Ford election trip to Washington, D.C. cost taxpayers over $100K, docs show
Ontario taxpayers were on the hook for a six-figure bill covering Premier Doug Ford’s high-profile trip to Washington, D.C., during the snap winter election campaign, Global News can reveal, reviving accusations that the Progressive Conservative Party relied on government resources during its re-election bid.
Ford faced criticism in February after the PC Party appeared to disregard the government’s caretaker convention by taking two separate trips to the U.S. capital after the writs had been drawn up.
His political opponents said Ford — who had chosen the timing of the election — was using the threat of tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump to justify publicly-funded events during the campaign, which blurred the line between party and government.
Both the NDP and the Liberals filed complaints to election officials and legislative watchdogs claiming the trips to D.C. were a violation of longstanding rules, which say campaigning premiers and cabinet ministers should strictly limit any functions linked to government.
While the Progressive Conservative campaign said the trips — from Ford’s travel to accommodation and campaign staff — were funded by the party, new invoices and payments obtained by Global News show parts still relied heavily on public funding.
The documents, accessed using freedom of information laws, reveal events starring Ford in the United States cost the public close to $100,000 — plus thousands more which was spent to bring civil servants to the U.S. to coordinate Government of Ontario events.
The invoices seen by Global News covered promotional material, catering, sound and display systems, as well as venue hire.
Ontario Liberal MPP John Fraser said he felt the trips were a violation of traditions which forbid sitting governments who are campaigning for re-election from using public resources or titles.
“There’s such a thing as the caretaker convention,” he said. “I don’t think you’ve seen any other political leader in my memory and history — in history — go to another country in the middle of a campaign.
The premier’s office said some expenses were covered by the Progressive Conservative Party, others were paid by the province.
“As is the case for any official trip by the Premier, the Government of Ontario covered expenses for the event and any support provided by public officials,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
“The PC Party paid for all expenses incurred by political staff who accompanied the Premier, including accommodation and flights.”
Ford flies to Washington, D.C.
Almost two weeks after calling a snap winter election, Ford and his campaign team chartered a plane to fly from Toronto to Washington, D.C., for the PC leader and caretaker premier to take part in a meeting with Canada’s other first ministers.
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Along with his meetings with other premiers, Ford headlined two events in the capital designed to drum up political and business support for Ontario and the premier’s vision of an integrated energy and critical mineral plan.
On Feb. 11, Ford appeared at an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he discussed his plan to sell more electricity and critical minerals to companies in the United States.
The pitch was government policy before Ford dissolved the legislature, and simultaneously a central plank of his election campaign.
Documents show the fireside chat, where Ford took questions from travelling media and discussed his Fortress Am-Can vision, came at a substantial cost to the public purse.
Printing just over 1,000 bound copies of the Fortress Am-Can plan cost taxpayers $13,158.58. The order was put in with the printers on Jan. 24, the day Ford publicly confirmed he would be calling an early election.
The Ontario government also shelled out $23,055.54 USD (equivalent to around $31,000 CAD) to rent out the venue where the fireside chat was held. The chamber of commerce previously confirmed to Global News it did not charge the government anything for its role in moderating the event.
Later that day, Ford held a reception at the U.S. Library of Congress to meet with senior American politicians in an effort to boost his message.
That event cost just over $11,500 in audio and visual services and $18,222.50 in drinks and catering costs. Renting out the venue came to almost $6,000, according to the documents. Roughly converted from U.S. dollars to Canadian, the second event cost $48,500.
The documents obtained by Global News also show as many as 13 civil servants — ranging from senior diplomatic staff to IT support — were involved in the mission.
Some were already based in Washington, D.C., while others were flown from Toronto, put up in hotels and reimbursed for meals and travel. Those costs added thousands more to the public tab for the first trip.
Critics say Ford used event to run election against Trump
Fraser said Ford had relied on his role as caretaker premier to run his re-election bid against Trump, instead of on domestic issues.
“Mr. Ford thought that was advantageous — they filmed a commercial down there, they appeared on multiple television shows, which were rebroadcast or promoted to by watched by the premier himself through his social media channels,” he said.
“I don’t think the premier has a problem spending taxpayers’ money on himself or his party.”
The premier’s office said the purpose of the mission was to explain Ford’s vision of integrated Canadian-American business to various leaders in Washington, D.C.
“President Trump’s tariffs will cost the economy and families on both sides of the border billions,” the spokesperson said.
“With the threat of tariffs looming, Premier Ford brought his vision of Fortress Am-Can directly to key administration officials, business leaders and decision-makers in Washington. This included deepening Ontario’s relationships with key senators and governors who can influence trade policies toward Canada.”
Fraser questioned what Ford had achieved during his trip to D.C. in February.
“What did the premier come back with? What’s the evidence of that being an effective way to tell our story?” he asked.
“I think it’s arguable to say he came back with nothing. I think it was highly unusual to do that in the middle of a campaign; the premier clearly thought that was advantageous to him during the campaign.”
Fraser also pointed to $103.5 million the province spent on commercials last year, which the auditor general found were “designed to promote the governing party.” They were paused once the campaign began.
