Ford was sworn in as premier on June 29, 2018, incorporating a ceremony outdoors on the lawn of
Queen's Park. Ford is the first newly elected MPP to take office as premier since
Mitch Hepburn did so in 1934.
Provincial finances On November 15, 2018, Finance Minister
Vic Fedeli tabled the 2018 Ontario Economic Outlook which included a tax cut representing as much as $850 a year for individuals and $1,700 for couples. LIFT would mean that a single person working full-time in a minimum wage job would pay no provincial personal income tax. Minimum wage workers would still pay federal income tax, which represents 75 percent of the tax rate. LIFT is a variation on Ford's promise to cut taxes on those making less than $30,000 a year. While Ford promised a balanced budget in 2018, the Ontario debt has increased by $86 billion since he took office, as of December 2024. This is an increase much greater than his predecessor's, whose budget Ford criticized. At the same time, Ontario's high income taxes have been called 'uncompetitive' by critics, with some also highlighting unnecessary spending by the government.
Liquor Ford attempted to reform alcohol sales through the
liberalization of liquor. Ford campaigned on "
buck-a-beer" and reduced the minimum price of beer from $1.25 to $1. The program saw low adoption by breweries and resellers. As a result of lowering the price floor, a regulation that capped annual increases in pricing that was tied to the
Consumer Price Index (CPI) was also eliminated and is projected to result in increased prices overall. Ford negotiated an agreement with
The Beer Store that accelerated the date on which convenience stores could sell liquor, at an estimated cost of $612 million. put in place by the Liberal government. As premier, through the
Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, 2018 which was tabled on July 25, 2018, Ford repealed cap and trade as part of his promise to lower gasoline prices by 10 cents per litre. A court later ruled that as Ontario's
Environmental Bill of Rights required the government hold public consultations before removing the program, the government's unilateral decision broke the law. As federal law requires provinces to have in place their own pollution pricing system, as a result of Ontario withdrawing from the
Western Climate Initiative, a carbon tax was automatically imposed on the province.
Carbon tax Ford had warned that the imposition of the federal carbon tax would result in an increase in the price of gas in Ontario. According to fuel price analyst Patrick DeHaan, the average retail price of gas increased from 114.3 cents per litre before the carbon tax to "117.9 cents on April 1, the first day of the new tax" and 125.3 cents per litre in mid-July. There has been a 9.2 per cent drop in gasoline prices across Canada over the last year, according to the July 17, 2019
Statistics Canada report which resulted in inflation falling nationally in June 2019 to 2.0 per cent. DeHaan said that in July 2018 the average price of gas in Ontario had been 130.1 cents per litre. He added that the retail price of gas reflects the drop in the price of oil from US$72 per barrel to US$60 a barrel in 2019 and is not related to the carbon tax. and a program known as the Green Ontario Fund, which was financed by the proceeds of cap-and-trade auctions and aimed to help homeowners reduce their carbon footprint and reduce hydro bills, was eliminated. In July, Canadian Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau said that provinces that do not adopt a
carbon pricing mechanism by September 1, 2018, would be subject to a federal carbon tax of $20/tonne starting in January 2019. Ontario's "fiscal watchdog" By mid-November 2018,
The Globe and Mail reported that the Ontario government had "lost $2.7-billion in revenue" which included the $1.5-billion loss of revenue from the elimination of the cap-and-trade program. and has also supported campaigns to repeal the carbon tax led by
federal Conservative Party leader
Andrew Scheer and Alberta
United Conservative Party leader
Jason Kenney. Ford believes the federal
Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, which imposes a
carbon tax on provinces that do not have their own
pollution pricing regime is unconstitutional. The province mandating the display of the stickers was later ruled to be itself unconstitutional, in violation of
section 2(b) of the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees business owners'
freedom of expression. On March 25, 2021, the
Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the constitution allows for the federal government to introduce pollution pricing on behalf of provinces who do not have their own regime.
