Doug Ford quickly got back to work after winning re-election, including by returning to the busy meeting schedule typical of Ontario's premier.
In the four-and-a-half months from election day until mid-October, schedules of Ford's showed almost 150 planned calls and meetings. These included more than a dozen with other high-profile political leaders and private sector heavyweights that were kept out of the public eye.
Among them were get-togethers with the top executives of the company developing Ontario Place, as well as WestJet, plus meetings with representatives from a major GTA condo builder and 7-Eleven, which is seeking to vastly expand its alcohol licensing in Ontario.
QP Briefing found out about these meetings from the premier's calendars that the cabinet office keeps. They were obtained using the province's freedom-of-information system.
On Tuesday, QP Briefing asked Ford's media relations team about 12 different meetings and calls shown in his calendars from June 2 to Oct. 12. None were officially publicized by the government, nor by the premier on social media, as he often does after similar meetings.
The premier's spokespeople did not respond to a list of questions sent by email before this article was published. One ask that went unanswered by Ford's office was to confirm that the meetings and calls went ahead as planned. None of the dozen in question were labelled "cancelled” unlike some others in his calendars were.
What follows is a timeline showing when the 12 meetings and calls were planned for Ford, how they were labelled in his calendars, plus added context from QP Briefing.
June 7: "Call with Premier Ford and Governor W (sic)"
Since 2019, Gretchen Whitmer has been the Governor of Michigan, one of five states that border Ontario.
Ford's office did not confirm if Whitmer was the "Governor W" referred to in his calendar. Minnesota also borders Ontario, and its Democratic governor is Tim Walz. He's been in office since 2019.
Michigan and Ontario are major trading partners and have closely intertwined auto-making sectors. The Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor and Detroit is the busiest international crossing in North America and supports the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods every day.
Whitmer was also one of the most visible public figures arguing to close Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline that carries Canadian oil and gas from the West to Sarnia through Michigan. Whitmer opposed it on environmental grounds, while Ford maintained it was one of the safest ways to transport necessary fuels. The Biden administration decided not to close the pipeline, saying it would work with Ottawa on a plan for its future. Whitmer was re-elected to a second term as governor this fall.
June 15: "Call with Premier Ford and UNIFOR President, Danny Price"
Price is the president of Unifor Local 1285, whose workers staff Stellantis Canada's Brampton Assembly Plant.
Days before calling the election, the Ford government announced that it planned to give Stellantis "up to $513 million" — an amount matched by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government — to "retool and modernize" its plants in Windsor and Brampton and to build two new research and development centres focusing on electric vehicles and EV battery technology.
June 22: "Meeting with Robert Hanea, CEO of The [Therme Group]"
As the top executive for the Therme Group, Hanea is overseeing the multi-national wellness-centre builder's controversial redevelopment of downtown Toronto's Ontario Place.
The Ford government announced in July 2021 that it chose the Therme Group and two other companies to revitalize the site by building a waterpark and sports performance centre on it, along with improving publicly accessible park and beach spaces.
The redevelopment has been estimated to create thousands of jobs while also costing hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. It's still in the planning stages and has to clear some hurdles, including currently being before Toronto's city council. The company's latest submissions to the province and city show it's expecting the province to fork over around $350 million of taxpayer money to remediate the land and build a 1,000 car parking lot.
The Therme Group has kept a heavy lobbying presence since 2019, the provincial registry shows. It has five high-powered lobbyists — including StrategyCorp's John Perenack and former Mike Harris staffer Leslie Noble — retained and active to advocate on its behalf toward the government. Perenack also lobbies for 7-Eleven.
July 4: "Call with Premier Legault"
July 7: "Call with Premier Horgan"
Ford's and B.C. Premier John Horgan's chat was arranged about a week and a half after the New Democrat B.C. premier announced his intention to step down once his party chose a new leader.
Calls with Horgan and Francois Legault, Quebec's premier, also took place just a few days before they met in B.C.'s capital Victoria for a Council of Federation conference.
As has been the case for the premiers over the last couple of years, their insistence that the federal government increase its share of funding health care was a dominant topic at their July conference.
READ MORE: CoF 2022: Health care, immigration, affordability to take centre stage
READ MORE: CoF 2022: No more media potshots in health negotiations, premiers tell reporters
July 19: "Meeting with Westjet CEO"
Alexis von Hoensbroech has been the top executive for the Calgary-based airline since February 2022.
