Open this photo in gallery June 29, 2018: Doug Ford is sworn in as premier of Ontario during a ceremony at Queen's Park in Toronto. Mark Blinch/The Canadian Press

Last June, Doug Ford was officially sworn in as premier of Ontario after the Progressive Conservatives, riding a wave of populist anger at Kathleen Wynne’s government, wiped out the Liberals in the provincial election.

He promised radical changes to government spending, climate-change policy, hydro rates, education and more, and his first year in office definitely did that. But the rapid-fire changes created friction between the province and cities, the federal government and courts who debated whether some of Mr. Ford’s policies were constitutional. And at the end of a chaotic year, Mr. Ford dramatically shuffled his cabinet, putting the challenges of 2020 and beyond in new hands.

Over 12 months, Globe and Mail editors used this space to note the latest developments in Ontario politics and what it meant for you. Here’s a recap of what happened.

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Table of contents

Who’s who

Doug Ford had a few incarnations before becoming premier: Son of a Tory MPP, brother and right-hand man to controversial mayor Rob Ford, then a party leadership contender to replace Patrick Brown after he was ousted over sexual-assault allegations. After the change in government, Ontarians saw a lot of familiar faces in cabinet, including Tory veterans who ran against Mr. Ford for the party leadership, such as Christine Elliott, Caroline Mulroney and former interim leader Vic Fedeli.

Less than seven months after taking office, the Premier reshuffled that cabinet to deal with a wave of scandals at Queen’s Park. His economic development and trade minister, Jim Wilson, was accused of sexual assault and forced to resign, though the government initially said Mr. Wilson was stepping aside to seek addiction treatment. Mr. Ford’s corrections minister was also demoted after revelations that he and his law firm were embroiled in several lawsuits. But an even bigger shuffle was to come on June 20, when Mr. Ford’s government was floundering in the polls: Mr. Fedeli was demoted from Finance to Economic Development and Trade; Lisa MacLeod, under fire for her handling of autism policy (more on that below) was shuffled from Children, Community and Social Services to Tourism; and Ms. Mulroney and Lisa Thompson were bumped from the Attorney-General and Education Minister’s jobs, respectively, to Transportation and Government and Consumer Services.

More reading: Doug Ford and his people

Meet Dean French, the political unknown who has become an omnipresent force in Ford’s government

2014 Globe investigation: Doug Ford at Deco: The inside story

2018 campaign profile: Doug Ford’s art of the deal

The friends-of-Ford factor

When the Ford brothers were in municipal government, they surrounded themselves at City Hall with family friends and connections – men Rob Ford’s chief of staff, Mark Towhey, famously came to call the “night shift” – who advised them on matters big and small. The network of Ford hangers-on came under scrutiny again when one of Doug Ford’s close allies, Superintendent Ron Taverner, was initially chosen to be the new head of the Ontario Provincial Police, igniting controversy over how the job was advertised and how close a relationship Ontario’s top police chief can have with a premier.

Supt. Taverner, 72, was a mid-level Toronto police commander who oversaw the Fords’ home turf, Etobicoke. He became political allies and personal friends with the Fords in a common pursuit of tough-on-crime policies. Ordinarily a policeman at his level would not be able to apply for the OPP post, but the qualifications were changed two days after the job was posted, making him eligible. He also met Mr. Ford several times before the appointment and dined with the member of the hiring panel who would interview applicants at both rounds of the job competition. Amid controversy and a probe from the province’s Integrity Commissioner, Supt. Taverner eventually gave up his bid to be head of the OPP, and a new appointee, Thomas Carrique of York Regional Police, was announced on March 11. A week later, Integrity Commissioner David Wake ruled that the Premier didn’t break any rules by offering Supt. Taverner the job, but he said the recruitment process was "flawed” and recommended changes in how such appointments should be handled in future.

The OPP’s interim commissioner, Brad Blair, took legal action in December to force the provincial ombudsman to look into the Taverner appointment. In February, after Mr. Ford suggested Mr. Blair was breaking the Police Services Act by voicing his concerns, Mr. Blair’s lawyers threatened to sue him for defamation. And on March 4, Mr. Blair was fired: The Community Safety Minister said it was because he shared internal OPP documents in public court filings, but he said it was a reprisal for his legal action and he would fight the dismissal in court.

