Ontario’s new Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford shares his thoughts on the state of the province and how the experience gained in his family’s printing business provides key insight for economic growth Keywords: Ontario Premier Doug Ford, victoria gaitskell

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2. 16 PRINTACTION · April 2018 PRINTACTION.COM
Ontario’s new Progressive
Conservative leader Doug Ford
shares his thoughts on the state
of the province and how the
experience gained in his family’s
printing business provides key
insight for economic growth
By Victoria Gaitskell
A
fter being elected
head of Ontario’s
Progressive Conserv-
ative (PC) Party on
March 10, Doug
Ford now stands to
become Premier of
Ontario if his party
wins the June 7 prov-
incial election. “Our focus will be on
straightening out the finances of this
province,” he said, two days after his
leadership victory.“We’re going to reduce
hydro rates, start attracting high-paying
jobs… and make this the most-prosper-
ous region of North America.”
Ford’s recent campaigns promote his
career as President of his family’s busi-
ness, Deco Labels & Flexible Packaging,
as a primary qualification to run the
province. Ford also credits his business
experience as the source of at least two of
his main guiding political principles:
customer service excellence and reducing
the size and cost of government.
These principles were also hallmarks
of Ford’s late father, Doug Ford Sr., who
served as MPP in the PC government of
Mike Harris from 1995 to 1999, and
Ford’s late younger brother, Rob Ford,
who was mayor of Toronto from 2010 to
2014. “[Rob] and I both learned custom-
er service from our dad...at its most basic
level, it just meant being accessible, hon-
est and fair with people’s money. That
had served us well [in] our family busi-
ness, and it served us even better in our
political careers,” writes Ford.
Ford explains how the unique nature
of his business gives him insight into the
economy: “Labelling has always been a
special service. Every product in the
PRINTING AND
POLITICS
POLITICS

3. PRINTACTION.COM April 2018 · PRINTACTION 17
Left: Doug Ford
backed by family
members and
supporters as he
addresses the
crowd at FordFest
on September 8,
2017. Above:
Victoria Gaitskell’s
November 2010
story on the late
Rob Ford was
published just days
before he became
mayor of Toronto.
world has a label on it, and in turn, I be-
lieve every household in North America
has one of Deco’s labels under the hood
of their car, in their medicine cabinet, on
their cosmetics or in their fridge.Very few
industries are that diversified, so we get
the pulse of the economy. When we’re
selling labels, that means manufacturers
are selling their products.”
The source of the last two quotes and
portions of the following history is Ford
Nation:Two Brothers,OneVision –TheTrue
Story of the People’s Mayor by Rob and
Doug Ford, their bestselling autobiog-
raphy published in 2016.
Business success
Ford,53,hasworked inthe family business
practically all his life. He remembers how
as children he and his three siblings
worked for their father by assembling
sample packs for potential new customers
on their basement ping-pong table for
wages of 0.5 cents per bag.In 1962,Ford’s
father had launched Decowith his partner
and neighbour, Ted Herriott, a former
salesman at Avery Label, who he eventu-
allyboughtout.By1970,Decowasturning
a good profit, and by the late 1970s Ford
Sr. had purchased the company’s present
building in northwest Toronto near Pear-
son Airport.
In 1984, Ford undertook a diploma
program in business administration at
Humber College, until a faculty strike di-
verted him into full-time sales for Deco.
Although initially he promised his father
that he would return to college when the
strike ended, Ford’s career in print sales
took off and he never looked back.
As Ford Jr.’s influence over the business
grew, he spearheaded the company’s ex-
pansion into the U.S., initially against his
father’s advice. Deco’s production facili-
ties now include the Toronto plant, en-
larged to 70,000 square feet, and a
45,000-square-foot plant in Chicago, col-
lectively employing about 200 people.
The company specializes in custom
pressure-sensitive products, narrow web
flexible packaging,promotional items,and
tags, mainly for the Consumer Packaged
Goods (CPG) industry. In 2015, Deco
purchased its tenth Mark Andy press,
equipped with a RotoflexVLI-500 rewind-
er and other options to increase its capabil-
ities and Deco’s product offerings, which
currently include pre-applied labels, on-
serts, and Instant Redeemable Coupons
(IRCs); resealable packaging; and a pro-
prietary tamper-evident system.