Questions during the campaign
The revelations of exactly how much the public spent on Ford’s trip to Washington, D.C., come after a campaign in which Ford’s opponents cried foul, claiming the Progressive Conservative Party leader was using the U.S.-Canada crisis to blur the lines between government and campaign.
At the time, Ford said he had cleared the mission with the legislature’s watchdog and that the premier and campaign team’s travel had all been paid for by the party.
“I got cleared by the integrity commissioner but that’s (neither) here nor there,” Ford said on Feb. 11 in Washington. “The Canadian people want us here, not just Ontarians, Canadians. They want all the representatives, all their premiers here.”
Ford, however, did find himself on the wrong side of Ontario’s top civil servant, who issued a stern warning after his campaign sent a videographer on the trip and used the footage in an election video.
Shortly after returning, the PC Party pushed a new campaign commercial to social media highlighting Ford, along with Progressive Conservative candidates Vic Fedeli and Stephen Lecce, walking through Washington, speaking with the Chamber of Commerce and meeting with premiers.
The commercial, which ended with the PC party logo and campaign slogan “Protect Ontario,” immediately caught the attention of Michelle DiEmmanuel, Ontario’s Secretary of Cabinet, who ordered its removal.
She published a frosty letter, in which she said she had reached out to the Progressive Conservatives and told them to remove the video.
The video was quickly removed, and the PC campaign said it had added its logo to the end of the video “in error.”
DiEmmanuel also raised issues with the videographer and photographer who travelled to Washington with Ford under the guise of being government employees but were, instead, campaign staff.
The two campaign staffers were “added to the list of staff attending the mission events by the Premier’s Office,” which, DiEmmanuel said, was an “error” because neither was part of the premier’s office caretaker staff.
The Supreme Court of Canada has declined to hear an appeal of a lower-court ruling that upheld a First Nation’s ownership of a stretch of land at a popular Ontario beach after a lengthy dispute.
Canada’s top court has dismissed the appeal request from landowners and the province after a stretch of land along Sauble Beach was returned to Saugeen First Nation in 2023.
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This dismissal comes nearly two months after members of Saugeen First Nation changed the iconic “Welcome to Sauble Beach” sign that greeted beach visitors.
The temporary “Welcome to Saugeen Beach” sign was erected to reflect the First Nation’s ownership of the land, with the town’s mayor expressing disappointment that he wasn’t alerted of the change.
The Ontario Court of Appeal upheld last December the decision that 2.2 kilometres of the coastline in South Bruce Peninsula was incorrectly surveyed 170 years ago.
The portion of the land is valuable fishing ground for the First Nation community and was surrendered in 1854 in an agreement with the Crown to give up portions of Bruce Peninsula.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
The majority of post-secondary students in Ontario are stressed about their finances heading into the school year, a new survey found.
The survey from TD Bank, which collected data from post-secondary students across the country, found that 92 per cent of all respondents in Ontario are stressed about their finances.
“The survey was clear that our students are experiencing a lot of stress, which is a bit unique from previous generations because of the multitude of factors that are just hypersensitive at this point, with higher unemployment, higher cost of living, higher tuition,” says Joe Moghaizel, vice-president of everyday advice journey at TD.
The survey found that while 78 per cent of Ontario parents believe their child has experienced financial stress in the past three months, that figure was well below the actual number of 92 per cent.
“What’s interesting is the amount of pressure and stress that they’re currently facing and feeling, and the disconnect between what their parents believe they’re experiencing,” Moghaizel says. “Parents were not aware of the amount of stress that the students are feeling.”
Moghaizel pointed to a number of things leading to this financial pressure, including the high cost of living and high rate of unemployment among young people in a difficult job market, leading to many students to have what he called a volatile income.
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The survey also found that Ontario had the highest percentage of students stressed about tuition costs at 35 per cent, compared with an average of 26 per cent in other provinces.
The government of Canada estimates it will take almost 10 years for the average student to pay off their student loans and the total student loan debt in Canada surpassed $23.5 billion in 2022.
“You go back to over two decades ago, when I was in school, the financial pressures that students deal with now are significantly higher because tuition is a lot more expensive and the cost of living is more expensive, and inflation has really taken a bite at students,” Moghaizel says.
Another key takeaway from the survey was that 36 per cent of all respondents found that social spending stressed them out the most.
Moghaizel says the social pressure speaks to the online environment that students find themselves in today, where everything they do is shared online.
“They all feel the pressure to spend and keep up, which, again, it’s not too dissimilar from other age groups and we’re keeping up with the Joneses and just keeping up with the spending habit of your circle creates a bit of pressure,” he says.
Moghaizel says this can leave post-secondary students feeling ill-equipped to manage their finances better.
Despite the concern, Moghaizel hopes this information is not discouraging to students and is an opportunity to start establishing good financial habits early in life.
He said that with societal pressures, it’s good for students to understand their needs versus their wants, and focus on prioritizing the necessities. Moghaizel says that through tracking their spending, students can see where all of their money is going.
