A suite of provincial targets and data points used by the public to measure the success of the Ford government appears to have been gradually pulled back or eliminated by the Progressive Conservatives — a trend that critics suggest is a deliberate strategy to frustrate accountability, but one that the premier’s office denies

Targets, such as opening dates for transit lines and greenhouse gas emissions, have been removed from public scrutiny, while a housing tracker the government set up a few years ago displays data from 2024.

Other information, like the number of patients being treated in hospital hallways, has also been scrapped as the government failed to meet its stated objectives, according to its own tracking.

A spokesperson for Premier Doug Ford’s office said that the examples cited by Global News in a request were still being measured.

“Nearly every data point referenced is continuously tracked and publicly available,” they wrote in a statement. “To imply the government has reduced or removed process measures is factually incorrect and misleading to your readers.”

Critics, however, have noticed some of the measures used to track government progress being pulled back — a move they believe is designed to make measuring the Progressive Conservatives’ successes and failures more complicated.

“They’ve had no plan to really address these things, and the targets expose the fact that there’s no plan,” Ontario Liberal MPP John Fraser said.

“Doug Ford’s good at the anecdotes, good at saying the things that people want to hear. He’s just not very good at actually delivering the things he says he’s gonna do.”

Darrell Bricker, Global CEO, Ipsos Public Affairs, said governments struggling to deliver their goals tend to move away from reporting on them too closely.

“Nobody wants to be held accountable for these things, and if they haven’t got a good story that relates to actually making progress on them, why create the extra barriers for themselves?” he said.

“The idea that they would be a little bit less specific in terms of how they’re going to deliver, what they’re gonna deliver and in what sort of timeframe is something that they probably regard as not really essential to communicating with Ontarians right now.”

Here’s a list of metrics that are no longer being tracked or updated in the way they had been.

Shortly after Ontario’s auditor general published a report that found the province could miss its greenhouse gas emissions targets by “an even wider margin” than previously expected, the government decided to stop reporting them altogether.

Buried in the Fall Economic Statement in November was the news that the government would be repealing sections of existing legislation which required it to establish emissions targets and report them publicly.

Legislation passed as part of the fiscal update abolished the need for the government to create targets, to report on their progress publicly or to come up with a plan to reduce emissions.

Weeks before the decision was made public, Environment Minister Todd McCarthy had said the government would attempt to hit its 2030 emissions target, without promising to achieve it.

“We are continuing to meet our commitment to at least try to meet our commitment for the 2030 target,” he told reporters. “But targets are not outcomes. We believe in achievable outcomes, not unrealistic objectives.”

A few short weeks later, Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy refused to be drawn into specifics of why the government had gone from trying to meet the target to abolishing it altogether.

“We’re leading the way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we’re leading the country, we’re doing it in a very aggressive way,” he said. “We continue to get results as opposed to just set targets.”

Modelling completed by the government in January 2025 found Ontario would miss its 2030 emissions reduction targets by 3.5 megatonnes.

The premier’s office did not reference greenhouse gas emissions in the comments it sent to Global News.

Target opening dates for major transit projects also appear to be a thing of the past.

Back in December 2022, if you visited the Metrolinx website, you would see the Finch West LRT was “coming in 2023.” Meanwhile, a 2019 news release announced the Hurontario LRT in Mississauga would “begin operations in Fall of 2024.”

The Finch West LRT missed its 2023 opening date, eventually launching in winter 2025. In the two years between its target date and official opening, the government and Metrolinx repeatedly refused to offer a new date, the same approach they had adopted when the Eglinton Crosstown LRT missed its launch.

More than a year after it was supposed to open, the majority of the track has not been laid on the Hurontario LRT, and the government has not assigned a new target opening date.

Both Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass — two signature highway projects — are without opening dates or specific costings.

Most recently, Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay indicated the Ontario Line, which was originally set to be finished in 2027, was “still trending toward the early 2030s” to be completed. He said he couldn’t give an opening date because testing would determine when it is ready.

The premier’s office said, “transit updates are regularly published by Infrastructure Ontario.”

