Ontario Tourism Minister Stan Cho has resigned from cabinet following backlash for expensing more than $16,000 in Toronto hotel stays since 2023, while living 5.9 kilometres away from Queen’s Park.
Cho announced his immediate resignation from his ministerial position on July 17, but said he would continue on as the MPP for Willowdale, a northern Toronto constituency.
Cho said he has reimbursed the public purse “in full, to the penny” for the hotel stays and acknowledged requesting reimbursement was an error in judgment.
“Looking back now, I made a mistake,” Cho said in a statement posted on X. “I am taking full responsibility, as I do not want to be a distraction from our plan to grow the economy.”
He said he examined each claim he made for hotels in Toronto when the legislature was in session late and was “satisfied they met the criteria set out in the members guide,” but added that just because it didn’t break the rules doesn’t mean it was the right choice.
“I have a young family at home and a schedule that too often kept me from them,” he wrote. “On late nights, I made a choice that was easier for me. I did not stop to ask how it would look to a person in my riding working a double shift.”
Publicly available expense records indicate several members of Premier Doug Ford’s caucus used the legislature’s special circumstances rule to claim more than $120,000 for hotel stays in the last three years.
Cho’s expenses were not the highest, but his riding is much closer to Queen’s Park than the other leading spenders such as Brampton East MPP Hardeep Grewal.
Grewal expensed more than $27,000 in Toronto hotel stays since 2023, according to official records, while Associate Minister of Small Business Nina Tangri, who represents Mississauga-Streetsville, billed nearly $19,000 and Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity Charmaine Williams, who represents Brampton Centre submitted more than $15,000 in special circumstance bills.
Premier Doug Ford told reporters at an unrelated July 17 press conference that he had informed his entire caucus that the hotel bills were “totally unacceptable.”
“It’s not how we operate as prudent fiscal managers,” he said. “And we just aren’t going to tolerate it. Every single person’s going to pay back every single penny.”
Ford said that Cho had done the right thing by resigning and that Attorney General Doug Downey would take on Cho’s responsibilities in the interim.
Opposition Comments
NDP Leader Marit Stiles has said that the Ford government owes the people of Ontario “a full refund and a whole lot of answers.”She said in a July 17 social media post that Cho’s resignation does not “explain a single hotel bill.”
“He was living the suite life on your dime, got caught, and is now dodging accountability,” she said on X. “And Former Minister Cho wasn’t alone: Hardeep Grewal billed nearly $30,000, and Nina Tangri and Charmaine Williams billed tens of thousands more. Do they still have the Premier’s confidence?”
Interim Liberal leader John Fraser said Cho’s expenses were the “tip of the iceberg.”
“There’s more to the story than just Stan Cho’s hotel rooms. There are more ministers and members, and there are more scandals,” he said in a statement posted to X
He added that Cho’s resignation doesn’t go far enough and said the government must “release the receipts.”
Both he and Stiles have hinted that Cho stayed at luxury hotels, although that cannot be verified through public disclosure records because specific names and locations of the hotels are not listed.
