Doug Ford keeps on getting reelected, his brother was the mayor of Toronto despite the drugs and overall unseriousness… I mean why do people elect these guys? Is it for the memes and laughs?

I’m being totally serious when I ask this btw. What does the average Doug voter’s rationale for getting this guy in office? Same with former Rob Ford voters. Who voted for Rob Ford? Why?

Edit: TLDR of the answers seem to be:

  • Horrible effect of fptp, vote split between liberals, ndp and the greens
  • Low voter turnout
  • Nils@lemmy.ca
    17·
    2 天前

    https://www.fairvote.ca/ontario/ for more info but in short:

    Ford got 65% of seats with only 43% of votes, but only a small group voted in the last election. That means he was elected by ~20% of eligible voters. More than half of eligible voters did not vote last election.

    We have here an electorate system that discards people’s vote, discourage people to vote, or straight up disenfranchise them. For all the reasons you might be familiar with, gerrymandering, massive different in number of people in each district, propaganda from local and foreign agents. Also, I don’t think the representative from my district lives here, I only hear about them during election time.

      • dermanus@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        20 小时前

        Ford really took advantage of fptp last time too. He called a snap election claiming he needed a mandate to deal with Trump. Turnout was even worse than usual because it was February.

        He timed it carefully, often Ontario will flip parties provincially (i.e. vote Tory when Liberals are in power and vise versa) so he wanted to lock in four years when it looked like Trudeau was on the way out.

        • prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca
          2·
          13 小时前

          so he wanted to lock in four years

          Five years. Provincial governments (at least Ontario) have a five year term.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
      6·
      2 天前

      More than half of eligible voters did not vote last election.

      Which is the same as voting for Ford. They think everything is fine.

    • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 天前

      Agree with everything that you said…add the size of our ridings at a 100,000 people to 1 representative. Ridings should be no larger than 30,000 people. Many people have never met, or could point out. their rep.

  • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
    16·
    2 天前

    Ontario is like most US states. Most don’t vote, and the hicks who do vote love populist MAGA politics and were triggered when Ontario had a lesbian Premiere, it was Ontario’s Obama panic moment that surged the US right.

    We like them Pale, Male, Stale, and without a hint of Kale. Ford has repeatedly stated he is a Republican and a huge supporter of Trump. He’s broken all records for fiscal irresponsibility and corruption.

    What drives all this is not the numbers from hicks, but the much greater numbers from people who refuse to vote. It does help that the opposition parties have very weak candidates who are also being ignored by the corporate press.

  • alext@lemmy.ca
    28·
    2 天前

    Conservatives tend to just vote conservative, regardless who the candidate is, they just feel it’s their ‘what papa always did’ tradition.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
      9·
      2 天前

      Loyalty is the single most defining characteristic of conservatives. No matter the crime or idiocy, they vote for the Jersey colour they like, and they never see why politics isn’t like a sports team.

  • observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca
    141·
    2 天前

    Not answering the question of why these bozos get voted on, but one would be remiss not to mention our dumb and unfair first-past-the-post electoral system.

    • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 天前

      The size of ridings is also too big, currently almost over 100,000 people. Should be capped at 30,000. A situation that no one brings attention to.

          • Jarix@lemmy.world
            1·
            13 小时前

            That doesn’t really explain anything. Nothing much in that wiki that would imply any sort of benefit to limiting the number of voters to 30,000.

            You claim voters dropped significantly but even the initial voter turn out was about 36% using your numbers (810÷2243x100)

            According to elections Canada last year’s voter turnout was 69%

            So again what does the number 30,000 come from, but more so, why is it a GOOD number?

  • brianpeiris@lemmy.caEnglish
    191·
    2 天前

    Despite Ontario being home to multiple metropolitan cities, those cities are surrounded by many suburbs, rural towns and farmland, and that comprises a large part of the conservative base that Dougie relies on. Of course there is also a good amount of support from conservative business owners, corporate types, and the wealthy within the cities as well.

    Dougie also captured a mandate in a Feb 2025 snap election on the back of the tariffs and political turmoil caused by The Orange One to the South. He stood up against Trump, famously popularizing a “Canada is not for sale” hat after the first annexation threats. And, to be a little fair, he did a surprisingly decent job handling Covid, so he has some clout from that too.

    That said, he was already doing corrupt shit well before 2025, but now he’s pushing the envelope even further because he won’t face an election for a while (I guess, not sure what the options are there).

    Maybe moderate conservatives are paying attention and souring to him now, but the country has also shifted right, again due to the Overton window moving in the US, but also because of Poilievre shifting the federal conservatives far right, making Dougie look half sane. Oddly we are now in a situation where the Liberal party might attract more conservative voters because Carney too is conservative-lite.

    So in summary, the NDP has a lot of work to do, and they’re in a terrible position to do it. Jebus help us.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      2 天前

      he did a surprisingly decent job handling Covid

      Ontario had the most nursing home deaths of any region in the world. Ford’s response: indemnify nursing home corps from lawsuits and promise an inquiry that never happened. He also declared an end to COVID in 2022 and it continues to be the #5 killer in Ontario. Ignorance is why Ford gets re-elected. Despite “Elbows out” bullshit, Ontario behaves like any other red state.

    • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 天前

      I hate that his corruption goes unchecked. The OPP, TPS and other police departments in Ontario all need to held accountable and leadership changed.

      • stylusmobilus@aussie.zone
        1·
        17 小时前

        Yeah see with the US and Australia, maybe the Old Dart, the dipshittery seems to be spread out a bit.

        In Canada it looks as if the problems confined to Ontario and these two who stand out like a carbuncle on the back of your leg. I don’t know though, I’m not Canadian so I could be missing others.

    • NotSteve_@lemmy.ca
      3·
      2 天前

      I’m in Ontario myself and it’s mind-boggling but it’s partially because his voters stick any negatives on the federal Liberal party and any positives on Ford. Ford has been completely gutting our provincial public healthcare system but a Conservative upset about hospitals shutting down or whatever will just direct all that anger towards Mark Carney (or non-white immigrants…)

    • Lodespawn@aussie.zoneEnglish
      5·
      2 天前

      We could ask the same question about the beetrooter, Angus Taylor, Pauline Hanson or any number of openly corrupt, mostly incompetent conservative politicians. I’m not from NSW but holy hell that Barilaro idiot seems like a real corrupt piece of shit but still managed to convince one of the richest states in the nation to make him Premier.

  • the16bitgamer@programming.dev
    47·
    2 天前

    Because the Liberals who came before him were worse, and to those who keep voting for him, haven’t changed.

    With that said even in the snap election the Conservatives weren’t as popular as duggie is thinking he is. Rural towns flipped Liberal though not enough of them.

    The Ontario Liberal and NDP parties need to get their act together and start cleaning up since the last election the campaign on “we’re better than Dug” when dug was very popular with his hard stance on Trump