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Documented Scandals
Sep 23, 2026
Ontario's Long-Term Care 'Homes in Distress' Bailouts Are Growing
Freedom-of-information data obtained by Global News show Ontario's "homes in distress" fund, which makes one-time emergency payments to long-term care homes struggling to stay financially stable, grew from $2.4 million in 2021-22 to $17.2 million in 2024-25, with the largest single payments now reaching $6 million to $7 million. This is a story of financial strain across the sector, not of wrongdoing: the ministry points to record investments, and even a critic credits the government with significant investments.
Sep 22, 2026
Ontario Denied Dying Cancer Patient Out-of-Country Treatment — Court Quashed the Decision
Ontario refused to pay for Alex Shved, a Toronto father with stage 4 melanoma, to get a Health Canada-approved cell therapy in the U.S. On Sept 22, 2026, a three-judge Divisional Court panel quashed that refusal as unreasonable and ordered a new decision by Oct 2, noting he "will likely be dead by Christmas" without treatment.
Sep 21, 2026
Ford Government Cut the Tire Recycling Target, Tires Piled Up, Then It Reversed Course
The Ford government lowered Ontario's tire recycling target at the beginning of 2025. Garages and tire dealers could not get used tires picked up, haulers lost work, and hundreds of thousands of tires were stockpiled in Sudbury and Ottawa. On Sept 21, 2026, the province raised the target from 65% to 80% by weight and promised more collection sites from 2027.
Sep 9, 2026
Bill 105 Would Strip the WSIB Six-Year 'Lock-In' From Permanently Injured Workers
Buried in Schedule 9 of a red-tape omnibus bill, Bill 105 would end the rule that stops the WSIB from reopening a permanently injured worker's benefits more than six years after the injury. The bill has not passed — it is awaiting third reading — and the Ministry of Labour will not say why the protection is being removed.
Sep 1, 2026
Ford Government's $66M Staples Portal Charges Teachers More for Classroom Supplies — and Locks Some Out Until October
Ontario now routes elementary teachers' $750 classroom supply allowance through a single Staples portal, which The Trillium reports is a $66 million program. Since it launched on Sept. 1, teachers have reported prices above what their boards paid before, orders stuck without shipping details, and some teachers have been told they cannot get full access until Oct. 9.
Aug 28, 2026
Province Seizes Control of Sudbury-Manitoulin Children's Aid Society Over Child Safety and Financial Failures
On August 28, 2026 the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services took over the Children's Aid Society of the Districts of Sudbury and Manitoulin, appointing a supervisor for up to a year after ministry reviews alleged children in care were unsafe and the society was financially mismanaged. Ontario's former Provincial Child Advocate — whose office the Ford government eliminated — says the allegations warrant an independent investigation, while the former board says it warned the ministry about the cost pressures for years.
Aug 20, 2026
WSIB Cuts 466 Jobs and Closes Nine Branch Offices
On August 20, 2026 the WSIB announced 466 job cuts and the closure of nine branch offices — Sudbury, Windsor, Thunder Bay, St. Catharines, Guelph, Sault Ste. Marie, Kingston, North Bay and Timmins — with a further 155 Waterloo positions to go within a year, and nearly 200 of the losses concentrated in northern Ontario. The cuts came 15 days after Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy ordered "efficiency and productivity" reviews of eight public agencies, WSIB included, with savings targets given to the agencies but never disclosed publicly.
Aug 19, 2026
Ford's Texas Trade Trip Cost Taxpayers $93,179
A decision note obtained by CBC News through a freedom of information request shows Premier Doug Ford's March 2026 trade trip to Texas cost taxpayers $93,179 — including a two-day "advance mission" to finalize logistics — while the document contained no breakdown of that figure and the premier's office did not provide one when CBC asked. Ford's expected meeting with Texas Governor Greg Abbott never happened.
Aug 18, 2026
Municipal CAOs Describe a "Culture of Fear"
A StrategyCorp survey of 32 Ontario municipal Chief Administrative Officers, released ahead of the August 2026 AMO conference, found senior municipal staff describing a provincial government that "doesn't accept dissent" and punishes public disagreement. The same CAOs said municipalities and school boards are used as a political "shield" for unpopular changes the province itself mandates.
Aug 18, 2026
Teacher Bargaining Stalls Weeks Before the School Year
Collective agreements for Ontario teachers expire August 31, 2026, and most schools return September 8. Talks have stalled over whether items are bargained centrally or locally, ETFO and OSSTF remain without agreements, and both unions say strike action is not off the table.
Aug 17, 2026
Taxpayer-Funded Attack Ads Targeting Teacher Unions
A leaked Ministry of Education ad script obtained by The Trillium shows actors playing parents criticizing teacher unions over sick days and doctor's notes, produced while five major education unions have suspended bargaining. Education Minister Paul Calandra defended the campaign; ETFO's president called it a taxpayer-funded smear campaign.
Aug 17, 2026
Cabinet Riding Associations Spending Donor Cash
A Toronto Star analysis of Elections Ontario filings found five Ontario cabinet ministers' riding associations spent a combined $356,312 on "meetings hosted" across 2024 and 2025, at venues including a sashimi restaurant, a tequila bar and an axe-throwing establishment. The money came from donations that qualify for provincial tax credits.
Aug 14, 2026
Residential School Burial Search Fund Cut
Ontario's Support for Indian Residential School Burial Sites fund is dropping from roughly $32 million a year to $20 million, according to a researcher with the Survivors' Secretariat. The Ford government has separately refused to release an audit of the same program.
Aug 13, 2026
Social Assistance Cut Off by Immigration Status
On August 13, 2026 the Ford government amended the Ontario Works and ODSP regulations so that people without legal status in Canada are ineligible for social assistance, after a tribunal ruled in favour of a man whose temporary work permit had expired decades earlier.
Aug 13, 2026
OLG Ends Mohegan's Niagara Casino Exclusivity
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation struck a deal with MGE Niagara Entertainment Inc. to end its exclusive right to operate casinos in the Niagara gaming bundle, opening a procurement later in 2026 for new casino operators under the Ford government's "Destination Niagara" plan. No compensation figure was disclosed.
