Stephen Lecce

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.

As Education Minister, Lecce administered Bill 124's 1% wage cap on education workers — a cap the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled unconstitutional in 2024 as a violation of freedom of association. Ontario was subsequently required to pay retroactive salary increases and $4.3M in legal costs. Lecce also introduced Bill 28, which invoked the notwithstanding clause to crush a CUPE education workers' strike before Ford was forced to repeal it under threat of a general strike.

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.

Introduced Bill 28 — the first use of the notwithstanding clause against labour rights in Ontario history. The bill threatened $4,000/day fines against individual workers and $500,000/day against their union. Ford repealed it within days after major unions threatened a general strike. The legislation was deemed "for all purposes never to have been in force" — but the threat itself had a documented chilling effect on public sector bargaining.

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.

As sponsor of Bill 5, Lecce introduced and steered through Queen's Park the legislation that repealed the Endangered Species Act, eliminated mandatory recovery strategies, and narrowed the legal definition of habitat — creating the legal framework under which the Ford government could suppress completed recovery plans without consequence.

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.

As Minister of Energy and Mines, Lecce sponsored and steered Bill 5 through the Ontario legislature. He introduced it on April 17, 2025, the eve of the Easter long weekend. The bill amended or enacted 10 statutes, including repealing the Endangered Species Act and creating the Special Economic Zones Act.

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.

As the minister who introduced Bill 5 (Unleash Ontario Act), Lecce's legislation repealed Ontario's 18-year-old Endangered Species Act and replaced it with the Species Conservation Act — eliminating all provincial habitat protection for the Piping Plover at Wasaga Beach and enabling the park selloff to proceed without endangered species oversight.

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.

As Minister of Energy and Mines, Lecce introduced Bill 5 on April 17, 2025 — including Schedule 3, which cancelled the provincial environmental assessment promise for the York1 Dresden landfill. Lecce denied involvement in developing Schedule 3 specifically. The Integrity Commissioner named him in the complaint filed by MPP Ted Hsu but declined to investigate.

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.

As Minister of Education, Lecce is responsible for the funding formula that determines special education allocations. The Auditor General's May 2026 report found the funding structurally inadequate while his 2026–27 budget increased special ed funding by only 0.1% and cut the Classroom Staffing Fund by $56.2 million.

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.

As Minister of Energy and Mines, Lecce holds the Bill 40 power to hand-pick which data centre projects get priority access to Ontario's electricity grid — the authority the August 13, 2026 "data centre playbook" operationalizes.

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.

His riding association spent $79,647 across 2024 and 2025 in the "meetings hosted" category, second only to Michael Tibollo's. The King—Vaughan association's 2024 annual report shows $14,949 paid to Beretta Farms for a "community barbecue" at a King City farm. The Star contacted Lecce's office with specific questions 13 days before publication; his office did not respond.

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.

As Minister of Energy and Mines, Lecce heads the ministry whose mines side spent $12.08M on advertising in 2025-26, the vast majority of it on the "Protect Ontario Ring of Fire" campaign, per FOI'd records reported by The Trillium on August 28, 2026. Questions to his office about the spending were referred to Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy's office.

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.

As Minister of Energy and Mines, Lecce announced on February 17, 2026 that the Great Bear project would proceed under "One Project, One Process" (The Narwhal). His spokesperson said Kevin Rombout had no direct engagement with Energy and Mines staff on Kinross projects and was not involved in lobbying for the designation.