Tag: Doug Ford

Douglas Robert Ford Jr. was born on November 20, 1964, in Etobicoke, a western suburb of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is the second son of Doug Ford Sr. and Diane Ford (née Campbell). His siblings include Kathy Ford, Randy Ford, and Rob Ford, the late mayor of Toronto.

Doug Ford Sr. was a successful entrepreneur and a Progressive Conservative Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Etobicoke—Humber from 1995 to 1999, during Premier Mike Harris’s government. The Ford family business, Deco Labels & Tags, was founded in 1962 by Doug Sr. and has remained a pillar of the family’s wealth and operations.

Growing up, Doug Ford Jr. worked in the family business and credits his father with instilling a deep sense of discipline, work ethic, and conservative values.

Before entering politics, Doug Ford spent years managing and expanding Deco Labels & Tags, a printing company specializing in pressure-sensitive labels for consumer goods. He joined the company in the 1990s and rose to become President of Deco Labels & Tags Canada, while his brother Randy Ford oversaw the U.S. operations in Chicago, Illinois.

Under Doug Ford’s leadership, the company expanded into the United States and won contracts with major North American retailers. Critics of Ford have occasionally accused him of using political connections for business gain, though no significant wrongdoing has ever been substantiated.

In 2010, Doug Ford ran for Toronto City Council in Ward 2, Etobicoke North, the seat previously held by his brother Rob Ford, who was elected Mayor of Toronto the same year. Doug won easily with over 70% of the vote and served as councillor from 2010 to 2014.

During his tenure at Toronto City Hall, Doug Ford was a prominent and outspoken figure. He supported Rob Ford’s efforts to “end the gravy train” and reduce city spending. He advocated for outsourcing garbage collection, canceling the vehicle registration tax, and opposing the Transit City light rail plan in favor of subway expansion.

2014 Toronto Mayoral Campaign

In September 2014, after Rob Ford was diagnosed with cancer and withdrew from the mayoral race, Doug Ford stepped in to run for mayor. His campaign was marked by a promise to continue his brother’s agenda and an emphasis on fiscal responsibility.

Doug finished second in the electionbehind John Tory. Although unsuccessful, the campaign raised Doug Ford’s profile across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and among conservatives in Ontario.

Ontario PC Leadership

In February 2018, following the resignation of Patrick Brown amid sexual misconduct allegations, the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario held a snap leadership race. Doug Ford entered the race and campaigned on a populist, anti-establishment platform focused on lower taxes, reduced government spending, and respect for taxpayers.

On March 10, 2018, Doug Ford was elected leader of the Ontario PC Party, narrowly defeating Christine Elliott, Caroline Mulroney, and Tanya Granic Allen in a ranked-ballot vote.

2018 Ontario General Election

Doug Ford led the Progressive Conservatives into the 2018 Ontario general election and focused his campaign on ending “Liberal waste,” canceling the cap-and-trade system, and reducing gas prices by 10 cents per litre. He promised a “buck-a-beer” initiative, lower hydro bills, and support for frontline healthcare workers.

On June 7, 2018, Ford’s party won a majority government, defeating the Ontario Liberal Party under Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario NDP led by Andrea Horwath. Ford became the 26th Premier of Ontario, assuming office on June 29, 2018.

Doug Ford slams ‘weak kneed’ judges

Some of Toronto’s brightest criminals tried to steal Ontario Premier Doug Ford‘s car out of his driveway this morning.

Two police cruisers gave chase and officers arrested four suspects including a 16 year old and a 17 year old.

While giving credit to the police, Ford went on what he described as a rant, slamming the Canadian justice system and ‘weak kneed’ judges.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford makes comments about bail reform and the Canadian Justice System

Here’s a rough transcript, clean up a bit.

Here’s my rant.

First of all, Chief Nish, Chief Demkiw, and all the chiefs are absolute champions. They just did a massive bust — 500 kilos of cocaine. These drug dealers wanted to poison our kids and our people. Just imagine that — 500 kilos. They worked with the DEA, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, border patrol, and other police agencies. The OPP Commissioner, Commissioner Carrique, is amazing on the joint task force.

