Premier Doug Ford has charged Ontario taxpayers more than $140,000 over the past year to charter private flights across Canada and the United States, according to publicly available records, revealing a change in habits for the once infamously penny-pinching politician.
Records show Ford’s penchant for private travel took off immediately after winning the 2025 provincial election campaign, during which the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party chartered planes to Washington, D.C. to push back on U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.
Since then, Ford and his staff have flown on five separate private flights in a single year to various destinations for government business — all of which were chartered by the Ministry of Natural Resources, which was eventually involved in the government’s purchase of the ill-fated $28.9 million jet.
The chartered flights cost anywhere between $1,800 to nearly $9,000 per person, depending on the distance, costing taxpayers a grand total of $143,498.16.
Ford — who has spoken publicly of his fear of flying and concerns about confrontations on commercial flights — was recently asked about his use of chartered flights after similar reporting from The Trillium.
“Maybe you didn’t see me just hop on a commercial flight, Air Canada, going into Sault Ste. Marie,” Ford said.
“Maybe you were absent all (of) the times. There’s no premier that’s ever taken more commercial flights than myself… I’ll continue flying commercial, I’ll continue flying with OPP and — when needed — there will be charter planes because I have to fly all over the U.S. and all over the country.”
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the premier had become accustomed to a more comfortable style of flying, leaving taxpayers with the bill.
“This is the cost of Doug. He is spending hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to take luxury private jet flights for photo-ops,” Stiles said in a statement.
“While Ontarians are struggling to pay rent or put food on the table, Doug Ford is taking money out of their pockets to live the good life at 30,000 feet.”
In the summer of 2025, as Ford worked on breaking down inter-provincial trade barriers amid the tariff war with the United States, the premier’s office chartered a private plane to fly six people to Alberta.
Ford, flanked by his chief of staff, principal secretary, executive assistant and members of the civil service, was due to meet with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to sign a memorandum of understanding on building a new east-west pipeline.
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The chartered round trip to Calgary and back in early July cost Ontario taxpayers $53,830.92 on top of the hotel and other expenses incurred on the trip.
While the government chose to take six individuals on the private jet, others who also helped the premier on the trip, including Ford’s parliamentary assistant, Will Bouma, were forced to fly commercial, adding to the total airfare bill.
One month earlier, the government had chartered another plane, this time to get to a First Ministers’ Meeting in Saskatoon, Sask.
For that trip, Ford again brought his executive assistant, chief of staff and Ontario’s top civil servant, Michelle Di Emmanuel. In total, government records show five people, including the premier, flew on the charter to and from the meeting, while two more assistants appeared to hop on the private flight back.
Expense records show the charter plane averaged $6,787.78 per person — for a total hire cost of almost $41,000 for what appears to have been a same-day return trip on June 1, 2025.
One of the shortest flights Ford and his team took was to Ottawa for a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney and fellow premiers in March 2025.
Ford skipped the five-hour drive and instead billed taxpayers $17,725 to fly private to the nation’s capital.
While Ford flew commercial two years earlier at a cost of $655, the Premier’s Office spent almost $3,000 per person on a chartered plane for the trip in 2025.
The premier’s travel expense records also show two trips to the United States that cost taxpayers more than $30,000 for private airfare.
In March 2025, shortly after winning the provincial election campaign, Ford was scheduled to have a meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about the growing trade tensions between the two countries.
The private plane for that trip cost $1,800 per person for a total of just over $11,000.
In June, Ford flew to Boston to attend a meeting involving Canadian premiers and governors of several friendly American states to talk about the impact of Trump’s tariffs, along with strengthening cross border ties.
The stateside jaunt, which saw Ford and three other staffers flying private, cost taxpayers more than $5,000 per person for a total of roughly $20,000.
A change in travel
Before the election, there is scant evidence of Premier Ford hiring charter planes for his trips across the country or continent.
Over the course of 2024, Ford flew to Ottawa and Sudbury for various meetings and events. The records show he paid for a commercial airline ticket for each of those trips — at an average of just over $1,000 per trip.
In April, for example, the premier headed to Ottawa to hand the local mayor a giant cheque and congratulate his city on meeting its housing targets.
Records show he flew commercial to make the announcement at a cost of roughly $1,400, unlike trips to Saskatoon, Alberta and Ottawa in 2025, where his office chartered a plane.
The premier also managed to attend other meetings in Ottawa and one in Montreal in early 2024, flying commercial instead of chartering a plane.