Teflon Ford

Premier Doug Ford appears to be the Teflon Tory.

- ROBERT BENZIE

Voters are willing to forgive Doug Ford's missteps according to a new poll, but honesty issues loom large.

In his lucky seventh summer as Ontario premier, Ford is emerging as a politician to whom little seems to stick.

At least for now.

In new polling for the Star, Abacus Data found voters are willing to forgive if not quite forget - transgressions that would have derailed the electoral careers of others.

But significant concerns around Ford’s honesty and his stewardship of taxpayers’ money loom large because of the $8.28-billion Greenbelt land swap scandal now being probed by the RCMP.

“If something bad comes out of that investigation, it could be the thing that breaks through that Teflon,” Abacus president David Coletto said this week, referring to the non-stick coating that seems to protect the premier.

Despite that risk, Progressive Conservative insiders confided to the Star they are ruminating about an early election next year, well before the scheduled June 2026 vote.

That’s because the Tories are confident about the two-term premier’s skills on the stump and his ability to connect with Ontarians in their everyday lives.

“It’s an enigma — he’s withstanding the same pressures that a lot of other political leaders haven’t been able to and so the question is why? He’s polarizing in the sense that if you don’t like him, you don’t like him. And there’s a lot of Ontarians who don’t like Doug Ford,” said Coletto.

“But he has enough who do and they think he’s just a friendly, nice guy who isn’t perfect, but admits mistakes when he makes them and tries to fix them,” the pollster said.

“He’s forgiven because he asks for forgiveness.”

Revealingly, when asked how to describe Ford, 44 per cent of respondents felt he was “friendly,” while 20 per cent said he was “mean.”