Back in February, I launched a policy survey on my website asking people how they feel about Ontario’s direction, what issues matter most, and where they would make tradeoffs across housing, infrastructure, healthcare, energy, education, public safety, and provincial governance.
Now that more than 500 people have filled it out, I wanted to share some results.
This is not a scientific poll. It is a self-selected survey of people who follow my work or are politically engaged enough to answer a fairly detailed questionnaire. So I would not pretend it represents the province as a whole.
But it does say something about the people engaging with my campaign. They are frustrated by the status quo, worried about affordability, impatient with institutional failure, and open to a more muscular provincial government where the current system is clearly not working. You’ll find that reflected in my platform when the real campaign starts.
Ontario’s mood is bleak
The basic mood was not surprising. People do not think Ontario is heading in the right direction.
On cost of living, 92% said Ontario is on the wrong track. On housing and healthcare, 89% said the same. Transportation was 80%. Education was 79%. Infrastructure was 69%.
That is a brutal report card.
Healthcare was the most commonly listed top-three issue, at 66%. Housing followed at 61%, and cost of living at 57%.
But housing was the issue most likely to be ranked first. That is not entirely surprising given my background in housing advocacy.
People who follow my work know this has been one of my core issues for years, and I intend to compete hard on it. Ontario does not need another vague promise to “build more homes.” It needs a serious plan to change the rules, fix the incentives, and restore the dream of owning a home to families under 30.
Housing: People want the province to step in
The clearest housing result was about authority. When asked who should have final say over housing supply, 61% said the province should be able to override municipalities to increase housing supply, even if it reduces local control. Only 26% said municipalities should retain final authority, even if that limits how much housing gets built.
People are often told local control is the democratic position. But at some point, local control becomes local paralysis. If every neighbourhood, every council, and every process can say no, the system as a whole cannot say yes.
Respondents were more divided on whether reforms should be provincewide, or focus on the GTHA and Ottawa. My read is that people want to see the issue fixed where it is most pressing, and that Toronto in particular has been shirking its responsibilities to govern itself effectively given the enormous impact its failures have on the rest of the province. For what it’s worth, I think we will need a bit of both: province-wide reforms but specific province-led agendas for the GTHA and Ottawa.
Infrastructure: Build, but fix the machine
Infrastructure produced the most interesting tension. Respondents were almost split on whether Ontario should keep building major projects despite high costs, or slow projects down to reassess costs and delivery models.
I understand both instincts. Ontario builds too slowly and too expensively. If we do not fix that, we will turn more and more public money into less and less public wealth. I recently produced a reel that spoke about this problem in public transit.
I get our cost problems are dire, but I still come down on the side of building. The alternative cannot be that every new government cancels what the last one started, spends years re-announcing a different plan, drives up costs through delay, and then wonders why nothing gets delivered. We are far too short on infrastructure, and we can’t get better at building it by not building it.
Where people were not divided was delivery capacity. Seventy-three per cent said Ontario should build permanent public institutions that deliver projects continuously, rather than continuing to rely on private consortiums. That does not mean people have turned against the private sector. It means the current model has lost credibility. Government cannot be a helpless buyer of mega-projects it does not know how to scope, challenge, or manage.
The other surprise was intercity transportation. 70% supported investing in high-speed rail connecting major cities to support long-term growth and reduce congestion. Only 23% preferred prioritizing highways and regional transit. That tells me there is a real appetite for ambition when it is tied to productivity and regional growth.
Energy and healthcare: Access and abundance beat scarcity
Energy may have been the clearest mandate. Large majorities supported the province owning the capital costs of baseload power, making clean alternatives cheaper rather than simply making fossil fuels more expensive, and planning long-term for nuclear and hydro.
That is a coherent view. People want decarbonization, but not scarcity politics. They want clean power that is abundant, reliable, and affordable. The winning climate politics is not making dirty things expensive and hoping people change. It is making clean things cheap enough that people choose them.
Healthcare showed the same bias toward capacity. Respondents strongly preferred simplifying rules and paperwork, investing in technology and diagnostics, and expanding doctors and nurses, even if costs rise as access improves.
They also strongly supported pairing emergency rooms with 24-hour urgent care, and expanding training and licensing capacity for healthcare workers.
That tells me people are tired of managed scarcity. They do not want a more elaborate system for rationing access. They want access, even if it means more costs. I share that inclination, especially with horror stories among friends and family in seeing specialists or having very big challenges diagnosed many months after their symptoms started. Medical horror stories are hitting closer to home for far too many Ontarians today.
Education, skills, and public safety: Accountability is needed
Education showed a clear appetite for standards. A majority wanted measurable outcomes and stronger system accountability, even if it reduces local school board flexibility. There was even stronger support for expanding trades, skills programs, and credential pathways tied to labour market needs.
I agree with that direction, with one caveat. Education cannot only be workforce preparation. There is still value in generalist education, liberal arts, civic knowledge, and forming people who can think beyond the immediate needs of the labour market. I ultimately believe this will make better workers and better citizens in the long run. This is one of the many reasons why I support making OSAP loan debt for tuition forgivable for students who choose Ontario post-graduation to work and live.
Public safety surprised me. Sixty-seven per cent preferred strengthening bail rules, court capacity, and secure treatment options to prioritize public safety and system reliability. When I wrote this question, I was anticipating a more split response.
That does not mean people have abandoned compassion. It means my audience is frustrated with disorder, repeat offenders, unsafe public spaces, and systems that feel unreliable to ordinary citizens. I personally believe that dignity cannot look like neglect, as it does today. We must sometimes help people even if they say they don’t want it.
The bigger lesson: Competent ambition
The province-municipal relationship was more unsettled. Respondents were split on whether more public sector jobs should move to northern and rural communities, and similarly divided on whether the province should take back more responsibility for funding and delivering municipal services.
That captures the mess we are in. Municipalities are responsible for a lot, but do not have the right revenue tools. The province has more fiscal capacity, but often downloads responsibilities or micromanages from a distance. Everyone is responsible enough to blame someone else, but not always responsible enough to fix the problem.
Taken together, the message is pretty clear: people are not asking for small politics.
They are worried about affordability, but they understand affordability is not only about cheques and rebates. It is whether we build enough homes. Whether healthcare access exists in practice. Whether power is cheap and abundant. Whether infrastructure gets delivered. Whether schools produce real outcomes. Whether public spaces feel safe.
Respondents were not anti-government. In many cases, they wanted the province to do more. But they were not asking for government as bureaucracy. They were asking for government as builder, planner, standard-setter, and problem-solver.
Ontario does not need performative austerity or blank-cheque progressivism. It needs a government that can build, measure, reform, and deliver.
People are tired of being told decline is complicated. They know it is complicated. They also know other places manage to build homes, trains, hospitals, schools, power plants, and functioning public systems.
Ontario should be one of those places again. That’s what this campaign is about.
The survey is still open! I'd still love to hear what you think. You can fill it out here.