Political career
Ford’s earliest political activities involved
supporting roles. In 1995, he volunteered
to help Doug Holyday, one of his printing
customers, mount a successful campaign
to become mayor of Etobicoke. In 1995,
Ford was instrumental in his father’s suc-
cessful bid to become MPP for the riding
of Etobicoke-Humber. Ford also sup-
ported his brother Rob’s four successful
campaigns to become city councillor for
Ward 2 Etobicoke North from 2000 to
2010 and again from 2014 until Rob’s
death from cancer in 2016 at age 46.
After Rob decided to run for mayor in
2010,Ford himself successfully ran for city
councillor in Rob’s old ward with the in-
tention of helping Rob eliminate wasteful
spending, balance the books, and imple-
ment other changes as mayor.Ford served
asWard 2 Councillor from 2010 until 2014,
the year cancer forced Rob to withdraw
from the race for re-election as mayor.
When Rob asked Ford to run for mayor in
his place, Ford hastily organized a six-
week campaign that earned him 330,000
votes to winner JohnTory’s 394,000. Ford
planned a 2018 rematch withTory for the
mayoralty until this January,when Patrick
Brown suddenly resigned as Ontario
Conservative Party leader amid allegations
of sexual misconduct, and Ford entered
the contest to replace Brown.
“The Ontario Liberal government’s
current deficit is not sustainable. With
that kind of deficit, if you were in the
private sector, you wouldn’t be in busi-
ness,” Ford told me in a phone conversa-
tion some months before his PC leader-
ship bid. At the time of writing, various
sources place the provincial deficit at
between $3 and $4 billion for the 2017-18
fiscal year. Although figures for the gov-
ernment’s pre-election budget for 2018-
19 are still undisclosed,they are expected
to include new spending that will raise
the deficit as high as $8 billion.
“[Ontario Premier] KathleenWynne is
at the lowest popularity level of any Can-
adian politician at any level of govern-
ment,” Ford said during the same phone
call. “The province is in desperate need
of a strong voice. People are telling me to
run, and it weighs on you. You feel an
obligation.”
With Deco’s position now solidified in
both the label and flexible packaging
markets, Ford expressed confidence that
his older brother,Randy Ford,whom Ford
calls Deco’s Co-president, and the great
management team they have assembled in
Toronto and Chicago, will keep the com-
pany moving forward while Ford concen-
trates on politics.
Ford’s business platform
So far, Ford has spoke about lowering
Ontario’s hydro rates and abolishing
Brown’s proposed carbon tax, both of
which Ford described at the February 28
leadership debate in Ottawa as“job-killers,
absolute job-killers.” Ford also said he
would abolish mega-million-dollar sub-
sidies to selected corporations and instead
replace them with tailored tax-incentive
packages:“We’re going to give companies
tax incentives to come up and open here.
Now, don’t mistake tax incentives for
corporate welfare. I’m dead against cor-
porate welfare.”
In a Q&A after the debate, Ford ex-
plained: “Corporate welfare is giving
Bombardier a billion dollars, a few years
later another billion, another billion. I
don’t believe in that. But giving a tax in-
centive is encouraging companies here
and giving a tax incentive to open up in
certain regions. If they’re up north, I’d be
more than happy... Procter & Gamble’s
leaving Brockville. If Procter & Gamble
came up to me and said, ‘What sort of
taxes can we save?’, we’d come up with a
great plan to keep Procter & Gamble up
there. There’s going to be 300 families
without a job up there.” (Another source
says 480 jobs are ending.)
At a February 21 leadership campaign
event in Peterborough, Ont., Ford said:
“Our company has a facility in Chicago,
and every week or second week we get
letters from all the other states saying:‘We
have a tax-free zone. We’ll help you with
the building. We’ll even help you hire
people’...But here in Ontario the message
from the Ontario government is: ‘Come
up to Ontario. We’re going to tax you to
death.We’re going to put rules and regula-
tions and red tape that you’ll never get
through. And you’re going to have the
highest property taxes, high hydro rates.’
That’s absolutely unacceptable.
“When we get elected,we’re going to go
down to the border and put this big neon
sign up saying ‘Ontario is open for busi-
ness.’ We’re going to blaze a new trail of
prosperity, prosperity this province has
never seen.”
Although figures for
the government’s
pre-election budget
for 2018-19 are still
undisclosed, they
are expected to
include new
spending that will
raise the deficit as
high as $8 billion.
$8B
“The province is in desperate need of a strong
voice. People are telling me to run, and it weighs
on you. You feel an obligation.”