Ministers to watch: Sylvia Jones (Community Safety and Correctional Services)

MORE READING: THE TAVERNER AFFAIR

Investigation: The ties that bind Doug Ford and Mario Di Tommaso, the bureaucrat behind OPP personnel decisions

Alok Mukherjee: Is there something rotten in the OPP?

Editorial: Ron Taverner did the right thing by stepping aside

Carbon pricing and environment

Under the Wynne government, Ontario – Canada’s second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, after Alberta – joined with Quebec and California in a cap-and-trade market to bring emissions down. Mr. Ford scrapped cap and trade, replacing it in November with a plan called the Ontario Carbon Trust. That plan will pay $400-million over four years to big emitters to find ways to reduce their emissions, aiming to meet the targets of the 2015 Paris climate-change agreement by 2030.

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Mr. Ford called cap and trade a “government cash grab” and claimed its elimination would save families money and lower gas prices. That’s not what the province’s Financial Accountability Officer predicted would happen: The watchdog estimates the end of cap and trade will cost the province $3-billion in lost revenue over four years. It also put Mr. Ford on a collision course with the federal government, whose carbon framework requires each province to have either a tax or a cap-and-trade system that meets national standards, or else Ottawa will impose its own carbon price, which it did in Ontario starting on April 1. Mr. Ford opposes Ottawa’s right to do that, backing a legal challenge by the Saskatchewan government of Premier Scott Moe, but the two had little support from their counterparts in other provinces.

Mr. Ford also scrapped the Green Energy Act, a 2009 law to support renewable power, and scuttled several incentive programs that were designed to help Ontarians reduce their carbon footprints. Here are some of the changes that could affect you:

Scrapping the 19-year-old Drive Clean program for testing vehicle emissions, replacing it with a a system focusing on heavy-duty vehicles only.

Cancelling hundreds of renewable energy projects, complicating plans by municipalities, farmers and First Nations to develop small-scale electricity generation. Taxpayers could be on the hook for millions of dollars as owners invoke compensation clauses to recover money they’ve already spent.

Cancelling the GreenON rebate program, which helped homeowners install energy-efficient heat pumps, insulation or other features.

More reading: Emissions and environment

Canada’s carbon tax: A guide to who’s affected, who pays what and who opposes it

Ontario Environment Minister takes on ‘environmental sophisticates’ with new climate plan

Experts divided on effectiveness of carbon pricing

Hydro

Ontario’s high electricity rates were a divisive issue in the 2018 election, with the PCs and NDP promising big changes at Hydro One, which the Wynne Liberals partly privatized. During the campaign, Mr. Ford threatened to fire Hydro One’s CEO, Mayo Schmidt, and the whole board, and once in office, he threatened to tear up employment contracts at the utility. Mr. Schmidt announced his immediate retirement on July 11, and the entire board resigned. By The Globe and Mail’s estimates, Mr. Schmidt’s exit gave him about $8-million in compensation for stock awards, plus $1-million in bonuses and pension payments and a $400,000 payment announced by Hydro One. The utility also had to pay the 14 previous board members $4.9-million for their stock holdings.

The PC government also rejected Hydro One’s proposal to set a $2.775-million-a-year salary for a new CEO, instead capping it at $1.5-million. Mr. Ford also says he will bring hydro rates down with accounting changes and the return of Hydro One dividends to taxpayers, each of which would cost about $400-million.







MORE READING: THE POLITICS OF YOUR HYDRO BILL

Explainer: A guide to the ongoing corporate dispute with Hydro One

Power Outage: Inside the epic battle between Doug Ford and Hydro One

Explainer: Why does Ontario’s electricity cost so much?

Health care

Putting an end to “hallway medicine” in overcrowded hospitals was a common slogan for the PC government and its health minister, Christine Elliott. On Feb. 26, the province confirmed previously leaked plans to merge 20 agencies – 14 Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) and six specialized agencies running everything from cancer care to organ donation – into one super-group called Ontario Health. The six specialized agencies to be phased out were:

Cancer Care Ontario

Health Quality Ontario

eHealth Ontario

Trillium Gift of Life Network

Health Shared Services Ontario

HealthForce Ontario Marketing and Recruitment Agency

The plan also created “Ontario Health Teams” to integrate various types of care by family doctors, hospitals and community and mental-health services, but there was no clear timeline announced for when the health teams would rolled out.

