Front Burner - Is Doug Ford in trouble?

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

He was “Captain Canada” last year and at one point, the most popular conservative in Canada.But now Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s taken a hit in the polls after a series of decisions that include the purchase and almost immediate sale of a $28.9-million private jet that his critics are calling the “gravy plane”. Two recent polls have seen the Ontario PCs drop enough to find themselves almost on par with the Liberals, a party that’s currently helmed by an interim leader. Doug Ford’s personal approval ratings are worse, with more Ontarians unhappy with him than not. Can he turn this around? We’re joined by Robert Benzie, Queens Park Bureau chief for The Toronto Star. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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But now, Ontario Premier Doug Ford's taken a hit in the polls after a series of recent decisions that include the purchase and almost immediate sale of a $28.9 million jet that as critics are calling the gravy plane. Two recent polls have seen the Ontario PCs drop enough to find themselves almost. on par with the liberals, a party that is currently led by an interim leader after the last one quit in January. Doug Ford's personal approval ratings are worse, with more Ontarians unhappy with him than not. But Doug Ford insists he has not lost his way. Well, I'm staying focused. No, I'm staying focused. You know, in politics, you're up, you're down. And, you know, we're still in a strong position. And we're going to keep moving forward. So can the Premier, who has won three major...

majorities in a row turn this around. To run through some of the many issues plaguing Doug Ford's premiership, I'm joined by Robert Benzie, Queens Park Bureau Chief at the Toronto Star. Rob, hey, it's great to have you. Nice to be here, Jamie. So I mentioned in the intro there that Doug Ford's approval ratings aren't looking so hot right now. Before we get into why, can you just contextualize this for us? How much of it changes it from when he was re-elected a third time February of last year? Well, I mean, Jamie, the crazy thing is, that Mr. Ford has been elected three times, and in each election, he's gotten a majority, obviously, in the legislature here at Queens Park, but he's increased his share of the popular vote

in each election. So in 2018, 2012, and then again last year, he went up. That's really unheard of. There it is, Ontario. The CBC is projecting a PC majority government, a rare three-peat, a feat not seen since back in 1959. Doug Ford said he needed a fresh mandate to deal with the economic threats to the Ontario economy and Ontario voters have given it to him. Because, you know, you tend to get more unpopular the longer you're around as a politician.

So on some level, maybe what's happening now is he's just bouncing back to earth. But he is down in every single poll, including the polls that he does. And Mr. Ford is a student of polling. He pours over public opinion polls. a lot of the flip-flops that he's done or the U-turns that he's done, things that he actually will tout as a strength are because of polls. And they even have run campaign ads saying, I admit if I get it wrong, I can change course. And usually that's based on what he sees in public opinion polls.

And I know, too, I remember last year he had gained quite a bit of goodwill for how he handled the trade war with the U.S. and just has that kind of worn off too. Well, it certainly seems to have. I mean, he was in the abacus tracking poll that abacus data does for the star, it comes out every month. And in last August, he was at 53% in the poll. And the most recent one, he's at 37%. And that's the one that shows him statistically tied with the liberals who don't have a leader. And Mr. Ford was really the first Canadian politician to pounce on Donald Trump as the boogeyman. We need to unite, and we cannot let President Trump divide us. He'll be being sworn in in a week, and then he's going to lay the tariffs on Canada. He's going to try to devastate our country. He's going to try to divide our country, and we cannot have division in our country. It really helped him.

It helped him get reelected in February 2025. Mark Carney's liberals basically plagiarized that playbook for the April, 2025 federal election, and they were able to win, not a majority then. They have one now, largely thanks to Donald Trump being this existential threat to Canada. Mr. Ford was really quick to see that, and he has been Captain Canada in the sense that he's the guy in the blue hat. Canada is not for sale, and he goes to meet with governors in the U.S. and talks about the perils of the trade war. And for sure, tariffs are a, are a concern to the Ontario economy.

But like everything, Canadians are, or Ontarians, are looking at their pocketbook. They're looking at other issues beyond just the sort of broader landscape of a trade war with the United States and Donald Trump being the villain in all of this. And seeing that their own lives aren't necessarily getting better. Unemployment is higher here than it has been in a while. Prices are going up in Ontario, as they are everywhere in Canada and in the U.S., for frankly. But, and at a certain point, people start to look around and wonder who they can blame. And it seems more and more of them are blaming Mr. Ford.

You mentioned abacus data there. David Coletto who heads avoccus data. He's a good friend of this show. He's saying that like two things have really hurt Ford ratings. First is this jet that we have to talk about. So Ford bought and then. sold back to Bombardier within 48 hours of the news breaking, this jet that he had. But still, the gravy plane thing has really stuck, right?

