Doug Ford in Ontario and Danielle Smith in Alberta are two very conservative premiers who represent almost exactly 50% of the Canadian population and Canadian education. They are similar but not identical. Ford is more of a classic Ontario conservative, primarily interested in technocratic cost control to please his donors, mainly the land development industry and landlords of the province. That’s what the Greenbelt scandal, the preposterous tunnel under highway 401, and other projects are all about. It's a giant pay-to play government which is why he is passing laws to make all premier and cabinet communication off limits to FOI requests. 

 

Smith naturally shares Ford’s cost control agenda in both education and healthcare, but the Smith regime is far more ideological on the culture wars front. She believes in fighting the culture wars but is also driven to hold together a rural Christian Dominionist, far right. conspiracy driven, electoral base. More than half her UCP party is now under the control of David Parker and his Take Back Alberta TBA, group of separatist, conspiracy-oriented activists. They are an antivax, pro convoy maple MAGA faction. 

 

The rural Alberta, far right separatist movement, is only partly motivated by oil and pipelines. They want a Texas between Saskatchewan and British Columbia. They are anti medicare, dentacare, childcare but want the federal money for these to use at their own discretion. They are very nervous that the NDP controls Edmonton and is growing in Calgary. The Liberals are now winning federal seats. The demographics are shifting with immigration and they want control of that. 

 

Both Ford and Smith  want to increase central control in education and healthcare. They want central control in order to reshape funding models and reduce the flow of funds to priorities they don't support (public healthcare and education) so that the funding is available to, in Smith’s case, promote  the oil industry and in Ford’s case, support land developers and landlords. 

 

Both want to reorient education towards STEM and away from liberal arts. Smith has been quasi privatising, using charter schools but Ford has shied away from charters, which are not a priority in Ontario. Both have clashed with education unions, going as far as threatening the notwithstanding clause in Ontario and actually using it in Alberta. Both have had significant drops in popularity in recent weeks for many reasons, including their wildly anti union actions. 

 

Ford is in political trouble over ending tuition controls and simultaneously shifting the Ontario student loans program sharply against grants and towards loans, putting college and university out of reach of students or saddling them with lifelong debt. 

 

In high school, Ford is shifting away from liberal arts, art, music, and towards STEM subjects and ‘’financial literacy’’. This is the two on=line courses compulsion, the compulsory exam fettish, This is what Mike Harris did in the 1990s because conservatives see education primarily as a service to commerce and industry while liberals prefer developing the well-rounded  individual with language, literature, second languages, culture, and socialists emphasize citizenship and liberation. If the Tories were actually honest about it, they would say outright,that they see university as for the upper classes, and community colleges as for the working class. 

 

Both Smith and Ford have a low tolerance for local and municipal government especially when the locals hear a different drummer. Much like Alberta, the cities and school boards in Ontario are bastions of Liberals and New Democrats and they keep generating  policies to match. This apparently triggers Tories, who fear the spread of such ideas from city to city. In particular, the Toronto District School Board, has been a thorn in the side of Tory governments for generations but the Peel and Ottawa boards are not far  behind. New legislation reduces TDSB to 11 trustees who each must cover twice the number of schools. They also imposed a ‘’CEO’’ over 

the traditional Director who needn't have an educational background. Less local democracy, more central command and control. 

 

Smith, or the other hand, notwithstanding separatism chaos, is trying to legislate ‘’political neutrality’’ in Alberta’s classrooms. Most jurisdictions 

have had legislation for a century that discourages teachers from telling students what to believe in partisan electoral situations, like not saying the NDP is a better choice than UCP but it is fine to discuss policy in civics or history class or have the students take sides. However, in today’s Alberta, can the teacher say ‘’climate change is real’’? Can teachers say being queer is OK, even women are equal to men? How about the Earth is billions of years old? Where is the line when Smith wants to remove the ideological element from teaching? Teachers believe so called political neutrality laws are essentially discussion killers. It's not the partisan part, it's the fact that almost every topic that provokes rigorous discussion is ‘’political. 

 

Smith claims to be a champion of ‘’parental rights’’ but it seems to be only conservative, particularly socially conservative parents that have the ear of the premier. It's the book banners, the anti trans, anti queer, rural Christian Dominionists, that are dominating the agenda, - the same people behind Alberta separatism. 

 

When it comes to educational labour relations Smith and Ford are both disastrous In 2025, Smith used the notwithstanding clause to end a strike by 57 000 ATA members and banned strikes until 2028. This is a wildly aggressive, nuclear option for labour relations. Allowing this to stand, incentivises other politicians. Ford on the other hand, in 2022, was very close to passing the notwithstanding clause against education workers in mainly CUPE and OSSTF but other unions as well. It took a confrontation in his office involving the entire labour movement including the more conservative building trades that Ford had cultivated for years. The unions convinced Ford that the NWC would force labour into a province wide general strike because this law would be an existential attack on labour. 

 

To conclude, Ford and Smith are very conservative to the point of totalitarianism. Ford is particularly corrupt and heavy handed while the more culture politics oriented Smith is certainly an extremist, and the banning of strikes is Fascist tactic. The chart below might clarify the similarities and differences.