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The province’s proposal to change the funding model for municipal units responsible for public health was met with opposition from Toronto officials, who claimed $1-billion in cuts over 10 years to their public-health budget would endanger front-line services. In May, Mr. Ford relented, cancelling this year’s retroactive cuts to health and social services while working with municipalities to reduce costs in 2020.

More reading: Health care in Ontario

Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott hits back at criticism, insists public health funding secure

Ontario will not have two-tier health care, minister says, but plans remain under wraps

Experts criticize Ontario proposal to overhaul health-care system, centralize patient care

Autism and disability care

Mr. Ford’s frosty relationship with autistic Ontarians started years before he came to Queen’s Park: In 2014, he provoked angry responses for saying a group home for developmentally disabled youth had “ruined” a west-end Toronto neighbourhood. But as premier, his government made crucial decisions about how disability services were to be funded across the province. In February, the government announced a new plan to give families of up to $140,000 for treatment of autistic children and teens between the ages of 2 and 18, with a goal of clearing a backlog of 23,000 children waiting for care. The changes meant more autistic children would end up in the regular school system on a full-time basis. While the province planned to give teachers more training to support those students, parents and educators were worried it wouldn’t be enough to help those with complex needs.

Building support for the new plan was an uphill battle, because it included a funding cap that advocacy groups said fell far short of what was needed. Children, Community and Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod was accused by one group, the Ontario Association for Behaviour Analysis, of telling them to expect “four long years” if they didn’t get on board with the new plan. Ms. MacLeod was reassigned as Tourism Minister in June’s cabinet shuffle, leaving the autism file to Todd Smith.

More reading: Autism in Ontario

Ontario to look into school exclusions of children with autism

After autism program overhauls, Ontario school boards ask province how they’ll manage without more support

Ontario government denies freezing wait list for autism treatment despite e-mails showing a ‘pause’

The social safety net

Aiming to remake Ontario’s social-assistance system, the PCs reduced planned increases in rates for two of the largest programs in Ontario’s social safety net, Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Supprt Program, which have a combined budget of $8.7-billion. Ms. Wynne’s Liberals had approved annual increases of 3 per cent over three years. The government also announced it would cancel Ontario’s basic income pilot project, which was meant to provide money to 4,000 low-income people in Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Lindsay for three years.

In the province’s first fiscal update on Nov. 14, the Ontario government promised a new tax cut for low-income workers making less than $30,000 a year, a variation of Mr. Ford’s promise to end income taxes to every worker making minimum wage. Called the Low-Income Individuals and Families Tax credit, or LIFT, the initiative would provide some 1.1 million workers up to $850 in personal income tax relief and $1,700 for couples, the government said, ensuring a single person who works full-time at minimum wage pays no personal income tax.

MORE READING: SOCIAL SERVICES

Ford government vows basic-income pilot will receive ‘lengthy runway’ before cancellation

Campbell Clark: It’s in everyone’s interests to finish Ontario’s basic income pilot project

Education

Mr. Ford’s cost-cutting and rollbacks of Wynne-era curriculum reforms triggered political confrontations with students and educators that were some of the most heated since the Mike Harris era. Thousands of students walked out of class on April 4 to oppose class-size increases in some elementary grades and high schools. As part of the overhaul, the province planned to cut more than 3,400 teaching jobs over four years. Education minister Lisa Thompson faced a year of souring relations with teachers before Mr. Ford ended up demoting her in June’s shuffle, giving the education portfolio to Stephen Lecce.

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Another big rollback came in sex education. The 2015 curriculum, which added topics like consent, digital safety and same-sex relationships, divided educators who said it was a necessary modernization from social conservatives who said it was age-inappropriate. Ms. Thompson said last summer that the 1998 sex-ed curriculum would come back into effect by the fall, but later she appeared to backtrack, saying consent, cyber safety and gender identity would still be taught. What the province ended up with was an interim curriculum that left many teachers confused about what they can and can’t teach. Mr. Ford threatened consequences against teachers who continued to use the 2015 curriculum, and even publicized a hotline to report teachers who did so. The teachers’ unions challenged the new curriculum in court, and while judges rejected their case in February, they also left teachers room to use their own judgment on sex-ed matters.