In 2018, as the Progressive Conservatives looked to unseat the long-serving Liberal government, hallway health care was a primary concern in emergency rooms across the province.

Shortly after taking office, the Ford government “promised to end hallway health care” by investing in thousands of new long-term care beds and adding billions in support for hospitals to ease the burden.

“One patient treated in a hallway is one patient too many,” Ford said in 2018.

According to metrics compiled by Ontario Health in its last full report, there was still an average of 1,326 patients receiving care in “unconventional spaces.”

While the health-care bureaucracy’s 2023-24 annual report stated that ending hallway medicine is a “key priority of the government,” the most recent report suggests the metric will be eliminated.

“List of measures to be retired when Accountability Agreement is updated this year: … the average number of inpatients receiving care in unconventional spaces or ER stretches per day within a given time period,” the document stated in a footnote.

Unlike previous years, the report did not list how many patients were being treated in “unconventional spaces.”

According to the premier’s office, “detailed hospital metrics are continuously monitored by Ontario Health.”

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When the Progressive Conservatives swept to a second majority mandate during the 2022 election, they did so partly on a promise to build 1.5 million homes by 2031.

After hitting its targets began to look unachievable, the government modified the definition of new housing to include long-term care beds, basements and, more recently, student accommodation.

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing set up a tracker to demonstrate which towns and cities were on target to achieve the goals they had been set, and how close Ontario was to its annual target once long-term care beds and other data were added in.

Initially, that tracker was regularly updated and used by the government to assess which municipalities would receive additional funding.

Then, the province started to slow its updates.

Despite the data being ready to publish in February 2025, figures for the previous year weren’t made public until August.

As of publication, no data from last year had been added to the tracker, with the government site still showing targets and numbers for 2024.

The goal of 1.5 million homes is rarely proactively referenced by politicians and the finance minister even recently labelled it as a “soft target.”

The premier’s office said that “housing starts are reported in the provincial budget.”

The Ford government also appears to have changed how it compiles data on the deaths of children associated with the care network, ending aggregated roll-ups.

From 2020, Ontario began generating a summary of all children who died under the care of a children’s aid society, with an open child welfare file or whose file had been closed in the past year.

The data showed, on average, a child who had interacted with welfare within the past year died every three days. In 2023, the government reported 134 deaths associated with its care system — fatalities which could come for any reason, including accidental, medical, suspicious or suicide.

For the past two years, the government seems to have moved away from those aggregate reports. Officials deny anything substantive has changed, saying “detailed reporting is preferable to aggregated roll-ups because it allows for specific actions that prevent tragedies from occurring again.”

High-level data, however, which offered an insight into trends for one of the most vulnerable populations in the province, is no longer being measured against the same benchmark.

“No aggregate data rollups have been provided to the Deputy Minister’s or Minister’s Offices for deaths in the 2024 and 2025 calendar years,” a freedom of information official confirmed in a letter to Global News this year.

The premier’s office said the government “has always maintained its process for reporting data and investigating tragic deaths in the child welfare system.”

In late 2025, Education Minister Paul Calandra revealed the province’s latest EQAO results failed to meet the government’s expectations.

Nearly half of Ontario’s Grade 6 students are failing the provincial standards on math, prompting Calandra to acknowledge that, after seven years in power, the Ford government shoulders part of the blame.

“When I got results, it frustrated me and made me quite upset,” Calandra told reporters at Queen’s Park. “If we were doing it right, then we wouldn’t have 50 per cent of our students not meeting provincial benchmarks.”

To improve the scores, Calandra announced a new panel would review the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) testing data to determine if it was still working.

“I want them to look at the test, speak to teachers, speak to our partners … is what we’re doing working?”

The review will also assess whether EQAO tests align with what students are being taught, whether data could be used to improve policy and funding decisions and what help can be offered to students ahead of the provincial testing.

Opposition parties viewed that as an attempt to water down the test in an attempt to improve the test scores and bolster the government.

A recent provincial advertising campaign to “let people know” about the redevelopment of Ontario Place cost more than $1.7 million, money one critic says the Ford government is “flushing down the drain.”

