Iran is massacring its people to crush dissent. Inflation has a grip on the middle-class checkbook. Essential medical tech remains unfunded by OHIP. The Premier of Ontario wants a private luxury jet.

No, this isn’t a 2026 fever dream under Doug Ford. It’s 1981 under then-premier Bill Davis. The more things change, the more the Big Blue Machine stays the same.

The Queen’s Park bubble is a vacuum-sealed fortress. When a Premier wants a shiny new toy, the Premier gets it – regardless of the era, or premier. Only during a generational affordability crisis or stagflation of the early 80s could a PC government, ostensibly elected to end gravy trains, try to justify a flying leather-bound sky-palace. Most Ontarians are sweating the price of gas at the pump while the Premier is eyeing premium jet fuel at 30,000 feet.

Does the in-flight service come with gravy in silver boats, or do we provide our own?

Doug Ford handing the opposition a Gravy Plane on a silver platter is political malpractice. He built his brand on the Gravy Train – a populist hero for the little guy. But if a gravy train runs on steam, a gravy plane runs on high-octane hypocrisy. He’s tarnished his fiscal conservative credentials like a tarnished gravy boat at the back of the cupboard.

Blue-collar workers and families in the gig and hustle economy are watching this self-sabotage and asking a simple question: Why? Students are drowning as OSAP gets the shears, yet the government found almost $30 million for a luxury jet? If the Premier needs the wings, he should have the spine to sell it. Don’t foist it upon us like a shady door-to-door salesman ringing the bell during dinner.

Is this a classic Overton Window play to make a cheaper lease, rental contract, or charter flights look like wins after a feigned mea-culpa sale? These shell games don’t make you look clever; they make you look weak. This lack of transparency is a feature, not a bug. The Gravy Plane arrived just as the government moved to bypass public hearings on FOI clampdowns, shielding cellphone logs and stifling debate.

Who will be on this plane, where will it go, and why don’t they want us to see the manifest?

The 48-hour panic reversal didn’t save a dime; it revealed a fatal, flailing lack of conviction. Bullies retreat when you punch them in the mouth. Ford was punched, and he blinked. But the Premier didn’t just flinch because of a bruised news cycle – he blinked because the data shows his Big Blue Machine is stalling out on the runway.

With the PCs sliding to 39% in recent polls and the Liberals breathing down their necks in the 905, this $30-million luxury flip-flop was a desperate attempt to stop a systemic bleed. It raises a darker, more cynical question: was this purchase (or sale) ever about governance, or was it a panicked effort to manufacture a fiscal inflection point against the new NDP leadership? By floating – then folding – a gravy plane, Ford tried to bait a socialist foil into a spending debate, only to realize he’s the one holding the check for a party no one wants to attend.

If the Premier is willing to incinerate $6 million to $7 million in depreciation and transaction fees just to survive a 24-hour news cycle, taxpayers should be livid. That is Two Lists money – the 1981 backlog of unfunded wheelchairs, hearing aids, and healthcare gaps that was highlighted when the then-government tried to buy a jet the first time. Since this was a partisan panic, the PC party should be the one picking up the tab, not the people of Ontario.

Here is the cynical, uncomfortable truth: I’m not actually arguing against the jet. Ontario is an economic and geographic titan – 1.5 times the size of Texas and the engine room of the Federation. When the Premier flies to D.C. to stare down Trump tariffs, or to friendly states to rally Gubernatorial support, he shouldn’t be flying standby on a commercial puddle-jumper. Our reflexive, petty opposition to nice things is why 24 Sussex is a rotting ruin. We look down on ourselves in this country, and it shows. I can accept that the leader of a jurisdiction this size deserves a jet.

Let’s call this what it is: a $30-million insecurity complex. With the 2026 FIFA World Cup looming months away on the horizon and both elected and unelected global power brokers descending on North America for the games in Canada, the USA, & Mexico, the Premier is terrified of looking like the provincial cousin at the adult table. He doesn’t want a functional transport; he wants a status symbol so he can play cool kid when the world arrives in Toronto, Vancouver, and the other hosting cities across the continent.

Own the jet. Fix the roads. And for heaven’s sake, fund the Two-Lists.

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Kvetch with Jon Liedtke is a podcast of all of my radio interviews, reporting, commentary, media interviews, and more!