“We want to make sure that we’re equipping students with the right understanding of financial knowledge for the products and services,” Moghaizel says.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
A Canadian man has pleaded guilty to illegally photographing classified U.S. defence facilities at the Space Force military base in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Xiao Guang Pan, 71, of Brampton, Ont., pleaded guilty to three counts of unlawful photographing of military installations without authorization on three separate days in early January.
A U.S. District Court in Florida judge put Pan on probation for 12 months and immediately ordered him deported to Canada by U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement (ICE) officers under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, citing his violations of American espionage laws.
Pan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A U.S. Department of Justice official was unsure about where Pan is in the ICE deportation process.
Pan’s guilty plea and deportation come as anxiety grows among U.S. lawmakers and ordinary Americans about hundreds of unidentified drones flying over sensitive American military bases amid concerns about foreign surveillance and spying.
A copy of Pan’s plea agreement reveals a stark contrast between what Pan said he was doing in Florida in January, when he was stopped by police, versus what U.S. federal agents actually found on his drone, phone and storage devices after seizing them.
On an artist biography page published by the Brampton Arts Organization, Pan stated he was born in China in 1953, immigrated to Canada in 2001 and has lived in Brampton since 2003.
Pan worked as a Best Buy Canada technician for 18 years until retirement in 2022, the biography adds.
Pan entered U.S. via Detroit
Pan entered the U.S. on a tourist visa at the Ambassador’s Bridge in Detroit, Mich., on or about Nov. 2, 2024. The court documents don’t suggest what Pan was doing or where Pan travelled in November and December.
The retiree was charged by summons on Feb. 11 after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) detected drone activity near the Space Force Base and called in law enforcement on Jan. 7.
Brevard County Sheriffs responded. They saw Pan operating a DJI Mavic Pro 3 unmanned drone quadcopter from a parking lot in Port Canaveral and learned he’d been in the area for three days.
The local officers then tipped federal law enforcement agencies.
Federal agents caught the Brampton resident using his powerful unmanned drone and a separate camera with telephoto lenses to photograph and video classified military facilities and equipment near the Space Force base on Jan. 5, 6 and 7, without the base commander’s prior authorization as required under U.S. law.
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According to a statement of facts found in the plea agreement, which Pan signed and initialled on every page, U.S. federal agents interviewed him twice – no dates were given – and asked the Canadian what he was doing with the drone.
They also warned him: lying to federal agents is a federal crime in the U.S.
“Pan told the agents that he had flown his drone to take pictures of the beauty of nature, the sunrise, and the cruise ship port. He stated that he had not seen any launch pads and that he did not know that he was near a military installation,” the plea deal states.
Pan voluntarily submitted his devices to U.S. agents for a forensic data extraction.
That’s when the investigators found more than sunrises, nature and cruise ship videos.
The data showed Pan had flown his drone nine times and taken 1,919 photographs and videos during his three-day Florida visit, the plea deal states.
Of those 1,919 photos and videos, 243 photographs and 13 videos showed specific images of Space Force base military infrastructure and launch facilities, including fuel and munitions storage facilities, security checkpoints, and a Navy submarine platform, according to the plea agreement.
On Jan. 6, his second day of flying the drone quadcopter, Pan took nine videos and 166 photographs of Space Force installations.
This time, he launched his drone from a location several miles closer to the base; his photographs and videos captured the same military infrastructure as on Jan. 5, but in higher quality and from different angles, according to the plea agreement.
Pan also captured images and videos of mission control infrastructure and fuel and munitions facilities, including a photograph of a Space Launch Complex and payload processing facilities operated by two defence contractors.
On the third day of his drone flying, and before he was encountered by law enforcement, Pan recorded two more videos and took 56 photos.
Day 3 images included security checkpoints
His Day 3 images and videos showed roads, power distribution infrastructure, security checkpoints, mission control infrastructure, national security space launch infrastructure, fuel and munitions storage, and naval infrastructure, the plea agreement states.
After police stopped Pan on Jan. 7, federal agents interviewed him twice.
During those interviews, Pan was warned that lying to agents is a federal crime. He did so anyway, the plea deal suggests.
In addition to telling agents he flew his drone to record nature, sunrises, and cruise ships and didn’t know he was near a military base, Pan said his drone sends alerts and warnings to his handset and he received no alerts or warnings, the plea deal adds.
Investigators recovered flight log data from Pan’s quadcopter. It showed that on all three days he flew, the drone logged several alerts and sent operator messages about altitude and FAA airspace violations.
On Pan’s cell phone, agents also found several screenshots he created, including several Google Maps satellite overviews of Cape Canaveral. One screenshot taken Jan. 7 while Pan was at his drone launch location, prominently displayed the words “Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.”
Pan surrendered his $5,000 quadcopter
Pan was charged in February after a multi-agency probe led by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Homeland Security, and the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
Pan surrendered his $5,000 quadcopter, control equipment and storage devices that housed his videos and photos to the U.S. authorities.
He is also banned from returning to the U.S. without prior consent from the Secretary of the Homeland Security department.
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