What the Ontario election should be about

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National Post’s Chris Selley and National Post contributor Anthony Furey discuss the latest in the 2025 Ontario election. Watch the video or read the transcript.

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Anthony Furey: Hey, Anthony Furey here talking about the Ontario election with National Post columnist Chris Selley. Hey Chris, how’s it going?

Chris Selley: I’m well, thanks. Thanks for being here Anthony.

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Furey: Yeah, great to be here, and I feel like we’ve only just started this conversation about the Ontario election. I still speak with people who say, “Oh, there is an election, I only just learned about it.” Yeah, but we’ve actually got just over two weeks until E-Day, so it’s also almost done. Isn’t that something?

Selley: And it feels like all we talked about is Trump so far. Trump and tariffs.

Furey: And understandably so in that there’s a lot of big moves happening and tariffs and policy decisions coming from the U.S., and the whole reason Doug Ford triggered this election is because he said he needed a strong majority mandate to respond to Trump. It’s a little unclear where the tariff situation is right now. We have a reprieve. So the question is, will the Ontario election become about other issues? And I thought today we could talk about just what those issues might be. From your perspective, what are the issues that haven’t been discussed in this election that maybe should be?

Selley: I mean, think housing. It’s kind of unlucky for the liberals that this comes at a little bit of a time of a reprieve. Speaking of reprieves, the real estate market is kind of a buyer’s market at the moment. Customs and immigration are going to take some of the pressure off. But the liberals have a highly regarded housing plan and they haven’t really gotten a chance to talk about it that much. I’d like to see more about that. I think a sort of a dark horse one, and it’s not usually a provincial issue, is law and order. I think a lot of people associate things like things that happen in courtrooms, charges getting dropped, outrageously lenient sentences, things like that, and just policing as a general problem. And I think people think of those as federal issues, but they’re really not. The police are provincially controlled. The crown attorney’s answer to the government. And it’s not as if it’s not top of mind. So I think that could be an interesting place for the Liberals at least to go even if it’s not necessarily in their wheelhouse.

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Furey: And I think that’s the thing, it’s not in their wheelhouse, it’s certainly not in the NDP’s wheelhouse. Doug Ford is largely seen as being pretty supportive of the police and law and order, so it’s almost like he doesn’t need to mention it, but then to your point, it’s this huge sort of policy gap that isn’t being mentioned.

Selley: Yeah, that’s right. Again, it’s a tough one because it’s going to involve, you know, because the whole discussion is all about bail rules. How do we set — we need Ottawa to set harsher bail conditions. Well, OK, but if the judges aren’t going to the judges aren’t giving out as much bail as they could now. And that’s something that the attorney general should have to answer to. But, you know, I’m probably dreaming here, but I think, you I’ve lived in Toronto most of my life and the fact is it’s never been like this. You know, carjackings were not a thing when I was growing up. And now they’re just something, you know the advice is, well, you should probably put some bollards in your driveway. Even if it’s just more police, which Doug Ford is always in favour of, that could be an interesting place for Liberals to go, I think.

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Furey: No, it’s a good point. The issues that I think we have a major gap in in this election campaign and just what we talk about in Ontario politics in general are the two largest provincial files, healthcare and education. They are largely in a shambles right now. The stories of people who don’t have a family doctor. We’ve had rural hospitals shutting down. As the parent of children in the public school system, I think the education system is in shambles right now, and many parents feel the same way. And yet I think Doug Ford has had it little bit easy because nobody’s made the connection. These big files are provincial issues. There is a government and there are politicians who are in charge of these provincial issues. Let’s call on them to do more. I think he’s largely skated on it. Now he did campaign previously on ending hallway healthcare, I don’t think they’ve been that successful in all of that. And it’s obviously a long-term issue. You can pass the buck onto previous governments. There’s federal aspects going on. The immigration volumes relate to our ability to provide services for everyone. But still, Chris, I’m a little surprised that these issues aren’t front and center more, both from the opposition parties, the media, and the public.

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Selley: Yeah, think my theory has always been on education that sort of the school boards provide this nice little buffer between parents and the provincial politicians on whom they might otherwise take out their angst. You know, the school boards are there to kind of absorb that. Doug Ford has never wanted to get in the weeds on things like that. Anything that’s sort of halfway to a culture war issue, he’s just really not interested in and you’re sort of getting into that territory when you talk about education, I think.

Furey: No, it’s a good point and there are a lot of people who say, why don’t we just shut down school boards? Why don’t we get rid of them? And there have been various times when politicians have done that. I think in B.C., they’ve actually put a whole school board sort of on pause and the government has taken it over. The Ontario government under past leadership, they actually did that under past PC government, but there seems to be no appetite for it. And I think your analysis is an astute one that it’s the buffer, it’s the school boards, because if Doug Ford takes over a school board, then he’s taken it over and he has to own it. Whereas now, that’s not the case.

Selley: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think we’re going to have to leave it there. It’s been a good chat.

Furey: Alright, sounds good. Thank you, sir. And thanks everyone for watching.

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