It sounds odd to say, but nobody won the provincial election. Approximately 10 million Ontario residents were registered to vote. Of those only 4.6 million did so. Premier Elect Doug Ford won with 40% of that, or approximately 1.9 million votes. The Progressive Conservatives (PC’s) probably have the same question over why people didn’t vote, as the NDP, and Liberals. I chatted with a friend involved in PC politics, and they told me of people who would vote for New Blue Party rather than four more years of Ford. My theory is that instead of doing so, a lot of PC supporters stayed home.

If there is a little hope for progressive voters, it’s that the vote is still alive and well. Because if only 40% voted for Ford, then 60% voted NDP/Liberal/Greens. And I think Ford will have to recognize that, otherwise become quickly paralyzed by the inevitable fight on a lot of agenda items. This one comes down to the campaign. I’ve said a few times that the easy way to beat Ford was to go through his record on the pandemic, and pick through his flaws. Clearly outline what you would have differently, and how you would change Ontario going forward. No gimmicks. The Green Party was the one only to do this, and didn’t start until the final days of the campaign.

There was no single issue that captured voters’ attention. And that’s saying something considering the amount of outrage over the 413, and concern over climate change. And oh yeah… governing through a worldwide pandemic. Part of that is the way the PC’s ran the campaign, tightly controlled with selective media attention (putting it nicely). A bigger part of it is the opposition’s fault. They failed to clearly get their point across, and ended up essentially fighting for second place.

The leadership for both parties left something to be desired. This was Andrea Horwath’s fourth try at the Premier’s office. There was speculation after the last campaign she would resign, and did not. As an opposition leader, she was perfectly positioned to get angry with Ford, and spotlight her own party’s policies. Unfortunately, she never found the balance between those two things, and voters found themselves confused about where the NDP stood on different issues. The NDP needs to find a different leader, and then a different of doing things focusing on the riding level. Regardless of who they are, it seems they will have the legacy of Bob Rae’s Premiership in the early 90’s. NDP as a governing party works in other province, maybe it’s time to look at their best practices.

Steven Del Duca was one of Kathleen Wynne’s senior ministers during the last years of her term, and the PC’s took full advantage of that in negative ads focusing on him. I was able to cover him a few times before the campaign. It seemed that the party was positioning him as a consensus builder who owned his party’s record. But when the campaign came it was as if they turned 180 degrees into the more traditional combativeness. Not only that, but they went with the most gimmicky tactic of $1 transit, which, was considered a pilot project, and would end in 2024. That would change a lot of lives, and deserved to be permanent. The future Liberal leadership comes down to someone who could be more consistent in their image, or someone not currently associated with the party. Regardless, both Liberals and NDP have time to fix things.

Now returning to the fact that over 6 million people didn’t vote. It’s lazy, and unfortunate given the current world circumstances; reports of voter suppression in the US, and people fighting for their country’s survival in Ukraine. But I have to assume that this might be the most Canadian, passive-aggressive way of protesting. That’s something to which everyone should be paying attention to.

More analysis on the results from the 905er here