Toronto, ON, March 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Please see corrected free up under – corrected determine for Invoice 124 prison prices.
$36 billion: that’s how a lot the Ontario executive has misspent, overspent, or given away since 2018, introduced civic leaders at Queen’s Park on Monday morning because the Space returned in consultation.
3 days shy of the 2026 Ontario price range free up, voices from labour, environmental coverage, schooling, and neighborhood advocacy unveiled the result of efforts to file the Ford executive’s years-long failed monetary stewardship.
From charge overruns and prison losses, to environmental rollbacks, high-cost vainness initiatives, insider windfalls, and the notorious $75 million Reagan advert, the $36B working overall may fill the general public products and services deficit in healthcare, long-term care, and schooling blended.
Invoice 124, capping salary will increase for public sector employees, was once dominated unconstitutional – two times. Ford spent $4.3M to take employees to courtroom, a public charge which, coupled with a company bailout for $1B in 407 charges, will have funded over 40,000 nursing place incentives as an alternative.
The useless $1.4B charge to hurry up privatized alcohol gross sales will have as an alternative stabilized schools affected by over 600 program cuts. Pre-election and document promoting spending will have funded 9000 safe haven beds, whilst the general public charge of mismanaging transit builds will have maintained OSAP grants, which Premier Ford simply reduce, for 16 years.
Premier Ford’s misspending is a documented sequence of possible choices: each and every greenback misspent is diverted clear of our communities. A brand new neighborhood dashboard housing the information — sourced from executive data, audits, public reporting — goals as an instance the actual charge of have an effect on at ItsOnFord.ca.
Civic leaders say the consolidated analysis comes again to the kitchen desk: each and every greenback documented got here from taxpayers, whilst each and every provider reduce, each and every ER which couldn’t keep open, came about as a result of provincial spending possible choices.
This document demonstrates the risk of new reforms to freedom of knowledge (FOI) regulation, which can put the Premier’s and cupboard participants’ data at the back of a curtain of secrecy.
The retroactive adjustments will have an effect on FOI requests associated with a chain of scandals benefitting wealth donors and insiders presided over via the Ontario executive — from the Greenbelt to the Talents Construction Fund.
Shielding elected officers and their spending from public scrutiny poses critical threats to transparency and can prohibit the facility of media and the general public to get right of entry to the ideas that guarantees public responsibility.
Quotes:
“Budgets are about priorities, and this government has made theirs clear. While students are being pushed deeper into debt to access public education, we’ve seen billions in public funds mispent and handed out to private interests. It has never been more clear that this government will deliberately prioritize profit over people every single time.”- Cyrielle Ngeleka, Chairperson, Canadian Federation of Scholars – Ontario (CFS-O)
“Ontario’s economy grew, but $36 billion went towards cost overruns, legal losses, political advertising, insider windfalls, and other misguided priorities — not to the people who needed it. The growth was real. The ‘trickle down’ wasn’t.”- JP Hornick, President, OPSEU/SEFPO
“Ontarians need a central authority whose priorities align with the individuals who create the wealth, now not the well-connected few. When the federal government’s priorities are out of whack, the have an effect on in their dangerous choices are fewer excellent jobs, weaker protections, and emerging force on employees and their households.”- Laura Walton, President, Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL)
”Attacking environmental protections is expensive for the public. Letting polluters pollute for free or losing lawsuits while cancelling renewable energy contracts means that there is much less money available to solve the housing crisis or ensure people can see a doctor.” – Tim Gray, Executive Director, Environmental Defence

