It seems Doug Ford has seldom met a populist idea he isn’t willing to embrace.

And sometimes those folksy stances even make sense — notably his efforts to push back against U.S. President Donald Trump tantrums and ridiculous anti-Canadian crusades.

Oddly, the burly Progressive Conservative premier — who often governs more like a centrist liberal than a right-wing neocon — seems to be able to do no wrong in the eyes of most Ontarians, despite major ethical missteps, including the Greenbelt development scandal, political cronyism and now the auditor’s report on the Skills Development Fund fiasco.

Since his days as a Toronto city councillor, the millionaire from Etobicoke, who, with his siblings, inherited a successful label business built by his father, has worked to cast himself as a working-class Everyman and champion of blue-collar causes.

His folksy “for the people” mannerisms and utterings have turned the one-time entrepreneurial high schooler into a hero for those who love the “less government, more common sense” mantra.

From a political perspective, it’s pure gold.

From a public policy perspective, it’s mostly pure bunk aimed at letting Ford continually ingratiate himself with his diehard supporters.

Like Trump’s crazed meanderings, when Ford muses about the courts or outlawing things like speed cameras, it plays well with the base.

And now, Ford has used his Tory majority to ram through legislation to get rid of those “cash grab” cameras despite opposition from a surprisingly broad-based cadre of individuals and organizations.

When you have SickKids Hospital, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and leaders of police forces across the province telling you you’re wrong, chances are you’re making a mistake.

Nevertheless, municipalities have until Nov. 14 to remove their speed cameras.

Ironically, that hasn’t been an issue in Niagara-on-the-Lake thanks to vigilante types who repeatedly cut down the camera outside Crossroads Public School in Virgil.

It’s been gone for weeks and won’t be back. All that remains is a lonely stub of metal, a sad sack reminder of what once was. If you have ever driven along that stretch of roadway, you’ll know the camera experiment has been a success.

In the camera’s absence, anecdotally speaking, just having a couple of centre-line signs reminding you of the reduced speed limit, plus other signs warning about a speed camera ahead have greatly cut the speed of traffic on that section of regional road.

When the cams were active, yes, people whined about the “cash grab” of getting a fine in the mail a couple of weeks after speeding past the school.

And it is a cash grab, sure, as we stated in a previous editorial. But so what? It’s a penalty earned for not obeying the law, in a school zone, amid warning signs.

Personal accountability for one’s actions seems to have been lost in the outraged “how dare they” over-reaction to getting dinged in the wallet.

Ever travelled in the U.K., Europe and elsewhere? Speed and parking cameras are literally everywhere. But don’t dare do it in Doug Ford’s Ontario.

His government says it will give municipalities money for other speed reduction and “traffic calming” measures, but those alternatives won’t be in place before the speed cams vanish.

But given how successful (and therefore hated) the speed camera program has been, it remains to be seen whether new, more passive interventions will have the same effect.

Certainly, speed humps, centre-line signs and raised crosswalks slow down traffic. But as any NOTL resident who lives in an area with reduced speed limits, 30 or 40 km/h signs alone do not deter drivers from booting it. Behaviours need to change.

And, as we’ve said before, the good folks who speed along our residential streets and rural concessions, inevitably are not visitors and tourists. They’re locals, many of the same folks who complained about speed cameras.

Will Ford’s new “for the people” approach get their attention and change their behaviour?

We doubt it. But given no other choice, let’s see what alternatives our town and Niagara Region come up with.