The campaign was launched at the end of August last year and ran until mid-December, promoting the government’s plans to relocate the science centre to Ontario Place, along with a privately-operated spa, music venue and new parkland.

It ran under generic language, telling those who saw the commercial to “get ready for a brand new Ontario Place.”

Now, documents obtained by the Ontario NDP reveal that the campaign cost the taxpayer $1.74 million before tax for the advertisements. The government previously declined to reveal the cost.

“This is a callous use of taxpayer dollars,” Ontario NDP MPP Chris Glover said.

“Nobody asked for a multi-billion-dollar, taxpayer-funded luxury spa project in downtown Toronto. Doug Ford knows that this is a bad deal for Ontario. Instead of choosing to do the right thing and cancel it, he is spending millions to advertise his sweetheart deal.”

Premier Doug Ford defended his government’s record spending on commercials to promote its plans, arguing that marketing its ideas and achievements was a key metric of success.

“We have to promote Ontario,” he said, adding he wanted to push the message domestically and to an American audience as well.

“You have to advertise in business. Another thing I’ve learned in business, when things are going tough, never cut your sales force, never cut your marketing department. They’re the ones that are going to revitalize your company — or in this case, a beautiful destination.”

Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming Stan Cho made a similar argument when he defended the campaign to Global News last year.

“I, for one, think it’s something people should get excited about — I’m super excited about it, so we just want to get the word out there,” he said at the legislature.

“Those renderings that we published that are publicly available really, I think, gave people a sense of how transformational this is going to be. The place was sinking into Lake Ontario.”

His office reiterated those comments on Thursday, promoting “the transformation of Ontario Place, with over 52 acres of free public spaces, brand new modernized amenities, green space, family areas, event spaces, playgrounds, and an urban beach.”

The $1.7-million campaign is not the first one the Ford government has run to promote Ontario Place. Some two years ago, the province budgeted $2 million to “raise awareness” about its Ontario Place vision through online, radio, television and billboard commercials that ran for eight weeks.

That campaign, internal documents previously obtained by Global News said, was “in response to some early negative sentiment toward limited aspects of the plan.”

Glover said the money spent on advertising the plan was being wasted.

“Ford needs to stop flushing more tax dollars down the drain and cancel this shady deal,” he said.

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The organization representing Ontario’s school boards says it hasn’t had any communication with the Ford government over the future of elected trustees, as concerns about their potential abolition continue.

The Ontario Public School Board Association said it’s listening closely to public comments made by Premier Doug Ford and his education minister about whether they want to eliminate trustees, without receiving any formal word.

“Nothing official to date,” the organization’s executive director, Stephanie Donaldson, confirmed to Global News.

“Parents are really concerned and I think there’s a lot of confusion out there across the education sector and in homes across Ontario, without knowing where we’re actually going with this. I think people would really love a conversation — and an actual consultation — on this with the folks that are affected, in particular the students.”

On Monday, Ford confirmed the government was still “discussing” whether or not to get rid of trustees, offering no details of what those conversations entailed. Education Minister Paul Calandra has indicated he’s keen to majorly overhaul school boards without yet tabling legislation.

Donaldson said it was important that a decision from the government comes soon, with nominations set to open for school board elections this spring.

“We’ve got municipal elections coming up in a few short months where people will be electing their mayor, their councillor and their trustees,” she said. “And so I think voters want to know too, that they have some stability in their local democracy as well.”

Calandra has mused about the future of school board trustees for close to a year as he has taken control of some of Ontario’s largest school boards. Both the public and Catholic boards in Toronto and Peel Region are now under the control of a supervisor, as well as Ottawa-Carleton.

The appointment of a supervisor, which has happened at seven boards over the past year, effectively sidelines trustees and puts the education minister in charge.

The most recent group to complain about the move was the Black Trustees’ Caucus, which is part of the Ontario Public School Boards Association.

In a letter to Ford, the group expressed concern that supervision and the sidelining of trustees was hurting representation for marginalized students at some school boards.

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“Ontario cannot address systemic anti-Black racism while weakening the governance and equity structures designed to confront it,” Debbie King, chair of the caucus, wrote.