At the postsecondary level, Mr. Ford undid grants for low-income students that Ms. Wynne had billed as “free tuition” in 2016. The PCs also reversed changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program, made universities more dependent on employment and graduation rates for their funding and made ancillary student fees – such as those collected by student unions, clubs or campus newspapers – optional. The changes, combined with Mr. Ford’s threat to cut funding to schools that don’t adopt “free speech” policies to protect the right of controversial speakers, alarmed critics who feared it would hinder political advocacy on campus.

More reading: Education

The differences between Ontario’s interim sex-ed curriculum and 2015's

Fact or fiction: What was actually in Ontario’s contentious sex-ed curriculum?

French-language services

The Ford government faced a strong backlash from Franco-Ontarians in November, when it eliminated the French-language service commissioner’s job and cancelled plans for a new francophone university in Toronto. Advertised as cost-cutting, the measures drew criticism from Quebeckers, the Prime Minister and groups representing Ontario’s 600,000 francophone residents. The government backtracked by reviving the service commissioner’s job and moving it to the provincial ombudsman’s office, and restoring francophone affairs to a cabinet-level portfolio, held by Caroline Mulroney. Those changes didn’t mollify all the province’s critics, including the lone Progressive Conservative Franco-Ontarian at Queen’s Park, Amanda Simard, who quit the PC caucus in protest on Nov. 29.

More reading: Franco-Ontarian issues

Editorial: Cutting Ontario’s francophone office is a case of big offence, small savings

Konrad Yakabuski: Doug Ford owes Franco-Ontarians a better answer

Asylum seekers

For many asylum seekers crossing the U.S. border into Quebec and Manitoba, Toronto – which in 2017 affirmed its status as a sanctuary city – has become a crowded refuge. The rising number of mostly Nigerian asylum seekers strained the resources of the city’s shelters, and Toronto’s Mayor John Tory asked for more funding from Ottawa and Queen’s Park. Instead, last July, Mr. Ford withdrew provincial support for asylum-seeker resettlement, saying the federal government had created a problem they must fix themselves. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau questioned whether Mr. Ford was well-informed about Canada’s refugee situation and its obligations to asylum seekers under international law, and later told Mr. Tory that the federal government will support Toronto’s efforts to provide for refugees. “Canadians, we’re there for each other,” Mr. Trudeau said. Two weeks later, Mr. Trudeau created a new cabinet post to address migrant and asylum-seeker crossings, and chose Bill Blair, a former Toronto police chief, as Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction.

Here is a fact check on asylum seekers in Canada.

Growing numbers of refugee claimants in Toronto shelters Average per night 9,000 Non-refugee shelter users Refugee claimant shelter users Projected increase 8,000 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 2016 2017 2018 JOHN SOPINSKI/THE GLOBE AND MAIL SOURCE:toronto.ca; Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada; unhcr Growing numbers of refugee claimants in Toronto shelters Average per night 9,000 Non-refugee shelter users Refugee claimant shelter users Projected increase 8,000 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N 2016 2017 2018 JOHN SOPINSKI/THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:toronto.ca; Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada; unhcr Growing numbers of refugee claimants in Toronto shelters Average per night 9,000 Non-refugee shelter users Refugee claimant shelter users Projected increase 8,000 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N 2016 2017 2018 JOHN SOPINSKI/THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:toronto.ca; Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada; unhcr

More reading: Asylum in Canada

Doug Ford, Toronto Mayor John Tory meet to talk asylum seekers and gun violence

Conservative plan to get Trump to make a new deal muddies the waters around Canada’s asylum-seekers policy

Doug Saunders: There’s no migration crisis - the crisis is political opportunism

Crime and gun violence

Toronto is among the safest large cities in North America, though a rising number of deadly shootings last summer shook public confidence in that. Toronto’s mayor and police chief blame gang activity for the rise in violence, and the city is pressing the province to tighten bail conditions for people convicted of previous gun crimes. During the campaign, Mr. Ford also suggested bringing back the controversial Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS), a now-disbanded police task force that deployed rapid-response teams to neighbourhoods that had seen violent crimes, but also disproportionately targeted black and Indigenous men for street checks – better known as carding – and was accused of racial profiling.

