Ontario Premier Doug Ford scoffed before he replied to a question asked by Global News reporter Colin D’Mello at a February media conference about the possibility of waiving a confidentiality agreement between him and the integrity commissioner because it was in the public’s interest.
“Colin,” he said in a stern tone, “my daughter is a private citizen, I don’t know what you don’t understand.”
What we don’t understand, Mr. Ford, is why developers were suddenly able to buy land that was protected by the Greenbelt, and why these developers in question were invited to your daughter’s stag-and-doe.
Why wouldn’t a reporter question you on this? More importantly, why shouldn’t a reporter question you on this?
In fact, the Toronto Star and The Narwhal published an investigation November 2022 after an extensive look into documents that showed Ford had indeed sold land deemed to be “undevelopable” on the Greenbelt to big corporations like Rice Group and TACC Developments on more than six different occasions since he has come into power in 2018.
The timing of Ford’s most recent carve-out raised so many eyebrows that NDP leader Marit Stiles presented these concerns to the Ontario Legislature and laid out enough evidence to call for an investigation from the integrity commissioner, which is still ongoing.
Five days before the media conference with D’Mello, veteran Global News reporter Sean O’Shea asked Ford why he wasn’t being transparent about who was invited to his daughter’s stag-and-doe.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford at Humber College North campus during the announcement for a scholarship in STEM studies. Photo credit: Emma Posca
Ford replied to O’Shea in a similar way he did to D’Mello. Ford gave his response, but implied that it was some sort of an “overstep” into a politician’s life to ask such a thing.
“That’s the first time that’s ever come out in Canadian history, someone asking about someone’s daughter’s wedding,” he said.
The saying goes, “if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck…” Well, it may just be Ford using manipulation tactics on the media who are questioning his seemingly ironic decisions.
The popular term “gaslighting” was the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s “Word of the Year” in 2022. It’s defined as the “psychological manipulation of a person” where over time, the victim begins to question their own reality of a situation.
It is Ford’s attempt to make the reporter feel embarrassed for doing their job and daring to ask about his controversial actions that is the crux of his “gaslighting.”
Media freedom in Canadian law states there is the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds.”
When Ford responds that way to a valid, thought-out question from an accredited media organization, does this not blur the lines of transparency that all levels of government claim to have here in Canada?
But back to the interaction between D’Mello and Premier Ford:
“You have to have journalistic integrity,” Ford told D’Mello, referring to keeping a politician’s family matters out-of-question.
Integrity? That’s rich coming from you, Ford.
I believe your exact quote from five years ago on a video you posted on Twitter said “unlike other governments that don’t listen to people, I’ve heard it loud and clear, people don’t want me touching the Greenbelt, we won’t touch the greenbelt.”
Sounds like that makes your government one that doesn’t listen to its people.
Doug Ford is “for the people” as long as the “people” don’t ask any questions.