Ford Government Must Explain Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus Cost Explosion

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
29 October 2026

OTTAWA, ON — Ontario Liberals are demanding answers about the ballooning cost of the new Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus after Infrastructure Minister David Piccini told a legislative committee yesterday that the province’s investment is approaching $10 billion, nearly five times the original $2.8-billion estimate.“There is no other job in which you can overspend by five times what you had originally estimated,” said John Fraser, Interim Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and MPP for Ottawa South. “If a contractor charged you five times the quoted price for your kitchen, you’d fire him. How does David Piccini think this is fine?”Minister Piccini attributed the increase to rising costs, supply chain pressures and municipally imposed fees. But the project was already underway in 2021, so the government must explain why its original projections fell so far short. “This is a failure of basic financial management. The Ford government cannot explain runaway costs by blaming others. Ottawa taxpayers deserve to know what his government knew, when it knew it, and how it got the numbers so wrong.”The financial implications for Ottawa are equally troubling. The original estimate included a local share of $687 million. Based on the nearly $10-billion figure, that contribution could rise to between $2.25 billion and $2.5 billion.The Ottawa Hospital Foundation reported in January that it had raised $397 million toward its $500-million fundraising goal. Ottawa’s donors are doing their part, but residents deserve to know whether the Foundation, local taxpayers and the broader community will be expected to shoulder the additional costs.“The Ford Government owes Ottawa residents on how much money will be needed locally to open the new hospital,” said Stephen Blais, Ontario Liberal MPP for Orléans. “Ottawa residents should not be asked to sacrifice new recreation centres, roads or public transit investments to cover the costs of a hospital under provincial responsibility.”“A decade long delay in delivering the new Ottawa Hospital is unacceptable; Ottawa is not a second-tier city, and our patients are not second-tier patients.” adds Blais. “We should not be asked to suffer through another decade of hallway healthcare because the Ford Government can’t manage a basic construction project. Ottawa's health care needs as a priority, not an afterthought.”

Ontario Liberals are calling on the Ford government to:

• Protect Ottawa residents and donors from an open-ended funding burden and commit that there will not be an increase in the expected local share due to Government mismanagement.
• Release a full, itemized breakdown of project spending, including budget revisions, contracts, change orders, contingency spending and the factors behind the increase.
• Explain how the original estimate was developed, which cost pressures were foreseeable, and what oversight was in place to protect taxpayers.
• Provide a transparent funding plan identifying the province’s contribution, the projected local share and any additional amounts expected from the Foundation, donors or municipal taxpayers.
• Publish a clear construction and opening timeline, with regular public updates on spending, progress and further cost changes.

“Doug Ford says he’s going to build a hospital. It’s ten years late,” said Fraser. “All we have is a hole in the ground. A bunch of people who don’t have jobs. And a bunch of people who are waiting longer for healthcare.”