Ford says he'll trigger an election and wants 'largest mandate in Ontario's history'

Alright everyone, we're going to wrap our live updates for today – barring major breaking news, of course. Thanks for reading along.

We'll have plenty more Ontario election coverage coming soon.

If you have questions for us, please email: Ask@cbc.ca or email TOnews@cbc.ca if you have a story tip.

The election is a way for Ford to distract from the RCMP’s criminal investigation into his government, NDP Leader Marit Stiles said in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Launched in October 2023, the investigation concerns the provincial government’s shuttered plan to open up protected Greenbelt land for development.

Stiles also addressed Ford’s repeated remarks that he needs a mandate to "fight for jobs in Ontario."

"You are the premier of this province. It is your mandate every single day to fight for the jobs of working people in this province," she said.

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, a Toronto MP who ran to lead the Ontario Liberals but lost to Crombie, suggested Ford’s election call is driven by self-interest.

He did, however, give Ford props for going on American television to speak out against proposed tariffs.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie has responded to Ford’s election call, describing it as a "very self-interested and self-vested move" in a video post on X, formerly Twitter.

"The election shows us that the only job he’s interested in protecting is his own," Crombie said.

She said Ford is creating chaos and compared him to a showman rather than a leader.

"You just can’t slap a label on a hat and pretend you have a plan to deal with a threat such as 25 per cent tariffs on products south of the border," she said.

The Green Party has a statement out slamming Ford’s early election call.

Ford "cares more about saving his own job than he does about bringing costs down or making your life better," the statement says.

"All the things that a provincial government should do – build affordable homes, make sure we have doctors and nurses, safe schools – Doug Ford has walked away from, putting profits before people."

The Greens have two seats in the legislature, in Kitchener and Guelph. The Greens confirmed Matt Richter will be running again in Parry Sound—Muskoka, after narrowly losing to the PC's Graydon Smith in 2022.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie has called on the government to rip up its $100 million contract with Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet company.

"If he were serious about standing up to Trump, he would cancel his sweetheart deal with Elon Musk," Crombie said in a news release earlier this week.

(If you haven’t been following U.S. politics, Musk has fashioned himself as Trump’s right-hand man.)

Ford fired back at Crombie during his remarks. "I find it ironic coming from Bonnie Crombie (who’s) using Elon Musk’s social media on Twitter, using it every single day," he said.

Ford then defended the contract, saying there was a transparent bidding process and that it's part of the government’s plan to get everyone in the province high-speed internet.

We’ll see if this story develops.

Your friend at Queen's Park brings you everything you probably want to know about the upcoming election in the video above. As someone who has spent literally hours talking politics with Shawn, I promise you he knows his stuff and can explain some complex issues in a way you'll understand.

If you've got questions he doesn’t answer, email us at: Ask@cbc.ca and we’ll see what we can do.

Ford referenced a previous run-in with Trump during his news conference, one that dates back to the COVID-19 pandemic, when the U.S. attempted to block shipments of N95 masks out of the country.

"President Trump refused to give us the N95 masks. We built up our own N95 masks, we built up our own supply chain," Ford said, before going on to urge the federal government to approve more oil pipelines.

"We have to look inside Canada. We need to make sure that we don’t depend on the U.S."

Whew, give us a moment to digest all of that — we truly talked about everything from Elon Musk’s satellites to the proposed Highway 401 tunnel.

We’ll be updating this story as the dust settles, so please check back.

"The choice that people are going to have for the next 30 days will affect every aspect of their lives, and their kids’ lives, and their grandchildrens' lives for the next 20 to 30 years," Ford said,

"We need the largest mandate in Ontario’s history to move this province forward.”