Despite personal boost in 2025, Ford government’s performance remains among the worst in the country
Sept. 12, 2025 – Premier Doug Ford’s bombast may be paying dividends for his personal approval, which is elevated in 2025 over where it was the two years prior, but pouring out Crown Royal bottles and acting as one of the de facto faces for the country in the tariff conflict with the United States has not convinced Ontario residents that his government is necessarily performing any better now than it has been in years prior.
New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds Ontario remaining near the bottom of the list on the Government Performance Index, which is a weighted average of the number of residents saying their government is doing a good job on a host of files.
Compounding problems for the Progressive Conservative government is that those issues most criticized are the most important in the province. On the cost of living, health care, and housing affordability, all chosen at higher levels than any other issues by Ontarians, three-quarters say the government is performing poorly.
The bad news, however, comes alongside some good news. Though his party will not need to seek re-election in the near term, winning a majority in February of this year, the PCPO holds a 20-point advantage over the second place Ontario Liberals.
INDEX
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Views of premier and opposition leader
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Government Performance Index
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Government performance trend
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Right track or wrong track?
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Top issues
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Performance on top issues
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Vote intention update
Views of premier and opposition leader
Ontario Premier Doug Ford continues to operate as a key figure in the tariff conflict with the United States. After the makers of Crown Royal announced they was relocating jobs from Ontario to the U.S., Ford was shown dumping out a bottle of the whiskey. The province’s economy is suffering from the tariffs, losing 38,000 jobs in the second quarter of 2025. Unemployment is also higher than it has been since 2012, excluding the pandemic. Ford’s government has been criticized for slow implementation of the “Protect Ontario Account” designed to help companies hit by tariffs. Ford’s personal approval has remained elevated from 2023 and 2024 levels.
Opposition leader Marit Stiles has criticized Ford’s response to job losses in the province and cuts to education, but continues to suffer from a lack of awareness with in the public. One-in-three (36%) Ontarians have no view of the Ontario NDP leader who led the party into this year’s election, while three-in-10 (29%) view her positively:
Government Performance Index
The Angus Reid Institute’s Government Performance Index is a weighted average of the positive responses across all of the issues discussed in the survey. That is, more important issues are weighted more heavily than less important ones. For the full list of issues, see detailed tables. Using this weighted average, none of the provinces are performing particularly well. Consider that in March 2025 the Canadian average was eight points higher. In Ontario, despite Premier Ford’s personal rebound in approval, the government remains near the bottom of the list in terms of satisfaction with performance on these files:
Government performance trend
The Ford government has been at or near the bottom in government performance for much of the last three years. Despite this, the Progressive Conservatives were able to win a majority mandate in February amid the public focus on Trump-tariff chaos that characterized the first half of this year. The PC’s along with many other provincial governments received a boost in satisfaction from residents in the first quarter of 2025, as many rallied around their leaders. Since then, the trend has been downward in on the GPI:
Right track or wrong track?
Ontario residents are among the most likely in the nation to say their province is on the wrong track. A full majority say this (53%), only surpassed by Quebec (56%). One-quarter feel the province is on the right track (27%):
Top issues
The top issues facing Ontario residents continue to hold steady – the cost of living and health care. These two items are chosen at a far higher level than any others, though housing affordability, crime, and the economy, make up a secondary suite of priorities:
As one might expect, priorities range across generations. Those most likely to be concerned about housing affordability and jobs are 18- to 34-year-olds, while health care (a preoccupation across all groups) is highest among those in the 55-plus bracket. The cost of living is the only issue wherein a majority of all ages agree:
Performance on top issues
In terms of the output they receive from the Ontario government, residents are overwhelmingly dissatisfied. At least three-in-five say that they government is performing poorly on all five of the top issues in the province. This jumps to three-quarters for each of the top three issues:
Vote intention update
The political picture in Ontario looks similar to the way it has for several years. Ford’s PC’s hold a comfortable advantage in vote intention, while the two parties that trail it, the Liberals and New Democrats, are unable to rally Ontarians as a credible alternative. The Ontario Liberals do not surpass 32 per cent in any region and the Ontario New Democrats top out at 31 per cent:
Survey Methodology:
The Angus Reid Institute conducted an online survey from Aug. 28 to Sept. 5, 2025, among a randomized sample of 4,330 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum. The sample was weighted to be representative of adults nationwide according to region, gender, age, household income, and education, based on the Canadian census. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding. The survey was self-commissioned and paid for by ARI.
For more information on our polling methods, click here.
For detailed results by age, gender, region, education, and other demographics, click here.
For PDF of full release, click here.
For the questionnaire, click here.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Shachi Kurl, President: 604.908.1693 shachi.kurl@angusreid.org @shachikurl
Dave Korzinski, Research Director: 250.899.0821 dave.korzinski@angusreid.org
Jon Roe, Research Associate: 825.437.1147 jon.roe@angusreid.org