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After a deadly mass shooting on the Danforth strip in the summer of 2018, Toronto City Council pressed Ottawa to ban the sale of handguns in the city, and asked Ontario to ban the sale of ammunition. But Mr. Ford opposes a handgun ban. Instead, he pledged $25-million in funding over four years for police and the court system, and ruled out new funding for community programs aimed at reducing violence.

More reading on guns and crime

Gun violence in Toronto: A primer on this summer’s shootings and how politicians are responding

As gun violence spikes, Toronto faces a reckoning on the root causes of tragedy

Spending and the bottom line

Mr. Ford ran for office vowing $6-billion in spending efficiencies, but also said he wouldn’t cut public-service jobs. Finance minister Vic Fedeli’s first budget on April 11 did slash spending for 16 out of 22 government departments, though not as deeply or quickly as many feared, and it also offered modest increases in health, transit and education spending. The current deficit is projected at $11-billion, and the PCs aim to run incrementally smaller deficits until balance is reached by 2023-24. But steering that fiscal plan is no longer Mr. Fedeli’s job: Mr. Ford replaced him with Rod Phillips in the June cabinet shuffle.

More reading: Ontario’s economy

Tim Kiladze: Despite Doug Ford’s vow to get Ontario’s books in order, this isn’t a Mike Harris budget

From child care to university funding, the key takeaways from the budget

Trade, Trump and Trudeau

Mr. Ford took office amid a bitter trade war between the United States, its NAFTA partners, Europe and China. Mr. Ford (who, like his predecessor, holds his cabinet’s Intergovernmental Affairs portfolio), said he would present a united front with the Trudeau government during the complex negotiations for a new North American free-trade deal. But when it came to punitive U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, and Canada’s retaliation in kind, Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Ford’s governments didn’t always see eye to eye: In February Mr. Ford’s Economic Development Minister publicly mused about Canada dropping its tariffs, which Ottawa refused to do, saying that would be a capitulation to Washington. By May, the two nations finally backed down on their respective tariffs.

The new trade deal reached last September, called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, effectively shielded Canada from future auto-industry tariffs, to the relief of Ontario manufacturers, but it also gave U.S. producers access to a percentage of Canada’s protected dairy market, a potential threat to Ontario dairy farmers.

Canadian trade with U.S. Imports/exports with U.S. as a % of provincial GDP in 2016 29 16% 31 33 39 23 13 49 14 50 THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TREVOR TOMBE; U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, BEA AND INDUSTRY CANADA Canadian trade with U.S. Imports/exports with U.S. as a % of provincial GDP in 2016 29 16% 31 33 39 23 13 49 14 50 THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TREVOR TOMBE; U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, BEA AND INDUSTRY CANADA Canadian trade with U.S. Imports/exports with U.S. as a % of provincial GDP in 2016 29 16% 31 33 39 23 13 49 14 50 THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TREVOR TOMBE; U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, BEA AND INDUSTRY CANADA

More reading: Trade and tariffs

NAFTA vs. USMCA: What we know so far about the new North American trade deal

NAFTA deal a heavy price for Canada’s dairy farmers

Municipal elections

Just months before the 2018 municipal elections, Mr. Ford’s government passed legislation to cut the number of Toronto city council positions from 47 to 25 – ward races for which candidates had already spent months fundraising and door-knocking. The Better Local Government Act also cancelled the elections of regional board chairs in Peel, York, Niagara and Muskoka. Mr. Ford, who served as a Toronto city councillor from 2010 until 2014, said the changes were meant to “dramatically improve the decision-making process” for local governments. While some suburban councillors – many of them former allies of Mr. Ford’s – supported the Premier’s plan, many others accused him of using his new role to settle old grudges.

Several council candidates joined forces for a lawsuit against the changes to the ward system. On Sept. 10, Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba struck down the legislation, but Mr. Ford defied him, saying he would use the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to slash the city council anyway. An appeal court overturned Justice Belobaba’s ruling, but the law’s fate won’t be completely settled until the full appeal is heard. In the end, Torontonians voted or a 25-member council, and returned John Tory to the mayoralty. Here’s a full list of who won.

