The Ford government has announced it is planning to dramatically increase individual donation limits for political parties in Ontario, scrap fixed-term election dates and allow governments to sit for five years in a potentially massive overhaul.
The sweeping changes to how elections will work in the province were announced through a news release by the provincial government on Monday afternoon, without either a technical briefing or a news conference.
In a statement, Attorney General Doug Downey claimed fixed election dates were “American-style” and said new rules would allow the province to be more flexible in the face of trade wars.
“With these reforms, governments will be better positioned to respond to changing circumstances and external threats, including by seeking a fresh mandate from the people of Ontario when it’s needed,” he said in a statement.
Replacing fixed terms would allow the premier to call an early election, as Ford did in February 2025, or sit for a full five years.
Before the new rules were proposed, Ontario was next due to go to the polls in 2029. If Ford were to choose to use the full five years available to him under the new plan, he could remain premier until 2030 before he had to call a province-wide ballot.
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The proposed changes will be tabled in the coming weeks and, if passed, will be in force “effective immediately.”
Ontario’s fixed election dates were enacted about 20 years ago by then-premier Dalton McGuinty.
Other major changes to how election campaigns and donations are regulated were announced at the same time.
- The limit on individual annual donations to a political party will be increased by almost 50 per cent from $3,400 to $5,000 beginning in 2026. The increase would then be indexed to inflation.
- The per-vote subsidy, which gives public money to political parties based on how many votes they receive, would be made permanent, rather than needing to be regularly extended.
- Strict spending limits on third-party advocacy groups — for example, unions — and political parties would be eliminated.
- Tighten the rules around third-party advertising registration and give Ontario’s chief electoral officer more investigative powers to deal with bad actors.
The province said it is also considering banning political advertising on government property, which would include billboards and transit stations.
The changes were not part of the Progressive Conservatives’ platform to fight against tariffs during the 2025 snap election, which they won in February.
Duff Conacher, the co-founder of Democracy Watch, said if the changes pass, they would continue a pattern of more money entering provincial politics.
“If the proposed hike goes through, Doug Ford’s government will have tripled Ontario’s political donation limit since 2018, creating an unethical, undemocratic pay-to-play, cash-for-access system that allows rich donors to buy even more influence over parties, politicians, government policies and decisions,” he said in a statement.
“The Ford PC Party’s proposal to end fix election dates and remove all limits on pre-election spending by political parties and lobby groups will make Ontario government policy-making processes and elections more unfair, unethical and undemocratic and driven by wealthy interests.”
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