The province is involved in thousands of lawsuits each year, with taxpayers footing the legal bills.
One of the costliest lawsuits was when Ford spent $30 million to fight the feds on carbon pricing. It was eventually heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled six to three in favour of the feds.
Ontario also spent $4.5 million trying to defend Bill 124, which limited salary increases for public servants, nurses and teachers. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled it was unconstitutional.
Ford also fought to keep the government’s 2018 mandate letters from the public’s eye. The letters are routinely made public by all levels of government. That took 1,672 hours of lawyers’ work. That’s like one person working full time for 10 months.
Last year, Ford said his government was elected “to get like-minded people in appointments” as judges. The PCs appointed two former staffers to the committee that selects judges to prioritize “tough-on-crime” candidates.
The government also began collecting data on bails set by judges after suggesting that “some…continuously give people bail.” Ford threatened they would “be held accountable for the decisions they make.”
Ford criticized the bail conditions given to Umair Zamir in 2021 and implied Zamir was guilty before the trial even started. Zamir was found not guilty after being charged with first-degree murder of a plainclothes police officer.
Several law organizations and societies have criticized Ford for politicizing the judicial system, saying he is setting a dangerous precedent and eroding the public’s trust.
Advocates’ Society president Dominique Hussey reminded Ford in a letter that judges’ role is to apply the law to the facts, not government policies based on how “soft” or “tough” on crime they are.
This article appeared in the 2025 Feb issue.