Aug 12, 2026
Leaked Metrolinx Reports Reveal Dozens of Serious Construction Near-Misses on Ontario Transit Projects
Confidential Metrolinx reports obtained by The Trillium log more than two dozen "significant" safety incidents on Ontario Line and other transit construction between August 2024 and January 2025, including falling loads that landed close to workers and strikes on live power lines. No one was reported hurt. The province and Metrolinx have not answered detailed questions, and it is not known whether the Ministry of Labour investigated any of the incidents.
Aug 11, 2026
Ontario Line Hits $34 Billion — More Than Triple the Original Budget
The Ontario Line's budget has reached approximately $34 billion — more than triple the $10.9 billion figure announced in 2019 — and completion has slipped from "as early as 2027" to the early 2030s. Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay says the budget remains "under pressure."
Aug 8, 2026
PC Party Surveillance of Bonnie Crombie in Jamaica
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario paid roughly $3,000 to send an operative to two Jamaican resorts in December 2023 to surveil newly elected Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie on a private vacation. Doug Ford said he learned of it only on August 12, 2026, did not approve of it, and then defended it as "politics."
Aug 6, 2026
Extendicare Countryside Barred From New Admissions a Second Time After 120 Findings of Non-Compliance
Ontario Health at Home barred new admissions to Extendicare Countryside in Sudbury effective August 6, 2026, citing a stated belief there is risk to residents' health, safety and well-being. It is the second such order in under two years at a 256-bed for-profit home the ministry has inspected 18 times, recording 120 findings of non-compliance.
Aug 5, 2026
Staged Announcements With No Reporters Invited
A Trillium review found at least five government announcements since mid-May 2026 where Premier Doug Ford appeared at official "Protect Ontario" podiums without any media advisory being issued. Reporters only learned the events had happened once photos and videos were posted online.
Jul 31, 2026
Weeks After Severe Flooding, Ontario Has Not Activated Disaster Relief for St. Catharines and Lincoln
Storms from July 21 to Aug. 2, 2026 dropped more than 300 mm of rain on St. Catharines and Lincoln, and the mayor of St. Catharines estimates 10,000 homes were damaged. Local MPP Jennie Stevens and the Town of Lincoln asked the province to activate Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians (DRAO). As of Sept. 5, CBC and the Town of Lincoln said it had not been activated for Lincoln, and as of Sept. 21, 2026 no activation for either community appears on ontario.ca or in the Ontario Newsroom. The province says it is still assessing eligibility, and DRAO generally does not cover sewer backups.
Jul 21, 2026
Brampton East MPP Faces Complaints Over Taxpayer Ads in Father's Newspaper
Brampton East MPP Hardeep Grewal is facing two separate watchdog complaints: an Integrity Commissioner probe into whether he funneled taxpayer-funded constituency ad money to his father's newspaper, the Punjabi Post, and an Elections Ontario complaint alleging undeclared 2022 campaign ads in the same paper, some possibly placed during an election blackout.
Jul 17, 2026
Ford Government Slashes Wildfire Firefighting Budget Amid Worst Fire Season on Record
Ford set Ontario's 2026-27 wildfire firefighting budget at $150 million — nearly half of what was actually spent the year before ($271 million) — right as the province suffered its worst fire season since 2021, forcing 15 northern communities to evacuate and Ontario to beg Ottawa for emergency air support. When called out, Ford called the criticism "despicable and disgusting."
Jul 17, 2026
MPP Hotel Expense Scandal — Stan Cho Resigns Amid PC Caucus Split
Tourism Minister Stan Cho resigned from Doug Ford's cabinet after billing taxpayers $16,203 for downtown Toronto hotel stays despite living 6 km from Queen's Park — plus nearly $100,000 in riding-funded meals over three years — as reporting revealed a dozen-plus PC MPPs had similarly billed $120,000+ combined since 2023, splitting the caucus over whether they were following internal government instructions all along.
Jul 6, 2026
Jul 2, 2026
Jun 25, 2026
Jun 23, 2026
Ford Fest Photo Edited to Erase Striking Workers from the Crowd
On June 23, 2026, two Progressive Conservative MPPs — including Attorney General Doug Downey and Scarborough MPP David Smith — posted an aerial photo of Ford Fest that appeared to have been edited to remove the purple shirts of roughly 850 striking community and social-service workers, making the crowd look uniformly blue with PC supporters. The Premier's Office denied doctoring the image, calling the change routine "colour correction."
Jun 22, 2026
Ford Calls New Thunder Bay Jail "Fancy-Dancey" Days After Indigenous Man's Inquest
Days after a coroner's inquest into the death of Kevin Mamakwa — a 27-year-old from Kingfisher Lake First Nation who died by suicide in the Thunder Bay District Jail — concluded with 22 recommendations and the jail being called a "death trap," Premier Doug Ford disparaged the province's own new ~$1.2-billion Thunder Bay Correctional Complex as a "fancy-dancey jail," comparing it to "the Four Seasons hotel" and refusing to commit to closing the century-old jail where nine people have died since 2002.
Jun 22, 2026
Metrolinx Writes Off $504 Million on GO Expansion Signalling Work
Metrolinx's draft annual report quietly discloses that the agency is writing off $504 million spent on Union Station signalling work begun in 2013 — work it paused in 2023 after discovering it was incompatible with the GO Expansion program it was meant to serve.
Jun 19, 2026
Jun 19, 2026
Lake Muskoka's First MZO — Province Sells Land Then Asked to Override Local Planning for Resort
A developer is seeking what The Narwhal reports would be Lake Muskoka's first-ever Minister's Zoning Order — a provincial override of local planning for a large all-season resort in Gravenhurst — and the MZO was reportedly a condition of buying the land from the province itself, making Ontario both the seller and the regulator.
