JARVIS: Ontario Premier Doug Ford spending taxpayer money on self-promotional ads

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is breaking the bank on self-promotional government advertisements and making former premier Kathleen Wynne look fiscally responsible.

Anyone who lives in Ontario can tell you that advertisements from the provincial government are almost inescapable. Even if you don’t live in Ontario, you’ve probably seen these ads when surfing the web or watching a Blue Jays game.

That’s because Ford has been cranking up his spending on advertisements to record highs.

The Ford government broke the record on government advertising by spending $112 million in 2024-25.

The Ford government decided to break its record again by spending $117 million on advertisements in 2025-26, according to freedom of information records released to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

That’s nearly double the $62.6 million the Wynne government spent in its biggest-spending year, 2017-18.

Ford government exercised restraint with ad budget in early years

The Ford government had exercised some restraint with its advertising budget in the early years. The government spent $16.9 million on advertising in 2018-19. Spending on government advertising spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic but dropped back down to $33.7 million in 2022-23 as pandemic-era restrictions waned.

Now the Ford government is cranking up ad spending again. Not for important public announcements, but instead for self-promotion.

The Ford government is spending $51.8 million on “Protect Ontario” branded advertising campaigns.

This includes $19.6 million for a general “Protect Ontario” campaign, $12.1 million for the “Protect Ontario: Ring of Fire” campaign, $9.8 million for the “Protect Ontario: Energy” campaign, $7.8 million for the “Protect Ontario: Workers” campaign and $2.4 million for the “Protect Ontario: Capital Projects” campaign.

“Protect Ontario” was the Progressive Conservatives’ campaign slogan during the 2025 provincial election.

The government isn’t airing these ads for the public’s benefit. The government isn’t giving the public important information about wildfire prevention, flu shots or tax changes that would justify this spending. It’s all about self-promotion.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

Predecessor weakened government’s advertising rules

The reason Ford is allowed to air self-promotional ads is that his predecessor weakened the government’s advertising rules.

The Dalton McGuinty government introduced the Government Advertising Act in 2004 to limit what advertisements the government can run to important information while barring partisan advertising.

Just 11 years later, the Wynne government changed the law to remove rules restricting the governing party from running advertisements that advance the governing party’s interests and gutted the auditor general’s powers to block the government from running self-serving advertisements.

Now the shackles are off and the Ford government is using its powers to full effect.

The auditor general highlighted six ad campaigns the Ford government ran in 2024-25 that would have violated the pre-2015 advertising rules. The auditor general noted the ads “appeared designed to improve Ontarians’ impression of the state of Ontario, the subtext of which promotes the governing party.”

Of those six campaigns, Ford extended four and spent $14 million on them in 2025-26.

PCs previously opposed Liberals loosening of ad rules

The Progressive Conservatives opposed the Liberals loosening the advertising rules at the time. PC MPP Sylvia Jones criticized then-deputy premier Deb Matthews for what Jones called “partisan government advertising” and called on the Liberals to restore the old advertising rules.

“Ontarians expect their government to respect tax dollars, not spend millions on partisan ads,” Jones said.

Nine years later, Jones is the deputy premier of a government spending $51.8 million on ads with her party’s campaign slogan plastered on them.

Ford should take Jones’ comments from 2017 seriously.

Governments should never use their powers in office and control of taxpayer money to sway the views of voters. It is unfair and undemocratic.

And taxpayers can’t afford to pay for advertisements to promote Ford and his party when the government is diving into deep debt and interest charges are soaring.

Ford needs to stop trying to make himself look good with taxpayer money. That means slashing the government’s advertising budget and restoring the government’s old advertising rules.

– Noah Jarvis is the Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

1. 

   Ontario
2. 

   Toronto Maple Leafs
3. 

   World
4. 

   World
5. 

   NHL