The Ontario election campaign is off and running. But there is no Ford in OUR future…

The Doug Ford campaign kicked off on Wednesday evening at the Toronto Congress Centre, where a few hundred PC supporters assembled — but a few journalists, Rebel News included, were denied entry.

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The Ontario election is officially underway, and confidence is surely flying high among the rank and file of Ford Nation.

Indeed, according to various polls, the Doug Ford Progressive Conservatives look like they’re in a position to win again come June 2.

A new Ipsos poll indicates that the PC Party would garner 39% of the decided popular vote. That’s only two points shy of the party’s share of the vote in 2018 when the PCs won a majority government.

By way of comparison, the Ontario Liberals under leader Steven Del Duca is projected to receive 26% of the vote, while the NDP, under Andrea Horwath, would snag 25% of the vote; 13% of Ontario voters remain undecided.

The Ford campaign kicked off on Wednesday evening at the Toronto Congress Centre, where a few hundred PC supporters assembled.

We wish we could tell you what transpired inside this convention centre, but a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the forum: certain journalists, myself included, were denied entry.

Why? No reason was given. Just an oft-repeated statement of, “we know who you are” (whatever that means.)

We were told to vacate the premises or else. Or else what? Or else face arrest for trespassing. No, seriously.

The hatchet woman in this case was Ivana Yelich. She is Ford’s director of media relations. She told me and my cameraman, Lincoln Jay, to beat it ASAP. (Full disclosure: Yelich was my co-worker back in the Sun News Network days of yester-decade.)

Interestingly, the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington was also denied entry to the event. How bizarre! I would argue that over the past 20 years, Warmington has given the Ford family the fairest coverage of anyone toiling in the mainstream media. And now he’s suddenly journalist non grata? .

Why? Again, no answers.

Alas, the same exclusionary rule does not apply to Warmington’s Toronto Sun colleague, Brian Lilley. That’s because Yelich is currently Lilley’s mistress. No, I’m not making this up.

Why hasn’t this blatant conflict of interest been declared yet? How is it that a journalist covering Queen’s Park is also engaging in relations with Ford’s spokesthingy? Does Toronto Sun editor Adrienne Batra know? Does she care? Or is politics and the mainstream media so incestuous these days that this relationship no longer raises eyebrows?

Granted, they say politics makes strange bedfellows, but this is ridiculous…

But that’s the way Doug Ford — or more accurately, Doug Ford’s handlers — roll these days. They co-opted a page out of Justin Trudeau’s playbook: freedom of the press is just dandy, but only government-approved and taxpayer-funded mainstream media folk need apply.

That would include journalists from the CBC and the Toronto Star, who were welcomed with open arms at the Toronto Congress Centre.

Yes, the same media organizations that vilified and demonized Doug’s late great brother, Rob, are now being cozied up to. Apparently, the strategy is this: play nice with the MSM vipers so that they will deliver at least fair coverage during the election campaign (good luck on that one: most of the mainstream media despises both Ford and the PC Party.)

It’s hard to stomach and it’s so sad to see how the Ford Nation brand has been so tarnished since the death of Rob. Given all this seduction and all this carnal activity — both figuratively and literally — it's all so sordid, isn’t it?

I imagine Rob Ford is rolling in his grave right now.

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