There is a mysterious movement in progress to promote the Ontario PC government of Prime Minister Doug Ford to adopt more conservative policies fiscally.
Calling himself “Ontario Project”, the initiative was released in silence on the weekend with a website of a page and an unpleasant manifesto published by The Hub, online news and a comment.
“When conservatives lose their principles, Ontario loses their way. Cambie the course,” says the website.
“We are organizing an assembly of ontarium conservatives this fall on which we would love to tell you more,” he adds, encouraging people to send their name, email address and postal code for more details.
The call to change occurs only a few months after Ford led its progressive conservatives to a third consecutive majority, something that no party leader has achieved in the province since the 1950s.
It is not clear who is behind the Ontario project.
The general editor of the Hub, Sean Speer, told CBC News that he is not involved, but offered to convey an interview request to the authors of the manifesto. CBC News also sent a message to the Ontario project website, but did not receive any response to any consultation.
Ginny Roth, an organizer for a long time both in the Ontario PC party and in the Federal Conservative Party, published a link to the Ontario project on social networks and wrote: “I will register to be part of the conversation.” CBC News asked Roth an interview, but she refused.
‘Conservative Base Movement’
The manifesto published in The Hub enters more details than the group’s website on philosophy behind the Ontario project. He speaks of the province in gloomy terms, which describes economic deterioration, punitive tax rates and heavy companies when riding bureaucracy.
“The Ontario project is not just another political group. It is a basic conservative movement that is ready to think big, act with courage and present practical and main solutions,” says the article.
“We are gathering the conservatives of all Ontario (party members, business owners, policy experts and citizens committed) to build a shared vision for the future of the province,” he continues. “Together, we will elaborate a policy frame that applies conservative values to today’s most pressing problems.”
There are no Ford signs and their PC Party are particularly concerned that FAR’s anonymous impulse of the Ontario project raises any type of political threat.
“The prime minister focuses on delivering his mandate to protect Ontario, who assured with his third consecutive victory of majority elections,” said a Ford office official in an email to CBC News.
Kory Teneycke, who administered Ford’s three successful campaigns, discards the Ontario project as something small.
‘Outside the mainstream’
“They are far from the main current of the party and are far from the main current of the conservative voters coalition,” Teneycke said in an interview.
Ford is “the most popular conservative in Canada for a country mile,” said Teneycke.
Patrice Dutil, Professor of Policy and Public Administration at the Metropolitan University of Toronto, says that the Ford registration to administer large budget deficits is contrary to the wishes of many conservatives who want a smaller government in the province.
“For a long time there has been in Ontario de Doug Ford, a rump of conservatives who are deeply unhappy with the way he governs,” Dutil said in an interview.
Jamil Jivani, the conservative holder of Bowmanville-Oshawa North, known for his friendship with American vice president JD Vance, will win his seat. During an interview with David Common from CBC, Jivani made some sudden comments about Ontario Prime Minister, Doug Ford, saying that “he is not doing anything particularly well.”
The way Ford governs “talks to conservative values sometimes, but is also almost indistinguishable from the liberal expenditure approach,” he said.
But Dutil says that it is difficult to know at this stage what the intention of the Ontario project has.
“At this point, it is really nothing more than what seems to be a seed,” Dutil said. “Maybe they put some politics meat in their bones. But at this time we don’t even have bones.”
The competitive visions for conservatism in Canada have been on the exhibition below in Ford’s electoral victory in February and the failure of Pierre Poilievre to take his conservative party of Canada to victory in the federal electoral campaign of April.
The tensions between the Ford and Poilievre teams exploded in the light when Teneycke publicly and abruptly criticized the conservatives for blowing a 20 -point advantage in the surveys and not turning the focus of their campaign to the threats of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
Then, on the night of the elections, the conservative holder Jamil Jivani downloaded in Ford during a live interview with David Common of CBC, hitting the prime minister for whom he once worked as “opportunistic” and calling his “thug” advisors.
Ontario’s Prime Minister, Doug Ford, speaking from Toronto on Monday, says that Pierre Poilievre “would not be in the position he is now” if the open strategist Kory Teneycke was directing the campaign of the federal conservative leader. But Ford added that there is still a long time. “
Teneycke says that the time of launching the Ontario project is unusual given Ford’s electoral victory and the loss of the federal party.
“I think they would lose much less if they emulated Doug Ford more,” said Teneycke.
Melanie Paradis, president of texture communications and a veteran conservative strategist, discards the Ontario project as a “faceless group and without name” that does not offer substance.
“Anyone who thinks that Doug Ford is insufficiently conservative has given fever an impossible standard of conservatism that no politician in Canada could meet,” Paradis said in a text message.
The advent of the Ontario project is not the first time that there have been rumors against Ford on the right, but those previous criticisms come more from conservative social elements in the party than from the fiscal hawks.
The members who were expelled from the PCs or were challenged with Ford joined two separatist right parties, the new blue party and the Ontario party. Both presented a significant number of candidates throughout the province in the elections of 2022 and 2025, but were not close to winning a seat.
