Ontario Premier Doug Ford says his quip about not inviting reporters to a news conference-style event was “a little bit of fun” that the “thin-skinned” media took too seriously.
On Thursday, the premier’s office organized an announcement in Mississauga, Ont., styled to look like a news conference.
Ford, alongside several Progressive Conservative MPPs and other local politicians, stood with construction workers behind a podium. Remarks from a number of politicians were live-streamed by the government to promote the event, before it wrapped up after about 20 minutes.
“Thank God we don’t have the media,” the premier joked as he walked away from the podium. “No answers, no questions — we’re good to go.”
The comment was met with criticism from opponents, who claimed it showed Ford had “disdain for democracy” and was not the actions of “a serious government.”
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Ford was asked about the comments during a brief scrum in Hamilton, Ont., outside a Progressive Conservative byelection event journalists were also barred from attending.
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“I’m out more than anyone. We’re having a little bit of fun… There’s no big deal, I see the media all the time. I have no problem with the media,” Ford said on Thursday evening.
“It was a little tongue-in-cheek, and I know the media’s very thin-skinned when I joke around. They shouldn’t be, because I’m the most transparent, most available premier ever in Ontario.”
The Mississauga event, however, was part of a trend from the government in recent months — not announcing where the premier will be and using public resources to stage events that look like news conferences without reporters present.
It was back in April, as his government struggled with the fallout of a short-lived private jet purchase, that Ford announced a monument for workers who had been injured or died on the job.
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The government issued a news release promoting the announcement, but Ford and Labour Minister David Piccini announced it in front of friendly stakeholders in one of the backrooms of Queen’s Park.
Roughly a month later, the government announced it had broken ground on the Bradford Bypass. Ford and Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria travelled to the site, where they stood behind a news-conference-style podium, again without reporters in tow.
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The government repeated the move for a groundbreaking at North York General Hospital and again to announce station construction on the Eglinton Crosstown West LRT.
Since coming to power in 2018, the Ford government has moved to make following the premier more complicated.
The party does not release an official itinerary for journalists or the public at the beginning of the week. Changes to freedom of information laws earlier this year mean even retroactive access to Ford’s calendar is now prohibited.