Sarah Mills: Snowbirds' grounding is a chance for Liberal government to stand behind its words
We are told the Snowbirds will return. We are told that the plan is to get new planes quickly. Sarah Mills says now, the...
TORONTO — Taxpayers flooded Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s cellphone over the weekend with complaints about the province’s purchase of a $29-million jet to fly him around the province, he said Monday.
By Sunday morning, he had acquiesced to their demands and reversed the decision.
Ford said he should have made the case to the public as to why he needed a jet before buying it.
“The people don’t want it, that’s fine with me,” the premier said Monday in Ottawa, where he travelled for an unrelated event.
Ford’s office confirmed Friday the purchase of a used 2016 Bombardier Challenger 650 jet, saying the premier needed it for travel throughout the vast province as well as to the United States.
Criticism from across the political spectrum was swift, with opposition parties dubbing the aircraft the “gravy plane.”
When he backed down just 48 hours later, Ford said he heard that now was not the right time for the expense of a government plane.
He said provincial officials are working with Bombardier to sell the plane, which he said the province took possession of last week.
“They’re going to work an agreement out because we haven’t touched the plane, so it should be worth the same,” he said.
Ford made it clear he was miffed about media coverage of the purchase, saying he was under more scrutiny than the prime minister and every other premier in the country.
He pointed to the federal government’s recent $753-million purchase of six new Global 6500 jets from Bombardier that will be used to transport government officials and foreign dignitaries, as well as for evacuations, humanitarian missions and disaster relief, among other things.
“We have to get around,” Ford said. “I have to go to the U.S. more. I have to head to Utah to meet the governors. I have to head to South Carolina to meet with the southeastern governors. It’s part of the job.”
Ford noted that Quebec bought two new Challenger 650s and one used jet — the same model as the used one Ontario just bought — for $107 million.
“When I do it, I guess there’s a double standard,” Ford said.
He said the plane would have been used for other purposes, not just to ferry him around. Ford also said he’s saved taxpayers plenty of money over the years by travelling on chartered flights rather than the King Air, a smaller plane already owned by the Ontario government.
“I’ve saved millions by not flying the King Air and so on, so forth,” Ford said.
“I’m the only — and I never brought this up, but since I’m getting hammered about the money, I’m the only premier or MPP — for their MPP expenses, which I don’t begrudge, everyone needs to have expenses — I have expensed zero. Think of that. Zero for eight years. I pay for it out of my own pocket.”
Ford was not in question period Monday, but in response to Opposition questions about the plane, government house leader Steve Clark said “no government is perfect.”
Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said it takes “guts” to make decisions like that.
“That shows true leadership,” he said.
After question period, opposition leaders didn’t mince words.
“A mistake is: I parked in the wrong parking spot,” said New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles. “It is not: I bought a $30-million luxury jet, and I put it in the budget, and a whole bunch of people approved it.”
Interim Liberal leader John Fraser said the plane fiasco pokes holes in Ford’s carefully crafted image.
“The premier’s personal preference to have his own private luxury jet is really speaking more about who he really is,” Fraser said.
“People can see through that veneer of an act, which is, ‘I’m a man of the people.’ If he was a man of the people, he’d know that people are struggling to buy a bag of milk or a loaf of bread, or put their kids through school, which he’s made harder by breaking OSAP. It is so disconnected from the reality of Ontarians’ everyday lives. It says everything, everything you need to know about Doug Ford.”
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said it’s “pathetic” that the premier put himself ahead of the people of Ontario.
“I don’t even understand why he would not understand the outrage that he would be wasting people’s tax dollars on a private luxury jet,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 20, 2026.
Allison Jones and Liam Casey, The Canadian Press