Healthcare at the future site of the Windsor-Essex Acute Care Hospital, May 2022 In 2018, Ford expressed support for publicly funded healthcare and a belief that funding should be increased to create 30,000 additional long-term care beds. In 2020, Ford's government spent $3.5 billion less on health care than budgeted. In 2018, Ford said he believes that the provincial government should fully subsidize dental costs for low-income seniors, something he enacted in 2019 as the
Ontario Seniors Dental Care Program. The federal government also later enacted the
Canadian Dental Care Plan, which partially subsidized dental care for qualifying individuals with a household income under 90k. Applications were open to seniors, kids and teens, and adults with qualifying disabilities as of December 2024. In 2023, Ontario saw 1,199 ER closures, mostly impacting rural areas. This problem further increased in 2024, to nearly 15,000 hours of ER or urgent care closures. The main reasons cited were staff shortages, specifically of nurses, which combined accounted for 96% of closures. The Ford government pledged $44 million in July 2023 to combat the closures and $500 million in November 2024 for educating more nurses and specialized training for current ones.
Ontario Health The Ford government introduced the
Ontario Health agency in 2019, with the goal of centralizing services. The province expects to save $350 million a year by 2021–22. The introduction of the agency has been criticized however, as a similar approach was introduced in
Alberta, which has the highest per capita healthcare spending in the country, with the NDP noting that "In
British Columbia and in Alberta, health centralization wasted billions of dollars", and it wasted "time, money and energy on reshaping the health bureaucracy" rather than providing "specific solutions to well-identified problems."
Bill 60 Ford has been accused of attempting to privatize healthcare in the province of Ontario. In August 2022, Ford suggested additional private deliveries of healthcare in order to supplement existing public healthcare in response to a hospital staff shortage throughout Ontario. In May 2023, Ford's government passed Bill 60, also known as the
Your Health Act, to allow private clinics to perform more surgeries (including cataract surgeries, minimally invasive gynecological surgeries and eventually knee and hip replacements) and procedures (including MRI and CT scans) covered by the
Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP).
Health Minister Sylvia Jones argued the legislation was necessary to reduce the province's large surgical backlog (according to the province, more than 200,000 Ontarians have been waiting for surgeries). Ford's government said new clinics must apply for a licence to operate and include thorough staffing plans "to protect the stability of doctors, nurses and other health-care workers at public hospitals" as part of their applications. To ensure that quality and safety standards are met at every clinic, the government declared that it will name "expert organizations" to collaborate with Ontario Health and the
Ministry of Health. If necessary, the ministry or the director of this third party may order an examination of a facility. The Ontario government was also found to be paying for-profit clinics more for publicly funded surgeries than they do for hospitals. Ford and his health minister have said that this is a cost-efficient method of expanding healthcare, but the chief of surgery at an Ontario hospital called the overpayment 'egregious'.
Education Immediately after taking office in 2018, Ford proposed to cut 3,475 Ontario teaching jobs over four years to save $292 million a year, Ford also cancelled the Green Ontario Fund residential rebate program which included a $100 million fund for public school repair, and an initiative to add indigenous peoples content to school curriculum, and eliminated free tuition for low-income students (while reducing tuition fees by 10 per cent), On July 11, 2018, Ford announced that Ontario's health curriculum including
sexual education components, updated by the previous government in 2015, would be reverted to the 1998 curriculum before the next school year. He pledged to create a new sex-education curriculum after consulting with parents and teachers. Ford stated the sex-education curriculum needed to be changed because it was not age-appropriate and not based on enough consultation. However, his 2019 curriculum was largely similar to the 2015 version, save for allowing parents to opt-out. Ford believes that financial literacy education should be expanded and included in school curricula, and believes Ontario's math curriculum should drop
discovery learning and put a greater emphasis on
arithmetic and memorization of the
multiplication table. Ford used back-to-work legislation to end
the 2018 strike at
