Ontarians are also watching Ford closely to make sure he doesn’t take his eye off the ball when it comes to other critical issues. Pictured: Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Photo Credit: Doug Ford/X. 

After a cold and snow-filled election, Ontario Premier Doug Ford emerged as the victor, although he did not make the electoral gains he had hoped for. He was given the third mandate he desired to lead Ontarians through a difficult time marked by a trade war and a fracturing relationship with the United States. However, Ontarians are also watching him closely to make sure he doesn’t take his eye off the ball when it comes to other critical issues. 

Tariffs are not the only government policies set to harm Ontario consumers in the days, months, and years of this renewed majority government. Interprovincial trade, housing, alcohol policy, and broadband internet are all topics that are important to Ontarians and must be addressed. 

Canada’s premiers have long put interprovincial trade on the backburner, seeing it as something that was nice in theory but too difficult to achieve in practice. They wasted an enormous amount of time not making it a reality for the good of Canadian consumers and as an escape hatch in case of economic disaster like the one Canadians are now facing in a Canada-United States trade war. The lack of interprovincial free trade is costing consumers immensely, already by robbing our economy of more than $200 billion a year. Other premiers need to follow Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston’s lead immediately and introduce reciprocal domestic trade legislation. Ford has indicated he plans to do just that, but he should make it an early priority for his new government. 

In addition to interprovincial trade, Ford should set to work coordinating with the federal government to ensure Ontario diversifies its economy by building trade relationships with countries other than the United States. Consumers benefit when they have more economic choice, and this will allow for items to be exported and imported at a lower cost with much more stable and predictable partners. 

Ontarians feeling the financial pinch are more than likely also struggling to buy a home. The election was full of ideas and promises when it comes to housing, with the most prominent being rent control from Marit Stiles, the leader of Ontario’s NDP. Economists have long argued that rent control is actually very bad for low-income people looking for housing. However, even though Ford has peeled back this bad policy, the housing crisis persists. 

There is a housing crisis because there are not enough units to house people. And there are not enough units to house people because of outdated red-tape from the federal, provincial, and municipal governments. The Ford government is falling short of its own housing targets. Ford can take ownership of the slowdown experienced at the provincial level and work with his federal and municipal colleagues to make it easier and more attractive for builders to build. Ford has announced billions of dollars in new spending on housing and other projects, but this will turn out to be meaningless if developers are stuck in red tape. 

On the alcohol front, Ford has done more than any other premier in Ontario history to liberalize alcohol sales, but there is more to be done that will benefit both Ontario consumers and small and medium-sized businesses. The LCBO remains the only retail store that can sell spirits. Ontarians looking to buy whisky, vodka, or gin from their grocery or convenience stores are out of luck. Why liberalize alcohol and get stuck on this very simple detail? If wine can be sold in grocery stores, so too should vodka. The LCBO should be given less power, not niche areas of control. 

Ford should also promise not to build any more LCBO retail spaces, and indeed close retail stores that are no longer needed due to the amount of convenience and grocery stores surrounding it, and save the Ontario consumer money on retail rent and on running an inefficient operation. If you compare the LCBO’s operations to comparable private retailers in Alberta, it costs the LCBO approximately $1,000,000 more per store in operation costs. With 669 LCBO stores being inefficiently run in Ontario, that’s a lot of wasted money the government could otherwise spend on Ontarians’ core priorities, making the problem even worse simply doesn’t make financial sense. 

Finally, Ford has, under pressure, ripped up the contract Ontario had with Starlink. While perhaps understandable given the current trade dispute, the bad news is that Starlink was supposed to provide desperately needed high-speed internet access to 15,000 homes and businesses in rural and remote communities by June 2025. Now that this contract is cancelled, and assuming the relationship between the province and Elon Musk’s company is now strained, Ford must put significant effort into finding alternative companies to take on that project. It is outrageous that rural Ontarians do not have access to reliable internet when the economy and their lives rely on being online. Businesses in rural Ontario are also struggling to succeed in a modern economy without access to the internet, and the lifeline they thought was coming is now no longer an option. Businesses that are already in rural areas are struggling, and businesses who many want to start in rural areas will be scared away. This will only depress the local economy and isolate rural communities even further from the rest of the province.

Ford would do well to keep in mind that Ontario is a complex province with many problems to be addressed, even during a trade war and in its aftermath. Ontarians elected him to guide them through this turbulent time, but also to strengthen the economy, make their lives more consumer-friendly, and support the growth of businesses in the province. While much of the present focus is on the trade war, Ontarians still have many other pressing issues that need to be dealt with.

Originally published here