I mean, there was even this, like, I don't know if you saw it, this AI Lego video song. Yeah, yeah. Like the ones we've seen about Trump during this war with Iran, just all about the gravy plane. And what do you think it is specifically? about this jet that really punched through. A lot of people in my life were like bringing this up to me that I think maybe don't normally, wouldn't normally be talking about Ford.

I was astounded that it punched through as quickly as it did. We broke the story on April 17th, and two days later, as you say, on the Sunday, he announced, that was a Friday. So on the Sunday, a couple days later, he announces that they're getting rid of the plane. We took possession last week. I immediately sent out.

message out to the media. I heard from the people and I'm the premier that listens to the people. If they don't like something, I'm not too shy to change my mind and say, okay, this isn't the time. But as David Coletto said, this punched through because it was so off brand. Mr. Ford had made a big deal in 2019 about getting rid of the old airplane, a propeller plane that the Premier of Ontario used to use, a King Air. and he was boasting about how he's more in touch with people. He drives around in a van and talks to people. And he was boasting that he was the first Premier in Ontario history to not use this plane. Well, you know, cut to seven years later, he buys a far more expensive plane, a jet for $28.9 million at 2016.

It was used, but it's still very, very expensive. Bombardier Challenger made in Quebec, in fairness. but he didn't, the story comes out in the star and then he panics. I guess he starts getting a lot of phone calls from people because, of course, Mr. Ford gives out his personal cell number to the public. And I think he realized it was a, it was a bad move. I will take responsibility. As you said, I should have been out there Friday talking to the people.

The people don't want it. That's fine with me. I don't mind the scrutiny. So I guess on one level, he gets credit for being responsive. But as David's polling has shown, the damage was done, right? People just said, what do you mean? You bought a jet. This isn't who you are.

You're the guy who supposedly travels an economy and understands and feels my pain. And Mr. Ford has built a brand, even though he is a wealthy man, he's the sign of a rich family. He has created this brand of himself as an every man who knows the, price of milk, who goes to Tim Hortons, even though he doesn't drink coffee, he drinks green tea, but everyone thinks he's a guy who has a double-double. People think he goes to the beer store to buy a six-pack. He doesn't drink alcohol. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of conundrums about Mr. Ford that are interesting.

And the jet, I think, was one of them because it just did not seem like a guy who understood and felt the pain of Ontarians at a time when there's an affordability crisis. Yeah, I always think it's so funny when he talks. He talks about beer so much, but then you find out that he doesn't drink. It's just one of many. He doesn't eat red meat either. Really? Really?

He worked in a killing floor of a meat packing plant as a young man. And he literally saw how the sausages are made, so he's not interested in eating red meat, which it's not like he's a vegetarian or anything like that. But it is interesting to a lot of people that think that he's a beer and a steak and a burger or a kind of guy. I mean, his staff have told me funny stories about Ford trying to turn them on to veggie burgers, you know, like, and how disgusting those veggie burgers tasted. And he was convinced that they were quite delicious, you know, the ones made of beets and things like that.

I know, go figure. Doug Ford, the tree hugger, you know. That is information I did not know. You know, gravy plane is obviously a play on his late brother. Yeah. Former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's gravy train, which is what he called overspending, government overspending and misuse of public coffers. I'm the only person tough enough to go down to City Hall and put an end to the wasteful

spending and put an end to the grave and bring in the world. I think a lot of people to this day still compare both of these brothers a lot. And Rob, while incredibly scandal-ridden throughout his tenure, Exactly. Yes, I have smoked at crack cocaine. Did seem to be able to hold on to this man-of-the-people image. And, like, do you think that Doug does struggle with us? stuff more than his brother does?

Yeah, I mean, certainly, they are very different. And, I mean, Premier Ford is a much more disciplined person than his late brother was. He doesn't have addiction issues. He doesn't do self-destructive things the way that his brother did. And he is a different man in many, many levels. However, he has used his brother's image. And I don't, I'm not saying he's exploiting it. I think he believes it as it.

But he has sort of ridden that, you know, I'm for you. I understand your pain. I deal with people directly. I get pulled my phone out right now. I'll show you. I am like every minute, minute and a half. I'm behind 9,323 messages. There's no politician in the world that gives out his number and as accessible as I am.

And I call as many people as I can back. He does talk to constituents. I know constituents who he's phoned, just like his late brother would call them and say, look, I know you're having a problem with the drainage thanks to the city work that's being done down the street. Now, you could make an argument, Jamie, that maybe the head of a government, a $230 billion corporation with 68,000 direct employees and a million more indirect employees should have other things to do beyond talking to people about their specific concerns.