About a month before meeting with Ford, von Hoensbroech indicated an intention to focus on growing its presence in Western Canada.
August 8: "General Hillier, Premier and Jamie"
Ford, Jamie Wallace (who until December was the premier's chief of staff), and retired general Rick Hillier, who had led Ontario's COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force, had a meeting planned on the morning of the first sitting day after the election.
Hillier was paid $20,000 a month to head Ontario's COVID vaccine delivery effort from November 2020 to March 2021, according to the Globe and Mail. Ford heaped heavy praise on Hillier's efforts when he left the role.
Hillier has kept out of the Ontario politics spotlight since leaving the provincial post, but has been a vocal advocate for Canada to increase its support of Ukraine's effort against Russia's invasion.
Aug. 29: "Call with Premier Horgan"
Ford had a chat arranged with Horgan a week after returning from Moncton, N.B., where he had met with three of the four premiers from the Atlantic provinces, fellow conservatives Blaine Higgs, Dennis King and Tim Houston, as well as Dominic Leblanc, intergovernmental affairs minister in Trudeau's government.
Ford's and Horgan's call was also arranged about a month and a half into the BC NDP's election campaign to decide who would succeed Horgan as the party's leader and province's premier.
Sep. 1: "Meeting with Lash Group"
The Lash Group is a collection of companies that build condominiums and commercial spaces, and that also manage these types of properties, which are largely in Greater Toronto Area.
According to its website, Lash Group companies and their predecessors have built over 6,000 homes and condos in the GTA, dating back to the 1950s.
Ford's calendars did not say which representatives from the company the premier was set to meet with.
Sep. 6: "Meeting with Pfizer"
Half of Ontarians received at least one shot of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, federal data show. Ontario's — and Canada's — vaccination effort against COVID-19 heavily relied on doses bought from Pfizer.
The massive pharmaceutical multinational has been a persistent lobbyist of the provincial government over the last two decades.
Ford's calendars did not say which representatives from the company the premier was set to meet with.
Sep. 20: "Meeting with Premier Kenney"
Ford's and Jason Kenney's political allegiance has been well-documented since their respective elections as premier in 2018 and 2019.
Ford and Kenney were slated to meet in Etobicoke, where the premier lives. This meeting was arranged months after Kenney announced he was stepping down as leader of Alberta's United Conservative Party and its premier and less than a month before the party chose Danielle Smith to succeed him.
Sep. 29: "Meeting with 7 Eleven & Minister Fedeli"
In an effort dating back to at least 2021, convenience store chain 7-Eleven has been pushing to serve alcohol in its stores. It's already licensed to do this in parts of the U.S. and Alberta.
In December, 7-Eleven announced it obtained its first liquor sales licence from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) to serve beer, wines and coolers at a restaurant in one of its stores in Leamington.
READ MORE: 7-Eleven to serve alcohol with in-store dining in Ontario
In 2020, Ford previously met with a top 7-Eleven executive at the company's headquarters in Texas, which CBC reported.
When the premier was later asked about the meeting, Ford expressed his support for the convenience store chain expanding into the licensed liquor game.
“Let’s see what the AGCO says about our friends at 7-Eleven,” Ford said, according to Queen's Park Today.
Ford's calendars did not say who from 7-Eleven the premier and Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade Minister Vic Fedeli planned to meet with on Sep. 29.
Ford's calendars provide a picture of how Ford spent the first months of his second mandate — albeit not a full one. Dozens of items were redacted, which staff who handle freedom-of-information requests for the cabinet office assured to QP Briefing followed the province's disclosure laws.
Most redactions were to protect personal privacy of government staff, like, for example, by removing reminders of their birthdays, according to one of the office's freedom-of-information specialists. A couple handful of items were redacted due to the protection of cabinet confidence and to shield records that could jeopardize Ontario's interests — defined by law as being both "economic as other." Some items were redacted as being deemed not relevant to Ford's work as premier, which included things like his constituency duties or personal appointments and commitments.
While not redactions, on 11 occasions Ford's schedule included several-hour- to full-day-long "block" sections, indicating commitments not kept in his calendars.
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