Months after election win, Doug Ford’s mandate letters still not finished

Months after securing his third majority government, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has yet to deliver mandate letters to his cabinet ministers, Global News has learned, raising internal questions about the apparent lack of direction from the premier’s office.

Ford, who called a snap election in January and asked voters for a new mandate to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, was handily re-elected on a campaign promise to “protect Ontario” from the impacts of tariffs.

While the premier unveiled his third-term cabinet on March 19, ministers and their staff are still waiting for a formal directive in the form of a mandate letter, according to multiple sources in government, with no firm timeline on when they’ll arrive.

The wait, one senior staffer said, was “honestly so painful,” particularly for non-critical ministries. While some ministries, the source said, “like health and energy are fine” because they have long-term plans, smaller departments appear to be having a “tougher” time with the lack of direction.

Senior staffers also told Global News that ministries typically use the summer months to create a policy roadmap based on the instructions received in the mandate letters — valuable planning time that has been hampered by the delay.

Other staffers told Global News some ministries appear to have overlapping responsibilities, “creating challenges on who’s responsible for what,” and that mandate letters would provide greater clarity for ministries.

Critics say the lack of mandate letters is a sign that the premier “doesn’t know” what he wants to do.

“Four months in after getting reelected with a mandate that the premier asked for, to not actually have a plan, it’s not acceptable,” said Liberal MPP John Fraser.

In 2018, shortly after Ford first took office, government ministers were handed a multi-page letter outlining the premier’s vision for Ontario, how cabinet members were expected to conduct themselves, along with specific policy measures ministries were expected to pursue.

Those letters, obtained exclusively by Global News, offered a number of bullet-point policy items – some of which were outlined in the party’s election platform, along with other policies never revealed to voters.

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Andrew Sidnell, who once served as Ford’s deputy chief of staff and head of policy in the premier’s office, told Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner that not all the measures outlined in the mandate letter were acted on and that some could be dropped after internal negotiations.

“You go back and forth, and then some of those things eventually are either too ambitious or they get cut off the list for impracticality reasons. Or, they do move forward and the minister will come back with a plan to actually implement them,” Sidnell told the Integrity Commissioner.

In 2022, for example, then-housing minister Steve Clark was instructed to look for “swaps, expansions, contractions” in Ontario’s Greenbelt — a directive that eventually led to a scandal for the government.

Still, John Fraser, who once served as a parliamentary assistant in the former Liberal government, said the letters are of vital importance to newly elected ministers.

“What it does is it helps you focus on what the most important task you have in your ministry, the goals that you have to achieve,” Fraser said. “If you don’t have goals, if you do not have priorities, how do you actually get the outcomes that you want?”

While mandate letters are typically worked on during the election campaign periods by the premier’s policy team, the dynamic 2025 political timeline and subsequent staff departures appear to have thrown a wrench into the plan.

Sources, speaking confidentially, told Global News the planning snap provincial election, the federal election and the constant tariff-related twists and turns from U.S. President Donald Trump led to frequent interruptions in the letter-writing process.

Then, in late spring, Ford lost two senior staffers who would have been heavily involved in the creation and content of the mandates to ministers.

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said much of the political landscape — from Trump’s tariffs to the Prime Minister — has remained unchanged since the February election.

“It just highlights that this government has no direction and that the election they called was about politics, not about people,” Schreiner said.

While some government sources said they expect the letters will be delivered in the next few weeks, the premier’s office didn’t offer an official timeline.

Meanwhile, the government has already tabled multiple pieces of legislation — including the controversial bill to create special economic zones in Ontario — and delivered a budget without written direction from the premier.

While sources said much of that work was done in collaboration with the premier’s office, NDP Leader Marit Stiles questioned other decisions being made by cabinet without prior instruction.

“We’ve had the education minister [take over] four of the biggest school boards in the province and put them under supervision,” Stiles said. “We don’t even know the direction that the premier has provided.”

“It’s actually like they’re all freelancing out there while big sweeping decisions are happening that could impact generations of Ontarians,” Stiles added.

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