Jun 15, 2026
Ontario Patient Lab Specimens Shipped to U.S. as LifeLabs/Quest Centralizes Testing
On June 15, 2026, the Ontario Health Coalition issued an open letter demanding the province stop Quest Diagnostics / LifeLabs from shipping Ontario patients' laboratory specimens to Quest reference labs in the United States, citing privacy, specimen-quality, delay, and "dollars leaving Ontario" concerns — and calling for the restoration of public hospital outpatient labs.
Jun 15, 2026
Fewer Than Half of Ontario's Long-Term Care Homes Inspected in 2025, Watchdog Finds
On June 15, 2026, the watchdog charity Concerned Friends of Ontario Citizens in Care Facilities released its annual analysis finding that the Ministry of Long-Term Care failed its own stated goal of inspecting every long-term care home each year — fewer than half of Ontario's LTC homes received a proactive compliance inspection in 2025. The report documented persisting abuse, neglect, infection-control failures, and resident-on-resident assaults.
Jun 14, 2026
Mines Minister's Policy Staffer Who Advanced Kinross's Great Bear Mine Now Lobbies for Kinross
Government records obtained by the Toronto Star show Kevin Rombout, a senior policy staffer to then-Mines Minister George Pirie, actively advancing Kinross Gold's Great Bear mine file in 2024. He now works for Kinross and is listed on its lobbyist registration. Kinross and the province say he consulted the Integrity Commissioner and followed all ethics rules, but neither will release the full guidance. No finding of wrongdoing has been made.
Jun 2, 2026
Bill 9 — The Municipal Accountability Act That Was Built Not to Work
Bill 9, branded the "Municipal Accountability Act," strips municipalities of the power to write their own codes of conduct and creates a councillor-removal process that requires a near-unanimous vote of the sitting council — a threshold the lawyer who literally wrote Ontario's leading municipal law text calls "fatally flawed."
May 28, 2026
Ontario Hospital Privatization: $300M for 61 For-Profit Clinics
Ford directed nearly $300 million in public funds to 61 new private (majority for-profit) clinics while Ontario's public hospitals face historic underfunding — triggering one of the largest healthcare protests in Ontario history, with thousands marching at Queen's Park on May 28, 2026.
May 21, 2026
Ontario FOI Request Freeze — May 2026
The Ford government secretly ordered Ontario civil servants to halt all freedom-of-information request processing for more than a week in May 2026, without notifying the province's Information and Privacy Commissioner — then Ford dismissed public concern by calling critics "the media party," despite his own government's data showing 96% of FOI requestors are not media.
May 15, 2026
Honda EV Alliston Subsidy Collapse: $5 Billion in Public Money Committed, Zero EVs Produced
Honda indefinitely suspended its $15-billion Ontario EV complex in May 2026, leaving $5 billion in combined federal-provincial subsidies committed but undeployed — and no confirmed clawback provisions to recover taxpayer money if the project never proceeds.
May 14, 2026
Bill 98 Passes: Ford Overhauls Housing Rules and Seizes Transit Control
On May 14, 2026, the Ford government passed Bill 98 — the Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act — permanently stripping Ontario municipalities of green building authority and handing the provincial Transportation Minister unchecked control over TTC fares and service for the first time in the TTC's history.
May 14, 2026
Bill 75: Mandatory Full-Amount Cash Bail
Bill 75, branded the "Keeping Criminals Behind Bars Act," got Royal Assent in May 2026 with a buried Bail Act schedule requiring accused people or their sureties to post the full cash bail amount upfront in every case — scrapping the traditional 10% recognizance system that has kept bail accessible for decades. Legal experts call it an unconstitutional two-tier justice system that punishes poverty, not crime.
May 13, 2026
Ontario Education Funding Crisis — Classroom Staffing Cuts 2026
The Ford government's 2026–27 education funding includes a 1% increase below inflation and a $56.2 million cut to the Classroom Staffing Fund, triggering immediate layoffs of 50+ education workers in eastern Ontario and threatening thousands more province-wide when job-protection agreements expire in September 2026.
May 12, 2026
Truck Driver Training Fraud: Ontario Ministry Failed to Inspect a Quarter of Commercial Driver Colleges
Ontario's Ministry of Colleges let unregistered private career colleges issue commercial truck driver certificates for years — a public safety failure the Auditor General confirmed in May 2026, finding that 25% of registered colleges were never inspected and unregistered operators had booked over 3,200 road tests with no legal authority.
May 12, 2026
Special Education Funding Crisis: Ford Government Cuts Staffing Fund While Auditor Finds $397M Shortfall
Ontario's Auditor General found that 46 of 72 school boards collectively overspent their special education funding by $397.9 million in 2023–24, while the Ford government's response was to increase funding by just 0.1% and simultaneously cut the Classroom Staffing Fund by $56.2 million — leaving some of Ontario's most vulnerable students to be sent home with no documentation when schools can't accommodate them.
May 12, 2026
Family Responsibility Office Failures: 8.5-Month Wait for Child Support, $2.1B in Arrears, 43 Ex-Staff Still Have Database Access
Ontario's child support enforcement agency takes an average of 8.5 months to register a court order and issue a first payment, has allowed $2.1 billion in arrears to accumulate, and left 43 former employees with live access to a database of vulnerable Ontarians' personal information — all findings confirmed by the Auditor General in May 2026.
May 12, 2026
Ontario Government AI: Unsecured Data and Hallucinating Medical Tools
Ontario's Auditor General found that 12,000 government employees uploaded citizens' health cards, driver's licences, and financial data to unsecured AI websites with no controls, while government-procured AI tools used in doctors' offices fabricated diagnoses, prescribed wrong medications, and missed mental health details in testing.
May 7, 2026
Conestoga College Executive Mismanagement — Lavish Spending, Illegal Severance, and a Provincial Takeover
Conestoga College's board approved a 55% salary hike for its president — pushing his pay to $636,000 — then handed him a $3 million exit package that was more than twice the legal limit. A provincial audit found a pattern of lavish spending including a $23,000 Italy trip for executives; on May 7, 2026, Ontario fired the entire board and appointed an administrator — the first time this has ever happened to an Ontario college.
