Do we like Doug Ford?
Our score: 4 out of 10. Both tests land in the middle: real wins and a fight with Trump's tariffs on one side, the Greenbelt mess, a schools push and the jet on the other.
Ford was born in Etobicoke in 1964 and spent much of his working life at Deco Labels, the label-printing firm his father co-founded, rising to president. He replaced his brother Rob as a Toronto councillor in 2010, finished second in the 2014 mayoral race, then won the Ontario PC leadership in March 2018 and the premiership that June.
The Greenbelt saga is the stain on his record. In 2023 the integrity commissioner found Housing Minister Steve Clark breached the Members' Integrity Act, called the removal of protected land rushed and marked by “unnecessary hastiness and deception”, and found neither Ford nor Clark knew what the minister's chief of staff was doing. Ford denied wrongdoing, said the process “could have been a lot better”, and kept Clark in cabinet. Roughly 7,400 acres came out of the Greenbelt and about 9,400 went in elsewhere.
A related fight is still running. The Ontario Court of Appeal refused leave to appeal in May 2026, reinstating an order for officials to review Ford's personal call logs from a Greenbelt-era week. Global News reports that a retroactive freedom-of-information overhaul passed in April now shields the premier's office, making release unlikely. The government says it is weighing next steps.
The recent run is bad. His government bought a $28.9M Challenger jet, then called it a mistake and ordered it sold after the backlash. In summer, a cabinet minister resigned and agreed to repay about $16,000 in hotel claims, with Ford calling the claims “totally unacceptable” per CP24. Abacus polling had Ford at 34% positive and 45% negative, and he called one unfavourable poll “fake”. Angus Reid defended its work.
On the good side, Ford took on Donald Trump's tariffs head-on. Ontario put $75 million into a US ad using an old Reagan clip against tariffs, with Ford saying “I'm a big Ronald Reagan fan.” He also has a habit of backing down when the public pushes back, as with the jet.
So: would we support him? Not with open arms. He has no record of attacking LGBTQ+ people that we could find in what we read, but the schools rhetoric, the Greenbelt handling and the transparency fights leave plenty to be uneasy about. Fans like the straight-talking fighter against Trump; critics see a premier who rules for mates and changes the rules when he loses in court.