And even Mr. Ford's own staff would sometimes say that. But he himself feels that he doesn't want to be isolated from and insulated from the concerns of everyday people. That's why the private jet, sorry, the executive jet, the premier's office gets very upset when we call it a private jet when it's an executive jet. Like, big difference. Anyway, that's why it has been so damaging because it is just so not who people thought that he was. I mean, he is the guy who buys his clothes at Walmart kind of thing, or buys his suits at Moors. And when there was a Moore's sale on, he would be going around with the flyers telling his staff, you know, hey, guys, there's a good deal on suits right now.

I mean, that, and that is his, who he, I think he believes he is. But, you know, you've been in power for eight years. He does travel a lot. I can understand how you can lull yourself into thinking, I need this airplane. Let's see if Toronto advisors know their group insurance providers. Oh, excuse me. Who has extensive expertise in both traditional group benefits and special risk solutions? Beneva.

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Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Dejardin.com slash business coverage. So in addition to the Jet, Coletto points to the other big issue impacting the Ontario PCs right now in the polls is something that they have not backed off of. And that is their new changes to the Freedom of Information Act, which is really interesting because you don't usually see the Freedom of Information Act moving poll numbers. So what's happening here? Exactly, Jamie. I think they thought that this would be an issue that would be similar, something that journalists would care about in opposition, politicians would care about. And I did too when they announced that they were going to change

the freedom of information laws that have been in place since the 1980s so that the premier's correspondences, phone records, all ministers and parliamentary assistants and their aides, those would be protected from release. Right now, or at least until a few Fridays ago, you could theoretically get access to these. You're often, we're often denied. You and I've been reporters a long time. You know what it's like. You get back these redacted sheets from the various Freedom of Information coordinators at different ministries. Now, the government even admits that 95% of stuff will still get released, but 5% won't. So the 5% that won't tends to be the juiciest stuff.

Okay. So what I'm saying is we're duplicating what the federal government's doing and provinces right across the country. And that's not wrong. It is the same or very similar to what's done in Ottawa. But the problem is there have been lots of criticism over the years about how little transparency there is on the federal government. So now we're going to have less transparency here at Queens Park. And that's a problem because, again, it's off-brand, as David Colletto said.

It's just it makes you look like you've got something to hide. Am I right to say that some of the centers around Ford's private phone and just like how does that fit into the story here? It all fits. It's all because of that. So he uses his own personal cell phone to conduct government business. It's, again, part of his brand. He will make a speech.

He did it on Saturday in Michigan. He was getting an honorary doctorate. And he made a point of telling the students at Saginaw State that he hands out his cell number. It's 647, 617613. And I give you that number. So when you come to Toronto, we get to roll out the red carpet and just treat you like gold. My phone number is on the internet now. And my phone number never ever stops ringing around the clock.

It's mostly people texting him. And he does receive hundreds, if not thousands of texts most days. And he responds to lots of them. You know, you have to acknowledge that. But in doing so, he's conducting government business, official business, on a private device. And that means there's less scrutiny on it. So some journalists here at Queens Park had gone to the Privacy Commissioner to try to get those records released. The private commissioner went to court and the court said you should release your phone records.

And Ford is fighting it. It was going to be fighting it all the way to the Supreme Court. But instead, he's now going to not, he just changed the law so that his phone logs. It's not, he says, oh, my personal call. with my constituents about their private health information is what would be released. And that's not the case at all. It would just be the number. It would show that he had 10 texts from this particular number on this particular day.

And a lot of us were interested to see who was texting him. It's not just people from the public who have this number. Also, it's people who may be conducting government business. So it just looks like they've got something that they don't want the public to know about. Maybe worth mentioning here when they were debating this law in the provincial legislature the Premier actually made some pretty nasty remarks towards liberal MPP and former journalist Stephanie Smyth that he had to like apologize for, right? Yeah, he publicly apologized. Steph Smyth used to work for CP24 here in Toronto.

And Ford knows her really well. She used to interview him, interviewed his brother, interviewed his mother. But he got very upset when she was asking about the FOI stuff. And then he had this really vicious attack. Do you know why the members down here? But if CP24 didn't want her anymore, bottom line, simple. That's why she's down here. And she was just a promoter for a liberal agenda, NDP agenda, when she was doing interviews.

You think there could be anything else? That is the facts. That is the truth. It hurts, doesn't it? It hurts when you aren't wanted. He later apologized for her in private. But then he was asked on, on, on. Monday to publicly apologize and he hasn't repeated in public what he said in private to her to say sorry.

