LILLEY: Ford to be sworn in Wednesday with steady-as-she-goes cabinet

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Doug Ford will be sworn in as Premier of Ontario for the third time on Wednesday afternoon during a ceremony at the Royal Ontario Museum. In addition to taking the oath as premier, Ford will introduce a new cabinet, one designed to manage the one issue he ran on, protecting Ontario.

One thing you shouldn’t expect is much in the way of change, said one key Ford advisor.

“Well, I have to make sure I put the proper cabinet ministers in, based on the mandate we received from the people,” Ford said Tuesday at Queen’s Park.

“My role is to put the best ministers in that area to move forward with our agenda. I’m blessed, you know, I have the best caucus, best cabinet.”

There may be a few small changes but the main team will remain the same. Sylvia Jones as Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, Peter Bethlenfalvy as Minister of Finance, Paul Calandra as Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Doug Downey as Attorney General, and Vic Fedeli as Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.

One job Ford won’t be delegating is dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump and his tariffs.

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“I’ll be dealing with that directly, but it’s a multi-ministerial group that, no matter if it’s infrastructure we’re talking or anything in the auto sector, we have Vic Fedeli. So we’ll all be working together and going to continue working together,” Ford said.

Ford didn’t lose a single cabinet minister in the Feb. 27 election and while he didn’t increase his seat count from last vote, he did see a bump in the number of votes his party received compared to 2022, as well as taking more of the popular vote count. When the legislature reconvenes in mid-April, with a budget being tabled shortly thereafter, Ford will be firmly in charge of the agenda at Queen’s Park.

He will face an NDP opposition that received 185,000 fewer votes than in the 2022 election but still retained Official Opposition status. The Ontario Liberals, meanwhile, took in 1.5 million votes in this last election, compared to 1.2 million in 2022 — and even though they increased their seat count from eight to 14, the Grits remain the third party.

The NDP and Liberals will battle it out for relevancy at Queen’s Park based on how they try to hold the government to account. Right now, though, the only issue remains Donald Trump and the tariff threat from the United States.

That’s what Ford won on and that is what the looming federal election will be fought on.

Ford recently met with newly elected Liberal leader and Prime Minister Mark Carney when he stopped by Toronto. Some have taken Ford’s meeting with Carney as a tacit endorsement of the Liberal PM while Ford insists that he’s just meeting with Canada’s new PM.

At Queen’s Park, this drew questions from Global’s Colin D’Mello:

“Do you think you have a better relationship with Mark Carney or Pierre Poilievre?”

“I don’t know either one of them, to be very frank,” Ford replied.

“Who would you like to get to know better?” D’Mello asked in a follow-up.

“I’ll work with anyone. I don’t know either,” Ford replied.

The truth is, he doesn’t know either, but Ford has had breakfast with one and there is no known record of any meeting or phone call with the other.

We don’t expect much news or excitement out of Ford’s new cabinet on Wednesday, but look for a lot of interest in the relationship between Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill in the days to come.