York University prior to the start of the 2018–2019 school year. The strike had gone on for over four months, making it the longest post-secondary strike in Canadian history. Ford ordered all public universities and colleges in Ontario to develop free-speech policies that meet his government's expectations and stated that universities and colleges that do not comply will face funding reductions. By June 2019, the Ford government had removed or decreased funding for "school programs like after-school jobs for youth in low-income neighbourhoods", "tutors in classrooms", "daily physical activity for elementary students", "financial assistance for college and university students", "free tuition for low-income students", and "three satellite university campuses". He also "increased class sizes" and "cancelled three summer curriculum-writing sessions—one mandated by the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission and two others. Under Calandra's tenure as education minister, the government has taken over multiple school boards, appointing supervisors instead. The Ford government later announced education reforms, including the reduction of the number of elected trustees, introducing mandatory final exams, and making attendance part of final marks for secondary school students. In early 2026, the Ford government announced changes to the
Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) and billions in new funding for Ontario's financially struggling colleges and universities. The government announced the end of the tuition freeze for public colleges and universities, allowing them to raise fees by up to two percent per year over three years, and announced changes to OSAP funding, with grants reduced to a maximum of 25 percent for grants, and loans increased to a minimum of 75 percent; the changes saw protests from students across the province. This followed changes made to the program by the government in January 2019, which included a 10% tuition fee reduction for all programs in 2019–20, followed by a freeze in 2020–21, and the cutting of the OSAP budget from $2 billion to $1.4 billion.
2022 CUPE strike Ford's government introduced Bill 28, known as the
Keeping Students in Class Act, which was passed by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on November 3, 2022, amid ongoing labour negotiations with the
Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). CUPE had given notice of job action October 30 after negotiations broke down with the
Ministry of Education, and would have been in a legal strike position on November 4. Bill 28 imposes a contract on CUPE, and makes it illegal to strike, setting fines of $4000 for workers. The legislation was widely condemned, including by opposition parties, the
Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau,
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada David Lametti, the
Ontario Bar Association, and other unions including those which had previously endorsed the PC Party. Despite the government's bill, CUPE went on strike anyway, resulting in province-wide school closures and protests in support of education workers. The government challenged CUPE at the
Ontario Labour Relations Board. and that he would resume negotiations with CUPE. Following the strike, Ford said he did not regret his use of the notwithstanding clause in imposing the contract and said that it helped both sides "come to their senses".
Municipal affairs Toronto City Council Ford believes that the constitution does not prevent provincial governments from changing the size of municipal councils, even after an election campaign has already begun. After his government's legislation to reduce the number of wards represented at
Toronto City Council was ruled unconstitutional, Ford pledged to invoke
section 33's notwithstanding clause of the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which would allow him to bypass the
Charter and implement the legislation regardless of the court's ruling.
Public transit Ford is a proponent of subways. He believed that the provincial government should assume control over the
Toronto subway. In February 2020, Ford and Toronto Mayor John Tory signed a preliminary agreement which would see the province assume "sole responsibility for the planning, design and construction" for
Ontario Line, the three-stop
Line 2 subway extension into
Scarborough, the
Yonge North subway extension and the
Eglinton Crosstown west extension. In 2020, construction began on the
Hurontario LRT line in Mississauga and Brampton, with all of the subway projects beginning procurement or construction by June 2024. Ford has been criticized for refusing to conduct a public inquiry into the delayed
Line 5 Eglinton, which opened in 2026.
Municipal spending cuts In 2019, the government announced that it would adjust the cost-sharing arrangement for
Toronto Public Health and
Toronto Paramedic Services resulting in retroactive cuts that would total $177 million a year and $1 billion cut in Toronto over 10 years. The cuts were criticized by City officials including Medical Officer of Health
Eileen de Villa,
Health board chair
Joe Cressy, and Mayor John Tory. The City projected that the additional financial pressure resulting from would result in further cuts to municipal services or increased taxes.
