Ford's Polling Slide Deepens Amid 'Gravy Plane' Backlash and Island Airport Fight

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is navigating his roughest political stretch in years, with new polling showing a measurable slide in his favourability after his government bought and then quickly resold a $28.9 million private aircraft critics have nicknamed the 'gravy plane,' even as a separate dispute over expanding Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport raises the temperature with the city of Toronto.

The combination of an expensive optics misstep and a high-visibility planning fight has produced a rare moment of vulnerability for a premier who has spent most of the past seven years dominating the Ontario political landscape. Whether the slide is the beginning of something durable or a passing storm depends in significant part on what the Progressive Conservative government does next.

The jet controversy

The province purchased a $28.9 million Bombardier business jet earlier this year, marketed as a tool for trade missions and emergency response. Almost immediately the acquisition came under attack from opposition parties and editorial pages, who pointed out the jet had been bought without competitive process and that there was no clear operational rationale for ownership rather than charter.

The government reversed course and arranged to resell the aircraft within weeks. The episode left the premier exposed on the central political brand he has cultivated: that of a tradesman premier who watches the public purse. Critics have used the 'gravy plane' label to evoke his own 2014 campaign rhetoric about ending the 'gravy train' at Toronto City Hall.

Several polls released after the jet news showed the Ontario Progressive Conservatives' favourability dropping, with Ford's personal approval falling more sharply than his party's. The slip has not yet translated into a Liberal or NDP lead in vote intention, but the trend line is the worst Ford has faced since the early pandemic.

The Billy Bishop fight

Layered onto the jet story is a more substantive policy fight: the future of Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. Ford's government has introduced legislation that would allow the province to take over the city of Toronto's role in approving operations at the island airport, paving the way for an expansion that could permit jet aircraft to use the runway.

The bill includes a provision that would allow the province to appropriate roughly one third of Little Norway Park, the publicly accessible green space adjacent to the airport, if needed for runway extension. Ford insisted in public remarks that the park itself would remain a park. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has called the legislation 'unilateral action to grab city land without consulting Torontonians' and urged Queen's Park to drop the park provision.

The dispute is about more than one park. It is the latest chapter in a years-long pattern of provincial overrides of municipal planning authority in Toronto, and it has galvanised resident associations across the central waterfront. Aviation industry groups argue jet service at Billy Bishop would relieve pressure on Pearson and improve regional connectivity. Critics, including the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, argue the noise and emissions impacts are not justified by the marginal traffic gain.

Reaction from opposition parties

Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie has used the moment to revive her party's argument that Ford has lost touch with the affordability concerns of ordinary Ontarians. NDP leader Marit Stiles has focused on the procurement process behind the jet, calling for an auditor general review of the original purchase decision. The Ontario Greens have anchored their messaging on the Billy Bishop file and on what they describe as a pattern of disregard for municipal authority.

The U.S. trip

Ford partially stepped off the Ontario news cycle this past weekend with a commencement speech at a Michigan university, where he accepted an honorary doctorate and used the platform to argue against the Trump administration's tariff agenda. The premier quoted Ronald Reagan and warned that tariffs on integrated Canada-United States supply chains harm workers on both sides of the border. The speech played well with the auto industry audience but did little to change the domestic conversation at home.

Why this matters for Ontario

Ford's government still holds a comfortable majority at Queen's Park, and the next provincial election is not constitutionally required until 2029. None of the polling movement to date suggests an imminent threat to that majority. But the file load on the premier's desk is unusually heavy. The province's budget, tabled earlier this spring, projected wider deficits and slower revenue growth than the Ontario PCs had previously suggested.

The auto sector continues to absorb the impact of United States steel, aluminum and vehicle tariffs, with several Ontario plants on reduced shifts. Health care system stress, particularly emergency department capacity and family physician shortages, has remained a top concern in voter surveys. Housing starts have decelerated. Each of those files demands sustained political attention, and each gets harder to fight when the premier himself is the story.

