于反对党而言，挑战在于如何突破执政党的权力整合优势，并在选民关注的Affordability危机中，实质性地阐述医疗与教育体制的改良蓝图，因为这才是决定下届选举能否实现政权轮替的关键。
Original English Source
All right, let's look at the most recent polling done by abacus. This is on May 20th. While the jet controversy was happening, conservatives and liberals were neck and neck, as we talked about. But this new poll shows voter intention still leaning 41% for the Progressive Conservatives. Then we got 31% towards Liberals, NDP 17%, a little lower than what we were talking about. That 20 and the Greens and other at just 5%. John Michael, how do you evaluate these findings?
You know, I I'm not surprised by a rebound for the Progressive Conservatives. I think we have seen this pattern before with Doug Ford where, you know, he this is going to maybe sound kind of mean, but he's he's very practised at this point for apologising. You know, he has had these moments before where there's been a crisis and he has come out and he said mea culpa. And voters have tended to take that at face value and basically forgive him what I think is going to be what we don't yet know, and what we're going to have to wait and find out is whether this has put a lower ceiling on Progressive Conservative numbers going forward. Has he permanently alienated some increment of voters who, you know, were not ready to consider the Liberals or the NDP yet in a future election, but are now going to be more open minded? And you know, how that you know, obviously, the NDP have a leader and they're moving forward with their strategy. The Liberals will pick a leader moving forward. And, you know, this this is all going to be dynamic over the next 2 to 3 years.
I think the leadership race is going to help that. We currently have four candidates, two from within the caucus, two from outside the caucus, and I think this is going to be a competitive race. It's the first race in years in which there's not an heir apparent, and it's also the first race in years where we have two major candidates from within the caucus. And I know that's exciting, the party grassroots and I. So I think for the Ontario Liberal Party, it's. It's remaining focussed like a laser on affordability, the struggles that everyday Ontarians are having, and really pointing out that this government, eight years in, is tired and has not been for the people. Again, whatever metric you look at, and also the lack of accountability and ethics in this government, the changes to the Freedom of Information Act also expansion of the Billy Bishop Airport zero consultation with the with the city of Toronto, with the mayor of Toronto. No environmental assessment. It's a land grab. And I think Ontarians writ large are very concerned.
Well, I think, you know, going forward, we're going to watch to see whether the Liberal Party does, in fact, capitalise on this moment. Right. The leadership race is a natural time for a bunch of new attention and new money to come into the party. But you do, at the end of the day, actually have to pick a candidate or rather pick a leader. And, you know, without wanting to disparage either Steven Del Duca or Bonnie Crombie, they did not win the elections that they led the party into. And the the risk for the Liberals right now is that you could, in fact, squander this moment where they are doing very well in the polls, and they have this opportunity to potentially, you know, really match the the feat that Justin Trudeau did in 2015, leading the federal Liberals from third to first and forming government. That's within the realm of possibility for the Ontario Liberals. But it's going to be immensely dependent on who they actually pick as a leader. And if that person can really do what's going to be several years of hard work.