Premier Doug Ford pledges to ‘work with’ Justin Trudeau after bruising election campaign

After enduring weeks as Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s whipping boy during the federal election campaign, Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford is hoping they can hug it out.

Striking a conciliatory tone, Ford pledged to work with his political foe the day after an election that saw Trudeau uses the premier’s record to batter Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.

The Ford fixation helped re-elect dozens of Liberals in Ontario, where the party won 79 of Ontario’s 121 seats and salvaged a minority Liberal government.

“I want to congratulate the prime minister on his re-election,” the premier said Tuesday at the Ontario Provincial Police Association meeting at Blue Mountain, an event closed to the media.

“Our government hopes the federal government will join us in making life easier and more affordable for Ontarians and Canadians alike.”

Privately, Ontario Tories concede the federal results were a setback for Ford.

“We lost Ontario by eight points and we’re getting killed with women (voters). This is a very worrying trend for Doug Ford,” said one senior party insider, who spoke confidentially in order to relay private deliberations.

Ford, who spoke to Trudeau by phone over the lunch hour, said he was “encouraged by the prime minister’s commitment on the campaign trail to fund the federal government’s share of the all-new Ontario Line subway project.”