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Premier Doug Ford’s government is on pace to sit for the fewest days of any Ontario government over the past five decades in a year when voters aren’t headed to the polls.
As a result, experts warn the decision to shorten the calendar at Queen’s Park comes with its strategic benefits — and pitfalls — for the Tories as the legislature settles into a 21-week break.
Earlier this month, the Progressive Conservatives adjourned the house after a shortened 30-day sitting in which it passed a flurry of omnibus bills including controversial changes to freedom of information legislation and a bill to take over Toronto’s Billy Bishop airport. Ford told reporters he will spend the time on the road, with a number of trips planned to the United States, as CUSMA trade talks are set to take place.
“Rather than sitting here and arguing with each other, we’re actually going to get out there and talk to the people and start bringing more jobs to Ontario,” he said.
Ontario’s legislature began a 21-week break on Tuesday and won’t return until Oct. 27. The Ford government says the extended recess is meant to avoid interfering with municipal elections. Opposition leaders disagree, arguing that time for debating and passing legislation has shrunk under Premier Doug Ford and that the lengthy adjournment is a way to avoid accountability.
Legislature sits for 84 days a year on average over past five decades
If the legislative calendar for 2026 is unchanged, it means MPPs will sit for 53 days at Queen’s Park. That would make it the year with the fewest sitting days in five decades in which an election did not take place. The average number of sitting days over the past 50 years has been 84.
A month-long election period, and the build-up to it or potential changes after it, has traditionally seen the legislative calendar shortened. In 1995, when Premier Mike Harris’ government was first elected, the house sat for the shortest time during the last 50 years — 40 days.
Fast forward two years to 1997, and PC Premier Harris’ government set the high water mark over the last five decades, sitting for 131 days as it began to implement its agenda.
Until now, the year with the fewest sitting days when an election didn’t take place was 1994, the final full year of former premier Bob Rae’s term. That NDP government sat for 71 days.
Ford’s government sat for 51 days in 2025 when the premier called a snap election and won a third straight majority government.
Opposition criticizes government for 21-week legislative break
Opposition MPPs have slammed the Ford government as out of touch and disinterested in the legislative process. NDP official opposition leader Marit Stiles said the extended break is an accountability dodge.
“The government can’t get out of this place fast enough because we are calling them to account every day,” she said earlier this month.
Conservative strategist Mitch Heimpel said legislative calendars were never meant to be “fixed constructs” and are intended to serve as a guide. A government will change sitting days to ensure it has enough time to pass its agenda and there are always trade offs, he said.
“Does it create problems? It can,” he said of the potential for a shorter sitting year. “I suspect, most voters probably evaluate the sitting of the legislature on the basis of what gets accomplished and not how long the butts were in the seats.”
Heimpel served in the house leader’s office during the early years of Ford’s first term, part of the government team that manages its legislative agenda. Ahead of each session, the government looks at the legislation it wants to pass and the amount of time available, he said.
It takes into account the number of hours of debate necessary, the need for committee work, and consultation required to get bills across the finish line.
“You can basically take a look at a calendar and say, ‘I have a maximum amount of this many hours to debate government business, therefore I cannot pass more than this amount of legislation in that time, and then you work backwards,” said Heimpel, a vice president of government relations at Texture Communications.
Former Liberal cabinet minister John Milloy said the legislative session can shift the spotlight from the government and its carefully staged press conferences to the opposition. The criticisms they level at the PCs take on greater significance during daily question period sessions and scrums with reporters, he said.
“It’s in the government’s interest to not have the house sitting and not to have negative stories coming forward all the time,” he said.
Milloy said he doesn’t think Ontarians track the number of sitting days at Queen’s Park. But when it starts to contribute to a larger narrative about the government, that could be trouble for Ford’s PCs, he said.
“It just becomes part of a pattern; the gravy plane, the FOI requests, the problems around OSAP,” said Milloy, director of the Centre for Public Ethics at Martin Luther University College.
“Then when you add in the idea that they’re going home for months at a time and the legislature isn’t sitting, I just think it’s just another little jab that the people of Ontario feel and over time these things really do add up,” he said.
Trent University political science professor Cristine de Clercy said while the legislature won’t sit until late October, MPPs will be in the constituencies continuing to work and meet with residents they represent. But the clash of ideas at Queen’s Park, and the criticism of the government and its policy, is an important part of how the system works, she said.
“I think it’s the nature of democratic government that it often looks very messy, it looks very slow, it looks like there’s a lot of consultation that may or may not be necessary,” she said. “Those interactions, messy as they are, are critical to democracy.”