May 1, 2026
Ford Al-Quds Day Defamation Lawsuit
After a court rejected Doug Ford's emergency injunction to stop Toronto's 2026 Al-Quds Day rally for lack of evidence, organizers sued the Premier for defamation, alleging his public characterizations were reckless, malicious, and motivated by animus against the Muslim community.
Apr 23, 2026
Billy Bishop Airport: Little Norway Park Land Grab
Doug Ford's government introduced Bill 110 to seize all of Little Norway Park — a children's playground and waterfront green space beside two schools and a daycare — to expand Billy Bishop Airport into a jet hub, with no plan, no environmental assessment, and no guarantee the park won't become a parking lot.
Apr 23, 2026
Locked Alone for Years: Waypoint Seclusion and the Ministry That Looked Away
Ontario's only maximum-security psychiatric hospital has kept severely mentally ill patients locked alone in rooms for years — one man for about 20 years — in conditions an independent reviewer found akin to what the UN "deemed to constitute torture." The Ford government was warned in 2018 and responded with a single phone call.
Apr 20, 2026
Wasaga Beach Selloff — Ford Strips Provincial Park to Build Hotel on Endangered Bird's Last Habitat
Doug Ford's government sold off 60% of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park — overriding 98% public opposition via an omnibus budget bill — while Bill 5 stripped the last provincial protections from Ontario's most important Piping Plover breeding site. When the Town began mechanically raking critical nesting habitat in April 2026 just days before the endangered birds return, Ecojustice filed a Federal Court lawsuit warning that failure to act will result in the species' extirpation from Ontario.
Apr 17, 2026
Ford's Gravy Plane — $28.9M Jet Bought Without Competitive Tender
Doug Ford spent $28.9 million in taxpayer money on a private jet — then reversed the decision 48 hours later after a public backlash, announcing the province would sell the aircraft "as quickly as possible." Ford made no reference to his 2019 boast that he was the only premier in history to refuse a government plane, and the financial cost of the reversal — including any cancellation penalties or resale loss — has not been disclosed.
Apr 16, 2026
Ontario Jails Crisis: Inmates Freed by Government Errors, Minister Lied About It
Over 157 inmates were improperly released from Ontario's dangerously overcrowded provincial jails between 2021 and 2025 — six remain at large as of April 2026. Solicitor General Michael Kerzner told the legislature they were all caught "instantaneously." Global News FOI documents proved that was false. Kerzner apologized "unreservedly." At the same Maplehurst facility running at 175% capacity, correctional officers zip-tied 200 inmates in their underwear for two days — and a judge stayed first-degree murder charges as a result.
Apr 16, 2026
Ford Won't Protect Ontario Shoppers From Grocery Surveillance Pricing
As grocery giants install AI-powered pricing systems that charge different customers different prices for the same food, Doug Ford told Ontarians he won't ban it — calling regulation "socialism" the same week his caucus voted down a consumer protection motion, while lobbyists for Loblaws enjoy direct access to his government.
Apr 13, 2026
Ontario School Board Corporatization
The Ford government has tabled Bill 101 — the Putting Student Achievement First Act — replacing elected directors of education with CEOs requiring business credentials, gutting trustees' budget and bargaining powers, and mandating government-approved lesson plans in every classroom, while education unions warn it is a roadmap to corporate control of Ontario's public schools.
Apr 13, 2026
CityNews Fires Queen's Park Reporter After Ford Government Coverage
CityNews Queen's Park reporter Tina Yazdani was fired without explanation in April 2026 — days after a confrontational on-camera exchange with Education Minister Paul Calandra, and after at least two of her Ford government stories were quietly deleted from the Rogers-owned network's website in apparent violation of Rogers' own editorial standards.
Apr 2, 2026
Better Regional Governance Act — Ford Appoints Unelected Chairs, Slashes Regional Councils
On April 2, 2026, Doug Ford introduced Bill 100, giving his Minister of Municipal Affairs power to directly appoint regional chairs across eight Ontario regions — unelected officials who will have the power to hire and fire senior staff, veto bylaws, and set budgets. Niagara's council would be slashed from 32 to 13 seats. Opposition MPPs called it a continuation of Ford's pattern of replacing elected local democracy with provincial Conservative loyalists.
Mar 30, 2026
Ford's TTC Takeover (Bill 98)
Ford's Bill 98 strips Toronto and the TTC Board of all authority over fares, service standards, and transit governance — handing the Minister of Transportation unchecked power to set prices, zones, and routes for the first time in over a century. Transit workers, riders, city council, and even TTC management are unanimous in opposition, but Ford's majority means the bill will pass.
Mar 30, 2026
Bill 98: Ford Moves to Strip Municipal Green Building Standards
Ford's Bill 98 would permanently strip Ontario municipalities of the power to require EV charging, tree canopy, bird-friendly glass, and energy standards from developers — handing a legislative victory to RESCON, the industry lobby already suing Toronto in court over the same rules. Cities have already frozen new green standard programs in anticipation.
Mar 26, 2026
Protect Ontario Fund Bait-and-Switch: $4 Billion in Tariff Relief Redirected to Private Investment Manager
Ontario promised $5 billion to protect workers and businesses from U.S. tariffs — then quietly redirected $4 billion of it into a privately managed investment fund with no named manager, no public accountability framework, and no commitment that the money will reach the tariff-hit workers it was meant for.
Mar 23, 2026
Ontario's Plan to Eliminate Elected School Board Trustees
Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra is preparing legislation to abolish elected trustees across English public school boards — eliminating a century of local democratic governance — after spending a year seizing 8 of Ontario's largest boards under "public interest" powers his own government wrote into law.
Mar 23, 2026
Billy Bishop Airport Seizure
Doug Ford is using Bill 5's Special Economic Zone powers to seize the City of Toronto's land at Billy Bishop Airport and force through a jet expansion banned by the 1983 tripartite agreement — bypassing municipal consent, blocking thousands of planned Portlands homes, and benefiting a private terminal owner whose lobbyist is a former senior Ford aide.
