Stan Cho admits ‘error in judgment,’ says hip replacement, young family led to Toronto hotel stays - Toronto Star

New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles called Cho's justification a 'terrible' excuse.

MPP Stan Cho speaks to reporters during a scrum at Queen’s Park, the Ontario Legislature, in Toronto on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. 

Breaking his silence three months after resigning his cabinet post over $16,000 in Toronto hotel expenses, Willowdale MPP Stan Cho blamed his overnight stays on a hip replacement and a young family at home.

“It was a decision made for the convenience of my family, talking to my wife, having a young baby at home, having a hip replacement this year as well,” Cho told reporters.

“But that doesn’t excuse the fact that I had made an error in judgment. I didn’t think about the people who are working their tails off during very difficult times to make ... ends meet and so I took responsibility for that decision and resigned (from) cabinet,” he said.

Cho said he repaid the money after reports that he and several other GTA MPPs had used a special-circumstances rule, created under Premier Doug Ford, to cover the cost of downtown hotel stays.

On Tuesday, Ford denied elevating him — recently appointed as parliamentary assistant to education minister Paul Calandra — despite claims by New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles that Cho got a ”$22,500 pay bump with Ontarians’ hard-earned money.” 

“I don’t call that a promotion,” Ford told reporters. 

“He lost his job. I got rid of him ... I fired him from being a minister. He admitted he made a mistake. He’s paid it back, and now he’s going to be a parliamentary assistant,” he said. 

Stiles called Cho’s justification for hotel stays, saying his wife wanted him to stay downtown while their baby slept, “a terrible” excuse.

“The people of Ontario deserve better than MPPs who live in midtown Toronto and can’t actually manage their own business,” she said.

“He had a choice and he chose, instead of using his personal credit card, to use the taxpayers’ credit card and to make them pay his bills.” 

Cho was not the only Progressive Conservative MPP to use the special circumstances option for hotel claims close to home, although no one else resigned. 

Since 2023, MPP Hardeep Grewal (Brampton East) claimed $27,000 in Toronto hotel expenses; Mississauga-Streetsville’s Nina Tangri, the associate minister of small business, charged close to $19,000; and Brampton-Centre’s Charmaine Williams, the associate minister of women’s social and economic opportunity, expensed more than $15,000.

Liberal interim leader John Fraser said the MPP claims — covered by taxpayers — expose a lack of accountability.

“Only in the Ford government can you misuse taxpayer dollars and then get a raise a couple months later,” Fraser said. 

“Doug Ford says, ‘I got your back. I got your back.’ The only back Doug Ford has is the one that he’s scratching, and that happens to be Stan Cho’s this time.”

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Moira Welsh is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics for the Star. Follow her on X: @moirawelsh.