“Sustaining strong oversight during provincial supervision is essential to meeting legal obligations, maintaining public confidence, and improving outcomes for Black students — and for all students.”

A spokesperson for Calandra’s office said inequalities were one of the reasons he had decided to take over some school boards.

“Disparities in our school system highlight the need for governance reform of an outdated system that, for too long, has left too many students behind,” the statement read.

“I am focused on student achievement by rebuilding a system grounded in respect, responsibility, and support.”

Donaldson said she understood why the government was taking its time deciding whether or not it would do away with trustees, but urged Ford to have a more open conversation.

“Talking about a governance reform of this scale across the education sector is a really serious matter. So I respect the fact that there are sober discussions that are happening in government,” she said.

“We’d love to see those discussions actually happen with the public and ourselves outside of government as well.”

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The Ford government has confirmed 17 long-term care homes, including two in Toronto, that will receive funding for specialized behaviour units and dementia care.

On Tuesday, Long-Term Care Minister Natalia Kusendova-Bashta confirmed the $9 million program, first announced last year, would begin rolling out.

“These innovative programs and specialized units will support people living with dementia and their loved ones, while improving the work experience of staff,” she said in a statement.

The program will begin with the 17 homes announced Tuesday and is designed to swell to include 50 by 2027-28. It helps long-term care homes implement emotion-based models of care for residents with dementia.

According to the government, some 60 per cent of residents in Ontario’s long-term care homes have been diagnosed with dementia. The number of people with the diagnosis is expected to triple by 2050.

The spending commitment and confirmation of homes were welcomed by advocates, including Alzheimer’s Society of Ontario and AdvantAge Ontario.

Lisa Levin, CEO of AdvantAge, called the plan “incredible news” for the long-term care sector.

“We’re very pleased to see the government working with the sector to move emotion-focused care forward,” she said in a statement.

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“Good care for older adults isn’t just about medical needs, it’s also about how people feel. Emotional support and meaningful connection, guided by each individual, make a real difference in day-to-day life. We’re proud that our association’s advocacy helped pave the way for this important investment.”

The 17 homes the funding will be directed to are:

• Algoma Manor Nursing Home, Thessalon
• Cooksville Care Centre, Mississauga
• Extendicare Medex, Ottawa
• Glebe Centre, Ottawa
• Glen Hill Strathaven, Bowmanville
• Grove Park Home for Senior Citizens, Barrie
• H.J. McFarland Memorial Home, Picton
• Isabel and Arthur Meighen Manor, Toronto
• Lakeview Manor, Beaverton
• Lee Manor Home, Owen Sound
• Princess Court, Dryden
• Temiskaming Lodge, Temiskaming
• The Elliott Long Term Care Residence, Guelph
• The O’Neill Centre, Toronto
• Union Villa, Unionville
• Vera M. Davis Community Care Centre, Bolton
• Wiigwas Elder and Senior Care, Kenora

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Doug Ford says he is still “discussing” whether or not to get rid of elected trustees in Ontario, signalling a final decision has not yet been made on his government’s overhaul of school boards.

Speculation has percolated about the future of trustees for close to a year as Education Minister Paul Calandra embarks on a mission to reform how school boards operate by taking control of some and musing about the future of trustees.

At the end of January, the government put the Peel District School Board under supervision. It joined Toronto public, Toronto Catholic and Ottawa-Carleton on the list of seven boards where trustees have been sidelined.

Calandra previously told Global News he did not plan to change the role of French language board trustees and would maintain some form of Catholic school board elected official because of representation requirements.

“The public school trustees have no constitutional cover whatsoever,” he said.

It had, at one point, seemed the overhaul of school boards could come during the fall sitting of the legislature, which wrapped without new legislation on the issue. Calandra said in December he was aiming to table his changes in the new year.

Asked if he wanted to see trustees abolished altogether on Monday, Premier Ford suggested a final decision still hadn’t been made.

“We’re sitting down and discussing that and we’ll see when we move forward,” he said. “But I just want to fix the school boards, there’s a lot of waste of taxpayers’ money and we see it.”

In the latest intervention, Bluewater District School Board wrote to the ombudsman asking him to review any potential abolition of school board trustees.

