Terry Newman: Bonnie Crombie celebrates her own disaster

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Ontarians have cast their ballots, re-electing Doug Ford’s PC’s with a historic third majority after calling an early election in order to secure a strong mandate to face potential tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump. This was, more or less, expected.

What wasn’t expected, based on polls heading into election day, was the Liberals’ failure to form the official opposition, swooped up instead by the NDP, and Liberal party Leader Bonnie Crombie’s crushing failure to win her own seat in Mississauga East—Cooksville.

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But when Crombie took to the stage to address supporters in Mississauga, telling them she intended to stay on as party leader, it had not yet been officially confirmed that she didn’t win.

She opened her speech complaining about snowbanks, salt, and ruined shoes. “I know tonight isn’t exactly the result we were looking for,” she told the crowd — that result being third place.

But she did have a consolation prize for her supporters. “You should be very, very proud of what we did tonight. People cancelled us out. They said the Ontario Liberal party was dead — ha! Tonight, you proved them wrong,” she laughed. “The Ontario Liberal Party is back to official party status and that’s a big milestone” — some consolation prize.

Crombie continued, “But it gets better. We increased our share of the vote substantially to 30 per cent. Double-digits over the NDP, right? So this is a building block for us. It’s a momentum that we can continue to push forward and to grow, right?” I’m not sure why that’s better. Increased popularity spread too thin to be effective is hardly a win, and shows just how little strategy for securing ridings went into the Liberal campaign.

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Crombie had to acknowledge Ford’s win: “Look, voters have given Doug Ford another mandate tonight, mhm, smaller but nonetheless. But many, many of you are asking for a strong voice to hold him accountable as premier, and you can count on me, okay?” Except voters chose Marit Stiles and the NDP to perform that role as the official Opposition.

As has been common in her campaign, she turned her attention back to Ford, “Doug, we’ll be watching. Yep. We know Ontario can do so much better, right?”

Ultimately, Crombie failed to convince Ontarians that Ford needed to be replaced and that she was the leader who should replace him.

This is partly due to Ford’s popularity. He’s relatable. He’s the everyman. He’s what Ontarians already know and understand. For many conservative Ontarians, he’s not conservative enough, but they understand he’s performing a delicate balancing act. For those who are less than impressed with his record, they see him as the least worst option. But none of this explains why Crombie didn’t secure second-party status or why she lost her seat to Patrick Brown’s mother-in-law, PC Silvia Gualtieri.

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There are several reasons the Liberals and their leader suffered this crushing blow.

From the start, Crombie had difficulty presenting a coherent image of what kind of leader she would be, calling herself during the 2023 Liberal leadership race, “a very centrist person,” “very fiscally responsible,” and, at the same time, “socially very progressive.” What were voters to make of this? Those who are socially very progressive aren’t typically also very centrist, nor are they fiscally responsible. Building supportive housing units for addicts, as outlined in her election platform, seems pretty progressive, as does building housing co-ops. Crombie’s plan sounds a bit like a progressive utopia with every problem solved. It is also unrealistic.

Crombie’s campaign was big on promises but short on strategy. Grand promises were made about fixing health care, including getting every Ontarian a family doctor within four years — but no clear or convincing strategy to do this was explained in terms of how this could be accomplished.

Meanwhile, Ford has promised to do this in five years, which is longer, but he can boast of having former federal Liberal health minister Dr. Jane Philpott at the helm of his health-care platform. Bizarrely, Crombie also stressed the role fax machines were playing in the health-care crisis. I’m sure this did not evoke much confidence.

In addition to not having a strong sense of what kind of leader she was going to be — fiscally conservative or socially progressive — or a detailed strategy for how she would accomplish her promises, Crombie’s campaign also suffered a major gaffe. A misinterpreted and misleading statistic was printed on her campaign bus and used as an attack against Ford: “11,000 people died while waiting for surgery last year. This is Doug Ford’s Ontario.” This number ended up being grossly inflated, as the real number was closer to 1,600. And even that number said nothing about how many people died from the condition they were on the waitlist for. They could have been hit by a car.

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What I think can be learned from the Ontario Liberals crushing loss is that a campaign needs to be about more than attacking one’s opponent, especially if that opponent is well-loved like Doug Ford is by Ontarians. And a party leader must have a clear sense of who they are in terms of values. They must also very clearly detail how they will accomplish their promises and avoid unnecessary and embarrassing gaffes. Crombie may want her supporters to believe that Thursday night was a success for the Ontario Liberals, but it was anything but.

National Post

tnewman@postmedia.com

X: @TLNewmanMTL

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