Ontario’s opposition parties called on Premier Doug Ford to apologize for a personal insult he hurled — and repeated — at a Liberal member of provincial parliament Thursday during a debate about a law that restricts public access to his records.
Most of the day’s question period was focused on amendments in the budget bill that will shield records of the premier, cabinet ministers and their staff from freedom-of-information laws.
Liberal critic Stephanie Smyth, who worked for decades as a broadcast journalist before entering politics, asked Ford why a premier who claims to be highly accountable is making it hard to hold him to account.
Ford responded by saying that the reason Smyth is in the legislature is because “CP24 didn’t want her anymore.”
“Bottom line, simple, that’s why she’s down here,” he continued.
“She was just a promoter for Liberal agenda, NDP agenda when she was doing interviews. You think there could be anything else? That is the facts. That is the truth. It hurts, doesn’t it? It hurts when you aren’t wanted.”
Speaker Donna Skelly warned two opposition members who were shouting back at Ford and cautioned all members on their language and personal attacks, but did not ask Ford to withdraw his comment.
Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy was asked to withdraw comments later in question period for saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Smyth said after question period that the premier owes her an apology.
“You shouldn’t talk to anybody that way,” she said. “There’s a standard of decorum, of how you act. When we get in (the chamber) and we talk about issues and we ask questions, you don’t go personal, right? That’s not the place. You be parliamentary. You be classy. And that’s not what is happening here with this premier at all.”
Interim Liberal leader John Fraser and Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner say Ford needs to say sorry.
“What the premier said was so personal and so demeaning and so beneath the office of the premier that I believe the premier should apologize,” Schreiner said.
Fraser gave Ford another chance to apologize at the conclusion of question period, rising to say the premier knows the right thing to do.
Ford heckled back: “If you’re willing to dish it out, you better be ready to take it.”
