Since 2018, a civic coalition has documented roughly 36 billion dollars that the provincial government has misspent, overspent or simply handed away. This is not theoretical waste. That money could cover gaps in healthcare, long-term care and education all at once. Instead, seniors and families are told to accept hallway medicine, staff shortages and rising fees.
Look at the pattern. The Ford government pushed Bill 124, capping public sector wages, even after courts ruled it unconstitutional twice. Fighting workers in court cost 430 million public dollars. Those same funds could have supported more than 17,000 nursing position incentives, a lifeline for exhausted hospital staff and the seniors who depend on them.
Or take the decision to rush privatized alcohol sales. The unnecessary 1.4 billion dollar bill to speed that up could have stabilized colleges facing over 600 program cuts. Instead of investing in young people and the workers who teach them, money was poured into a high-cost policy choice that does nothing for a senior wondering whether their grandchild will finish school.
Pre-election and record advertising spending could have funded 9,000 shelter beds. Mismanaged transit projects carried a public cost that could have maintained OSAP grants for 16 years. Public services in Ontario did not erode by accident. They eroded because money that should have gone to nurses, shelters, students and caregivers went somewhere else.
Three deeper truths about this record stand out. First, Ontario government misspending is concentrated in political choices that favour insiders and image, not front-line services. Second, the harm lands hardest on people with the least room in their budgets: seniors on fixed incomes, working people and students. Third, when government normalizes this behaviour, it teaches every future premier that they can gamble with public money and hide the receipts.
Here is the evidence base for that view, separating facts, practice and interpretation.
• Research-based facts: civic groups have tracked about 36 billion dollars in documented misspending since 2018; the Bill 124 legal fight cost 430 million dollars that could have funded more than 17,000 nursing incentives; accelerating privatized alcohol sales added an unnecessary 1.4 billion dollar price tag alongside over 600 college program cuts; advertising and transit missteps equate to 9,000 lost shelter beds and 16 years of OSAP grants.
• Practice-based observations: seniors report longer waits for care while local services close or shrink; college and university communities see programs vanish while tuition and debt rise; families watch housing and shelter pressures intensify even as public money flows to vanity projects.
• Interpretive recommendations: treat every big-ticket government decision as a trade-off with concrete services; demand line-of-sight from each dollar to a community benefit; insist that premiers face transparent accounting when courts, contracts or rollbacks create avoidable costs.
This is where transparency should strengthen democracy, yet the Ford government has moved in the opposite direction. Recent changes to freedom of information rules will hide records of the premier and cabinet behind a curtain, including files tied to scandals involving wealthy donors and insiders, from the Greenbelt to the Skills Development Fund. When scrutiny is weakened, patterns of misspending are easier to repeat.
Supporters of the government like to point out that Ontario’s economy has grown. They are right about the growth. What they do not address is who actually benefitted. As one labour leader put it, billions went to cost overruns, legal losses, political advertising and insider gains, not to the people who needed it. Growth without fairness is not a plan. It is a warning.
For seniors, families and workers, Doug Ford accountability starts close to home. First, pay attention to the real-life swaps behind each announcement: if money goes to a high-profile project, ask which local service is left waiting. Second, use every democratic tool available, from contacting MPPs and attending town halls to backing community-based campaigns that track spending. Third, help strengthen local riding associations and grassroots teams that are committed to public service, education and working people, so that Queen’s Park hears from more than lobbyists.
Ontario can still be a province that works for everyone, but that future begins with honesty about the past. Thirty-six billion dollars walked away from the priorities of ordinary people. Doug Ford needs to own responsibility for that record, and Ontarians, especially seniors, have every right to demand a government that stands with them in their communities and in the legislature.
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This article was created using research from the cited references below, a human editor and an AI-assisted workflow.