The PC caucus dynamics

Inside the Ontario Progressive Conservative caucus, the past several months have produced quiet but real tensions. Some MPPs, particularly those in suburban and exurban ridings where the airport debate is one variable among many, have been frustrated by the jet optics distraction. Others, with significant connections to organised labour or with major employer constituencies, have been supportive of the premier's broader pushback on Trump administration tariffs.

Caucus management is not yet a crisis for Ford. The provincial PCs hold a strong majority and the next election is years away. But the political weather inside the caucus is a leading indicator of how durable the premier's authority will be. The lessons of provincial politics across the country have been that long-serving premiers eventually face caucus discontent if the polling slide hardens.

The cabinet, similarly, has not visibly fractured. Several senior ministers have been working harder than usual in public to defend the premier's posture on Billy Bishop and on the broader economic file. The visibility of those defences is itself a signal about where the political weight inside the government currently sits.

Toronto's posture

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow's confrontation with Queen's Park over Billy Bishop is the latest in a long history of Toronto-Ontario disputes that play out under conditions of significant power asymmetry. The province controls planning legislation, municipal finance and most of the underlying legal infrastructure that the city operates within. The city controls its own bylaws and the operational reality of running Canada's largest urban region.

Chow's political capital, after a relatively successful first year in office, gives her room to take strong public positions. Her arguments on Billy Bishop have been grounded in city consultation procedures and in long-standing Toronto policy commitments about the future of the waterfront. The mayor has also engaged federal officials, given the federal government's role in airport regulation through Transport Canada and Nav Canada.

The broader Toronto-Ontario relationship has had moments of cooperation over the past several years on transit projects and on housing. The Billy Bishop fight has the potential to damage that cooperation if not managed carefully. Both governments have signalled they want the substantive policy outcomes on transit and housing to be insulated from the airport dispute. Whether that insulation holds depends in part on the political temperature in both buildings over the coming weeks.

The economic file in the background

Beneath the optics and the airport fight, the Ontario government's economic file remains the most consequential element of the premier's political environment. The auto sector, the broader manufacturing base, the housing construction industry and the health care system have all been operating under the weight of the Trump administration tariffs and the broader inflation environment.

Provincial revenue projections in the recent budget were softer than the government had previously indicated. Capital spending has been adjusted. Several major infrastructure announcements have been re-sequenced. The premier's office has been consistent in framing these adjustments as prudent rather than as a retreat, but opposition critics have argued the government's economic strategy lacks coherence.

For Ontario households, the practical experience has been a continuing affordability squeeze, particularly on housing and grocery costs. The federal Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, taking effect in June, will provide some relief. The provincial government's affordability response has been more modest, focused on energy rebates and on targeted tax measures.

The transit and housing files

The Ontario Line, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and several other major transit projects continue to advance under provincial leadership. The Ontario Line tunnel boring has been a significant operational story. Construction noise, traffic disruption and the broader inconvenience of major urban infrastructure projects have been recurring sources of complaint, although the longer-term transit benefits are widely supported.

Housing supply remains the file the government has identified as its single most important policy commitment. Ontario's housing starts have decelerated, despite the federal and provincial policy frameworks designed to accelerate construction. The premier has been engaged with municipal partners on permit reform, zoning changes and other supply-side levers. The pace of progress, by the government's own assessment, has been slower than required.

What's next

The Billy Bishop legislation is moving through committee, with public hearings scheduled in the coming weeks. The government has signalled it will revisit the park appropriation language if hearings produce strong evidence the seizure is not required. Mayor Chow has indicated the city will not be enthusiastic partners on airport expansion under the current bill structure.

On the jet file, the auditor general's office has not publicly committed to a review but has confirmed it is monitoring developments. The government has said it expects to recoup most of the purchase price through the resale and has resisted opposition demands to release the full documentation behind the original acquisition decision.

For Ford, the political task is straightforward to describe and much harder to execute: reset the story, move the focus back to affordability and jobs, and avoid additional optics damage of the kind the jet provided. The longer the premier himself is the headline, the harder that reset becomes.