Graeme Bayliss: His cyclist friend was killed. Why did Doug Ford’s response include ‘lmao’? - Toronto Star

No one is expecting the premier to mash out the Bixby letter on his iPhone. Yet we might expect more than this.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s reply to a Torontonian who texted him about bike lanes was tactless, writes Graeme Bayliss.

Graeme Bayliss is an opinion editor at the Star. He lives in Leslieville. Follow him on Bluesky: @gbayliss.bsky.social

Doug Ford is laughing his ass off. His words, not mine.

The premier of Ontario is four weeks away from the end of his 21-week summer vacation. He is 11 weeks away from the beginning of his 10-week winter vacation. He is three and a half years away from the next provincial election. And while there may be bumps in the road ahead, God help him, at least there won’t be so many bike lanes: not after he spends an estimated $48 million ripping 19 kilometres’ worth of them out of three Toronto streets, ostensibly to ease traffic congestion.

His plan has attracted some naysayers. Michael DiBernardo, who lives in East York, is one. He believes Ford has a tendency to spend big money “for very transparent, very stupid reasons,” and he takes issue with the premier’s refusal to entertain compromises the city has proposed to restore car lanes to Bloor Street, University Avenue and Yonge Street but keep bike lanes in place.

Ali Sezgin Armagan might have been one, too, except he’s dead. A newcomer from Turkey, Armagan was killed by a careless driver on Avenue Road in 2024 while making deliveries on his e-bike. DiBernardo knew him, even helped his family make the funeral arrangements. He says Armagan, who had arrived in Canada only a few months earlier, “was just getting his feet under him” in his new home. He was 39.

Aware that the premier gives out his cellphone number freely, DiBernardo decided to get in touch. On Sept. 7, he sent Ford the following text:

Hello, I just saw the news in the Toronto Star that proposals from the city to retain the bike lanes and reduce traffic congestion were rejected without due consideration. A close friend of mine died in a cycling accident north of Bloor on university [sic] in an area where bike lanes were removed due to construction. This political move is going to cost Canadian lives at a time when we need to be more united than ever before. Please reconsider.

He didn’t expect to hear back. He only wanted to register opposition to a plan that will needlessly endanger lives (not to mention one that will have almost no impact on traffic, as an engineering report commissioned by Ford’s own government indicates). “I spoke from the heart,” DiBernardo told me. “And I almost immediately got a response.”

The response he got (verified by the Star): “I am sorry for your loss! Star is always truthful lmao! I have been talking to the Mayor last week about University!”

It can be difficult to know what to say when someone tells you their friend has died. I imagine it’s even more difficult when both the dead and the bereaved are strangers to you. No one is expecting Ford to mash out the Bixby letter on his iPhone. Yet we might expect more than this. As DiBernardo put it: “Yes, the ‘lmao’ definitely makes me feel like you are sorry for my loss. Have a good day.” (Ford sent no reply.)

After speaking with DiBernardo, I emailed the premier’s office to ask whether Ford had personally drafted the offending text. I was soon furnished with a statement that failed to acknowledge the question: “We’ve always been clear, bike lanes should go where they make sense, not where they’re making traffic worse. That’s why we’re restoring vehicles on Toronto’s busiest streets. We’ve launched our RFP to tackle traffic and get people moving again.”

Setting aside that the Highway Traffic Act classifies bicycles as vehicles, such a useless reply from Ford’s office would normally not be noteworthy: we’re talking about a premier who has rewritten provincial law to keep you from knowing what he’s up to or whom he’s been consorting with. It’s not as if he was going to let slip that he’s risking a non-zero number of Ontarians’ lives for political gain.

Still, you’d think one of his staffers could affect a regretful air and inform me that the text in question, in all its crassness, was sent by a well-meaning but misguided intern. That would be the easy way out. Which makes you wonder why Ford didn’t take it.

So did the premier of Ontario really tender his condolences with an exclamation mark? Or did he get someone else to do it — in which case, what of his “call me anytime” routine? Is it mere sharp practice? And what’s so damned funny?

I don’t know. Ask him yourself. You’ve got his number.

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Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details

Graeme Bayliss is an opinion editor at the Star. He lives in Toronto.