But guess what? These weak-kneed judges let them back out on the street. It was the biggest drug bust in Peel’s history, and except for one person, they were all released. Can you believe that? The largest drug bust in Peel’s history — 500 kilos of cocaine that could kill people — and the judges gave them a slap on the wrist. “Okay, little Johnny, go out and deal more drugs.” Why not just hand them more?

The system is broken. I’ll be all over the Prime Minister and the federal government until we get bail reform. These people are terrorizing our neighbuorhoods and feeding drugs to our citizens. The Criminal Code needs to be changed. Bail reform must happen. I’ll keep pushing until it gets done. Enough with the 10 years of dithering — “We’re going to do it, we’re not going to do it.” The Prime Minister gave me his word — now it has to happen.

Then, yesterday, there was another bust — 15 people. These were the tow truck guys and others intimidating and extorting people. They’d call and say, “Pay up or we’ll shoot up your house.” And then they actually went and did it. But again, the kind-hearted judges let them all out on bail — even though some were already on bail or probation. What is happening to this country? These criminals are running amok and terrorizing neighborhoods. It’s disgusting. Something has to change.

And then there was the guy whose car was about to be stolen. These thugs came up in masks. He was a hunter or something, and he fired a shot into the air — I don’t recommend that, by the way. But he got charged. I want to find out who he is and raise funds for his legal fees. He should get a medal. We need something like the Castle Law in the U.S. If someone breaks into your home, threatening your family, you’re going to fight like never before — with anything you have. These thugs shouldn’t be in your house.

Now I’ll tell you a story — maybe I’ll get in trouble for this. You know those “stupid criminals” shows? Four thugs came racing down my street in masks, ready to steal the car in my driveway. But at 12:30 a.m., two police cars were there. The chase was on. One guy fled but got caught. They got the others too.

But just imagine the people who don’t have security at their homes. These guys had all the tools to break in. And guess what’s going to happen? They’ll be back out again. I might as well invite them for a barbecue — I’d treat them better than the justice system does.

Thank God the police got them and not me.

I’m sick and tired of the weak justice system. It needs a backbone. We need to start throwing these people in jail. This is turning into a lawless society.

That’s my rant.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford – June 17th, 2025

A couple of interesting items to note. In Ottawa, Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has been pushing the same message for years now regarding Canada’s broken justice system — in particular the need for bail reform.

Tow truck crime and chaos

First, Ford mentions tow truck driver extortion and crime.

Conservative MP Tim Uppal tabled Bill C-381 – Protection Against Extortion Act to re‑establish mandatory minimum sentences for extortion in the Criminal Code, including harsher penalties when firearms or criminal organization involvement are present. The opposition has argued extortion has surged under the Liberals: +218% nationwide since 2015, with Ontario, Alberta, B.C. particularly hit.

What is Castle Law in Canada?

Next, Ford advanced the idea of Castle Law – the American legal doctrine that designates a person’s home (and sometimes their vehicle or workplace) as a place in which they have special rights to use force, including deadly force, to defend themselves against intruders, without a duty to retreat.

This is a significant policy suggestion by the Premier. Ontario is dealing with more crime and homeowners must fend for themselves while waiting for police to arrive. Worse, the revolving door of the justice system often sees violent offenders released the same day to re-offend.

Ontario home defence

Recent cases have highlighted the discussion on homeowner defence.

In Milton, police charged Ali Mian with second-degree murder after fatally shooting an armed intruder who broke into his home in 2023 while his mother was present.

Mian, a licensed firearm owner, fired a single shot during the attempted home invasion that involved multiple masked intruders.

Police arrested and charged Mian, but the Crown prosecutors later withdrew the murder charge in July of that year, concluding there was no reasonable prospect of conviction. Prosecutors decided Mian’s actions were consistent with lawful self-defence under Section 34 of the Criminal Code.

Ali Mian and lawyer
Ali Mian celebrates with his lawyer – from Instagram

While the justice system worked and Mian went free, many see this as a lucky outcome for the 22 year old man. The Liberal government in Ottawa who oversees the definition of the criminal justice system has sought to eliminate firearms from Canadian society, placing significant burdens on gun owners and the most trivially breached criminal liability those who don’t follow every rule to the absolute letter.

While Ford doesn’t have direct input into the criminal code of Canada and blow off some steam by slamming judges, his Attorney General has more power by selecting which cases to prosecute in the future.

