It’s the last day of campaigning in Ontario, the last chance to woo an electorate that has often seemed uninterested in the struggle unfolding before them. And as was already the case on Day 1, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives are ahead in the polls, ahead of the New Democrats and Liberals. Summary of a dull month of May.
On May 4, Doug Ford inaugurated his electoral tour with great fanfare in a crowded hangar in his riding of Etobicoke North, in Toronto. His candidates from the region were there, their supporters by their side, dressed in blue. “We are the party that says ‘yes’! Yes to motorways and their expansion! then chanted Doug Ford.
The leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario thus set the tone: he wanted to talk about highways.
The budget tabled by his government just a week before the election was called already hinted at this key message: a road was on the cover page. (For a second election campaign in a row, the Progressive Conservatives do not have a numerical platform.) It did not include, on the other hand, the game plan of the strategists of the Ford clan.
If that had been the case, it would have read that he sought at all costs to limit exchanges between the Progressive Conservative candidates, the media and their opponents: most requests for interviews were refused throughout the campaign and several candidates did not take part in any debate.
Ontario politics already doesn’t draw crowds, and that tactic certainly didn’t add to the excitement. But it had the effects that the Progressive Conservatives had hoped for, acknowledges Greg Flynn, professor of political science at McMaster University: Doug Ford and his troops did not incur public ire and, from beginning to end, were alone at the top of the polls.
The bulk of the work thus fell to NDP leader Andrea Horwath (in her fourth campaign) and Liberal leader Steven Del Duca (in his first): they had to convince the electorate that Doug Ford did not have the stuff of a prime minister. “It was an election centered on the leadership of the parties, not on their platforms,” notes political science professor Lydia Miljan, of the University of Windsor. Neither was able to break through the Ford shield.
The campaign leaders’ debate alone, on May 16, would have been a good opportunity to do so. Doug Ford had to defend a management of the pandemic which, without being disastrous, was imperfect: nearly 4,500 Ontarians died in long-term care centers. “Andrea Horwath and Steven Del Duca were supposed to show passion, but they didn’t,” said Liviana Tossutti, a political science professor at Brock University.
Andrea Horwath’s fourth try
The NDP, the official opposition until May 3, put an end to this campaign. The party spent about $12 million on the race, the largest sum of its kind.
While Steven Del Duca traveled in a van, the NDP traveled by bus. The New Democrats bought prime time advertising and their leader traveled across the province.
Andrea Horwath campaigned on a universal mental health agenda. All polls have shown her to be the party leader Ontarians have the most confidence in when it comes to health, but that faith has not translated into voting intentions. According to political scientist Greg Flynn, the NDP simply didn’t talk about it enough.
On the other hand, M.me Horwath has often made known his opposition to “Bill 124”, introduced by the Ford government in 2019, which caps salary increases for several public sector employees, including nurses, at 1%. On the evening of the May 16 debate, 200 nurses were waiting for Doug Ford firmly in front of the building where the game was taking place.
Public sector representatives are a big part of Ontario’s labor movement and they don’t support Doug Ford, but during the campaign Ford positioned himself as an advocate for workers. Eight unions even lined up behind him. Professor Miljan said this is an important vote of confidence, which could see her party win tight races in the Windsor area, where unions have a strong presence.
An appetite for the Liberal Party
Windsor was once much more liberal than it is today: former finance minister Dwight Duncan was from the area, as was education minister Sandra Pupatello. On the evening of June 2, the ridings in the region are not likely to turn red, however, if we rely on the forecasts of the 338Canada site.
Steven Del Duca will therefore have to make gains elsewhere if he wants to go from a van to a bus in 2026.
The Liberal Party had to climb a great slope to hope to return to power: it held only seven seats when Parliament was dissolved, one less than the threshold necessary to have the status of an official party. And its leader, still little known to the electorate, is himself engaged in a tight fight in the riding of Vaughan-Woodbridge. (“Why can’t I find a Del Duca voter in Vaughan?” a reporter asked after the leaders’ debate.)
During the campaign, the Liberal leader often had to chase away the ghosts of his party’s 15 years of power, between 2003 and 2018. The former Minister of Transport repeated on many occasions that his team was “new”, with a relative success. “I think he did a good job. He pulled the liberals out of the hole they were in, ”analyzes Professor Tossutti.
On the other hand, controversies forced the Liberal Party to drop four candidates along the way, including two in the same riding: it will therefore not have a standard bearer in three ridings on Thursday. “If a party has problems with nominations, that indicates that the organization is not doing enough checks and that it is having difficulty recruiting good candidates…” notes Professor Miljan.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.