“The removal of English public boards of trustees would also result in the loss of Indigenous representation where it currently exists,” part of the letter read.

“Additionally, a move by the provincial government to remove English public school trustees would have a detrimental impact on the student voice in the affected boards through the loss of student trustees. This is the sole legislated role giving voice to Ontario students in English public schools.”

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Calandra has not laid out his full plan for the future of Ontario’s education system, but has maintained some school boards are poorly run and said he wants to take more direct responsibility for their decisions.

“I have not yet provided advice to cabinet on where I want to go,” Calandra said in December. “But to be clear, there is absolutely nothing to date that has moved me from where I have been for months, that trustees aren’t necessarily the right avenue to deliver education across the province of Ontario.”

Ford suggested Monday the education minister would have an announcement on more funding for teachers to purchase classroom supplies in response to a question about the ombudsman letter on Monday.

“Minister Calandra is going to make an announcement, hopefully sooner than later,” he said, after telling a story about meeting teachers in dollar stores.

“Each principal, I hear, gets $300; when I talk to the teachers, they’re saying they don’t even see it. So, we’re going to make that change, and it’s going to be a very, very positive announcement for front-line educators.”

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The company at the centre of a $29.5 million government lawsuit and allegations of fraud is pushing to move the case to commercial court in the hopes of speeding up the legal fight — a move the Ford government is attempting to block.

The company, Keel Digital Solutions, received millions from both the Ministry of Colleges and Universities as well as the Ministry of Labour, through its subsidiary Get A-Head, for counselling services for students on college and university campuses.

In a recent lawsuit, the province alleged the owners of Keel submitted “fraudulent” data on the services they provided and that the company was “unjustly enriched.” Keel fired back, saying the government’s argument was “deeply flawed, built on misstatements and outright inaccuracies.”

Now, weeks after being served with legal action by the government, its executives are trying to move the fight to a new arena — urging the province to accept a speedier resolution to allegations of fraud.

“Keel is ready to have the facts tested,” the company said in a statement.

“If the Province truly believes in its own allegations, and if it genuinely stands behind its repeated rhetoric about ‘Respect for Taxpayers,’ then it should have no hesitation in advancing this matter immediately in the Commercial Court, saving potentially millions in legal fees.”

In the latest twist, Keel’s executives have filed a motion to move the case to the Superior Court’s Commercial List, arguing they want to prioritize speed in order to preserve their reputation.

In the filing, the company claimed that the province “unleashed the weight of the government,” putting both the company’s viability and the owners’ reputation at risk. It expressed concern that a resolution could be “years away.”

“The reputations of the individual defendants and the ongoing viability of the corporate defendants are being irreparably damaged in real time,” the motion by Keel Digital Solutions argued.

The company said the government’s lawsuit, launched in early January, has made its directors “toxic,” has “effectively shut down the business,” forced them to lay off at least 30 staff and could result in the “bankruptcy” of its owners.

“The only practical way to mitigate the devastating harm to the defendants is an expedited trial that dismisses the baseless and misguided allegations in the claim,” Keel said in its motion.

Moving the case to the commercial list — presided by a team of judges with experience in managing complex commercial litigation — could potentially speed up the legal battle and lead to a resolution within a year.

The government, however, has balked at the request.

In a filing of its own, lawyers for the Ministry of the Attorney General said they do not view the case as being “appropriate” for the commercial court because the central concern relates to “compliance with provincial funding agreements and fraud.”

Rather than sitting idle, the government suggested its lawyers have already moved ahead with the next stage of the ongoing legal battle by requesting Keel’s internal data on the virtual mental health counselling sessions it offered.

The data includes start and end times of sessions, participant numbers, identification numbers, and login details, all of which the government claims the company has yet to turn over.

“It is [the company’s] refusal, and the absence of that highly relevant data, that grounded the audit’s serious concerns and is now central to Ontario’s claim,” government lawyers said in their filing.

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Back in November, the Ford government sent the findings of a forensic audit into Keel Digital Solution to Ontario Provincial Police, which has since opened an investigation.