Mar 20, 2026
The School Lands Sell-Off
The Ford government passed legislation giving the Minister of Education power to force school boards to sell public land to private developers, then used manufactured financial crises to take over six school boards — handing control of an estimated $60 billion in public land to provincial-appointed supervisors with real estate backgrounds and no education experience.
Mar 20, 2026
Ontario's Nurse Practitioner Funding Delay
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones spent 2024 demanding Ottawa close a loophole that let private clinics charge patients for nurse practitioner care — then refused to implement the fix once the federal government delivered it, leaving Ontarians paying $70–$90 per appointment for services that should be publicly funded.
Mar 20, 2026
Mar 18, 2026
Endangered Species Plans Buried: Ontario Hides Recovery Strategies After Gutting the ESA
Internal government emails show Ontario completed years-long recovery plans for endangered wolves, butterflies, and bats — then secretly decided not to release them to the public, weeks after passing Bill 5 to eliminate the legal requirement to do so.
Mar 14, 2026
Ford Government's Failed Injunction Against Al-Quds Day Rally
Two-and-a-half hours before a rally held annually for 30 years, Doug Ford's government rushed a 109-page emergency injunction to shut it down — citing terrorism links and antisemitism. A judge dismissed it, finding no police support, no evidence linking the rally to recent violence, and that the government had come "dangerously close" to holding protesters accountable for others' acts.
Mar 13, 2026
FIPPA Overhaul — Ford Makes All Premier and Cabinet Records Permanently Secret
The Ford government buried amendments inside the 2026 Budget Bill that would permanently exempt the Premier, all cabinet ministers, and their staff from freedom-of-information requests — retroactive to 1988 — nullifying every pending FOI request and active court case, including those seeking Doug Ford's personal cellphone records and Greenbelt-related emails. Ontario's own privacy watchdog publicly called three of Ford's stated justifications factually incorrect.
Mar 13, 2026
Starlink Secret Payout — Ford Cancels Deal, Refuses to Disclose Cost to Taxpayers
Doug Ford signed a $100-million Starlink broadband deal to appeal to Trump's inner circle, then abruptly cancelled it in response to Trump's tariffs. He then negotiated a confidential settlement to pay Elon Musk an undisclosed sum — and refuses to tell Ontario taxpayers how much public money they're handing over to the world's richest person, citing a confidentiality clause that he could have negotiated away.
Mar 13, 2026
The FOI Transparency Scandal
After losing in court twice over his personal cellphone records, Doug Ford moved to retroactively rewrite Ontario's Freedom of Information law — exempting the Premier, all cabinet ministers, and their offices from public scrutiny, wiping out 38 years of access rights in one legislative stroke.
Mar 10, 2026
Public Money, Private Gains: Ontario's $300M Condo Developer Bailout
The Ford government's Building Ontario Fund quietly committed $300 million in public mezzanine debt to High Art Capital — a little-known private fund — to buy unsold GTA condos from developers and convert them to rentals. Only 25% of the 2,200 units will be "affordable," the developers being bailed out are also paid to manage the properties, and the deal closed in secret two weeks before the public found out.
Mar 10, 2026
Conservation Authority Merger — Ford Forces 36 Local Environmental Watchdogs into 9, Overriding 14,000 Objections
Over the objections of more than 14,000 residents, municipalities, and environmental groups, the Ford government is forcing Ontario's 36 conservation authorities — locally funded, elected-representation bodies that manage watersheds, flood control, and natural hazards — to merge into just 9 regional bodies starting May 2026, weakening local accountability and environmental oversight at a time of escalating climate risk.
Mar 2, 2026
Ford's iGaming Expansion and the Rise of Online Gambling Addiction
Doug Ford's government launched Canada's first private online gambling market in 2022 — having first eliminated Ontario's only independent gambling research body in 2019, and immediately after handing lucrative lobbying contracts to his own campaign manager and vice-chair. A 2026 peer-reviewed study found a 317% surge in young men aged 15–24 seeking help for gambling addiction, while the province collects a quarter-billion dollars a year in gaming revenue.
Mar 2, 2026
Toronto Waterfront Power Grab — Exhibition Place, Convention Centre & Billy Bishop
Between November 2025 and March 2026, the Ford government announced plans to provincialize three of Toronto's major waterfront assets in rapid succession: legislative changes to seize Exhibition Place (192 acres of City of Toronto land); a proposal to fill in part of Lake Ontario to build a 2-million-square-foot convention centre (the city was not consulted); and a unilateral takeover of Billy Bishop Airport. None of these announcements were preceded by consultation with the City of Toronto or its residents. The convention centre site remains unconfirmed, unfeasibility-studied, and unfunded. The Exhibition Place moves followed years of provincial encroachment on adjacent Ontario Place — a $2.2-billion redevelopment awarded, without competition, to a company whose VP of Communications was Doug Ford's own former Chief of Staff.
Mar 1, 2026
Kara Ford's Runnymede Appointment
Premier Doug Ford's daughter Kara was quietly hired in 2022 at a provincially funded hospital with a two-year community college diploma and a background as a makeup artist — no healthcare experience. By 2025 she was earning $211,468 as Director of Strategy, outearning her own father's public salary, while her employer received tens of millions in Ford government capital funding.
Feb 25, 2026
Ontario Stops Publishing Child Welfare Death Reports After Statistics Hit Record High
Ontario's Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services quietly stopped producing its annual reports tracking child welfare-connected deaths — reports that showed the number rising every year, reaching 134 in 2023, one every three days. Internal government documents show officials flagged the death statistics as a PR problem that could "overshadow" a planned announcement. When Global News filed an FOI in early 2026, the ministry said the records didn't exist.
