Premier Doug Ford’s political problem is no longer one bad headline, but a pileup of unresolved questions about power, money, and access to records, from a reversed multimillion executive jet purchase to legal fights over the premier’s phone logs, new FOI restrictions, public financing for unsold condos, and media-access controversies around coverage of his government.
Executive jet
The cleanest symbol is still the jet. Ontario bought a used Bombardier Challenger 650 for $28.9 million for Ford’s government travel, then reversed course after days of criticism over cost, optics, and timing. The aircraft was quickly nicknamed the “gravy plane,” a line that stuck because Ford had built part of his political brand on attacking government waste.
Ford said the province sold the aircraft back and “no one lost any money.” Global News also reported he appeared to regret the decision and said he made a mistake in how he communicated it.
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But the premier’s office did not provide receipts, invoices, or sale documents when asked, leaving critics to demand proof of the purchase and resale terms. The controversy then shifted from the jet itself to who recommended the purchase, when Ford approved it, whether cabinet was involved, and whether any internal records will be released.
FOI changes
Separately, the Ford government passed sweeping changes to Ontario’s freedom-of-information law through Bill 97, an omnibus budget bill. The law retroactively exempts records of the premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants, and their political staff from FOI requests, limiting access to political records such as emails, texts, call logs, and other work-related documents.
The changes are retroactive and are expected to affect previously filed requests and court cases.
Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner urged the government to abandon the overhaul, warning it would leave Ontario less transparent than any other Canadian jurisdiction.
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The legislation also roughly doubles the time ministries and agencies have to process FOI requests, adding a procedural slowdown on top of the new political-records exclusion. The government says it is modernizing a 40-year-old law, while critics say it is closing the public’s main route to seeing how political decisions are made.
Personal phone records
The phone-records issue is related but distinct. Before the FOI overhaul passed, Ford was already in a legal fight over access to call logs from his personal cellphone, which he has used for government business. The disputed call logs cover November 2022, the month the government announced its plan to remove land from the Greenbelt. A court had ordered work to continue on processing the records under access-to-information rules, but Bill 97 is expected to reverse that case.
Opposition parties argue the government changed the law to block disclosure of Ford’s phone records. The Ford government has not accepted that characterization and has framed the law as a broader FOI update.
Public money
The $300 million condo fund adds a different but related public-money issue. Through the Building Ontario Fund, the province is backing a High Art Capital-led fund that plans to buy unsold, newly completed GTA condo units and convert them into roughly 2,200 rental apartments, including about 550 affordable units.
The government frames the financing as a repayable investment that unlocks rental supply, but the fund’s own description says it will also free up developer and lender capital, giving critics an opening to argue taxpayers are helping absorb unsold condo inventory.
The Skills Development Fund gives Ford a harder-edged 2026 controversy because it now includes lawsuits, alleged fraud, and police scrutiny. In January, the province sued Keel Digital Solutions and related parties, seeking $25.9 million after alleging false and misleading reports caused the Crown to pay millions it otherwise would not have paid.
Keel denied wrongdoing and said the claim was flawed. None of the allegations have been proven in court.
The file widened later in January when Global News reported that the OPP had launched an investigation into another Skills Development Fund recipient. That recipient denied wrongdoing, and no charges had been laid at the time of the report.
Ford is also facing a legal challenge over Bill 5, the special economic zones law that allows cabinet to suspend provincial and municipal laws in designated areas. Environmental groups filed a constitutional challenge arguing the law delegates legislative power too far to cabinet. The government says the law is needed to speed major projects amid trade-war pressure, while Ford has said he will designate Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport as a special economic zone as part of a plan to expand the airport and allow jets.
Media battle
In January, Ford’s Progressive Conservatives initially barred journalists from their party convention at the Toronto Congress Centre, the first such ban since Ford became premier in 2018, before later allowing coverage of Ford’s speech. Ford defended the event as a party convention and said he was available to reporters, but press-freedom critics called the move troubling for transparency.
Then came the CityNews controversy. Queen’s Park reporter Tina Yazdani publicly said she was no longer employed by CityNews, while NOW Toronto reported that two of her stories criticizing Ford’s government had disappeared from the outlet’s website. The episode raised media-transparency questions, but no public evidence has shown Ford’s office directed the personnel decision or the article removals.
Taken together, the controversies do not prove a single coordinated scandal, and several remain allegations, legal fights, or unanswered questions. But they have created a common problem for Ford: each new dispute now lands inside a larger 2026 narrative about public money, political access, and records the public may never see.
For a premier who has long sold himself as a taxpayer watchdog, the most damaging issue may no longer be any one jet, loan, lawsuit, or vanished story. It is the growing suspicion that Ontarians are being asked to trust decisions they are increasingly blocked from fully checking.
Information for this story was found via Global News and the sources and companies mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to the organizations discussed. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.