And certainly, and criminal defence lawyer who argues on behalf of a client who used a firearm to protect their property in Ontario – will cite the Premier’s words today.

Mapping the results of the 2022 Ontario Provincial Election

I just finished mapping out Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative election win from 2022. On June 2 of that year, the voters of Ontario returned the PC leader with a majority government with 83 seats. The Progressive Conservatives defeated the Ontario Liberals led by Steven Del Duca and the Ontario NDP which was helmed by Andrea Horwath. Both defeated party leaders would move on from provincial politics and have since become the mayors of Vaughan and Hamilton, respectively.

The results of this pandemic-era election were very much similar to the 2018 provincial election – another majority for the PC under Ford – but the election saw a strenghthened mandate for the Premier. One independent candidate was elected in Haldimand–Norfolk.

This is the sixth election I’ve mapped out for the province of Ontario. You can review all of those elections here and drill down on the results of this one using the provincial map.

The mapped results of the 2022 Ontario Provincial election

Clicking/tapping on a riding will zoom you into the map for a poll-by-poll breakdown. You can dive into your own riding and find out how your neighbours voted! Hovering over ridings or neighbourhood polls will show a pie chart breakdown of the proportion of votes in a particular area. Expanding the tile at the bottom right and switching to the “Turnout” tab will show voter turnout rates on a riding level or can show poll-by-poll rates of partipation.

Scarborough Centre coloured by poll winner.

You can also use the search bar at the top of the page to search for any candidate or riding over the last 6 elections. Some candidates appear more than once and you can track their electoral history (no matter which riding they may have contested). Clicking on a riding will also show a “related content” button at the top of the page which you can use to find the results of nearby ridings. A few of those ridings are also summarized below the map.

Green party win in Guelph shaded by the strength of the Progressive Conservative vote (ironically the colour green showing strongest PC areas here). Mike Schreiner, the Green Party leader won the party’s only seat.

If you’re wondering how to take these screenshots to put these images in your own posts or tweets, click the camera at the top left of the map. This will download an image of the map.

Zooming around the map is a lot of fun. It’s vector-based, so zooming in and out is smooth and looks great.

Clicking the “Up to 2022 Provincial Election” button in the top right zooms the map out to the provincial riding context, while clicking on a riding zooms in to show the local breakdown.

A particularly strong neighbourhood poll for PC candidate Doug Ford in Etobicoke North.

I’ve integrated building footprints for all of Ontario (and Canada) into my map, so you can see grouping of houses on cul-de-sacs, apartment buildings, and in some cases even the house numbers.

NDP leader Andrea Horwath best poll in Hamilton Centre.

Visualizing these building footprints in neighbourhoods for various polls is a new feature of this iteration of these maps. I’ve also extended this feature to my previous maps (both federal and provincial). It can be useful to consider different zoning and dwelling types when appreciating party strength in a riding.

Liberal leader Steven Del Duca did not have a great showing in his riding of Vaughan–Woodbridge.

I enjoy pulling these maps together for the broader political community and to help voters further engage with our democratic process. I’ll be mapping other provincial elections as that data becomes available from the relevant provincial elections agencies.

York South–Weston showing a diversity of voting preferences throughout the riding.

How many memberships did Pierre Poilievre sell?

The second half of the Conservative Party leadership race is now underway. Midnight on June 4th represented the cut-off for new memberships sold for party members to be eligible to vote for the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

What’s the Pierre Poilievre news? Have Jean Charest and Patrick Brown merged campaigns yet? How’s Leslyn Lewis released her platform yet? Who is Roman Baber and what does he believe? Will Scott Aitchison end up endorsing anyone?

A source insider the Conservative Party told the CBC that the party expects to process over 600,000 new or renewed memberships sold by the leadership campaigns of Pierre Poilievre, Jean Charest, Patrick Brown, Leslyn Lewis, Roman Baber, and Scott Aitchison. A few of those membership will have been sold generally via the Conservative Party website during this period.

At $15 per membership, this means the party expects to rake in over $9,000,000 in revenue from this leadership race. This is a welcome winfall after spending tens of millions establishing abandoned branding exercises of Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole.

