Ontario PC Party leader Doug Ford and his wife, Carla, reacted after he was re-elected Ontario’s prime minister in Toronto on June 2. Frank Gunn / The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Doug easily won a second government by a majority after a train ride in an amusement park dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with NDP and Liberal leaders resigning over their parties’ failure to face serious challenges to the big progressive conservative.
His party was led or elected with 83 seats, a seven-seat gain from the 2018 results, with 41% of the vote.
The jubilant Mr Ford addressed his supporters in the suburbs of Etobico in western Toronto, saying he had made his party more inclusive and called for unity.
“Whether you work on the assembly line and have voted for the NDP all your life, or you are going to vote for the last vote for the Federal Liberals, I want you to know that while I am here, there is room for you in this party,” he said. Ford said.
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It was a devastating night for the Liberal Party, which won or led by only eight seats, one more than the seven it won in its nearly annihilation in 2018. Liberal leader Stephen Del Duca, who said on the last day of the campaign that he had not regardless of the election result, he will remain as leader, he told his supporters on Thursday night that he was giving up his recovery efforts and giving up the leadership he had just won two years ago.
Mr. Del Duca also lost his own experience of taking a place at home, driving Vaughn – Woodbridge, north of Toronto, where he was easily defeated by Michael Thibault of the PC. The Liberals needed 12 seats to regain official party status in the legislature.
“This is not the result we were hoping for and working hard for,” said Mr Del Duca, who vowed to make Mr Ford prime minister for one term when he took over the leadership of his hostile party.
Speaking to supporters at her home base, Hamilton, weeping NDP leader Andrea Horvath said she was retiring. Her party noted that the number of seats in 2018 has been reduced from 40 to 31, according to early results. This week, she said she would decide on her future after voters decide. Many of her party expected her to face a challenge if she tried to stand up after losing her fourth election after taking the reins of the NDP in 2009.
“It’s time to hand over the torch,” said Ms. Horvath, who has spent four years as the opposition’s official leader.
She won her seat at the Hamilton Center, but her party was beaten elsewhere, including Brampton, a suburb on the battlefield northwest of Toronto. In the Windsor area, personal computers snatched Essex’s ride from the NDP, where longtime MPP Taras Natyshak refused to run again.
Prior to its announcement, there was already a call to go on Thursday night from Joel Harden of the NDP, who won the re-election at the Ottawa Center. He told local media it was time for a “new leadership”.
At 22:00, four rides still did not report any results. Voting was extended in the polling stations in 19 rides, which delayed when the counting of ballots could begin.
Electoral turnout may mark a new decline in Ontario voting history. According to the early results of the Ontario Election, only 40.7% of voters voted. Prior to this campaign, the lowest turnout was 48 percent in 2011.
Political strategists said during the campaign that the electorate looked uninvolved, tired after the two-year pandemic.
Sociologist Chaci Curl, president of the Angus Reed Institute, said her data showed that Ontario voters were not impressed by all three major party leaders – but the opposition failed to make convincing arguments against Mr Ford.
“It was the battle of the fleas,” she said. “It was an uninspiring, non-partisan campaign from the point of view of the Ontario electorate. They looked at their choices and said “blah.” “
Personal computers are leading or chosen in almost every ride in the critical part of Toronto, a region that often decides who forms the government in Ontario.
And in Toronto’s historic Liberal Fortress, the NDP retains many of the traditional red seats they changed in the 2018 campaign. Early in the evening, the new Democrats led or elected in much of downtown, including Toronto-Saint. Paul’s, although the Liberals had to win the NDP-held beaches – East York.
Greens leader Mike Schreiner, who won the party’s first place in 2018, was holding his riding guelf.
Computers ran a rigorous, cautious “championship” campaign, announcing several new promises beyond their budget plans to spend billions on expanding hospitals and building highways, including Highway 413, which would run west of Toronto through the protected lands. of Greenbelt.
Amid widespread concerns about high inflation, Mr Ford also repeatedly mentioned his actions in the government to abolish registration fee stickers and temporarily reduce gas taxes by 5.7 cents. He avoided media questions as the campaign drew to a close, and also missed a press conference after the first leaders’ debate. Many computer candidates chose not to appear in local debates for all candidates.
Both the NDP and personal computers ran attacks on Mr Del Duca long before the official campaign began, trying to remind voters that he was in the cabinet of the government of unpopular Prime Minister Kathleen Winn, which they threw out in 2018
While health has been a major theme for all parties, overcoming Mr Ford’s rule of COVID-19 over the past two years has taken a back seat in the campaign.
In his first year in office, Mr. Ford suffered a series of scandals and mistakes and was booed by the crowd celebrating the 2019 Toronto Raptors basketball title.
He was seen as a polarizing figure after his time as a city councilor in Toronto during the tumultuous term his late brother Rob Ford served as mayor of the city from 2010-2014.
Mr Ford’s public approval ratings improved in the early stages of the pandemic, when he was on television almost every day and some Ontario residents became hot-tempered to his statements about overpricing or yahoos.
But the wave reversed in April when he sparked a public outcry with Ontario’s response to a third wave of COVID-19, a wave blamed by epidemiologists for its hasty reopening. Medical experts called his orders to ban playgrounds and give additional powers to the police confusing. The measures were partially repealed and Mr Ford issued an emotional apology.
Computer strategist David Tarant, a lobbyist and communications consultant who is a former senior aide to Mr. Ford, said the course adjustment came after conservative strategist Corey Teneyke returned to full-time work as a campaign manager, bringing in foreign look and more discipline in Mr. Ford decision making.
But Mr Tarant also said Mr Ford’s change in wealth could be traced back to Monte McNaughton’s appointment to the labor portfolio in 2019 with a mandate to turn to the unions. The government has made a series of changes aimed at workers, including lifting opposition to raising the minimum wage. List of private sector construction unions arranged to support computers.
As a result, Mr Tarant said, Mr Ford’s PC party is attractive to a wider range of voters, although some “sworn” conservatives in the free market, he said, may not like the direction the party has taken. .
“This is not just the story of Doug Ford’s change,” Mr Tarant said. “He actually changed the party. He actually changed the coalition of people who are open to voting for computers. “
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