TORONTO — Ontario's Progressive Conservatives released their platform Monday, with three days until election day, and it contains $40 billion in promises plus a proposal to get rid of the minimum retail price for liquor.
Among the promises are a few previously unannounced measures including a $5-billion Protect Ontario Account to help respond to American tariffs, $705 million to expand STEM and skilled trades training capacity at post-secondary institutions, and $50 million to support modular housing technology.
But the platform does not include a full costing breakdown of how a re-elected Progressive Conservative government would pay for the promises and contains some pledges with no cost estimates, such as Doug Ford's plan to build a tunnel under Highway 401.
Ford defended the numbers, citing his track record from the past seven years in government.
"We've been very fiscally responsible," he said at a campaign event. "We're prudent fiscal managers with the taxpayers' money. Not only haven't we raised taxes, we reduced the cost of paying on debt from previous governments."
He later suggested that economic growth will help offset some of the spending, but also said if U.S. President Donald Trump's threatened tariffs are implemented, Ontario won't be able to balance its budget.
Ford has made warnings about what will happen if Canada is hit with tariffs a large part of his campaign, and his platform contains billions of dollars in planned spending to respond to them. In addition to the $5-billion Protect Ontario Account, he is proposing $10 billion in support for employers through a tax deferral, up to $3 billion more in payroll and premium relief, up to $40 million for municipalities hard hit by tariffs, and up to $120 million to increase bars' and restaurants' wholesale alcohol discount.
Aside from the tariff fight, Ford also put another alcohol goodie in his platform, proposing to eliminate the floor price for spirits.
Minimum prices for spirits vary based on volume and alcohol content and are indexed to inflation, and the minimum retail price for a 750 millilitre bottle of vodka is currently set to rise this weekend to $31.15.
Ford has not made any public announcements about his alcohol promise, unlike in 2018 when he made setting the price floor for beer at $1 — or Buck-a-Beer — a central part of his campaign, but touted it Monday as a way to save consumers some money.
"Under the Liberals...they would say, 'You have to charge this much, because if you don't charge this much, then people will drink too much,'" Ford said.
"That's the biggest joke I've ever heard. They don't do it in Alberta. They don't do it in Quebec. So why do we have to have a base? Let's reduce the cost of that, put more money back into people's pockets again, and that's like a tax break."
Few breweries took part in Buck-a-Beer after it was implemented.
Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie was in Ottawa, highlighting her promises to prioritize and fund certain area hospital projects.
"People are telling me that they're afraid to get sick, not afraid that they're going to get great health care when they receive it, but they know that our hospitals are overflowing and that they're underfunded, and the wait times are enormous," she said.
"All the Ottawa-area hospitals need to be expanded and over developed."
Crombie also explained why her party waited several days before dropping its candidate in Oshawa.
Viresh Bansal posted a response in 2023 to an NDP statement on the killing of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government had "credible allegations" linking agents of the Indian government to the fatal shooting in B.C.
"You can thank India for cleaning trash people. Ask your gay friend @JustinTrudeau to do the same," Bansal wrote in the 2023 post.
Bansal apologized, but the World Sikh Organization of Canada and some of Crombie's own candidates called on the Liberals to dump him as a candidate. Crombie condemned the statement but initially kept him on the team.
"He issued a statement, but there was still a bubbling of issues, so we re-interviewed him and decided the best thing to do was to suspend his campaign," she said Monday. "I think we've made the right decision, and that's it."
- With files from Rianna Lim in Toronto and Alessia Passafiume in Ottawa.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 24, 2025.
Allison Jones, The Canadian Press