Campaigns will boast (and inflate) their numbers for various reasons. Some will try to establish themselves as the front-runner of the race and the candidate-to-beat. Psychologically, people like voting for the winner, so it helps to project this sort of confidence early-on. This will be Pierre Poilievre’s strategy as he’s been running a bit of a scorched-earth campaign with Jean Charest. In a ranked ballot contest, winning down-ballot support is critically important. That is, unless you are looking to win over 50% on the first ballot, making everyone’s second choice a moot point.

Poilievre’s campaign has been focused on exciting new members who have never before been active within a political party. His support of the trucker rally and position against vaccine mandates has attracted new people who have felt like they’ve been outside of the political process, while overtures to the cryptocurrency Bitcoin enthusiasts have inspired younger support. Pierre Poilievre’s principle campaign proxy Jenni Byrne has claimed that the campaign has sold 311,958 memberships. Byrne, perhaps knowing that campaigns inflate their numbers also called for transparency from the party on the process.

The softer side of Pierre. The candidate and his family. (via Pierre Poilievre)

Jean Charest for his part will be looking to rally the anybody-but-Pierre vote. For the former Quebec Premier, that number may be large or small, but will exist given Pierre is the perceived front-runner. Charest will be banking on Poilievre to be running at under 45% on the first ballot and will hope to gather second choice support. Boasting strong second-place numbers will rally support for this purpose behind Charest. At this time, Charest’s campaign has not released their numbers.

Jean Charest cracks a smile during a recent leadership debate (via Jean Charest)

For his part, former PC Party of Ontario leader and current Brampton mayor Patrick Brown boasted early on June 3rd, a total of 150,000 memberships were sold by his campaign with a day-long push later in the day to nudge this total higher. Brown has shown himself to be a formidable organizer in the past, shocking the Christine Elliott campaign during the 2015 PCPO leadership race – a campaign whose success was seen to be inevitable at the time. Brown has been selling memberships to new Canadian communities and hopes to diversify the party base by adding new membership to its rolls. We shall see how many of those new memberships from Brown were added versus renewed.

Patrick Brown and his wife Genevieve Gualtieri vote in Ontario’s 2022 election (via Patrick Brown)

Leslyn Lewis is the only candidate in the 2022 Conservative Party leadership race who ran in the previous contest versus Erin O’Toole. Lewis stunned the O’Toole and McKay campaigns with a stronger-than-expected showing on the first ballot, showing exceptional strength in the prairies. She has also positioned herself as the standard-bearer of the small but disproportionately active contingent of social conservatives in the party’s base – all other candidates declared themselves to be pro-choice on the issue of abortion. Lewis’ position against vaccine mandates suggest that her down-ballot support will eventually go to Poilievre. Her campaign has not yet released their numbers.

Leslyn Lewis and Peter MacKay (via Leslyn Lewis)

Roman has yet to release his numerals. Roman Baber – the former PC MPP who was kicked out of Doug Ford’s governing caucus in Ontario for standing against lockdowns – will likely be a long-shot for leadership as he is not very well-known in the federal party or in the rest of Canada. Rising to national prominance on a single issue has its own shelf-life as well. However, Baber has since taken strong conservative-pleasing stances against communism and against leftwing authority, so he may surprise if he has a good ground game to sell memberships.

Roman Baber campaigns in Vancouver, British Columbia. (via Roman Baber)

Finally, Scott Aitchison, has been congenial-as-a-brand during this leadership race. Hope is an emotion that spurs people to act politically, though fear and anger are stronger. And potential for change is the glue that holds it all together. Will Aitchison’s strategy help him? If he’s running #2 or #3 in this race, down-ballot support has the potential to crown him victorious. However, running at the end of the pack, as many suspect he is, may show a missed opportunity to grab more attention by taking more contentious takes on hot-button issues and personalities.

Scott Aitchison showing that Conservatives can be nice. (via Scott Aitchison)

But yet for the front-runners, this post-cutoff period of the leadership race will likely see more congenial behaviour. Such a shift in tone from Poilievre may indicate less confidence on the first ballot. Candidates will also downplay their more woolly and outlandish appeals to members as they’re not able to chase any new sign-ups. The rest of this game will be about projecting a perceived position in candidate rank, and gathering that all-important down-ballot support from others; appealing to voting blocs banked with other candidates becomes all-too-important.