Doug Ford acknowledges he knew finance minister was away before news broke of Caribbean vacation

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is acknowledging he knew his finance minister, Rod Phillips, was outside Canada before the news of Phillips’s Caribbean vacation began making headlines Tuesday.

Phillips, Ford said, never told him he was leaving.

“I did call him shortly after he arrived and I asked him and he said he was away,” Ford told reporters Wednesday.

“My mistake, and I take full responsibility. At that time, I should have said get your backside back into Ontario and I didn’t do that.”

The premier now says a “very tough conversation” is in store when Phillips returns from his trip taken while Ontarians were urged to hunker down amid rising cases of COVID-19.