In six months, Ontarians will go to the polls to elect their provincial government. The June 2, 2022 poll will be the opportunity for Prime Minister Doug Ford to ask the electorate for a second term.
Despite an unremarkable government performance, which some even qualify as mediocre, the circumstances seem to favor the Progressive Conservative Party, which can hope for re-election. However, it does not have a parliamentary majority.
History shows that at the provincial level, voters like to elect a party that wears different colors from the one in power in Ottawa, in order to obtain an ideological balance in the governance of the federation.
Historical trends
Since 1987, there has been only one Ontario government of the same color as the federal government. This was the case with the Ontario Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty, elected in 2003 during the Liberal reign in Ottawa.
This anomaly can be explained by the fact that the right was divided at the time between the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, allowing the Liberals to dominate the political spectrum.
By getting re-elected in Ottawa in 2021, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has actually given Ford a boost in spite of itself.
Traditionally, too, the outgoing government has the advantage in an election, especially when it is running for a second term. Canadian political parties usually rule for two terms before being shown the door by the electorate.
Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government has only been elected once under Ford’s leadership and is not yet suffering from the erosion of power. A second term is therefore possible. In addition, monopolized by the management of the pandemic, Ford did not have the chance to implement all of its 2018 program.
The pandemic context
The pandemic will play a role in Ford’s re-election as well, but it’s a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, the governments that were in place when COVID-19 arrived in the country have enjoyed a certain popularity with the population. With one exception (the Government of Nova Scotia), they were re-elected.
But at the same time, it’s inevitable that Ford will be judged on how he handled the health crisis. So far, his government has been criticized for both the extended lockdowns and the hasty reopening of the economy ahead of the third wave, as well as for not using rapid tests.
Many Ontarians have suffered financially and psychologically from the pandemic. However, if there is a good chance that the pandemic will be resolved (or almost) next June, it is not likely to constitute the main issue of the election.
It is the secondary consequences of the pandemic, such as inflation, that will be at the heart of the concerns during the election campaign. Voters in Canada tend to trust conservative parties more to deal with economic issues. This, again, could benefit Ford.
Ontario’s political scene
The most recent polls confirm that Ford is ahead of its political opponents. It does not, however, enjoy the overwhelming support of 2018.
The gap between the Progressive Conservative Party and its biggest rival, the Liberal Party, is narrowing. But the new Liberal leader Steven Del Duca is still unknown to Ontarians. He also has a lot of work to do to straighten out his party since it was reduced to a caucus of seven members in the last election.
Queen’s Park Official Opposition NDP Leader Andrea Horwath enjoys undeniable personal popularity. However, voting intentions for his party have been declining for several months, placing the New Democratic Party of Ontario in third place.
It is the great suburbs of Toronto, with its enormous electoral weight, which will have a decisive effect on the outcome of the next election.
Here, Ford cannot hope to keep all the seats won in 2018. However, he can count on close three-way struggles, in which the Liberals and New Democrats divide the left vote and allow the Conservatives to slip ahead. .
Of course, six months is a long time in politics and several unknown women could confuse the issue. Nonetheless, it is possible to say that the stars are lining up for Ford’s re-election in Ontario, whether as prime minister leading a majority government or a minority government.