The Current - Doug Ford’s “gravy plane” irks Ontario voters

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Just days after Ontario announced it had purchased a $28.9 million private jet for Premier Doug Ford, the province is now trying to sell it. The decision to buy the jet sparked backlash, with critics calling it tone deaf at a time when many Canadians are struggling with the cost of living. But others argue a plane like this could help a leader do their job more effectively, especially in a province as large as Ontario.

This week on two blocks from the White House, we're talking about the Trump factor and exploring how Trump's touch is backfiring in some places. Trump has loomed large over Canadian politics since his re-election. And this past weekend, the Trump factor was felt in the landmark Hungarian election. Join us every week as we break down U.S. politics from a Canadian perspective. Find and follow two blocks from the White House wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube. New episodes drop every Wednesday. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. I'm the only Premier in history that refuses to use the Premier's plane, the King Air, that costs the taxpayers, hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's Ontario Premier Doug Ford back in 2019, proudly refusing to use the province's private plane to conduct government business.

The comments are in stark contrast to the Ford government's recent move to buy a used $29 million. private jet. It is a decision that got Ontarians talking and got the premiers from ribbing on TikTok from people like graphic designer Dylan Horner and comedian Claire Blackwood. The concept of needing a private plane to go from a Tobacco to Vaughan, like I knew traffic was bad, but my God. Sir, your constituents don't have doctors or hospitals or school funding or oh my God, this again. Tell them I'll drop Advil and pencils out of my private jet while I fly over them like the world's wealthiest bird. In the end, the Premier wasn't able to stick the landing. Just two days after Toronto Star revealed the government's purchase,

Doug Ford announced his intention to sell what opposition parties quickly called the gravy plane amidst the province's growing affordability crisis. 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 to move on. I also understand the scrutiny.

You know, there's no one in this country that has scrutinized more than I am. I'm willing to take that. Robert Benzzi is the Toronto Star. as Queens Park Bureau Chief, he broke the story of the plane purchase. Matt Gurney is a journalist and co-founder of the digital publication The Line. Good morning to you both. Hey there.

Good morning. Rob on Friday, we found out about this government buying the plane. By Sunday, the Premier had decided to sell it as soon as possible. What do we know about how this deal came together in the first place? It came together really quickly, Matt. It went through Cabinet. It was approved, and we learned about it on Thursday night. and it was in Friday's newspaper,

and then the government confirmed that this had happened. And the government explained why they were doing this, and Ford himself did an interview with the Toronto Sun, where he also justified the expense. But I guess it became so sticky that over the weekend, he was feeling a lot of heat, and the whole debacle fell apart. And the thing crashed and burned on Sunday morning.

At 11 o'clock on Sunday, they announced that they were going to be selling this plane. How did he get to the plane in the first place? I'm old enough to remember when he was musing about getting a van, right? And turning this van into a vehicle that he could travel around the province with with some giant screen and a reclining chair and things like that. And a mini fridge and a Blu-ray player, Matt. I mean, it would have been the last purchased Blu-ray player in Canada. That was back in 2019.

That's what that clip that you played earlier was from the legislature when he was under fire for this $50,000 customized van, which he ended up not getting because of public pressure. I mean, the one thing that Premier is not wrong about is he does respond to outcry, and he's not afraid to make a U-turn. And so far, voters have not punished him for that. I mean, he was elected in 2018, re-elected with a bigger share of the popular vote four years later, and then last year, an even greater share of the popular vote,

despite the flip-flops and policy changes along the way. Matt, you wrote in the line, these are your words. I don't like Ford. I never have. But you say that in some ways, on this issue, he hit the right note. Why do you think it was a smart investment for the government, not for Doug Ford, but for the government to get this plane? Well, first of all, let me just say, I'm not going to show Robert my Blu-ray collection. I'm suddenly really self-conscious about it.

