In Ontario, there are 43 seats held by the Liberals federally that, remarkably, are held by Doug Ford’s Conservatives provincially.

The Premier is coming off a third straight majority victory in the province’s February election. His party’s riding organizations are in place. Had he gotten out the pom-poms in support of federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, he could likely have helped him win some of those ridings.

But instead of being a team player, Doug Ford is looking, as his social media decriers put it, more like a turncoat. In a clear-eyed act of disloyalty with election day nigh, Mr. Ford undercut the Conservative campaign, saying that if his own campaign manager, Kory Teneycke, was running the show, “I don’t think Mr. Poilievre would be in the position he’s in right now.”

And then, lest anyone doubt the wisdom of what he was saying, he loaded on this cheap shot: “Sometimes the truth hurts.”

It sure does.

Feuding between the two most powerful Conservatives in the land is a gift to the Liberals. Liberal Leader Mark Carney should be sending the Premier a crate of Champagne. Mr. Ford could have aired his grievances behind closed doors. He had made the point about the federal campaign before but, as if he hadn’t created enough dissension, he decided to gratuitously do it again this week.

Without a strong showing in Ontario, the Conservatives, as pollster Nik Nanos said in an e-mail, “have no path to victory.” The non-support from Mr. Ford could cost the party any chance of winning or have the effect of giving the Liberals a majority instead of a minority.

Why is Mr. Ford doing this? It’s not complicated. What it looks like is that he does not want Mr. Poilievre to win this election.

Mr. Ford may have a Conservative sign on his lawn, but it’s apparent that he doesn’t like Mr. Poilievre, has scores to settle and according to some Conservative observers, hasn’t been treated with the respect that he feels he deserves.

If Mr. Poilievre loses, Mr. Ford will be the number one Conservative in the land and sought after to be the new leader of the federal party. If Mr. Poilievre becomes prime minister, Mr. Ford would be lorded over by him and his top adviser, the powder keg Jenni Byrne. He’d hate that. On the other hand, he gets along well with Mr. Carney.

There appears to be no chance that Ford-Poilievre relations can be repaired between now and election day. Mr. Ford’s organization is run by Mr. Teneycke and the field workers are loyal to him. If he wants them to sit on their hands instead of getting out the vote, they will.

The schism with Mr. Poilievre is not caused by differences over issues of national import. Rather, it’s just nasty ego-driven discord long in the making.

Some, including Steve Paikin, the astute TVO interviewer who will moderate Thursday’s English language debate, believe the feud dates back to 2019, when Ms. Byrne left as chief of staff amid tensions with Mr. Ford and his senior advisers. That set the tone. Hell hath no fury like Jenni Byrne scorned.

In the 2019 federal campaign, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer likely annoyed Mr. Ford by not seeking his assistance. Mr. Scheer and Mr. Poilievre are very tight.

After becoming party leader in 2022, Mr. Poilievre, with the help of Ms. Byrne, built up such a big lead over Justin Trudeau that they probably figured they didn’t need any help from the likes of the Premier of Ontario.

“For months/years, Pierre did not reach out to Ford,” said Nick Kouvalis, Mr. Ford’s pollster, in a recent social media post. Many people in the senior federal Conservative universe worked against his interests before and during Mr. Ford’s latest campaign, he said.

So now it’s payback time. There’s bad blood all over the place. Mr. Ford further alienated the Poilievre team by working in happy harmony with Mr. Carney in the handling of Donald Trump.

Though trailing the Liberals, Mr. Poilievre has maintained his party’s polling support level in the upper-thirties. Frank Graves of Ekos Research Associates said he’s been a victim of circumstance. “I don’t think any strategist could have prevented what’s happened given the course set when Trump unleashed the tariff and annexation talk.”

The Poilievre campaign, however, has failed to broaden the party’s appeal much beyond his populist base. Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, said in an interview that Mr. Ford’s success has been his ability to do just that.

Mr. Ford, she said, is “a coalition builder.”

Maybe “was” is the better word. At a time when the party’s two titans needed to join hands, the coalition builder turned coalition exploder.