This registration was made to prevent anyone else from using the 'Reform' name in Ontario politics; the party nominated one paper candidate in each election and did not campaign actively.

Ken Kalopsis, the co-president of the Canadian Alliance, ran for the RPO in the 1999 provincial election in Davenport, as its first candidate to maintain registration and control the rights to the party name.

The party's request to register the name and abbreviation was submitted in early September 2004, verified in late October-early November, and reserved on Friday, December 17, 2004.

The party's traditional populist beliefs in representative and direct democracy followed those of the politics of pre-Confederation Reform Party leader William Lyon Mackenzie, former United Farmers of Ontario premier Ernest Charles Drury and former Ontario Cooperative Commonwealth Federation member Agnes Campbell Macphail.

[11] Joining forces, the populist-based RPO and libertarian-based OLA agreed on many common principles to build a unified Northern Rural Ontario manifesto for the farmer and labourer.

[12] Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox & Addington PC MPP Randy Hillier considered crossing over to Reform in the Ontario Legislature as its first member because of his dissatisfaction with Tory's leadership.

[21] Some executives of the Reform Party of Ontario and some grassroots members, were approached to join the new expansion towards a broader base in time for the 2018 provincial election.

[23] However, the new party was deregistered by Elections Ontario as of January 2016, after only running once in the 2015 Simcoe North byelection, where Gault and New Reform placed fifth out of eight candidates with 197 votes (0.50%).

Though populism makes up the main thrust of its political ideology, Reform Ontario focused on a mixture of fiscal, social, and libertarian conservatism.

Reform Ontario respect for life, freedom and liberty of the individual, and private ownership of property with limited yet effective government are key principles.

They believed the family unit is the basic building block of society, in a stronger institution of marriage reduces cultural ills and increases labour productivity.

RPO believed in more public involvement by the people using private investment for more effective and efficient service in areas of health care, education, and energy, which allow government limited control over personal decisions by its taxpayers.

[25] Reform Ontario supported what it called "Triple 'R' government": (1) referendums on the issues such as electoral financing reform and preferential ballot voting, (2) a recall for removing unpopular politicians and fixed election dates, and (3) "real responsible representation" through more free publicly recorded and unwhipped votes for MPPs instead of direction by party whips in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.