No, look, I don't know if it was a smart investment, but, you know, I think at the very least it was a defensible investment. And I had a laugh just last night. Robert, I was reading what you went when Tonda wrote. Like you did a big follow-up on this, and you were quoting what the Premier had said, where he's making the defense of why he bought the plane. He's talking about the federal government having the plane. He's talking about Quebec having planes.

He's talking about Ontario having a land area more than the size of France and Spain combined. And I'm thinking to myself, Mr. Premier, these are all the arguments you could have made either before buying the plane or you could have made after people got mad at you for buying the plane. So I'll tell you Matt, like I'm not passionate about the cause of Ontario having a private jet. I don't really care that much. But I think there is a case to be made.

The premier travels a lot. It's a big province. He's probably traveling more now than usual. Why not have a plane? If it's something that was worth doing, if it was something that was worth going through all the expense of arranging and then having, as Robert has said, having cabinet vote on it,

presumably it would have been something worth sticking to for longer than about 48 hours. But then again, I've been watching the premiere long enough to really not be that surprised. But also something that to your point, you need to explain to people as to why this is money that you're willing to spend. I think in general, yes. I think especially if you're Doug Ford. I mean, you guys opened with the clip of him all those years ago talking about how he would never fly the plane, how he was not interested. And this is something where he has made a point of it before. I'm glad you guys brought up the gigantic Ford van idea from a few years ago, which I still find funny. This is a guy whose entire reputation has been leaning against this. I honestly think, and Robert might have more inside info on this than I do, but I honestly think the moment Merritt Stiles, the opposition leader, called it the gravy plane, it was over.

That was just not something he'd be able to withstand. Rob, is that why this issue, this issue in particular, popped through to the greater public conversation because you can just call it a gravy plane and it sounds, he talked about stopping the gravy trade when he was a city councillor, that it sounds on its surface just absurd? Well, it's just so off brand to Matt's point. This is something that Mr. Ford has cultivated an image for his, you know, whatever, 15 years in public life, 16 years in public life. and it is it is fundamental part of the Ford brand his brother Rob Ford the late mayor of Toronto was was also you know they used to even yesterday Doug Ford was saying how he doesn't claim any expenses he when he's traveling or whatever he pays out of his own pocket I know his staff tell me he always buys them coffee when he took Mark Carney to Pizza Nova in Etobico he paid for

the pizza with a $50 bill he's also one of the few people that still uses cash but it's it's And I think it's because it undermined that core kind of Ford image of being a man of the people, a guy who drives himself to Home Depot and thwarts a shoplifter there. And then to be tooling around in a private jet, which Matt's right. It is defensible. I actually, you know, when we heard about this, I thought, well, they're going to get some heat for this. But I thought, well, I can understand why you would need a plane because he does travel a lot. They do charter planes. It's not like he can go on Westjet or Porter by himself because he travels with an entourage.

He travels with OPP security detail who are armed. So there's a whole bunch of processes that he has to go through before he even gets on an airplane. So I think it is defensible in that way. The problem is how they went about it didn't help sell this to Ontarians. And I'm surprised that he's backed off as quickly as he has, Matt, because it's almost like the worst of both worlds. he gets the headache of the scandal or the controversy and without the benefit of actually having this challenger 650 that he can fly to fight Donald Trump's tariffs. He was very defensive yesterday and speaking about this, Rob, talked about how other governments

have bought planes, but nobody, no one, there's no one in this country in his words that is scrutinized more than I am and I'm willing to take that. What did you make of that? I thought he was a bit whiny on that one. I think Mark Carney is under a lot of scrutiny as well. But look, Mr. Ford is the second most powerful politician in the country, and he is very accessible to the media. He speaks to us every week pretty much, and he answers most of our questions. I mean, yes, there are things that the government is doing that, you know, we could argue are undermining transparency, such as the changes to freedom of information laws and so on. But at the end of the day, he himself is pretty much of an open book, or at least he likes that image. So this, again, just totally undermines that. Matt, in the line you wrote about how in the United States, Donald Trump has been accused of taco, Trump always chickens out,

