Pattern
Award contracts, appointments, or policy benefits to connected individuals or organizations.
Cumulative Documented Cost
Pattern Sequence
Skills Development Fund: $742M awarded, 56% to lower-ranked applicants overridden by minister's office (Auditor General (AG), 2023)
Greenbelt: Developer requests channeled through minister's chief of staff (AG / Integrity Commissioner)
Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB): Partisan appointees installed, backlog reaches 50,000+ cases
Ontario Place: Therme selected through sole-source, no competitive bid
Documentation
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Ontario committed $300 million in public mezzanine debt through the Building Ontario Fund to anchor a $1.3 billion fund — managed by private firm High Art Capital — to purchase roughly 2,200 unsold GTA condos and convert them into rental units. Only 25% of units will have below-market rents. Critics argue the fund is a liquidity lifeline for developers facing bankruptcy, effectively putting a price floor under the condo market at taxpayer expense.
In July 2026, expense records showed Progressive Conservative politicians billing taxpayers for travel and accommodation while Premier Doug Ford said he had "zero expenses." Ford, Labour Minister David Piccini and two staffers charged $11,709.85 for a July 2025 trip to a LiUNA union conference at a Disney resort in Orlando. Separately, Toronto-area PC MPPs billed more than $100,000 for overnight hotel stays under a "special circumstances" allowance despite living within 50 km of Queen's Park. Tourism Minister Stan Cho resigned, and the government moved to eliminate the accommodation category.
$742M in public training funds awarded to low-ranked applicants; 63% of funding went to PC party donors. Government now suing one recipient for fraud.
$4B WSIB surplus paid to employers as rebates instead of increasing benefits for injured workers, many of whom live in poverty.
Government appointed partisan loyalists with no adjudication experience to the Landlord and Tenant Board, creating a 50,000+ case backlog.
Ford's government issued 114 Minister's Zoning Orders between 2019-2023 — 17 times more than the previous 20 years combined. Agricultural land rezoned via MZOs saw an average 46% value increase. The 2024 Provincial Planning Statement further weakened farmland protections, accelerating Ontario's loss of 319 acres of farmland per day.
A development group with close ties to the Ford government launched a $500 million legal claim against Metrolinx over "air rights" above downtown Toronto rail corridors. The claim — one of the largest expropriation disputes in Ontario history — seeks compensation for the right to build above publicly-owned rail infrastructure.
In January 2026, the Ford government proposed a two-year pause on inclusionary zoning rules in Toronto, Mississauga, and Kitchener — the regulations that require developers to include affordable housing units in new buildings near major transit stations. Mayors Olivia Chow and Carolyn Parrish condemned the move as a developer handout that removes the public benefit of building expensive transit lines.
The Ford government restructured Ontario's employment services, inserting a new private management layer between the province and frontline providers. The Employment Ontario operating budget declined from $1.68B (2022-23) to $1.44B (2024-25). Frontline organizations report funding cuts of 50-67% while serving 2.5 times as many social assistance clients. At least six disability employment programs have shut down. Employment outcomes for social assistance recipients have declined. The largest SSM contracts went to WCG Services, whose parent company APM Group also owns Agilec, another Ontario employment service provider.
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