Author: Mark Winfield, Professor, Environmental and Urban Change, York University, Canada

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been dropping hints for some time about the possibility of a provincial election this spring, if not sooner. Those hints are being reinforced by the pending arrival of $200 “rebate” cheques to Ontario residents from the province at a cost of nearly $3 billion. Ford claims that he needs a clear mandate to deal with the newly inaugurated Donald Trump administration in the United States, specifically its threats to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian imports. Ford’s Progressive Conservatives already hold a strong majority in the provincial legislature as a result of the…