The Ben Mulroney Show - Doug Ford's big jet flip flop -- will he lose money on the deal?

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

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we got to talk about Doug Ford's flip-flop on the plane. And yes, his superpower is that he can turn on a dime, admit a mistake, and move on. But in this case, the plane was bought, right? So you'll remember on Friday, the Toronto Star, let us all know that the government of Ontario had purchased a jet for just under $30 million. And now today,

yesterday, if you were paying attention yesterday, Doug Ford's government had said that, no, we're getting rid of that. I'm going to sell it. We heard. We listened to people. And apparently, he said the issue was public fury, but Laura Stone of the Globe and Mail

said that it may have, that criticism may have been coming from somewhere else. This isn't like buying some new pillow cushions and then deciding you don't like the pattern and then returning them to the store with your receipt. Like, this is like a major purchase, obviously. It's a lot of money. And it's probably not an easy thing to arrange, right? The government had to go through Bombardier. They had to, the OPP had to do security checks on this plane.

It's a 2016 challenger. It comes from South America. They had to make sure there were no concerns. And now they're going to have to kind of go through the same process to somehow find a buyer. So the degree to which I would assume among his own supporters, there was intense criticism and backlash, it must have been just massive for him to decide within a day, essentially, that he's no longer going to do this, because the Premier's office would have known that this is going, you know, this is going to attract criticism. They know the opposition was going to go after it, but they felt they could justify it because, you know, the Premier, I'm sure in their mind, they feel has been doing a good

job kind of advocating for Canada and Ontario. So the fact that they've turned it around so quickly, I think just shows the level of vitriol that the Premier was facing. Yeah, and that was Laura Stone on Greg Brady this morning. But Premier Ford got up in front of the microphones and kudos to him for

getting up there and taking the shots and taking the hits and taking the questions. And here's what he said about changing his mind. I'm not too shy to change my mind and say, okay, this isn't the time to move on. I also understand

the scrutiny. You know, there's no one in this country that is brutalized more than I am. I'm willing to take that. Okay, there's that. Let's listen to him talking about how this plane was, it was not his private plane. It wasn't for him for private use. It was not Doug Ford's plane. It was a government plane used by multiple ministries.

I'll give you one example, Ontario Corps. If we need to send a team up north where no charter flights are, I mean, sorry, no commercial flights are, we charter a flight. We charter a flight for firefighters going up to fight wildfires. And I thought if it's a multi-ministerial plane for the province, not my personal plane that the media wants to paint it out to be, which was never the case. Yes, am I going to use it? 100%. But it was for multiple ministries that could use it. Yeah, and look, I said it yesterday.

I believe that the value proposition for the province in terms of efficiencies and optimal communication and getting our people to where they need to be, allowing our ministers to work under the cover of confidentiality and speak freely on a plane as opposed to watching what you say on an Air Canada flight and worrying about a flight being delayed and postponed and eventually being told that the flight is not going to take. off and losing communication with your ministers while they are in the air because Air Canada doesn't let you talk on the phone. All of those reasons plus so many more, it made sense. But the fact that the government didn't take the initiative to get up in front of, get out in front of this, stand in front of a microphone as Doug Ford did today and say on behalf of the people of Ontario, we have invested in a plane for the government, for this government, and the successive governments for decades to have at their call a plane that can take them to

wherever they need to be, to respond to the needs of Ontario, be it within the province or from without, we have done this on behalf of the province and it will yield benefits. Instead of getting in front of it and controlling the narrative, they were playing catch-up all the way to today where they have had to walk it back. But let's be honest, this is not a walk back. This is what they weren't floating this idea. They bought the plane. They bought the

plane and now they got to return the plane. Now they got to say, the premier said we have to return this plane. We're going to return this plane and we're going to sell it as quickly as possible. So you're telegraphing that you're a motivated seller. That's not good.

You should say we're going to take our time. We're going to find the right buyer who's willing to pay us what we paid. Otherwise, we're going to keep this thing. And so lots of questions there. I think it was a bad idea to get, because now, now we just have to eat the cost of however however less, however less money we're going to get for this thing versus what we paid for it. And we don't have a plane. We don't have a plane to show for it. So after the break, we're going to speak with the president and CEO of a company that does just that. They They help people buy private planes.

And we're going to ask him about this particular plane and how hard is it going to be for us to get our money back? So don't go anywhere. When we come back, that conversation right here on the Ben Mulrooney show. You're listening to the Ben Mulroney show. Maybe not. Maybe you're not leaving on a jet plane. Maybe you're waiting in line at the airport to abort a plane

that ain't leaving anytime soon. Our premier bought a plane. And now he's saying he's returning the plane. So here to discuss how exactly you sell a private plane. We're joined by Nolan Kylie from Crimson Air Services. He's the president and CEO. Nolan, welcome. Hi, Ben.

How are you doing? Well, I'm curious to get to talking to you here. So we bought this plane for just under $30 million. And within just a few days, we're being told it's going to be sold again. And do the same principles that apply to a year? used car applied to a used plane? Do we automatically deduct a certain percentage because it transferred ownership? Yes and no, but it hasn't flown.

So I don't think you would lose money particularly there. Where you would probably lose money is on the commission of the sale to whoever selling it on your behalf. So usually that goes from 1 to 3%. Of the total value of the aircraft. 1 to 3%. All right. Well, that's not nothing.

That's not nothing. Absolutely not. Now, you were talking to my producer earlier today, and you suggested that the government probably didn't even need this plane. No. They could have gone for something different. I think the main issue is the lack of transparency and the lack of planning in procuring the aircraft. What do you mean by that?

