EDITORIAL: When “it’s politics” becomes an excuse for acting like a thug

Six days after Bonnie Crombie won the Ontario Liberal leadership in December 2023, she went to Jamaica for a short vacation. She checked into an adults-only resort on the north coast, unaware that the Ford PCs had paid for someone to be there too.

According to sources who spoke to The Trillium and POLICORNER, the PCs spent roughly $3,000 at two five-star Jamaican resorts that year. One of those payments went to the same property where Crombie was staying. The sources described the purpose of this trip as "opposition research" that amounted to spying on her. Part of that money came from the per-vote subsidy, meaning taxpayers helped foot the bill.

When the story broke, Premier Ford said he only learned about it the day before. He does not approve of it, he said. It was party money, he emphasized. Then he shrugged. “It's politics.” The media follow him on trips all the time, he noted. Stuff happens during elections.

That response is revealing. Not because it is shocking, but because it is so familiar. The dollar amount is treated as the main defence, but that's clearly not the issue with this incident.

Opposition research is not new. Parties dig into voting records, past statements, business dealings, and public comments. That is expected. Following a newly elected party leader to another country while she is on a private vacation is different. It treats the personal as fair game. It assumes that if you are in politics, you have forfeited ordinary boundaries around privacy.

Ford has not always been so casual about those boundaries. When protesters showed up near his home, he told them to take their cartwheels and complaints to Queen's Park. Privacy mattered then, but when the target is his political opponent, the standard appears to shift.

We have seen a version of this toxic culture up close. At Ford Fest earlier this year, people associated with the event harassed female volunteers and directed homophobic and ableist abuse toward our editor while he was wearing a Pride Ontario PC shirt. OPP officers nearby did little, and Premier Ford later insisted to him that the worst actors were not real volunteers, and that his party would never tolerate this thuggish behaviour. After the Jamaica story, that distinction feels less comforting. Aggressive targeting of opponents, and a willingness to look the other way until forced to respond, do not appear limited to one bad afternoon.

The Jamaica operation was not a rogue act by some junior staffer operating in secret. It was paid for, recorded in the party's financial statements, and carried out with enough organization to put someone on the ground at the right resort at the right time. Ford says he did not know. That may be true, but it does not resolve the larger question; what kind of political operation finds this acceptable in the first place?

There are practical questions that still have no answers. Who authorized the trip? What information was collected? Was similar monitoring used during the 2025 campaign? Has anything like it continued as Crombie campaigns for mayor of Mississauga, a race Ford has made no secret of wanting her to lose? These are the logical next questions after a party pays to watch an opponent on vacation.

The PC's will say this is overblown; three thousand dollars is not a lot of money in politics. Every party does opposition research. Media follows politicians constantly. All of that can be true and still miss the point. The issue is not the size of the cheque. It is the decision that a private trip by a political opponent was worth party resources and the quiet acceptance that followed.

Political competition in Ontario has always been a contact sport, but there is a difference between scrutinizing a record and treating someone's personal life as an intelligence target. Crossing that line makes a party look thuggish and willing to erode norms it would never accept if the roles were reversed.

Bonnie Crombie is owed a clear public apology, and the people who authorized the operation should be identified and subsequently blacklisted from working in politics. But an apology is no longer enough.

When a premier's party funds the surveillance of a political opponent on a private overseas trip, and his response is to shrug and make it about how hard done by he is, the standard has been lowered past the point of repair. Doug Ford has repeatedly shown he is comfortable with this kind of conduct under his watch.

The Provincial Times Editorial Board calls on Doug Ford to resign immediately.

This piece was written and published by The Provincial Times Editorial Board and reflects the editorial position of The Provincial Times. Read our Content Policy here.