The province said that a “routine audit” of the business had raised red flags that led to the forensic probe and eventual police investigation. Keel Digital Solutions strenuously denied that claim, raising questions about how the audit had been conducted and disputing its findings.

Then, at the beginning of the year, the government announced it had filed its own lawsuit against Keel, accusing it of breaching its contract and providing false and misleading reports.

The government’s lawsuit — against which Keel has filed a counterclaim and wants to see moved into commercial court — alleged that between 2022 and 2025 the company “provided false and misleading quarterly reports of their corporate performance measures,” which resulted in the government paying out its contracts.

Keel’s counterclaim seeks damages of $98 million, including for payments the government withheld and for what they call loss of corporate value.

The company said in its defence that the government’s audit process was secretive and “deeply flawed.” It also claims that when the province announced the police referral due to what it called “inconsistencies” found through the audit, the company says that it was done with the intent to harm its reputation.

The claims from either the government or Keel Digital Solutions have not been proven in court, and no charges have been laid in the OPP’s investigation.

The motion to move the case to the Commercial List will be heard in early March.

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is showing no signs of revising his changes to student loans or tuition fees, saying OSAP “is not a freebie anymore” and that “money doesn’t grow on trees” as opposition continues to bubble.

Both the Ontario Liberals and NDP have brought groups of students to the legislature in recent days to protest against the decision to unfreeze tuition fees and move student finance to a majority loan-based system.

“I’ve heard from a lot of students from a messaging me. I appreciate their messages. Some are pretty nasty, but some are very professional,” Ford said on Monday, defending the decision more than a week after it was first announced.

“It’s not a God-given right to take taxpayers’ money. It’s a God-given right to get your college degree and university.”

Frustration with the changes has been simmering since the Ford government first announced them on Feb. 12, allowing colleges and universities to increase tuition by two per cent a year, offering them more government cash and changing how OSAP works.

The latter change is the one that has attracted the most energy, shifting public funding for students from loans to grants.

The existing proportion of OSAP was about 85 per cent grants to 15 per cent loans, the government said, but starting this fall, students will receive a maximum of 25 per cent of their OSAP funding as grants.

“The changes to OSAP into a primarily loans program will burden the next generation of students with more student debt than ever before,” Adaeze Mbalaja from the Canadian Federation of Students said.

“This decision will jeopardize the financial future of the next workforce of Ontario.”

On Monday, Ford repeated his assertion he supported college and university education — as long as it was in one of the sectors of the economy he views as in-demand, like health care.

“We’re investing in our education, we’re still subsidizing colleges by $7 billion,” he said. “But you’ve got to go out there and if you get an in-demand job, keep in mind we won’t have to pay back the loan for four years, and then six months after you don’t have pay it back. But get an education that you can get a job.”

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Students, however, aren’t convinced, pointing to a sputtering economy and high unemployment.

According to figures on the government’s website, unemployment for people aged 15 to 24 sat at 15.6 per cent in December. It was seven per cent for people aged 25 to 54.

“This is all happening during one of the worst youth employment markets in years,” Nicholas Silver, from the University of Toronto’s graduate students’ union, said.

“We are asking our students to take on more debt with fewer opportunities to find stable employment to repay that debt after they graduate. The effects of this will be clear. Due to this uncertainty and risk, fewer students will choose to pursue post-secondary education.”

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles, whose party brought students to the legislature Monday, echoed the concern.

“Doug Ford’s OSAP cuts couldn’t have come at a worse time for Ontario’s youth,” she said. “Youth unemployment is sky-high, cost of living is out of control, and now this government is making sure that students are buried in thousands of dollars of debt before they can even get their first job.”

Ford pointed out that student grants and loans come from the public purse.

“You are taking tax dollars and you have to be held accountable when you take tax dollars,” he said. “It’s not a freebie anymore. Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he “can’t wait” for midterm elections in the United States, after a Supreme Court ruling on tariffs did little to alleviate trade pressure on the provincial economy.

A ruling from America’s top court on Friday concluded President Donald Trump’s so-called “reciprocal” tariffs and duties on Canada related to fentanyl were unlawful, without touching sector-specific tariffs.