Well, normally there's a tender process. Everything to do with government has a tender process without a request for proposal. You usually have a set of requirements. You know, it needs to be transcontinental. It needs to carry eight to 12 passengers. You know, requires no fuel stops between X, Y, and Z. You know, city pairs you normally travel to. You know, rules and, you know, like things that govern the use of the aircraft.

You know, like defining that for the public and writ large. All of that was missing here. So we don't really know why. like purchased other than the fact that we travel a lot and we need a plane. So yeah, the Challenger 650 is a beautiful plane. So you think there are other planes out there that could have checked most of those boxes, but we could have gotten it for cheaper. Oh, for sure.

So like a Challenger 604, Challenger 350, Challenger 605, or even a Global 5,000, an older one. You know, like a Learjet 45, Learjet 75, Learjet 60. they're all smaller, just like configurable on range and stuff like that. It just depends on how you want to use it. Yeah. And we don't know what that is. The Premier today said it was going to be used not just by his cabinet, but, you know, if they needed to get some firefighters up north

or quickly for an emergency or if there were some, you know, for any sort of emergency, it would have been added to the fleet of planes available to the government to get places quickly where a charter might be too slow or Air Canada didn't fly. I think that's fair. I mean, it adds to the business case, but once again, that was not represented in any sort of tender offer or anything like that for the competitors to vote on. Or sorry, to bid on. And it doesn't really describe from the get-go, you know, like, we wanted to do this earlier in the year.

You know, like there was a competitive bidding time. You know, like, you have to do some sort of analysis on why charter doesn't work. Charter is always cheaper than doing, than buying. And there's also, there's many other options other than commercial. You know, like, I have flown, I flew to Hamburg and back this past week. And I can tell you, with the Luftanz of strike, my travel there and back was not as coordinated as I would prefer to. So I totally understand the need for business aviation and a private jet would be an advantage to the government here. I want my representatives working for me 24-7.

Of course. If you can do that on a plane at any particular point in time and you're not waiting in an airport lounge or something like that, sipping on a coffee or something like that, I would prefer that. Yeah. You know, so the business case does exist as long as it's not for Doug himself and his wider cabinet. If it's for these emergency situations, all the power to them.

The only problem is that they didn't communicate that. Yeah, no, that was the biggest fault that I found, and they should have gotten ahead of it and told everyone as opposed to waiting for the the Toronto Star to ask them about it. But, okay, do you think the Premier hurt his case in getting the best possible price by saying, we're going to sell it as quickly as possible? It seems to me like you're now describing yourself as a motivated seller,

thereby putting a lot of leverage in the hands of anyone who might want to buy this. That is correct. I mean, like the joke between me and a few of my colleagues was, well, now I have a Challenger 650 that needs to sell as soon as possible with the mods. and Canadian requirements, just fresh out of the MRO, needs to move fast. Yeah. You know, so there is the possibility.

And I think it's more of those moments where with a faux pa like this, you know, you're kind of damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Yeah. So you're going to try and get what you paid for it. And, you know, you're still going to be out, even if you get exactly what you paid for it, you're still going to be out that commission money times two. so it's it's going to it's not going to be fun you know and he's going to be under fire for it for a little while but you know like it I still think the business case exists yeah so do I just did it properly so so Nolan let's play a couple of hypotheticals here let's let's say that you were and we don't have to say it's this government but let's say there's a there was a government somewhere that want to get rid of their Challenger 650 very very quickly how would you how would you represent them in a case like this oh wow Um, I mean, like, how big is the market? How big is the market for, for some, like a challenge of 650 out there?

The, the market is, the market is pretty hot for, especially like for 650. 650, 650s not really particularly older yet. Um, it was made, I believe they said, mentioned that this one was from 2016. Uh, so it doesn't have, um, a ton of life, uh, that's been put on it. Okay. Um, I, I think I know which one it is. I'm not really 100% sure, so I'm not going to say. You think you, that's how. I think I've narrowed it down.

You think you narrowed it. You actually think you know which one this is. Yeah. But the thing is that the, it's well taken care of. It's got a lot of, it's been had all its checks and everything else like that. So it would go relatively quickly. Yeah. And since it is fresh out of MRO and everything else like that and like transport Canada

and the South American Authority where I think it was purchased from have similar regulations. So there's not a ton of work that needs to change between the two. So the ability for the government to offload it would be relatively quick. Okay, now let's flip the paradigm.

You are now representing the buyer, right? Knowing the market and knowing you got a motivated seller, what's the lowest you would offer that you thought you would get a good response from? This is a hot topic question. I'm going to get flack and regardless of what I say. I mean, there's no reason why you couldn't get it for what it was what you originally bought it for.

But, you know, with the motivation to move it, you could drop it a few million. Like 25? Yeah, 25, something like that. And it would probably go relatively quick. Some of the broker friends of mine are probably going to like jump down my throat and be like, why would you say it? But the point is that, like, it depends on how fast you want it to go. It's a hot market for any Bombardier product, especially a newer one. Yeah.

In the used market that's been well taken care of and hangered and everything else like that. So, there's, like, to me, there's no reason why he couldn't get what he paid for it within a decent interval. Yeah. Like, regardless of the timeframe, you're hoping for, like, a buyer who's not paying attention to, Canadian politics. Yeah. Ontario politics. Yeah.

And which odds are you probably not. So the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, if, if it were me, I mean, I, I would, I would, I would hope, like, an ideal situation, if somebody really wants to low ball this government, they, they, they should do so, so long as they don't live in Ontario. Because next, you, you, you don't want the tax man coming for you, uh, later on. Yeah. Yeah.

Or, or your fellow taxman. Spares being like you. Yeah, exactly. All right, Nolan, Kylie from Crimson Air Services. I really, really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you very much, my friend. No problem. Take care. Have a nice thing. My name is Mickey Fox.

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