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TORONTO — Ontario’s NDP and Liberal party leaders cried foul Thursday over a trip Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford took to Washington, D.C., in the middle of a snap election he called, saying he’s touting that visit for partisan purposes.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles wrote to the province’s integrity commissioner to ask him to look into the trip, including a campaign-style video Ford’s team produced using clips from the jaunt.
“In my view, his actions have repeatedly and intentionally blurred the lines between partisan campaigning and official provincial business,” Stiles wrote in the complaint. “This demands transparency and accountability.”
Ford and the country’s other premiers travelled to Washington this week to push back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to impose steep tariffs on Canadian goods. The Progressive Conservatives have said the party paid travel expenses for Ford and campaign staff.
Ford made the trip as premier, but he is also in the midst of campaigning in a snap provincial election that he called.
Ahead of the trip, integrity commissioner J. David Wake wrote that it would not violate the caretaker convention – a principle that during an election the only government business that should continue is in a few instances, including routine matters or those that are urgent and in the public interest.
Wake wrote that in the context of current U.S.-Canada political relations, the trip meets the urgent and public interest criteria. However, he said that such work was appropriate “provided that the activities are not then used for partisan purposes.”
Upon Ford’s return to Ontario, his social media accounts posted a video showing clips of him in Washington that ended with the Progressive Conservative party logo.
It was taken down and reposted without the logo shortly after Stiles said she would raise it with the integrity commissioner. Stiles suggested she still views Ford as using the trip for partisan gain.
“I don’t think anyone is fooled by that (removal of the logo), and I think it is a sure sign of guilt as well,” she said at a campaign stop in Sudbury, Ont.
“I think that he knows, and they know, they did something wrong, and yet that never seems to stop them.”
Stiles asked the commissioner to look into how the footage of the non-partisan trip was distributed to the PC party for a campaign video, whether PC party staff accompanied civil servants on the trip, and if the agenda of the trip was acting in the public interest or optimizing the visit for the benefit of the election campaign.
Stiles was announcing her northern platform ahead of the leaders meeting Friday for a northern-focused debate in North Bay, Ont. The NDP is promising more doctors and affordable homes for the north, as well as widening highways and strengthening truck driver training.
A spokesperson for Ford described the video as “footage of the premier being the premier” and says those types of clips are routinely used in political social media content.
Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie said the trip is not appropriate in the middle of an election.
“Why isn’t his focus the people of Ontario and protecting us all of the time, not just some of the time when it’s convenient for him?” she said at a campaign stop in the Barrie, Ont., area.
“The only job he’s gone there to protect is his own. Clearly, that’s why he’s called an early and unnecessary and expensive election in Ontario.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2025.
Allison Jones, The Canadian Press