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MORE READING: MUNICIPAL POLITICS

Explainer: What is the notwithstanding clause and how could Ford use it?

Marcus Gee: Doug Ford is challenging the rule of law itself

Transit and infrastructure

Mr. Ford – whose years in municipal government were spent extolling the virtues of subways, subways, subways – wanted Queen’s Park to take a more active role in how public transit is run in Toronto. His government moved ahead with a campaign promise to take over Toronto’s subway system. Contentious talks began between City Council and the province about how to manage the transition and what it means for long-awaited projects with growing price tags, such as the Scarborough subway extension, whose estimated cost of $3.9-billion is roughly double the projected cost from 2016.

Mr. Ford wanted major changes to Toronto’s planned downtown relief line, which he wanted to double in length, going as far southwest as Ontario Place and as far northeast as the Ontario Science Centre. That would put the relief line farther north of where the city had planned to build it. The 2019 budget pledged $11.2-billion in provincial money for four GTA rapid-transit projects, but it also rolled back some funding pledges for other municipalities.

The Ford government’s proposed new transit map

More reading: Ontario on the move

Doug Ford wants to take over Toronto’s subways. Would that work? A reality check

Doug Ford raises eyebrows with expensive subway plan that would link Toronto to nearby regions

Alcohol and cannabis

Mr. Ford’s rise to power coincided with Canada’s historic legalization of recreational cannabis – but while other provinces had at least a few bricks-and-mortar weed stores operational by last October, Mr. Ford’s change of tack on cannabis policy meant Ontario didn’t have any until April. Soon after taking office, the PC government turned to private retailers to sell marijuana, an abrupt shift from the Wynne government’s plan for LCBO-run stores. The province is in charge of wholesaling cannabis to retailers, and is the only legal online store. But private businesses had to wait months after legalization for a retail framework that would allow them to operate – and instead of the unlimited stores the PCs originally promised, only 25 licenses were issued to start. When opening day arrived on April 1, only nine retailers opened: The other license-holders are still struggling with the tight schedule to build their retail spaces and train employees.

As for more traditional intoxicants, Mr. Ford wants to allow beer and wine sales in any grocery or convenience store, not just the handful of grocery stores now authorized to sell alcohol. That means terminating a 10-year deal with the Beer Store, a retailer owned by breweries, which the government moved to do with legislation introduced in May – a move that, according to industry analysts, could cost the province hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Ford also lowered the minimum price that people are allowed to sell beer to $1 plus deposit. But Many Ontario craft brewers refused Mr. Ford’s “Buck-a-Beer Challenge,” saying they would not sacrifice quality just to reach the lower price point, and those that did embrace dollar beer promotions eventually abandoned it. The 2019 budget also loosened regulations on alcohol consumption, legalizing tailgate parties, letting municipalities permit public drinking in designated places and allowing licensed establishments to serve as early as 9 a.m.

More reading: Drugs and drinking

Uncertainty reigns as Ontario moves to private pot retail

2013 Globe investigation: The Ford family’s history with drug dealing

Cannabis legalization: What is your province or territory doing? A guide

What Ford’s win might mean for marijuana retailing in Ontario

Fraught retail landscape likely to complicate Ford’s ‘buck-a-beer’ proposal

The opposition

At Queen’s Park, the main voice of opposition against Mr. Ford’s government is Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats, whose surge in the June 7 election brought them to Official Opposition status. The Liberals, meanwhile, got used to a greatly diminished role at Queen’s Park: With too few MPs for official party status, they had fewer privileges and opportunities to speak in the legislature. Since Ms. Wynne resigned her leadership of the party, Liberals have also been preparing to choose a new leader in 2020.

More reading: The NDP and Liberals

2018 election profile: The new Andrea Horwath: Who is she and why are Ontarians listening to her now?

Analysis: Why was Kathleen Wynne so unpopular? Six degrees of alienation





Compiled by Globe staff

Photos: Associated Press, The Canadian Press, iStockphoto, Fred Lum, Melissa Tait and Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail, Tim Fraser for The Globe and Mail