Greenbelt controversy Before Ford was first elected in 2018, a video emerged of him informing developers that he would "open up a big chunk of the
Greenbelt" if elected. After a public outcry, Ford said he would replace any removed land and that his goal was to increase supply to reduce housing costs. Pre-election, Ford also pledged not to remove rent control, stating, "I have listened to the people, and I won't take rent control away from anyone. Period. When it comes to rent control, we're going to maintain the status quo." After taking office, rent control for all newly built or newly converted rental units was removed to "encourage builders to build purpose-driven rental apartments." After re-election in 2022, and amidst a worsening housing and affordability crisis, Ford became embroiled in controversy over properties released from Greenbelt protection. One developer had purchased property shortly before the decision was made. A total of 7,400 acres of Greenbelt land was removed, while 9,400 acres of land was added "which have lesser conservation value and were already protected from development through other measures." Ford has disagreed with criticism regarding his friendships with developers, saying, "no one can influence the Fords". Specifically, he called questions about the optics of developers attending his daughter's pre-wedding party in August 2022, "ridiculous". Ford sought clearance for the event from the Integrity Commissioner in January 2023. In February 2023, the Ontario Provincial Police anti-rackets branch were still looking into complaints about his government's decision to open up a portion of the Greenbelt for development. The OPP asked the RCMP to take over the file in August 2023, in order to avoid any perceived conflict of interest. On August 9, 2023, the Auditor General released a report on the Greenbelt swap-out which found the government's flawed process had favoured certain developers who stood to earn over $8 billion. The AG also confirmed that alterations to the Greenbelt were not necessary to reach Ontario's housing target and that Housing Minister
Steve Clark's chief of staff "failed to consider environmental, agricultural and financial risks and impacts". Calls from the opposition for Clark to resign were resisted by Ford and Clark himself, but Clark's chief of staff stepped down. At the end of August, Ontario's Integrity Commissioner found Clark had broken ethics rules, and on September 4, Clark tendered his resignation and was replaced by
Paul Calandra. The following day, Ford reiterated he would follow 14 of the Auditor General's 15 recommendations but would proceed with allowing the construction of affordable homes under $500,000 for "newcomers and young people" on the Greenbelt. He also stated more applications to remove land from the Greenbelt would be reviewed. He did not answer a reporter's question about reinstating rent control, nor did he comment on calls from First Nation Chiefs across Ontario to return traditional territories to the Greenbelt. On September 20, another minister from Ford's cabinet, Kaleed Rasheed, resigned over his relationship with a developer involved in the Greenbelt land swap. The next day, Ford announced that after continuous backlash from constituents and two reports regarding the flawed process of opening the Greenbelt he would reverse his decision to open the Greenbelt to development. He apologized to the people of Ontario and promised to encourage building within urban boundaries. On October 10, the RCMP announced it was opening a criminal investigation into the allegations around developer favouritism in the Greenbelt land swap process used by the Province of Ontario. On October 16, Minister Calandra tabled a bill that would restore the Greenbelt lands removed in 2022 and that any future changes to the Greenbelt would have to go through the legislature. In August 2023, the
Toronto Star filed for an
FOI to Ontario's Integrity Commissioner to make the emails of Ryan Amato, Steve Clark's former Chief of Staff, available to the public. In April 2025, the Integrity Commissioner ruled in favor of the Toronto Star's request. Due to the ruling, Amato has until June 11, 2025, to provide his emails or an
affidavit attesting no such emails exist.
Bike infrastructure In September 2024, it was reported that the Ford government was working on legislation to restrict the construction of new
bike lanes that would require the removal of lanes for motor vehicles. While speaking with reporters, he stated his belief that bike lanes increased congestion and emergency vehicle times (though the City of Toronto has disputed that claim), and that they should be built on side streets rather than major arterial roads. In October 15, Ford announced that any such lanes would require provincial approval to be built, and that municipalities would need to demonstrate that the lanes would not have a "negative impact on vehicle traffic". He also announced that he would remove bike lanes from some arterial streets, such as
Bloor Street, Yonge Street, and
University Avenue in Toronto. This bill, named the
Reducing Gridlock, Saving you Time Act also shielded the government from any lawsuits related to cyclist deaths, and passed on November 25, 2024. When Toronto bureaucrats estimated that the removal of the bike lanes would cost approximately $48 million, Ford called their estimate "hogwash" and reiterated his claims that the bike lanes were responsible for traffic congestion. A court challenge was launched on December 11 to stop the removal of the Toronto bike lanes. In July 2025, an Ontario court ruled that removing Toronto bike lanes was unconstitutional; the government will appeal the decision.
