The Liberals did it! They won a fourth consecutive term in
office. They even won a majority government. They have 58 seats. This is
approximately where I thought the Liberals could get to in the campaign but I
also often wondered whether my estimations were too good to be true. I could see the signs that the NDP was losing
its base in downtown Toronto as many past NDP voters switched to the Liberals
because of Kathleen Wynne’s left-leaning platform and their anger at Andrea
Horwath rejecting the budget that the Liberal platform was based on and
offering nothing comparable in the NDP platform. The most shocking Liberal
pickup of the night was Durham. Durham is known for its conservatism and
retiring PC MPP John O’Toole won it by wide margins during the Liberal wins in
2003, 2007 and 2011. But it sounds like the new Tory candidate got complacent
assuming it was a safe seat and was caught flat-footed by a well-organized
Liberal campaign who were running local trustee Granville Anderson. But it
can’t just be organization that defeated the Tories in Durham. Their vote
dropped all the way from 49% to 34%. This result demonstrates that Wynne was
able to win over disaffected Tories with her left-leaning platform as well. It
seems many past Tory voters were so turned off by Hudak’s right-wing platform
that included a pledge to fire 100,000 public sector workers that they voted for Wynne’s
party. Although in a 2012 federal by-election in the Durham riding federally
the Liberals only got 17%, I would say that this provincial election result in
Durham also shows that Durham is shifting to the left as the Clarington part of
the riding which included Bomanville undergoes rapid growth. The NDP got about
24% of the riding, which is an increase from the 2011 election and is a strong
showing especially considering that Durham was one of the last ridings in all
of Ontario to nominate an NDP candidate and that NDP candidate was not
nominated until shortly before Elections
Ontario’s candidate nomination deadline passed.
The Liberals also won
Trinity-Spadina by a huge margin. I saw this coming as I heard the Liberal
candidate had strong organization. The Liberals also won back Davenport and
beat back an NDP challenge in York South-Weston. It was surprising how close
the race in York West was, however. Longtime Liberal incumbent Mario Sergio was
only re-elected by 7 percentage points. This was one of the few ridings in the
GTA where the NDP gained ground from 2011. They also gained ground in their
2011 pickup of Bramelea-Gore-Malton, where the NDP increased their vote to 44%.
The NDP also gained ground in neighbouring Brampton-Springdale, where they went
up to 31% and the Tories dropped all the way to 24% from 36% in 2011. The
Liberals won the riding with new Liberal candidate Harinder Malhi, who won
around 39%. Malhi is the daughter of former Bramelea-Gore-Malton Liberal MP
Gurbax Singh Malhi, whose riding included part of the current
Brampton-Springdale prior to the 2004 federal election. As her father had
represented part of the area she had some name recognition that helped her
fight off an NDP onslaught in the riding. The Liberals gained Newmarket-Aurora
with local Aurora councillor Chris Ballard. This is the second time
Newmarket-Aurora has gone Liberal federally or provincially since it existed as
a riding. The other time was federally in 2006 when Belinda Stronach was
running for re-election as a Liberal after having crossed the floor from the
Conservatives. The Liberals also astonishingly picked up the Cambridge riding.
The Ontario Liberals had never won the Cambridge riding since it was first
created in 1975. The riding flipped back and forth between the NDP and the PCs
all the way from 1975 to 2014. The hard work of Liberal candidate Kathryn
McGarry, who had been running in the riding since the 2007 Ontario election, obviously
paid off. They managed to win it by about 6 percentage points. The Liberals
also picked up Burlington and Halton. Burlington was a major pickup since the
PCs had held it for 70 years, in other words all the way since 1943. In Halton,
they beat long-time Tory incumbent Ted Chudleigh by about 7 percentage points.
This result wasn’t so surprising in that in the 2007 Ontario election, the
Liberals came within 170 votes of winning the Halton riding and it was being
heavily targeted by the Liberals this time along with Cambridge and Burlington.
I think this is how the Liberals won their majority, by specifically targeting
the ridings that they needed to win. That they won so many seats that they didn’t
hold shows that the Liberals have a strong organization. Liberal blogger Warren
Kinsella’s assertion last year that from 2000 to 2012 the Ontario Liberals had
the best organization of all the provincial parties but that that organization
was gone in 2013 after Wynne had become leader appears to have been incorrect.
The Liberals also won Beaches-East York by about 400 votes. This is another
amazing win because until now the incumbent Michael Prue of the NDP has seemed
unbeatable. Prue enjoyed immense personal popularity in the East York part of
the riding because he was a very popular mayor of East York from 1994 to 1997.
Prue has always won by big margins until now but was obviously hurt by Andrea
Horwath’s drop of popularity in Toronto. Liberal candidate Arthur Potts was
helped by Wynne’s popularity in Toronto plus a very well organized campaign
team. The Liberals have come closer to Prue in each election since 2003. In
2003 they lost by 27 points, in 2007 they lost by 19 points and in 2011 they lost
by 10 points. I always knew winning Beaches-East York would be key to the
Liberals getting a majority and was hoping the Liberals could close the gap
despite Prue’s personal popularity. It was close but they managed to do it.
I regret that the Liberals lost an incumbent because Theresa
Piruzza lost in Windsor West. I also regret that the Liberals lost an open seat
in Sudbury. Meanwhile, Oak Ridges-Markham, the sprawling suburban riding in
York Region, has again proved its bellwether status. Both federally and
provincially it has elected whichever party won the province of Ontario as a
whole. Although it elected an opposition Liberal member in the 2006 federal
election, the Liberals had narrowly won Ontario as a whole in that losing
campaign. This time incumbent Dr. Helena Jaczek was able to beat her Tory
opponent by 8 percentage points for her third win in a row. Meanwhile as I
mentioned Newmarket-Aurora went Liberal after Tory incumbent Frank Klees
retired. Klees’ personal popularity had kept the riding Tory previously. Meanwhile
there is a judicial recount in Thornhill after Liberal Sandra Yeung Racco’s 85
vote win on Election Night was reversed by Elections Ontario into an 85 vote
win for PC incumbent Gila Martow. The recount starts on June 23.
Like I mentioned before, the Liberals also won back the
Davenport riding with Liberal candidate Christina Martins by about 6 percentage
points over NDP incumbent Jonah Schein. The Liberals also won back Etobicoke--Lakeshore
by a little under 13 percentage points with Toronto Councillor Peter Milczyn.
The Liberals had lost the riding in a by-election last August to PC candidate
Doug Holyday, who was the Deputy Mayor of Toronto and served as the last Mayor
of Etobicoke from 1994 to 1997. Milczyn had only lost the riding in the
by-election by 5 percentage points despite Holyday’s personal popularity.
In conclusion I’d like to congratulate the Liberals on a
well-earned and well-deserved majority victory!
