As Ontario Premier Doug Ford prepares to unveil his third-term cabinet, Progressive Conservative strategists are expecting a status quo government with the majority of front-bench ministers returning to their posts.
Weeks after securing a third majority mandate, Ford along with his new cabinet will be sworn by Lieutenant Governor Edith Dumont on Wednesday, scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. at the Royal Ontario Museum. Global News will live-stream the ceremony on its website.
Ford dissolved the legislature at the end of January and called a snap winter election in an effort to grow his seat count beyond the 83 seats the Progressive Conservatives won in 2022.
Ford cited U.S. President Donald Trump as the reason why Ontarians needed to go to the polls early. The premier said he needed a bigger mandate than he had before to fight Trump’s tariffs, potentially spending billions in taxpayer dollars to simulate the economy.
With polls showing the party was in super-majority territory, campaign operatives predicted Ford’s popularity during the campaign would translate into 90 to 100 seats, according to text messages shared with Global News.
Instead, Ford won a slightly smaller mandate of 80 seats while strengthening the opposition Liberals which gained party status for the first time since 2018 and increased their seat count to 14.
The NDP formed the Official Opposition with 27.
Ahead of the cabinet unveiling, Ford told the Queen’s Park Press Gallery that while he planned to tackle the bulk of the Canada-U.S. relations in his role as premier, he intended to lean on other ministers to handle portions of the response.
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
“It’s a multi-ministerial group, no matter if it’s infrastructure, the auto sector be it (Economic Development Minister) Vic Fedeli, we’ll all be working together,” Ford said.
Andrew Brander, vice-president at Crestview Strategies, cautioned however that Ford might need to strike the right tone after calling an early election two years and eight months after the last one.
“Premier Ford framed the last election asking people of Ontario to give him a strong mandate for stability, quite frankly, if the Premier were to come in and make any kind of drastic changes to that I think that would fly in the face of what he had been advocating for,” Brander told Global News.
Still, NDP Leader Marit Stiles called for a complete overhaul of cabinet and pointed to missteps by the previous iteration of cabinet.
“What we saw in the last government was a health minister who didn’t think that the doctor shortage was a major concern, we saw a transportation minister who can’t open transit projects and an infrastructure minister who just didn’t answer questions at all,” Stiles said.
“We do need to see some change from this cabinet,” Stiles added.
Ford has also faced criticism over the size and cost of his cabinet which was tweaked in July 2024.
The result: 36 ministers and associate ministers earning taxpayer-funded salary top-ups, up from 20 in 2018. The government has also awarded 32 PC MPPs with parliamentary assistant positions, an increase from 28 in 2018.
Brander, a Conservative strategist, said Ford has always struggled with managing the expectations of the PC party caucus and is unlikely to shrink the size of cabinet.
“I think the Premier might make the argument that a bigger team at the table is a stronger team for Ontario especially as they’re navigating a difficult landscape in the U.S.,” Brander said.
Meanwhile, Ford has resisted calls from opposition parties to recall the legislature to scrutinize his tariff response plans. He has said he “doesn’t need” the house to be back to respond.
Both the Ontario NDP and the Liberals have asked for MPPs to return, and for the creation of an all-party working group or committee to respond to tariffs.
When it was announced earlier this month the swearing it would take place March 19, Ford’s office said the legislature won’t be called back until April 14.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.