Energy During his election campaign Ford had promised to lower Ontario's electricity rates by 12 percent. During his campaign, in April 2018, he announced that in order to reduce electricity rates, Ford attacked Hydro One CEO Mayo Schmidt, calling him "Kathleen Wynne's $6-million dollar man" in reference to his reported annual salary, and called on the utility's board of directors to resign. Ford vowed to fire them all if elected, although PC energy critic
Todd Smith later clarified that the government cannot dismiss Hydro One's CEO directly. He opposed his predecessor's decision to privatise Hydro One, but does not plan to reverse the decision. His government passed legislation to publicly disclose and reduce the salaries of Hydro One's board members and executives. On July 11, 2018,
Hydro One CEO Mayo Schmidt resigned along with the entire board. According to
Bloomberg News, by December 5, 2018,
Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, the state's regulators, rejected Hydro One's $3.4 Billion takeover of
Avista because of "political risks in Ontario ... from provincial leaders who may not have the company's well being in mind". Bloomberg also reported that, if the merger was not approved by the state's regulators, Hydro One would have to pay the CA$138 million break fee. Because Hydro One is partially owned by the Ontario government, Ontario ratepayers would also be paying the "Parent Termination Fee". Ford denies that he is to blame for the U.S. regulators' decision. Ford has invested in nuclear energy technology in Ontario, with plans to build a
small modular reactor (SMR) at
Darlington Nuclear Generating Station announced in 2020.
Political patronage controversies In July 2018, Ford hired Rueben Devlin, former PC Party president and a Ford family friend, as a health-care advisor at a salary of $350,000 plus expenses, more than Ford's own salary of $208,974. In December 2018
Bob Paulson, who served as a
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer for 32-years including as
RCMP commissioner before retiring in 2017, called for an independent third-party inquiry into Ford's appointment in December 2018 of Toronto Police Superintendent Ron Taverner, who is a long-time friend of Ford, as the new commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police. By March 2019, Taverner had stepped down following "months of controversy" that "triggered an integrity commissioner investigation". A June 20, 2019, article in the
Toronto Star said that Ford had awarded "plum patronage posts to two political allies". He hired Jag Badwal as Ontario's agent-general to Britain and the United States with an annual salary of $185,000. Ford named Earl Provost as Ontario's agent-general to Chicago. According to a
Globe and Mail article, French resigned "after it was revealed that two people with personal ties to [French], 26 year-old Tyler Albrecht and Taylor Shields were appointed to lucrative positions in New York and London. TVO's
Steve Paikin cited the example of Taylor Shields, who is French's wife's cousin, who was appointed as the trade representative in London, England, with a salary of $185,000 plus expenses. Thomas Staples, who played on St. Michael's College Varsity Lacrosse team with French as coach, According to
iPolitics, Staples had not completed his undergraduate studies, and had neither the qualifications nor work experience in politics. On July 10, Andrew Suboch, a "personal injury and insurance lawyer" who had served as chair of the Justices of the Peace Appointments Advisory Committee (JPAAC), informed the JPAAC that he was resigning immediately after an article in the
Globe revealed that Suboch was another of French's "long-time" friends whose sons played lacrosse together for many years. This park used to be an amusement park before being shut down in 2011, and was due to be revitalized. Ford's revitalization plan included a new spa, adventure park, and expanded stage. However, an auditor general report released in December 2024 called the revitalization 'not fair, transparent or accountable,' noting that "since 2019, the estimated public cost of redeveloping Ontario Place has increased by $1.8 billion to a total of $2.2 billion." The private spa is to be built and operated by
Therme, an Austrian spa company. Its construction requires the clear-cutting of Ontario Place's West Island, a process which has bulldozed over 850 trees. The Ontario government is also obligated to build a substantial parking component for the spa at taxpayers' expense (even as
an expanded GO train station and a
new subway line are being built nearby). The cost to provide this parking is at $400 million as of May 2024. The auditor general also raised concerns the bidding process for Ontario Place fell short of “typical procurement law or directives” for the province, with the government giving itself the right to select bids that failed to meet its own criteria. Now-Nobel laureate
