Ford charged more than $140,000 in private jet charters last year, records show

Prime 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 the habits of the once-notorious penny-pinching politician.

The records show Ford’s penchant for private travel took off shortly after winning the 2025 provincial election campaign, during which Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party chartered planes to Washington, D.C. to push 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 on government business – all of which were chartered by the Ministry of Natural Resources, which was eventually involved in the government’s $28.9 million purchase of the ill-fated plane.

Charter flights cost anywhere from $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 about his fear of flying and concerns about confrontations on commercial flights — was recently asked about his use of charter flights similar reports from Trillium.

“You may not have seen me get on a commercial flight, Air Canada, going to Sault Ste. Marie,” Ford said.

“Maybe you’ve been missing the whole time. There’s no prime minister who’s ever flown more commercial flights than me… I’ll continue to fly commercial, I’ll continue to fly OPP and — when necessary — 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 gotten used to a more comfortable style of flying, leaving taxpayers with the bill.

“This is Doug’s cost. 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 was working to break down interprovincial trade barriers amid a tariff war with the United States, the premier’s office commissioned 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 to meet with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to sign a memorandum of understanding to build a new east-west pipeline.

The round-trip chartered trip to Calgary and early July cost Ontario taxpayers $53,830.92 in hotel and other expenses incurred during the trip.

While the government chose to take six individuals on the private jet, others who also assisted the prime minister on the trip, including Ford’s parliamentary assistant Will Bouma, were forced to fly commercially, adding to the total airfare bill.

A month earlier, the government had chartered another plane, this time to go to a first ministerial meeting in Saskatoon, Sask.

For that trip, Ford brought back his executive assistant, chief of staff and Ontario’s top civil servant, Michelle Di Emmanuel. In total, government records show that five people, including the prime minister, flew by charter to and from the meeting, while two other aides appeared to board the return private flight.

Spending data shows the charter plane averaged $6,787.78 per person — for a total rental 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 other prime ministers in March 2025.

Ford skipped the five-hour drive and instead billed taxpayers $17,725 to fly privately to the nation’s capital.

While Ford flew commercially two years ago at a cost of $655, the Prime Minister’s Office spent almost $3,000 per person on a chartered plane for the trip in 2025.

The prime minister’s travel spending records also show two trips to the United States costing taxpayers more than $30,000 for private jet tickets.

In March 2025, shortly after winning the provincial election campaign, Ford was scheduled to have a meeting with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about the growing trade tensions between the two countries.

The private jet 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 that included Canadian prime ministers and the governors of several friendly US states to talk about the impact of Trump’s tariffs, along with strengthening cross-border ties.

The stateside trip, which saw Ford and three other employees fly privately, cost taxpayers more than $5,000 per person for a total of about $20,000.

A change in travel

Before the election, there is little evidence that Prime Minister Ford hires charter jets for his trips across the country or continent.

During 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 prime minister headed to Ottawa to present the local mayor with a giant check and congratulate his city on meeting its housing goals.

Records show he flew commercial to make the announcement at a cost of about $1,400, as opposed to trips to Saskatoon, Alberta and Ottawa in 2025, where his office chartered a plane.

The prime minister also managed to attend other meetings in Ottawa and one in Montreal in early 2024, flying commercial instead of chartering a plane.