So that's interesting. But it showed how rattled he was by all of this FOI stuff. Cabinet confidentiality, personal conversations. That's not for a public to review of someone that may send me something is very, very personal. That's confidential. I was sworn for secrecy on personal confidential. information coming out of my Kinstead office or on a cell phone. I want to talk about some of the other issues swirling around Doug Ford and his government

right now. There's his plan to extend the Billy Bishop Island Airport in Toronto. And while his government insists that they won't take over all of the city's islands, which have kind of multiple well-frequented beaches, businesses, and homes, some are worried about that. And just to put into perspective here, the proposed runway extension itself is longer than the Birch Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. So just talk to me a bit about the kind of opposition that this is being met with right now. Well, so far, it's an interesting issue because the provincial government doesn't believe that this is an unpopular issue and they're not going to

back off on it. The private jet was one thing. Allowing jets to land at Billy Bishop, they don't believe, is hurting them because they've looked at a lot of public opinion polling. We will be taking over the airport, we will be compensating the city for it. They also have a tacit agreement from Prime Minister Mark Carney's liberals. Now, the federal government actually has the final say on whether Billy Bishop can be expanded because the airport is run by the, it's owned and operated by the Toronto Port Authority, which is a federal agency. Now, the Toronto Port Authority wants the expansion to go ahead.

It's unpopular at City Council here in Toronto. But I'm not sure it's as unpopular with federal liberal MPs. And remember, 23 of the 24 Toronto MPs are liberal. We had Pierre Pollyev, the federal conservative leader. He was in Toronto on the weekend saying that his party supports the airport. Instead of having to fly to Pearson and then fight your way through traffic in a taxi or an Uber, you'll be able to fly right to your downtown destination. And that will reduce traffic on our highways.

for pollution for the country. I also think it would be great for the economy. It will bring more tourism through Toronto. Carney has called it an interesting idea, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens because there is some opposition in downtown Toronto to this, but I don't know if it's as explosive an issue as perhaps the opposition parties here at Queen's Park hope it is.

The NDP leader met with waterfront residents and supporters showing opposition to the Dougford government's airport expansion plans. She's also upset that the president, plan would allow the province to take the entirety of the Toronto Islands, though the government says it won't do that. It would also take over... I do want to do education with you quickly. The Ontario government has also recently passed the supporting children and students act, which gives the province more power over school boards. They threatened to abolish the school board trustees altogether at one point, but have since

kind of walked that back. But what are some of the concerns people have with this legislation? Well, I mean, it undermines local democracy. I actually, this is one fight, Jamie, that I did not understand why they were undertaking it. And I don't think it's something that Premier Ford was driving as much as education minister Paul Calandra. Mr. Calandra, for whatever reason, had had a be in his bonnet about school board trustees. And for sure, some school boards are not well run.

There's, I think, seven in Ontario that the province has taken over as appointed supervisors. And I've talked to some of the folks who are superiors. on these boards and they are finding all sorts of problems because it is a level of government with not a lot of scrutiny. There's not a lot of media attention on school boards the way that there used to be across the province. So that's why here in Toronto, the school board is now basically run by the province because they just didn't feel that it was, they were doing a good job operating it. But it's sort of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to say you're going to muse, as Calander did, about getting rid of school board trustees altogether. Then they found out there were all these constitutional headaches that they could. couldn't get rid of Catholic school board trustees. They couldn't get rid of French language school board trustees. It all goes back to the British North America Act kind of stuff. So it's just, I think Ford himself did not like this fight. Calandra did like it. And in the end, they're, they're cutting down the size of school board trustees. Trustees will continue to play a role, but that role will change significantly. We will introduce a salary cap, reduce the number of

elected trustees to more than 12, no more than 12 per board. eliminate most expense accounts except for modest, clearly defined budgets in rural and remote boards. I mean, I think it's one of these things that could have gotten out of control, though, because if you take away a democratically elected level of government, it's not a good look. Even though it's entry-level politics, it's just not a good look. These moves that they're making around education, is there a sense that what they're doing is actually going to help fix? issues in the education system, or is there a sense that this is making things worse? I don't know, Jamie.

I think, I mean, another one that they did was changing the OSAP, Ontario Student Assistance program. So there'll be fewer grants and more loans. And at the same time, they lifted the tuition freeze that had been in place, which was popular with parents and students, but not popular since it was in place since 2019, with colleges and universities because they couldn't raise fees. and therefore their salaries and their energy costs and all these other things were going up,

but they couldn't bring in more money. And then at the same time, foreign students have been limited by the federal government. So there's a whole bunch of problems with that post-secondary faces. And then, yeah, you have primary and secondary education also facing challenges. So it's almost like, you know, we're in the second year of the third term.