Tariffs imposed on steel, aluminum and autos, known as Section 232, are unaffected by the ruling. An additional 15 per cent tariff, which the president announced Saturday, largely does not impact Canadian products.

“The Supreme Court hasn’t changed, thankfully, anything here in Ontario or in Canada,” Premier Ford told reporters. “We’re still keeping an eye on Section 232, but don’t make no mistake about it. President Trump still has a lot of tools.”

Despite the broad strike-down of Trump’s tariffs, the levies that most impact Ontario remain in place.

Trump has imposed a series of other, sector-specific tariffs on several industries using Section 232 of the U.S. Trade Expansion Act, which allows the president to address “excessive” foreign imports deemed a risk to national security.

The law requires the U.S. Commerce Department to investigate those imports and reach a conclusion justifying the tariffs, which can take months to complete.

Section 232 tariffs have been imposed on steel, aluminum and copper at a rate of 50 per cent; automobiles, heavy trucks and auto parts not compliant with CUSMA at a 25 per cent rate; and some furniture, kitchen cabinets and vanities at 25 per cent.

The auto and steel tariffs have already had major impacts on the provincial economy. Multiple vehicle investments in Ontario have been paused or suspended, while Algoma Steel laid off more than 1,000 workers last year.

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A 10 per cent tariff was also imposed on softwood lumber under Section 232, on top of existing and separate anti-dumping duties.

The premier appeared again on CNN on Monday as part of his drive to convince American voters and elected officials to lobby on Canada’s and Ontario’s behalf.

It’s a strategy the provincial government has been pursuing for more than a year without yet seeing movement on tariffs. Ford has cancelled a contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink, removed American alcohol from the LCBO and visited Washington D.C.

The premier has said the hope of that strategy is to work around Trump’s unpredictability.

“It’s very challenging right now,” he said. “I just sit back some days, and I’m not the only one, everyone in the world sits back, (wondering) how can one person, one man create so much turmoil around the world? Not just here in Canada, around the globe. It’s pretty, pretty staggering. So, I can’t wait for the midterms.”

— with files from Global News’ Sean Boynton 

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The day before employees at the Crown Royal bottling facility in Amherstburg, Ont., were told their jobs were about to be eliminated, the company behind the Canadian-made whisky reached out to Premier Doug Ford’s office to offer the government a “heads up.”

Internal emails, obtained by Global News through freedom of information laws, reveal how the government initially planned a subtler response to the job losses, before the premier decided to intervene.

After the closure was made public, coverage intensified, culminating with Ford emptying a bottle of Crown Royal onto the ground after an event. The premier threatened to ban the whisky and eventually retreated this month when the company agreed to spend $23 million to offset the job losses and lower the temperature with the government.

But before Ford raised the stakes, emails between senior premier’s office staff and a public relations firm representing Diageo North America show a pleasant relationship going as far back as 2023, when the government was rolling out sweeping changes to the province’s alcohol retail rules

The company sent the premier a letter to show the company’s “appreciation” for the alcohol modernization plan and invite “continued dialogue between Diageo and the Premier’s Office.”

The tone changed last August, when the company emailed Ford’s principal secretary asking for an urgent meeting to update him on a “time-sensitive matter.”

“We are looking to ensure the Premier’s Office is briefed before the matter becomes public,” the Aug. 27 email from Diageo Canada’s corporate relations director read.

The email was sent at 6:47 p.m. that day. The next morning, the closure of the bottling plant was made public.

Sources told Global News that while companies will often give the province advance notice on plant closures or workforce changes, it only comes one day in advance.

In Diageo’s case, company officials laid out the changes over a 10- to 15-minute Microsoft Teams call and suggested that the decision was made months in advance, with little the Ontario government could do to change the outcome.

The courtesy call, according to the emails seen by Global News, appeared to be taken at face value.

“Thank you for the call and the heads up. As promised, I am sharing the statement our labour minister will be issuing in response to this,” a senior staffer in the premier’s office wrote to Diageo on Aug. 28, hours after the announcement was made public.

The response shared with the company indicated the province was “disappointed” with the decision but offered no hints at the escalation to come.