and suggests that perhaps there is a DACO here, that Doug always chickens out as well. What do you mean by that? Look, I mean, as Rob and I'm sure if we put our heads together and got some of our colleagues, it probably wouldn't take us more than five minutes to come up with an incredible top ten list of times that Premier Ford had made a bold announcement

that he immediately ended up making some kind of a retreat from. He's kind of notorious from this to the point that I know full well that the opposition parties, and I would go so far as to say, foreign governments, have figured out that Premier Ford wiltz in the face of sustained criticism, that he is much better at making blustery announcements, that he is at standing ground when things become controversial. Now, obviously, there are some things he has pushed through.

I'm not trying to say it's a universal constant, like some kind of law of physics. But there's a pretty good chance in any situation. If Doug Ford gets criticized for something, he is going to back down on it. And this is something that, look, it's not an original insight by me, and it's certainly not limited to this. I want to pick up on something Robert action said a moment ago, right? Just about the speed of how fast he backed down on this. I completely agree.

I was not surprised that he backed off. I was a little surprised. It was only 48 hours because he kind of skipped the entire classic Doug Ford. middle phase, which is repeatedly double, then triple, then quadruple down, and attack your critics for saying it was a bad idea, and insist they're all socialist wackos for even objecting to the plan, and then surrender. So this was a relatively fast fold by Premier Ford, at least by his standards. But no, look, anyone who spends any time looking at this guy in action knows that if there's real blowback or controversy to something that he's doing, there's probably a better than even chance.

he's going to back down. It usually just takes a bit longer. Rob, just briefly, he is somebody, the premiers, who ran on that idea for the people. What kind of damage does this do to his reputation? Or is there the possibility that people say, you know what, yeah, he listened to the people and he changed his mind and we move on from here.

I think it's damaging that because he, it is so opposed to his fundamental value proposition to voters that he understands their concerns. He knows the price of milk. He knows the price of eggs. He knows he buys his shirts at Walmart. Like this is a damaging thing. I'm not saying it's going to ruin his political career,

but this is not a great week for him. No. I mean, I think he can survive and will rebound because he, you know, he is good at rebounding. He's a very resilient guy. But I thought yesterday was not a good look for him because he was complaining and explaining. Instead of just being contrite, as we've seen in the past when he's messed up, he's been contrite. But yesterday he was, he was, you know, saying it wasn't really that

contrite. He was just saying he got, basically got caught out and he, the process was wrong, but he still needed a plane. Matt, final word to you on this, and this is sort of what it means more broadly. The Premier has spent the last several years as Captain Canada in some ways, and it's not just traveling across the province or traveling across the country. It's been down in the United States as well, talking about the importance of the importance of of strengthening ties with the U.S., but also putting up a strong face against what he sees as outrageous policies coming from the Trump government. What is a story like this, and you wrote about this in the line, what is a story like this due to that Captain Canada image? I think that honestly is the key question here, and it's one I wish the Premier had thought about before he did this.

It's one thing to have, you know, the Ontario NDP or the currently leaderless, Ontario Liberals, studying your everything. every move in trying to figure out where you're vulnerable and how to beat you. There's a much bigger audience watching Premier Ford right now. The Americans have figured out that he is, as Rob said, one of the most powerful politicians in Canada. He's probably the loudest in opposing a lot of their stated plans for Canada. He just sent a really big signal to them about exactly how tough he is and how well he actually does in a fight.

The Americans are perfectly capable of reading Rob's stories in the Toronto Star. I suspect they are already. And I don't think if some of those tough mega negotiators were worried about Ford, that they still would be today. Good to speak with the both of both this. Thank you very much. Thanks. Matt Gurney is a journalist and co-founder of the digital publication, The Line. And Robert Benzie is the Toronto Star's Queens Park Bureau Chief.

This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbcbc.com. slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.