As dozens of wildfires burn through Northern Ontario, forcing 13 First Nation communities to evacuate and people across the province and even the US to breathe toxic air, Doug Ford is busy facing multiple spending scandals.

Several communities fleeing the fires received no advanced warning or assistance from government agencies, and had to evacuate on their own. The image of teens in a small motor boat on the waters of Namaygoosisagagun First Nation while the forest behind them burned is indelible and tells the story.

Meanwhile Ford, the self-proclaimed anti-corruption crusader, is focused now on dousing the metaphorical fires threatening he and his MPPs instead of the actual fires.

MPP Stan Cho has already resigned from cabinet, but not the Conservative party, after getting caught billing taxpayers $16,000+ for hotels in Toronto a 20-minute drive from his home. First, he pledged to pay back some of the money, then, when backlash ensued, all of it. Then, he resigned from cabinet. On his way out, he falsely claimed the hotels were for evenings when legislature ran late, but people checked, and he billed for hotels in December, when the legislature was closed. Making things worse, Cho had access to a car and driver all this time.

Cho, Ford’s Minister of Culture until just a few days ago, represents Ford’s ongoing culture of corruption.  

It’s emerged that no less than 20 Doug Ford MPPs have billed taxpayers for hotel rooms, racking up a bill of $100,000+. The situation is so flagrant that instead of calling it a hoax and blaming the media and opposition parties, Ford has taken the rare, drastic step of apologizing. Ford called this “unacceptable,” but no MPPs have resigned. Even Cho himself is very much still in his caucus. Not a single Liberal or NDP MPP has billed taxpayers for even one night’s stay at a hotel.

The Conservatives exploited a rule allowing MPPs to bill for accommodations in the event of emergency—say, a major storm making travel difficult or impossible. Now, doth protesting too much, Ford is altogether eliminating a reasonable law, which nobody else used as a loophole except his MPPs.

And that’s not all!

Brampton MPP Hardeep Grewal is under fire now not just for billing taxpayers for hotel stays, but for using constituency funds to buy ads in a newspaper owned by his father. Basically, any voter can donate to a political party of their choosing and get a tax credit for 75% of what they donated: If you donate $100 to a party, you get $75 back in tax relief, so you’re really only parting with $25. Grewal is being investigated now for, basically, funneling conservative donor money, paid by taxpayers to the tune of 75%, to his family.

Meanwhile, Ontario is burning. There are over 200 wildfires, displacing nearly 2,000 people in 13 communities so far. The AQI is soaring in Northern Ontario, Southern Ontario, and even down to the US, with Donald Trump using the poisoned air as a new pretext to raise tariffs against Canada. The wildfire smoke has caused the sky to look downright dystopian, like scenes from Bladerunner or Dune. It’s been impossible not to see and smell the crisis.

Doug Ford is preoccupied with financial scandals while he and his MPPs are on extended summer holiday, his summer lasting from June 2-October 27.

Frankly, I can think of several ongoing Doug Ford scandals worse than the hotel spending, such as Ford trying to spend about $30 million on a private jet after defunding water bombers and fire prevention in Northern Ontario since 2018. Basically, he’s cut Northern Ontario wildfire prevention and spent that money on his own luxury air travel.

After immediate backlash, Ford claimed to have sold the jet back. As recently as yesterday, July 20, he lied about incurring the nearly $200,000 in non-refundable charges and legal fees for the jet, falsely claiming there were no expenses. Also just yesterday, the “Gravy Plane” was chartered on a flight to the UK, exactly where Ford Minister Vic Fedeli was attending an airshow. It appears they may be still using it, even after getting caught.

Speaking of jets, Ford is trying to push an ultra-expensive cockamanie scheme to force jets onto Toronto’s small waterfront airport, threatening existing housing developments and plans for new ones, all in a way that would dump car congestion, air pollution and noise pollution into the city’s downtown core.

Doug Ford’s government is currently being investigated by the Integrity Commissioner for using the Skills Development Fund as a slush fund while the RCMP’s criminal investigation into the Greenbelt corruption is ongoing. It doesn’t seem like it’ll end soon, if it even begun.

But sometimes it’s the smaller, pettier scandals that stick in the craw more, as the considerable backlash to the hotel scandals shows. At the very least, that Ford’s focus is being divided at such a critical time by multiple spending scandals should outrage everybody.