When asked by Diageo whether the government’s statement was going to be issued “proactively” or “reactive to media inquiries,” the premier’s office sought to reassure the company.

“Just reactive. We have a handful of local requests at the moment,” the senior staffer wrote.

Then, the tone shifted.

The next day, a staffer in the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade wrote to Diageo’s public relations firm asking to set up a call or meeting with the premier.

“Premier Ford has asked our office to put him in touch with the President of Diageo Canada. Would you be able to assist me in getting them connected?” the email read.

Sources told Global News the request for a call came after Ford was briefed on the situation and started getting calls from stakeholders. On the Friday before the Labour Day long weekend, the premier and a Diageo representative hopped on a phone call that, sources said, “wasn’t positive.”

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“[The premier] came into it saying what can we do to make this work?” the source said. “The answer was basically, you can’t make it work.”

The anger stemming from the phone call resulted in Ford’s public protest.

The premier, who was scheduled to hold a news conference in Kitchener, brought along a bottle of Crown Royal for a loosely choreographed demonstration, which critics later labelled a “stunt.”

“You guys are about as dumb as a bag of hammers for doing this,” Ford declared as he poured out the bottle.

The situation only continued to escalate from there, with threats from the premier to strip the LCBO of Crown Royal, and even other Diageo brands, when the plant in Amherstburg closed for good at the end of February.

Sources said that while “both sides” started looking for ways to de-escalate the situation, the deadline created more “willingness” from Diageo to “bring more to the table.”

“There were multiple rounds of offers,” one source said before Diageo and the Ford government agreed to $23 million in spending.

The investment includes a million-dollar investment in the Windsor and Amherstburg area, along with purchase agreements from manufacturers in eastern Ontario, Toronto and Scarborough, plus $5 million on Ontario-based marketing and advertising.

While NDP Leader Marit Stiles highlighted that the agreement “doesn’t replace the jobs that we’re going to lose in Amherstburg,” Ford defended the agreement as positive for the province.

“If I didn’t fight, that $23 million, they wouldn’t get anything at all,” Ford said. “And that was my rationale right from the get-go.”

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford is signalling he will stand firm on his government’s changes to student loans as opposition to a major restructuring of the program grows in the province.

As part of a push to sustain the struggling post-secondary sector, the province will inject new cash into colleges and universities and allow them to raise tuition fees by two per cent a year.

The changes also shifted how OSAP operates, moving away from grants to offer students more loans instead.

The existing proportion of OSAP was about 85 per cent grants to 15 per cent loans, the government said, but starting this fall, students will receive a maximum of 25 per cent of their OSAP funding as grants.

Now, advocates and opponents are pushing the premier to reverse course, accusing him of trying to balance the books on the backs of students.

“Doug Ford has shown that he doesn’t mind a good flip-flop, so we’re going to hand him an opportunity,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said.

“Families that I’m hearing from are furious. Not only is this an attack on students saddling them with massive debt when they least need it … but it is also a hit on our economy.”

The NDP has launched a campaign to “save OSAP,” urging students and families to sign its petition and write to their local MPPs.

“We have been contacted already by thousands of people, thousands of students,” Stiles said. “Even the premier acknowledged he’s getting thousands of calls. No kidding. My phone was lighting up all weekend; I expect every MPP was getting lots of calls.”

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Bella Fischer, with the College Student Alliance, said the OSAP changes and hiked tuition fees could put some off college or university by making them pay more for longer.

“They’re putting basically all of the burden onto the students,” she said. “The decisions in life later are going to also be affected because they’re going to have more debt to pay.”

Ford, however, justified the decision at an unrelated event on Wednesday, saying the existing system was “unsustainable” and claiming the government had been “paying for everyone’s education.”

He added, “The most vulnerable are going to be taken care of, that’s clear and simple. It’s going to be 25 per cent — and that puts us in the middle of the pack.”

Ontario Liberal MPP John Fraser said the premier didn’t understand the impact on students.

“He’s out of touch with people’s everyday lives, what families go through to make sure that their kids get an education and are ready for the future,” he said. “They give up a lot.”

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.