Ford flew short haul across southern Ontario as jet purchase was finalized

As civil servants raced to finalize the purchase of a private jet for Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford was crisscrossing the province on an OPP plane.

Schedules obtained by Global News using freedom of information laws reveal that, in a month and a half, Ford took four short-haul domestic flights on the plane and chartered a jet to travel to Texas.

Between the beginning of March and mid-April, Ford flew in and out of Windsor, Kingston, North Bay and Ottawa each in a single day.

“Decisions about travel are made on a case-by-case basis, depending on security, scheduling, the availability of commercial flights, and the availability of the OPP aircraft,” the premier’s office wrote in a short statement.

The revelations come as the premier tries to get control of a spending scandal in his party driven by some MPPs expensing hotels to the taxpayer instead of driving home at the end of the day.

Lambasting his MPPs for their spending last week, Ford pointed to his own decisions as evidence he is more careful with public money.

“Maybe what you should do is look into my expenses and find out that I have zero expenses,” he told reporters. “The only premier in the history of this province.”

The cost of operating the OPP jet to fly across southern Ontario is unclear, and the premier’s office did not disclose it when asked. Itineraries suggest the premier boards the plane through a charter company at Toronto Pearson International Airport.

Critics argue the culture of spending stems from the top and say the slew of short-haul flights reveals a premier acting as if he had already bought a private plane.

“It looks as though he considered it a fait accompli and couldn’t stomach the thought of getting on a commercial plane or getting the taxpayer-funded car that he already has access to,” Ontario Liberal MPP Adil Shamji said.

Itineraries for Premier Ford accessed by Global News using freedom of information laws show a flurry of short-range flights at the beginning of 2026.

On March 5, 2026, Ford headed to Windsor, Ont., on a flight taking off from a plane charter company at Toronto Pearson International Airport at around 7:45 a.m.

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He attended an announcement with the federal government at NextStar in the city before hopping back on the plane and returning to Toronto before 4 p.m.

Ten days later, Ford was scheduled to make an announcement at the Brockville Correctional Centre. At about 9:30 a.m., the premier flew the 45 minutes to Kingston. He visited the jail, toured a factory and then returned to Toronto at 3:45 p.m. The provincial jail Ford visited is a three-hour drive from Etobicoke.

At the end of March, Ford chartered a plane, which he took to Houston, Dallas and Austin over three days before flying back to Ontario and landing at Simcoe Regional Airport.

On April 9, Ford flew an hour to North Bay for a groundbreaking, flying back to Toronto that afternoon. Mid-April saw Ford head to Ottawa and back also in the matter of a few hours.

“I’m the only premier in the history of the province that didn’t fly around in government planes,” Ford boasted last week. “I flew commercial and yes, I have to charter some, too. So I respect the taxpayers. Simple as that.”

One page of the premier’s schedule obtained by Global News suggests that his office at one point had considered a 30-minute flight to London to cut down the drive to Windsor.

The page suggested the premier arrive at the airport for 6 a.m. and land in London 30 minutes later, then drive another two hours to Windsor.

The premier’s office said that document was an error and flight records show that no plane took off from the location at the scheduled time.

It’s not clear if the London flight was a planning error by someone on the premier’s team or if the plan to fly to London then drive was replaced when the option to fly to Windsor became available.

Those flights all took place after the Ontario government had signed an agreement with Bombardier to buy a private jet for the premier to use.

Documents previously released by the premier’s office confirmed Ontario received an invoice for US$22 million for the plane on March 5, although the government’s plans to buy the jet went back further.

One of the documents included in the release is a US$500,000 payment, referencing a letter of intent to buy the jet dated Jan. 19, 2026.

The purchase became public months later when, over a matter of days in mid-April, the Ford government said it had taken possession of the private and then sold it again for the same $28.9 million (CAD) it paid for the original purchase.

The premier told reporters on April 22 the plane had been sold back to Bombardier, although the documents show that didn’t actually happen until April 27.

The final invoice to sell the plane back to Bombardier is dated April 24 and marked US$23.7 million.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the timeline of short-haul flights and the purchase showed a “sense of entitlement” from Ford.

“I think this premier is showing us that he has this sense of entitlement and it’s something we’re seeing across this government,” she said. “This premier is the same premier who said he was ending the party on the taxpayer’s dime.”

The revelations about Ford’s regular short-haul flights during the spring come as his party tries to get control of a spending scandal at Queen’s Park.

Already, Stan Cho has resigned as minister of tourism for charging $16,000 for hotel stays in downtown despite living six kilometres from Queen’s Park. Cho also faces questions for billing tens of thousands to his local riding association for expensive restaurants.

Other Progressive Conservative MPPs also spent more than $15,000 each on Toronto hotels over the past three years, while another could face an integrity commissioner complaint over allegedly spending public money to advertise in his father’s newspaper.

The spending scandal has caused tensions in the Progressive Conservative caucus, where some MPPs are frustrated that the premier hasn’t defended their use of a government perk that the whip’s office told them they could take advantage of.

Those frustrations have been intensified by the fact that MPPs have, for months, had to defend the private jet purchase to their constituents.