Doug Ford`s first budget bespeaks a populist manifesto.It gets tough on some (mostly poor people and students).It lavishes love on others (tax breaks sprinkled here and there).Call it tough love — not to be confused with “tough luck” — from a premier who loves to be loved. By the right people.No, it’s not an especially right-wing budget: In its own seductively populist way, it purports to be all things to all people (not counting poor people, whose votes Ford can’t count on).A budget outlines a government’s agenda, because numbers speak louder than words. But in an era of creative writing and accounting, budgets conceal as much as they reveal, playing down the bad while hyping up the good.In that tradition, Ford’s first budget deceptively heralds his munificence while it downplays the take-aways. He is spending more than any previous Liberal government, piling on bigger deficits than his immediate predecessor and projecting record debt levels.But his budget also confirms that high school students will be squeezed into more crowded classrooms (27 per cent bigger) as teachers’ positions are reduced and online teaching is increased. Scheduled welfare increases are being scaled back, promised transit funding is being cut back, and legal aid that underpins our justice system is being undermined.What makes Ford’s tough love unique is that his budget claims to be “Protecting what matter most,” as the title page insists. A more candid description might be, “Cutting when no one’s looking.”Like all governments, Ford’s Tories locked up journalists and opposition staff amid tight security to put their spin on a sneak peek, embargoed until Thursday’s 4 p.m. budget speech. But all that lock-up security and suspense was misplaced, for the main budgetary elements were telegraphed in advance or trickled out in the aftermath.Exhibit A for Ford’s fiscal tomfoolery is his gov ...
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