Feb 17, 2026
Ring of Fire Fast-Track — Ontario Bypasses Environmental Assessment and Indigenous Consent for Mining Rush
The Ford government is fast-tracking Ring of Fire mining and road construction through its Bill 5 "One Project, One Process" system, overriding the objections of Grassy Narrows First Nation — a community still living with mercury poisoning — bypassing a federally required environmental assessment, and pushing toward a June 2026 construction start that Neskantaga and Attawapiskat First Nations are physically blockading.
Feb 12, 2026
OSAP Cuts & Post-Secondary Defunding — Two Waves, a COVID Clawback, and "Basket-Weaving Courses"
In January 2019, Ford cut OSAP by $670 million — eliminating free tuition for low-income families, dropping 24,000 students from the program, and shifting the system from grants to loans. When the federal government doubled student grants during COVID, Ontario clawed back $400 million instead of passing it to students. The tuition freeze Ford extended repeatedly was never accompanied by restored aid or compensated operating grants — Laurentian University went bankrupt in 2021, the first public university in Canadian history to do so. In February 2026, Ford announced a second wave: grants capped at 25% of OSAP packages (down from 85%), with 75% as loans — and told students choosing the wrong programs to stop picking "basket-weaving courses." Hundreds protested at Queen's Park.
Feb 5, 2026
Doug Ford, the Ford Family & Toronto Police — Hashish Allegations, Organized Crime Ties, and Project South
An 18-month Globe and Mail investigation found ten sources — including former suppliers and street-level dealers — describing Doug Ford as a mid-level hashish dealer in Etobicoke for roughly seven years in the 1980s. Ford denied it and was never charged. His brother Rob Ford's crack cocaine scandal exposed ties to the Dixon City Bloods gang, wiretapped by Toronto Police in Project Traveller. Ford's longtime friend Sandro Lisi — alleged extortionist attempting to recover the crack video — denied ever being known by Doug, despite working on the 2010 mayoral campaign Doug co-managed. As Premier, Ford appointed his personal friend Ron Taverner as OPP Commissioner (reversed after the deputy who raised alarms was fired), and his son-in-law Dave Haynes faces 12 Toronto Police misconduct charges while Ford serves as Premier. In February 2026, seven TPS officers were charged with selling live police intelligence to organized crime — enabling shootings, extortion, and trafficking. Ford's response: "There's always a few bad apples."
Feb 1, 2026
Judicial Independence Attacks — Ford Calls Courts "a Joke," Demands Elected Judges
Premier Doug Ford made repeated public attacks on the independence of Ontario's judiciary in early 2026 — calling judicial independence "a joke," suggesting US-style elected judges, calling sitting judges "bleeding hearts," and proposing to livestream bail hearings in potential violation of publication bans. Ontario's three chief justices issued a rare joint statement reaffirming judicial independence as a constitutional cornerstone; the Ontario Bar Association warned Ford's proposed changes would politicize the bench.
Dec 15, 2025
Legislature Avoidance — Ford's Accountability Deficit
The Ford government has systematically minimized time spent in the Ontario Legislature — the only venue where the Premier faces mandatory daily questioning. In 2019, Ford took the longest legislative break in 25 years. In 2024, sitting days were cancelled so the legislature didn't return until six weeks after the scheduled date. In all of 2025, the government sat just 51 days out of 365. Ford then called a snap election in January 2025 — well ahead of the scheduled June 2026 date — dissolving the legislature while RCMP investigations, Auditor General findings, and FOI battles were all active.
Dec 11, 2025
Bill 40: Ford Government Fast-Tracks Data Centre Grid Access, Strips Municipal Vote on Utility Deals
Bill 40 lets Energy Minister Stephen Lecce hand-pick which data centre projects get priority access to Ontario's electricity grid — abandoning the traditional non-discriminatory connection rules — while quietly removing the requirement that municipal electors approve public utility franchise deals.
Dec 2, 2025
Ontario's Secret Advertising Machine: $452 Million in Partisan Spending
The Ford government has spent $452 million in taxpayer-funded advertising since 2018 — repeatedly refusing to disclose campaign costs until forced by FOI — while the Auditor General found 38% of spending was designed to promote the governing party, and the firm behind the most controversial ad is run by Doug Ford's campaign manager's brother-in-law.
Dec 1, 2025
Niagara Amalgamation & the Bob Gale Appointment
Ford appointed a former PC candidate as Niagara Region's chair to push amalgamation of its 12 municipalities — bypassing elections entirely. Within weeks, Bob Gale was aggressively lobbying to collapse Niagara into one or four cities. He resigned on March 12, 2026, after anti-racism advocates revealed he owned a signed copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. Ford said he remains "keen" on amalgamation regardless.
Nov 27, 2025
Bill 60: "Fighting Delays" Fast-Tracks Evictions, Guts Green Roof Bylaw
Bill 60, the "Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025," sounds like red-tape cleanup but is a 16-schedule omnibus bill that shortens the eviction timeline for tenants behind on rent, guts compensation protections for "landlord's own use" evictions, rescinds Toronto's Green Roof Bylaw, and hands the province sweeping new discretion over municipal planning approvals -- all passed without standing committee review or public consultation.
Nov 25, 2025
Lost in Transition: Adults With Developmental Disabilities Warehoused in Hospitals
Ontario's Ombudsman found adults with developmental disabilities are being held in hospital beds — sometimes for years — because the province never built the community housing and supports it promised, producing what his report calls "a modern form of institutionalization by default."
Nov 24, 2025
Ontario Water Privatization
The Ford government has pursued a multi-front assault on Ontario's public water systems: passing legislation that enables privatization of $175.8 billion in municipal water infrastructure, dismantling the province's Clean Water Act protections, deregulating the water-taking permit system that allows aquifer overuse, and refusing to require mining companies to obtain permits before taking groundwater — all while Waterloo Region hit a water capacity crisis severe enough to halt development.
Oct 23, 2025
Ontario's Health-Care Job Cuts
The Ford government broke its 2018 promise that "not a single person will lose their job" — eliminating hundreds of health-care positions in 2019 and setting a funding path that Ontario's own Financial Accountability Office projects will cut over 9,000 nurse and PSW positions by 2027-28, in the middle of a nursing shortage already driving emergency room closures across the province.