Geoffrey Hinton pledged $1 million to help rebuild the science centre, but this did not stop the Ford government's plan: the science centre will still be moved to Ontario Place in 2029 at the earliest, and into a space that is 50% smaller than the previous one. The updated budget in 2024 pushed the cost to build the new, smaller science center to $1.4 billion, compared to $1.3 billion for maintaining it at its current location. On April 16, 2025,
The New York Times published an investigation revealing that Therme Group, the company behind the planned spa and wellness facility at Ontario Place, had misrepresented itself during the bidding process. The report found that Therme falsely claimed to operate multiple spa facilities across Europe, when in fact it had only run a single location in Romania. The investigation also raised concerns about the company's financial health and the fairness of the provincial government's contracting process. Doug Ford has since called for a review into the procurement of the Ontario Place contract by Therme Group. The total cost of the Ontario Place redevelopment is $2.2 billion as of 2024, The first confirmed
case in Canada was in Ontario—reported on January 27, 2020. On March 17, Ford declared a state of emergency in Ontario, closing bars and restaurants (with the exception of take-out and delivery services), as well as libraries, theatres, cinemas, schools and daycares and all public gatherings of more than 50 people (later reduced to 5 people on March 28). Furthermore, the government announced on March 17 that Ontario had "some evidence of community transmission" of COVID-19. On March 23, Ford announced that all "non-essential" businesses be ordered closed starting 11:59 p.m. On March 24, Ford also stated that schools would remain closed past the original April 6 opening date (on May 19 it was announced that schools would remain closed until the following school year in September). A list of 74 "essential" businesses was published later in the day on March 23. On March 25, Ford and Finance Minister
Rod Phillips introduced a $17-billion response package that includes an influx of cash for the health sector, direct payments to parents and tax breaks for businesses.
Third wave On April 9, 2021, Ford received his first dose of the
AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at a local pharmacy in Toronto, and encouraged eligible Ontarians to get vaccinated. Amid growing case numbers in mid-2021, the government moved to introduce a third province-wide stay at home order. As part of the response, Ford announced on April 16, 2021, that outdoor amenities including playgrounds would be closed, and that he would be authorizing police to require pedestrians and drivers to explain why they are not at home and provide their home address and other relevant details. The regulations raised concerns about a re-legalization of
carding. The government experienced significant backlash with the new enforcement measures, with some commentators – such as the
National Post's
Randall Denley, a former PC politician – equating the province to a "
police state" Members of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Table described the new restrictions as "absolute madness", and not based on science questioning the need to restrict "safe options from people as you do nothing to impact the places where the disease is spreading". After dozens of police services across the province announced that they would refuse to enforce the new measures, Ford promptly rolled back the new enforcement provisions the next day and reopened playgrounds, while keeping other outdoor amenities closed. Over the weekend following the introduction of new orders, calls for Ford's resignation over his handling of the COVID-19 crisis grew, In April 2021, Ford revealed that he had been in isolation following contact with one of his staffers, who had contracted COVID-19. Ford announced on April 30, 2021, that he had asked the federal government to stop international students from coming into the province in an effort to curb the third wave.
Omicron variant During the emergence of the
Omicron variant of COVID-19 in December 2021 and January 2022, Ford's government announced in December 2021 new restrictions on indoor settings. After growing calls for third or booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines, the government allowed all Ontarians over 18 years of age to receive a third dose on December 20, 2021. These restrictions were lifted on January 31. What followed was the end of all vaccine mandates on March 14, the end of most mask mandates on March 21, and the end of all COVID-19 measures (including the remaining mask requirements) on April 27. On September 7, 2023, the Ombudsman of Ontario's Investigation into the Ministry of Long-Term Care's oversight into long-term care homes through inspection and enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic was released. The report detailed the collapse of the LTC inspection system and how the Ministry failed to protect residents by ceasing inspections for the first 7–12 weeks of the pandemic, and by only applying low-level enforcement action for serious infractions. It noted that the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, which came into force in April 2022, could help long-term care homes to be better prepared for future pandemics.
