Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks to media in Grassie, Ont., on Tuesday.Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press
In the seven years since the Ontario Liberals got their proverbial backside handed to them in the 2018 election, the party has yet to develop a real ethos, focus, or intention. The party’s sell to the people of Ontario during the last two elections was simply that it will make things better, and also get rid of the current guy.
Soon, they’ll be on their third leader in six years. On Sunday night, Bonnie Crombie announced she would be stepping down as Liberal Leader following a dismal result from voting delegates at her party’s annual general meeting. Though Ms. Crombie’s job was technically safe with 57 per cent of delegates voting against a leadership review, it was lower than the unofficial two-thirds threshold that many in the party believed Ms. Crombie would have to meet to stay on. In the last election, Ms. Crombie was able to earn enough seats for her party to regain official party status, but she failed to win her own seat and also failed to garner enough support to form Official Opposition (even though her party collected more votes total than the NDP).
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The good news is that there’s a perfect candidate-in-waiting for the floundering party. This potential Ontario Liberal candidate similarly lacks an ethos, focus or intention. He has been both in favour of and against giving asylum-seekers work permits; for and against expanding the Greenbelt; for and against dissolving Peel Region; and for and against various spending cuts. Indeed, he has the malleability that’s necessary to lead a plasticine party: he’s a political weathervane in a “Canada is not for sale” hat. And best of all, his track record is already proven: his spending has outpaced those of previous Liberal premiers, and he has significantly grown the deficit ($14.6-billion) and piled on the debt ($461-billion). He won’t make the tough cuts necessary to get Ontario’s fiscal house in order, nor will he pursue any bold policy initiatives if they run the risk of being politically unpopular.
That’s why Doug Ford would be the ideal Ontario Liberal Leader. He just needs a red tie.
In its recently published postmortem of the Ontario election, the Liberals concluded that one of their strategic errors was to allow Mr. Ford to define himself. “Despite a record marked by policy reversals, scandal, and underperformance, he was able to present himself as a steady hand in uncertain times,” the committee wrote. Mr. Ford had well established himself as “Captain Canada” even before he called an election (which was no coincidence, obviously), meaning that a leader known colloquially as “What’s-Her-Face” to a good proportion of Ontarians was never going to be able to redefine the then-two term Premier. Ms. Crombie and the Liberals had to define themselves first.
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Mr. Ford is currently the most successful conservative leader in Canada and one of the few provincial premiers to win three consecutive majorities. And yet he is squandering the opportunity. The most significant policy overhaul Mr. Ford has overseen during his political tenure has been the liberalization of alcohol sales, which is a relatively safe move from a political perspective with little organized opposition. But he has not proposed or pursued any big ideas on health care reform, other than investing more money in existing infrastructure; no significant moves on education reform, other than assuming control of select school boards (if that eventually leads to the consolidation of redundant boards, I will eat my hat); no bold but feasible ideas to tackle congestion, such as congestion pricing, beyond nonsensical notions of building a tunnel under Highway 401; and no sweeping reforms to development and land-use rules that could spark a boom in housing-supply starts.
There are no big ideas being actively debated in the political arena at the moment, and there haven’t been for the last several years. Mr. Ford has been able to coast along because he plays it safe and down the middle, governs like a Liberal, and is generally perceived as affable and well-intentioned. That’s why the Progressive Conservative Leader would make a great Liberal Leader.
A better candidate, of course, would be one with actual ideas: one who can define himself or herself and the type of party that he or she intends to lead. There is an advantage, as Prime Minister Mark Carney has demonstrated federally, in standing in front of a Liberal lectern – and not a conservative one – when announcing major reforms, or uttering the word “austerity” ahead of a budget.
The next Ontario Liberal leader has an opportunity in both the policy vacuum Mr. Ford has provided, and in the public-perception benefits of filling that space from the centre-left. Ontario already has a status quo Liberal leader. It doesn’t need another.