Oct 1, 2025
Skills Development Fund — $750M Patronage Scandal
Ontario's Auditor General found that $750 million in Skills Development Fund grants were awarded in a process that was "not fair, transparent or accountable." Ford's own campaign manager Kory Teneycke runs a lobbying firm whose clients received over $100 million — nearly 3x any other firm. The Premier's nephew's former chief of staff registered as a lobbyist immediately after leaving the Premier's office, and his clients received grants. Labour Minister David Piccini's office overrode civil servants' recommendations in over half of cases reviewed.
Oct 1, 2025
Ontario's $10/Day Child Care Failure — Targets Missed, Profits Prioritised, Families Left Behind
Ford stood beside Justin Trudeau in March 2022 to sign a $13.2 billion deal promising $10/day child care for Ontario families by March 2026 and 86,000 new spaces by December 2026. Within months his government stripped the deal's profit-oversight rules — over federal objections. He delayed a stable funding formula for two years, pushing operators to the brink. The $10/day deadline has now passed: Ontario's average sits at $19/day — nearly double the target. Only 36,287 of the promised 48,000 interim spaces were created. Eight provinces already hit $10/day. Enrolment among lower-income subsidised families dropped 31%. The Auditor General identified a $2B funding gap and said Ontario is not on track on any of its core commitments.
Sep 25, 2025
Speed Camera Ban — Ignoring Evidence to Protect Speeding Politicians
Ford's government legalized speed cameras in 2019, then banned them in 2025 — ignoring peer-reviewed evidence that they cut school-zone speeding by 45% — after his own cabinet ministers' vehicles racked up 23 speed camera tickets and hit stunt-driving speeds.
Aug 14, 2025
Ontario Public Service Return-to-Office Mandate
Ford's government ordered 60,000 Ontario public servants back to the office full-time with little notice, no new office space secured, and no evidence of productivity gains — then told unhappy workers to "get another job."
Jun 27, 2025
Ontario School Board Takeovers
The Ford government stripped elected trustees of all authority at 8 of Ontario's largest school boards — covering 750,000 students — installing politically-connected supervisors and passing legislation that removed the courts as a check on ministerial power.
Jun 6, 2025
Ford Government Blocks Intimate Partner Violence Epidemic Declaration
For years, the Ford government has refused to formally declare intimate partner violence an epidemic in Ontario — rejecting a coroner's inquest recommendation, referring an opposition bill to committee instead of passing it, and blocking a unanimous consent motion in June 2025 — before settling in November 2025 for the weaker term "endemic," which advocates say still isn't matched by funding or action.
Jun 5, 2025
Dresden Dump Deal: Ford Cancels Environmental Assessment for $200K PC Donor's Landfill Over Endangered Species Habitat
The Ford government promised a comprehensive environmental assessment for a proposed landfill directly upstream from Canada's only population of the salamander mussel — then buried the reversal inside omnibus Bill 5 after winning a byelection on the promise, exempting a company whose owners donated $200,000 to the PCs from all provincial environmental review, leaving 33 species at risk in one of Canada's most biodiverse rivers with no provincial protection.
Jun 5, 2025
Bill 5 — Repealing Environmental Protections and Creating Law-Free Zones for Developers
Under cover of a tariff emergency, Doug Ford passed omnibus legislation that repealed Ontario's Endangered Species Act, created law-free "special economic zones" where cabinet can suspend any provincial rule for handpicked companies, and quietly cancelled environmental assessments for a landfill owned by $200,000 PC donors — repeating the exact playbook of the Greenbelt scandal with no limits and no oversight.
May 29, 2025
MPP Pension and Pay Raise — Botched Rollout Triggers Caucus Rupture
Bill 34 gave MPPs a 35% pay raise and scrapped their old pension plan — but the new plan failed to credit members' prior legislative service, leaving many facing personal buyback bills over $200,000. Ford scrapped a planned $35 million taxpayer top-up fund amid backlash over a separate $28.9 million government jet purchase, then fired PC caucus chair Will Bouma after Bouma confronted him about it.
Jan 1, 2025
Craft Kingsmen's $500M Metrolinx Air Rights Shakedown
A company co-led by Ford's close friend and PC Party fundraiser Carmine Nigro extracted an undisclosed settlement from Ontario's public transit agency after claiming $500 million for air rights it never fully paid for — and the Ford government refuses to say how much taxpayers owe.
Dec 27, 2024
Ontario Place Sewage: Ford Reroutes Raw Sewage Into Lake Ontario
To prepare Ontario Place for a private Austrian spa, the Ford government rerouted a raw sewage overflow pipe into the West Channel of Lake Ontario — bypassing public consultation, exempting the project from environmental review, and proceeding over the objections of physicians, landscape architects, and 2,250 Ontarians who formally opposed the plan.
Dec 3, 2024
Ontario Place / Therme Spa
Ford handed 8 acres of prime Toronto waterfront to an Austrian spa company that had misrepresented its own credentials, locked taxpayers into a 95-year lease, and watched infrastructure costs balloon from $424M to $2.24 billion — all through a procurement process the Auditor General found was not fair, transparent, or accountable.
Nov 25, 2024
Bill 212 — Bike Lane Removal & Liability Immunity
Ford's Bill 212 ordered the removal of 19 kilometres of protected bike lanes in Toronto — overriding the city's elected council — then added a clause barring any cyclist who is injured or killed as a result from suing the province. The Ontario Superior Court found this violates the Charter right to life. The judge explicitly cited the immunity clause as the government's own acknowledgment that people would be seriously hurt. On August 14, 2026, the Court of Appeal unanimously overturned that ruling, clearing the way for removals.
