As Doug Ford campaigned to become Ontario's premier in 2018, he put out a very Trumpian vibe. On the trail, he attacked the media and the elites, raged against measures to combat climate change, vowed to cut income taxes and gas prices, and even expressed support for President Trump's policies.
It might seem surprising then to now see Ford — who is in charge of Canada's largest province — taking the lead in opposing Trump's harsh tariffs as Prime Minister Mark Carney scrambles to manage the fallout from U.S.-Canada trade tensions.
In recent months, Ford's criticism of Trump has been growing, most recently in the form of a television ad featuring the words of President Ronald Reagan warning in a 1987 radio address against the perils of protectionism. The ad has attracted Trump's ire and appears, at least temporarily, to have derailed trade talks between the two countries.
Who exactly is Doug Ford and what accounts for this political 180?
Three generations of the former businessman's family have served as elected officials, and Ford began his political career on the Toronto City Council from 2010 to 2014.
The period was marked by the dramatic fall from grace of his younger brother, then-Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who admitted to smoking crack cocaine and then was dogged by evidence of a string of other abusive behavior.
In the same year that Rob Ford publicly admitted to drug use, The Globe and Mail published an exposé that said the brothers had dealt hashish in the 1980s.
Rob Ford died from a rare form of cancer in 2016.
Moving from the right to the center
Just two years after his brother's death, Doug Ford's political fortunes blossomed. He and his right-of-center Progressive Conservative Party won a majority in Ontario, riding discontent against the Liberal Party, who were coming off 15 years in power in the province.
"Doug Ford got elected in large measure to get rid of a very unpopular government," says Steve Paikin, a long-time political analyst and host of the Paikin Podcast, a weekly current affairs podcast in Canada.
Paikin says after Ford's success in 2018, he made the mistake of assuming Ontario had voted for his agenda, when in fact the Progressive Conservatives' election success was mostly about removing the Liberals.
"He got into office practicing a kind of disruptive, robust populism on steroids, which made his government, frankly, the most unpopular I had ever seen," Paikin says.
That's when he decided to tack to the center. In the years that followed, Ford reached out to Canada's left, including the now-prime minister. He also won praise even from critics for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic response in Ontario.
"COVID saved him. When the COVID crisis hit, he suddenly realized that all the kind of populist, anti-science, anti-expertise, 'we're just going to wing it by the seat of our pants,' that wasn't going to work," Paikin says. "He suddenly realized, I need to rely on experts."
NPR reached out to Ford's office for an interview with the premier, but received no response.
From Trump enthusiast to "Captain Canada"
When former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he would step down in March this year, just as the White House was preparing its April 2 "Liberation Day" tariffs, Ford moved in to fill the vacuum, emerging as the voice of the anti-tariff response.
By the time of his second reelection bid earlier this year, Ford's early enthusiasm for Trump had long faded. On the campaign trail, he donned a baseball cap that mocked the red "Make America Great Again" hats — Ford's blue cap, worn at a news conference in January, read "Canada is not for sale."
"President Trump is promising steep and sweeping tariffs that will devastate our economy and put hundreds of thousands of people out of work," Ford told voters. "Whether he imposes tariffs next week, next month or waits a year, President Trump's threats are not going away. With a strong mandate from the people, I will do whatever it takes to protect Ontario."
After winning reelection in February, Ford threatened to cut off electricity to homes in the U.S. in retaliation for the tariffs and Trump's threats to annex Canada. Ford also canceled a $100 million contract with Elon Musk's SpaceX to provide Starlink services to the country.
Ford's stance won him the sobriquet "Captain Canada."
"Bad cop" to Carney's "good cop"
Trump announced Friday that he was ending all trade negotiations with Canada over the ad featuring Reagan. Ford subsequently said that after talking with Carney, he had decided to pause the advertising campaign, calling it a success for having reached U.S. audiences.
In an X post on Friday, Ford wrote: "Canada and the United States are friends, neighbours and allies." In a statement later, he said: "Our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses."
"We've achieved our goal, having reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels," he added.
Paikin suggests that because of their close relationship, Carney and Ford are playing a game of "good cop, bad cop" with the anti-tariff ads – Ford gets to ramp up the rhetoric as Carney plays deal maker.
"Mark Carney ran on a platform of elbows up and ever since he became the prime minister, the elbows have definitely been down," Paikin says. "He's trying to take a more muted approach."
"The other side of the coin is [that] Doug Ford is free to do whatever he wants."
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