Analysis Toronto’s Trump: Doug Ford, brother of crack-smoking ex-mayor Rob Ford, eyes a familiar path to power in Ontario

Doug Ford is campaigning to become leader of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province – and perhaps to bring glory to the Ford name.

The family name was marred by his brother Rob Ford, the late mayor of Toronto whose political career was dogged by drunken escapades and a video of him smoking crack cocaine.

But Doug Ford’s rhetoric on the campaign trail has compelled observers to link him to another political name: US President Donald Trump.

Ford has positioned himself as the antithesis of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and as a right-of-centre businessman who derides elites, whom he has described as “people who look down on the average, common folk, thinking they’re smarter and that they know better to tell us how to live our lives.”

“They have their glasses of champagne with their pinkies up in the air, looking down like they’re better than you are,” Ford, the surprise winner in a March leadership race for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, recently told a Toronto radio talk show.

With less than two months remaining until the June 7 provincial election, his party is well ahead in opinion polls and widely expected to win.