Ontario Premier Doug Ford, along with other premiers, is travelling to Washington to meet with U.S. lawmakers next month – even as his PC Party is set to make his pitch to voters back home.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Ontario Premier Doug Ford plans to launch a snap provincial election campaign next week, sending voters to the polls on Feb. 27, a source says.
There has been speculation for months that Mr. Ford was preparing to call an early election, far ahead of the province’s fixed election date next year. In recent weeks, he has been hinting that he needs a “strong mandate” before responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s promised tariffs on Canadian goods, saying they could cost Ontario 500,000 jobs.
A Progressive Conservative Party source told The Globe and Mail on Thursday that Mr. Ford will start the campaign on Wednesday. The Globe is not naming the source, who is not authorized to publicly disclose the plans.
The Premier, speaking to reporters earlier on Thursday, insisted he could campaign even while he leads his province and the country’s other premiers in the fight against Mr. Trump’s threatened 25-per-cent tariffs, which the President has said could start Feb. 1.
Mr. Ford also said he would remain as the head of the Council of the Federation, which consists of Canada’s 13 premiers. Mr. Ford, along with other premiers, is travelling to Washington to meet with U.S. lawmakers next month – even as his PC Party is set to make his pitch to voters back home.
“We can call back cabinet at any time,” he said at an event in Mississauga. “And I’m going to continue being the chair of COF.”
Mr. Ford said he would be making the case for Ontario and Canada in Washington on Feb. 11-12 and Feb. 20, the second date just a week before voting day. But the Premier defended the idea of a snap election.
“Isn’t it great I’ll have the opportunity, which I do already, [to] meet every single person in Ontario, every jurisdiction, all 124 ridings, to hear what they have to say,” he said. “That’s the most important group of people. And hopefully we’ll have a strong mandate moving on in negotiations.”
An internal memo sent Wednesday to senior staffers in the Ford government from the Premier’s chief of staff, Patrick Sackville, says minister’s offices should appoint a “caretaker team” to oversee the government’s day-to-day business during the campaign.
The memo, obtained by The Globe, says the caretaker staffers “will not be taking any new decisions on behalf of Government” but would be called upon to stop actions deemed contrary to cabinet direction.
Mr. Ford’s PCs have also scheduled a meeting on Saturday for a “super caucus” of MPPs, candidates and local campaign managers at a Toronto-area hotel to talk strategy.
The Premier’s main opponents – Official Opposition NDP Leader Marit Stiles and Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie – have both charged that an early election is unnecessary. They say that instead of going out on the campaign trail, Mr. Ford should recall the legislature, now on an extended winter break, and focus on dealing with Mr. Trump’s threat.
They have also accused him of trying to win another four-year mandate before a cost-cutting Conservative government takes power in a federal election just months away, or before any charges emerge from the RCMP investigation into his aborted move to allow developers to build housing on parts of the protected Greenbelt.
Mr. Ford won a majority of the Ontario Legislature’s seats for the second time in June, 2022, just 2½ years ago. The next election date under provincial legislation is currently fixed for June, 2026.
But since last spring, the Premier has pointedly declined to rule out calling an early vote. In recent weeks, he has repeatedly said he needs a new mandate from Ontarians to launch a COVID-19-style aid package with “tens of billions” of dollars in spending to help workers and businesses affected by Mr. Trump’s tariffs.
Mr. Ford said the opposition parties would not offer the same support for such a move as they did for the spending authorized during the pandemic. But both opposition leaders have countered that they would work with him on any such plan.
Ms. Stiles, citing the Premier’s own recent warning that Mr. Trump’s tariffs could cost Ontario half a million jobs, said Mr. Ford was putting party before province.
“He can either be the Premier or run for Premier,” the NDP Leader said in a statement. “He needs to decide what’s more important: his job or 500,000 jobs.”
Ms. Crombie, the Liberal Leader, accused Mr. Ford in a statement of “using this crisis for his own personal gain.”