So they've been in government for eight years. All of the stuff starts to pile up. And it becomes. trickier and trickier to deal with it. I also want to touch on a scandal from the last few months that the Starr's editorial board called, quote, too brazen to be believed. And that has to do with the handling of the Ontario Skills Development Fund, an initiative overseen by the Labor Minister meant to fund organizations working to train and hire more Ontario workers in the wake of the pandemic, which seems like

a good thing. But what's been uncovered, about how that, what has been uncovered about how that fund has been used? Well, it's, it's what's been uncovered by, mostly by my colleague Moira Welsh, here in our bureau at Queens Park, is that bureaucrats were overruled. What they were saying certain applicants for this $2.5 billion fund, bureaucrats said they shouldn't, they weren't qualified or they, or their applications weren't good enough to merit being funded. And the, and the minister personally overruled them and intervened.

So the optics of that are really, really bad. And what was the common denominator? Lobbyists. Lobbyists with connections to this government, to this premier, and to this minister. David Puccini's been involved in picking recipients with ties to progressive conservatives who scored low in the criteria for funding. Puccini told News 1010 last week he intervened to get a grant to a company. He was photographed with the director of that company in rinkside Maple Leaf seats.

The NDP complaining that he attended a wedding in Paris for a lobby. for that same company after it got $7.5 million. You know, there are ongoing Integrity Commissioner investigations into that. So the last chapters on the Skills Development Fund debacle have not been written yet. The minister Dave Piccini is still in place. He insists nothing unto what has happened. Doug Ford has said that this program has helped thousands of people. But we haven't really seen what those results are yet.

I mean, Moira looked into it, and it's, you know, a lot of the jobs that they say they've created are temporary posts at best. So, and we also found that dozens of groups that endorse the progressive conservatives in the last election received money. You know, this isn't the first time that this government has seen corruption allegations lobbed against them. I'm thinking of the Greenbelt scandal, for example. And do you think that there's a cumulative effect here, too? For sure. I mean, it's the barnacles of government. They start to collect on you. And the Greenbelt investigation started, the RCMP started investigating the Greenbelt in October, 2023. They're still doing a criminal probe. They've interviewed dozens of people. I would be very surprised if no one gets charged in that. And so that's a shoe that still got to drop. And every government that's been around for a long time, we saw it with the Trudeau government, federally, the liberals in Ottawa, they start to get long and tooth, right? and there's only so much you can do to change the channel, to change the narrative, before things start to just be really, really difficult to cope with. And we saw this, the previous liberal government here at Queen Spark was in power for almost 15 years.

They had a really, really good run. And maybe these guys will have as long a run. I don't know. But at a certain point, people just get sick of looking at a certain politician and say it's time for a change. And that's the number that they're worried about right now. It's still low, relatively speaking, and it's 52%, something like that, say time for change. that number gets to 60, then they've got a problem. You mentioned the liberals who have been in the political wilderness for several years now.

They're currently technically a leaderless party, though they're somehow on par with the conservatives right now, which is interesting. And so just talk to me about the prospects for them. Could they mount a stronger opposition against Ford? What can we expect to see here? Yeah, they could, Jamie, but a couple of things are happening. The polls that are showing them up are in part because the liberal brand, has been decontaminated by Mark Carney. Carney has really given the Ontario liberals a big halo because the federal liberals are popular.

The federal or the provincial liberals used to tell me that when Justin Trudeau was unpopular, because the federal liberal brand was unpopular, that was really hurting them. So now they see the opposite happening. Carney is popular currently and that is helping any generic liberal party in Ontario right now. Now, could that change? Sure. The liberals are in a leadership race. It's officially underway, but there's only one Greenland candidate so far, but there will be others coming.

And they're going to be decided. That'll be decided on November 21st. So they're happy and excited. I was speaking with John Fraser, the interim leader today, and he feels that there's a buzz around the party that there hasn't been in many years. But they have a lot of work to do. And they still have baggage left over from their 15 years in office that the New Democrats, who are the official opposition, here at Queens Park love to bring up and Ford's Tories love to bring up.

So there are, you know, there are a lot of things that have to happen before the liberals are back in office here at Queens Park. Okay. That feels like a good place for us to end. Rob, thank you so much for this. It was a pleasure. Always a pleasure, Jamie. All right.

That's all for today. I'm Jamie Plesson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca. podcasts.