Aug 20, 2024
Ford Closes Supervised Consumption Sites — 288% Overdose Spike Follows
In August 2024, Ford's government ordered the closure of supervised consumption sites within 200 metres of schools or daycares — a rule that targeted 10 sites for elimination. The government conducted no studies before closing them. Its own internal risk assessment warned deaths would result. Its own commissioned reviews of the triggering site recommended against closure. Ontario's Auditor General found the sites had prevented nearly 1,600 fatal overdoses in a single year. After the April 2025 closures: overdoses at Toronto drop-in centres rose 75% in the first month, 175% in May, and 288% by June. Paramedic opioid overdose calls in Toronto were up 47% by January 2026. Hamilton recorded its worst overdose numbers in history. Health Minister Sylvia Jones, asked if she had estimated how many people would die: "People are not going to die."
Jun 21, 2024
Ontario Science Centre — Manufactured Closure & Ontario Place Relocation
Ford abruptly closed the Ontario Science Centre on June 21, 2024, citing a dangerous roof — but the engineers' own report did not recommend closure. The same roofing material exists in 400+ other Ontario buildings that remain open. The roof survived a major snowstorm intact. Ford refused to reopen it anyway. The Science Centre is now temporarily housed in a mall and at Harbourfront while a replacement is built at Ontario Place — a project whose cost has ballooned from $322 million to over $1 billion, with the new building 45% the size of the original.
May 24, 2024
Beer Store Privatization
Ford broke a legally binding provincial contract to give grocery giants and convenience store chains the right to sell alcohol — handing corporations billions in new revenue while costing Ontario taxpayers $225 million upfront and a projected $1.4 billion in lost tax revenue by 2030.
Aug 9, 2023
The Greenbelt Scandal
Premier Doug Ford secretly handed 15 parcels of protected Greenbelt farmland to well-connected developers through a three-week backroom process — a windfall worth $8.3 billion to those developers — and only reversed it after the Auditor General publicly exposed the scheme.
Nov 29, 2022
Bill 124 / Bill 28 — Healthcare & Education Wage Suppression
Ford's Bill 124 capped wages for 780,000 public sector workers — mostly nurses and healthcare staff — at 1% annually for three years while inflation ran at 4–7%. Two courts struck it down as unconstitutional. Separately, Bill 28 invoked the notwithstanding clause to ban 55,000 education workers from striking, threatening fines of $500,000/day on the union and $4,000/day on individuals. Ford was forced to repeal it within days after a threatened general strike. Ontario ultimately paid $4.3 million in legal costs.
Mar 7, 2022
Ford's Shelter Funding Cuts — Slashing Homelessness Programs While Criminalizing the People Left Behind
Doug Ford has systematically cut funding for Ontario's homeless shelter and housing programs while homelessness has surged across the province. His 2019 budget slashed $550 million annually from affordable housing and homelessness prevention. In 2022 he quietly cut $268 million from homelessness programs while announcing a fake "$25 million boost." By 2025, his government gutted the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit for Toronto by 80% — from $38 million to $7.95 million — eliminating the most effective tool for moving people out of shelters and into housing. Rather than build capacity, Ford's response was to criminalize homelessness: his Safer Municipalities Act threatens homeless people with fines up to $10,000 and jail time, while he pledged to invoke the notwithstanding clause to override any court protection for people living outside. Some 12,000 people are in Toronto's shelter system alone.
Apr 3, 2021
Highway 413 / Bradford Bypass
Ford revived two cancelled highway megaprojects — the $8.6–12 billion Highway 413 and the $2–4 billion Bradford Bypass — despite independent studies showing negligible traffic benefits. Developers who own thousands of acres along both routes donated over $800,000 to Ford's PCs. Both projects were shielded from meaningful federal environmental review.
Feb 16, 2021
Minister's Zoning Orders (MZOs)
Ford's government issued more Minister's Zoning Orders (MZOs) in 2020 alone than the McGuinty and Wynne governments combined over 15 years — bypassing environmental reviews, municipal authority, and public consultation. Nearly half of all MZOs issued in Ford's first term benefited PC donors or party insiders. Key recipients include the DeGasperis family and Flato Developments, who received nine MZOs for thousands of homes on protected farmland.
May 26, 2020
Long-Term Care COVID Deaths
3,758 Ontario long-term care residents died of COVID-19 — many from neglect, not the virus itself. Ford's government had promised to fix the chronically understaffed, underfunded sector before the pandemic, did nothing, had no emergency plan when outbreaks began, delayed calling in the military, and then shielded the for-profit operators responsible from any legal accountability.
Nov 20, 2018
Ron Taverner OPP Appointment
Within months of taking office, Doug Ford tried to install his personal friend and longtime family confidant as Ontario's top cop — quietly lowering the job qualifications to fit him, corrupting the hiring process through his own chief of staff, and spending $40,000 on an executive search that was effectively rigged from the start.
Sep 10, 2018
Ford Government's Use of the Notwithstanding Clause
Doug Ford's government has invoked or threatened the notwithstanding clause three times — more than any Ontario premier in history. In 2018, Ford threatened to override a court ruling that his mid-election Toronto council cuts were unconstitutional. In 2021, he pre-emptively buried an election advertising law inside Section 33 to shield it from Charter challenge. In 2022, he used the clause against 55,000 education workers before a single strike vote was held — the first time any Canadian government had invoked Section 33 against labour rights. Workers struck anyway. Ford backed down in four days. The clause is meant to be a mechanism of last resort for democratically exceptional circumstances. Ford has treated it as a first-response tool for policy he expects courts to reject.
Apr 1, 2018
PC Far-Right Connections — Ghamari, Lawton, Goldy, Hillier
A documented pattern of Ontario PC associations with far-right figures: Ford personally appointed a Rebel Media host who defended Holocaust denial as a candidate (2018), posed for a photo with known white nationalist Faith Goldy and refused to denounce her by name for two days (2018), maintained a former MPP with documented Diagolon neo-fascist ties in his caucus until 2019 (Randy Hillier), and in June 2024 ejected MPP Goldie Ghamari after she publicized a meeting with Tommy Robinson — founder of the English Defence League — after months of documented Islamophobia within caucus.
