Doug Ford Family History

Douglas Robert Ford Jr, better known as the Canadian politician Doug Ford, was born on November 20th, 1964 to Doug Ford Sr. and his wife Diane in the Etobicoke district of Toronto, Canada.

His early life was fairly nondescript.  He showed no significant scholastic ability and dropped out of college after just two months.

He instead busied himself in the running of his father’s  company Deco Labels and Tags.  He seemed to have a good business brain.  He had no interest in politics then.  It was his younger brother Rob who was the political one at that time, culminating in his becoming Mayor of Toronto in 2010.

Politics Calls.  Doug’s first step into politics did occur at this time.  He was elected to the Toronto City Council, succeeding Rob who had stepped down to become Mayor.  In 2014, following Rob again, he tried but failed to become Mayor of Toronto.

He did not try to run for Mayor in 2018.  Instead he aimed higher.  He campaigned to lead the Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario and was successful in a close race.  Then his party won the 2018 provincial election, with Doug taking the Etobicoke North seat, and he became Ontario’s Premier.

Premier of Ontario.  Doug has been a successful Premier and has led his party to three successive victories in the 2018, 2022, and 2025 elections.

Initially he had right-wing credentials.  He was seen as the son of a wealthy entrepreneur, a businessman who would behave like Trump as the anti-establishment politician.

He has in fact turned out to be pragmatic.  He needed to work with the federal Liberal Government during the pandemic and, even more so, during Trump’s tariff war against Canada.  This has led to a more cooperative working relationship with Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Grandfather Ernest Ford

Ford In England.  Doug’s paternal line began in England where his grandfather Ernest Ford had been born in 1891.

Ernest’s father Sidney and his grandfather Isaac were locksmiths.  We find them both on Coleshill Street in Birmingham, together with lodgers, in the 1891 census.  Sidney was shown there as married.  His wife Letitia and baby son Ernest were elsewhere, at her parents’ home.

By the time of the 1901 census Letitia had died and Ernest was living with Sidney and his aged grandmother Harriet out in Aston in north Birmingham.  But there was no domestic harmony here.

Ernest was described as “unruly” – a characteristic which would figure later with his descendants – and was sent off to Middlemore Homes.  This institution was known “for taking in children who were either truants, disorderly or orphans for the purpose of sending them to Canada.”

An 11-year-old Ernest was listed on the Canadian passenger lists as a Home Child migrating to Canada in 1902.  He went there on the Siberia with 32 other kids in steerage class, arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Ford In Canada.  Ernest must have been ashamed of his origins.  He lived in New Brunswick and made out that he was born there, rather than having to explain his real reason for being there.

But what he did in the First World War would have made him proud.  As a private in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, he was awarded the Good Conduct Badge in 1917 for military service, a 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.

He married Celia McNichol in Toronto in 1924.  Sadly he was to die in June 1933 at the age of just forty-two.  He was buried in the Mount Pleasant cemetery in Toronto.  His son Doug had been born only four months earlier.  Then, two years later, another tragedy struck when an older son Henry accidentally died by electrocution from a live wire at the age of six.

There was something else sad about Ernest’s death.  His father Sidney was still alive in England at that time and may have known nothing about his passing.

Father Doug Ford Sr.

Ernest’s wife Celia lived until 1973 and she it was who raised their large family as a single mother.  They were poor and lived out at Etobicoke, a district of Toronto some fifteen miles east of the city center.

Her son Doug was to be the most successful of the family.  He was an all-round athlete when young and a powerful swimmer.  In the 1950’s he was serving as a lifeguard at Sunnyside Beach on Lake Ontario when he met his wife Diane Campbell.  They married in 1956.

Doug co-founded Deco Labels and Tags, based in Etobicoke, in 1962.  Deco produces labels for consumer products.  In the following years the company experienced significant growth and success under Doug’s leadership.

In 1995 Doug entered the political fray, being elected to the Ontario legislature for the constituency of Etobicoke Humber. 

His sons Doug and Randy Ford assumed control for the day-to-day operations of the company at that time.  They would take over the company on his retirement in 2000.  Doug Sr. died from colon cancer in 2006.

The Unruly Children

Ruth Diane Ford – considered the matriarch of the family – outlived her husband Doug by fourteen years, passing away in 2020.  She had been descended from the Campbells of the East End of London who had come to Toronto in the 1870’s.

Doug Ford’s Family Tree

• Douglas Bruce (Doug) Ford Sr. from Toronto m. Diane Campbell (1935-2020) in 1956
• – Kathryn (Kathy) Ford (b. 1961) m. Jeff Pressley and Ennio Stirpe (son Michael Ford has been a Toronto politician)
• – Randall (Randy) Ford (b. 1962) with Lisa Dolson
• – Douglas (Doug) Ford Jr. (b. 1964), Ontario premier
• – Robert (Rob) Ford (1969-2016) m. Renata Brejniak, Toronto mayor

• Douglas Robert (Doug) Ford Jr. m. Karla Middlebrook, fitness enthusiast (b. 1970)
• – Krista Ford (b. 1991) m. David Haynes, footballer and anti-vaccer
• – Kayla Ford (b. 1992) m. Muhammad Kammuna, wellness coach
• – Kara Ford (b. 1994)
• – Kyla Ford (b. 1996), fitness model