Bonnie Crombie to resign after Ontario Liberals narrowly voted against leadership contest

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Bonnie Crombie has asked the Ontario Liberal Party to launch a leadership vote and says she will resign as leader once her successor is chosen, after a disappointing review of her time at the helm.

Ms. Crombie’s decision to step down came abruptly early Sunday evening, hours after Ontario Liberal members reluctantly agreed to keep her as leader and after she initially said she intended to stay on. It means the party will hold its third leadership contest since 2018, when the party lost government and was relegated to third place in the legislature.

More than 2,000 Ontario Liberal delegates met this weekend to discuss the result of February’s snap election, which saw Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives re-elected to a third majority government, and to vote on whether the party should hold a leadership contest within the next year.

The results of the vote, announced earlier Sunday at a downtown Toronto hotel, were 57 per cent against holding a leadership contest and 43 per cent in favour of having one.

Earlier: Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie confident ahead of leadership review

While Ms. Crombie technically cleared the threshold required to remain leader, the result was short of the two-thirds level of support some said Ms. Crombie would need to hold the confidence of the party.

Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who ran against Ms. Crombie in the 2023 leadership contest, was among those who said she needed a minimum of two-thirds support to stay on. A group called New Leaf Liberals was also pushing for a change in leadership.

Ms. Crombie, who failed in her bid to win a seat in the election, also met with her caucus before the leadership result was released, and said she had their support. But none of the 14 MPPs appeared alongside her on the stage.

After the result was released, Ms. Crombie said she intended to stay on. About three hours later, her office released a statement saying she asked for a leadership vote.

In her statement, Ms. Crombie said she spoke to her family, colleagues and the party executive, and wanted to be sure the party was ready to take on “the significant challenge of putting on a leadership race and could draft a clear roadmap. They have assured me that the party is ready, and I am confident they can handle that task.

“Even though I received a majority of support from the delegates, I believe it is the best decision for the Ontario Liberal Party to facilitate an orderly transition towards a leadership vote. I have advised the party president of my decision to resign upon the selection of my successor,” Ms. Crombie said.

The details of the leadership race were not immediately known.

Ontario Liberal Party President Kathryn McGarry, who was re-elected to her post on Sunday, thanked Ms. Crombie for “everything that she has done for our party as leader.”

Under her leadership, the party saw its vote share grow to 30 per cent and won five additional seats in the February vote, for a total of 14 – enough to regain official party status, which comes with more resources in the legislature. But Ms. Crombie, a former three-term mayor of Mississauga, lost her bid for her own seat in that city.

Ms. McGarry said the party’s executive will decide on the details of a leadership election contest at a later date.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, in a social media post on Sunday, thanked Ms. Crombie for her many years of service.

“Politics demands a lot of personal sacrifice, including time away from family and loved ones. I want to wish Bonnie all the best in her next chapter,” he wrote.

Prime Minister Mark Carney also expressed “deep gratitude” for Ms. Crombie’s contributions to public life.

Earlier Sunday, Ms. Crombie acknowledged that the outcome of the vote was disappointing but argued that holding a leadership race less than two years after she was chosen to lead the Liberals would “do more harm than good for our party.”

“It’s not the number I wanted, but it is not the finish line for me,” Ms. Crombie said in brief remarks after the result was announced.

Marcel Wieder, president and chief advocate at public affairs firm Aurora Strategy Global, who has served as an adviser to Ms. Crombie, said he believes if Ms. Crombie had won her own seat, she would have survived the leadership test.

“If you don’t have the caucus behind you, and then you’re fighting an internal revolt, it becomes a much bigger issue,” he said.

Sharan Kaur, a former provincial and federal Liberal staffer and now a principal at public affairs firm Navigator, said no leader would want their political legacy to end this way.

“It just shows a bit of amateur hour in terms of what was happening behind the scenes,” she said.

Scott Reid, a consultant and onetime senior aide to former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, said Ms. Crombie can claim credit for raising the party’s seat count as well as fundraising “at a time when they couldn’t raise a buck in downtown Toronto.”

Speaking after the leadership result but before Ms. Crombie said she was resigning, Liberal MPP John Fraser said the party’s caucus “expressed their opinions” and told her what they thought. He said they also offered support and told her she needs to make her own decision.

“Nobody told her, this is what you have to do,” he said in an interview.