Tunnel under Highway 401 proposal In September 2024, premier Ford said his government would explore a tunnel for drivers and public transit under the
Highway 401, with a feasibility study to follow. In February 2025, he made it one of his re-election pledges. Experts, however, pointed out that the roughly 55 km tunnel would likely cost $50–130 billion and not solve the congestion problems. The media called it "the single-most expensive Ontario election promise in the last 10 years".
Trump tariffs In January 2025, Ford began to state that he would need a "clear mandate" from voters to respond to the
tariffs on Canadian imports to the United States threatened by new
President Donald Trump, calling the
2025 Ontario general election. Ford was caught on video saying that on the day of the 2024 U.S. presidential election he was "100% happy" that Trump won, until Trump threatened tariffs on Canada. During the election campaign, his party promised to invest $10 billion in cash-flow support for Ontario employers, $3 billion in payroll tax and premium relief, $120 million to support approximately 18,000 bars and restaurants, $40 million for a new Trade-Impacted Communities Program, $300 million to expand the Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit, and $600 million for the Invest Ontario Fund. Ford also advised the newly sworn-in prime minister, Mark Carney, on strategies to mitigate the trade war, and appeared on multiple American news shows. Ford later met with Prime Minister Carney to discuss Trump tariffs. He also signed agreements to reduce inter-provincial trade barriers with other provinces and territories. In October 2025, Ford launched an ad campaign in the United States criticizing the tariffs. The ad featured a clip of former American president
Ronald Reagan from 1987 warning against the economic impact of trade wars.
Purchase and sale of private jet In April 2026, the
Toronto Star reported that Ford government purchased a $28.9 million
Bombardier Challenger 650 private jet, intended to be used for transportation of the premier. Previously in 2019, Ford stated that he "refuses to use the premier’s plane" – the province maintains a fleet of two
Beechcraft King Air planes for transporting the premier, lieutenant governor and members of cabinet. The Challenger jet purchase was subsequently criticized heavily by the opposition and public, with the aircraft being nicknamed the "gravy plane". After several days of heavy scrutiny, Ford announced that the government would sell the jet "as quickly as possible". On May 3, 2022, Premier Doug Ford met with the
Lieutenant Governor of Ontario to advise
dissolution of the legislature and for writs of election be drawn up. Ford led the Progressive Conservatives to another
majority government in the
2022 provincial election. The PCs gained seven more seats than they had won in 2018, with an increased share of the vote. The election set a record for the lowest voter turnout in an Ontario provincial election, as only 44.06% of the people who were eligible voted.
2025 Ford’s party won a third majority with 80 seats in the
44th Ontario general election. Originally scheduled by fixed election laws to be held by June 4, 2026, Ford triggered an early provincial election, called a
snap election, for Feb 27 after meeting with Ontario's lieutenant-governor. It is speculated that this was to take advantage of a lead in the polls and fundraising, as well as a desire to hold the election before the
next federal election. Speculation that Ford would call an early election began in 2024 and was further fuelled by Ford refusing to commit to the June 2026 date when asked by reporters at multiple press conferences in May 2024. The possibility of a
trade war was expected to be the main election issue. The Progressive Conservatives led by Ford were reelected with a third consecutive majority government, the first premier to do so since
1959, though with a slightly smaller majority compared to 2022. The Liberals finished over ten percentage points ahead of the NDP in the popular vote, but only gained five seats compared to before the election (albeit this was enough to regain
official party status for the first time since 2018), with
Bonnie Crombie (the leader of the
Ontario Liberal Party) being defeated in her riding. The NDP therefore remained the
official opposition, despite losing a small number of seats and finishing a distant third in the popular vote. ==Political positions==