McGuinty’s Liberals win minority government in close-call finish
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says his party met its goal of bringing an experienced Liberal government to a third consecutive term in office.
Defying pre-election polls, pundit’s predictions and rookie rivals insisting it was time for a change, McGuinty led the Liberals to a rare “three-peat” win Thursday in the closest Ontario vote of the past quarter century.
But he fell short of a majority and watched Liberal cabinet ministers and backbenchers lose their seats across much of the province.
“We have in fact succeeded in our goal of electing an experienced Liberal government,” McGuinty told supporters at a Chateau Laurier ballroom in Ottawa early Friday. Ironically, the power went out for several minutes, delaying his victory speech until after midnight.
He stressed that the final election results are not yet known, pending recounts in close ridings.
“It’s important that we be sober minded about the message that Ontarians have sent us tonight,” he said.
The Liberal tally hovered below the 54-seat threshold required for a majority in the 107-member Legislature on Thursday night, putting Grits on edge.
Party insiders told the Star McGuinty would govern with a minority on an informal “case-by-case” basis with support from the New Democrats and, on occasion, the Progressive Conservatives.
“Dalton was clear — no deals — and with these numbers there is no need. When you’re at a threshold, it’s a mandate,” a senior Liberal insider said in Ottawa late Thursday night.
Another Grit predicted in Toronto that the lifespan of a minority administration — the first functioning one in Ontario since Tory Bill Davis from 1975 to 1981 — would be only “18 months to two years.”
Coincidentally, McGuinty, 56, is the first premier to win three straight elections since Davis in 1977.
But it is a bittersweet triumph, with Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky, Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell, Revenue Minister Sophia Aggelonitis, and Environment Minister John Wilkinson all appeared heading for defeat with incomplete returns.
The result was a hollow victory for Tory Leader Tim Hudak, 43, who until last week had led in nearly every public-opinion poll over the past two years.
“It’s been a long campaign, a hard-fought campaign, and although the result is not the one that we hoped for, we do accept it,” Hudak told disappointed supporters in Niagara Falls around 11 p.m., before the minority government had been called.
“It is very clear that the people of Ontario have sent a strong message that they want a change in direction,” he said, hailing the “shorter leash” voters have placed on McGuinty
The result also makes NDP Leader Andrea Horwath the most influential Ontario New Democrat since former premier Bob Rae left office in 1995. Horwath, 48, will hold the balance of power in a minority Parliament.
McGuinty had hoped to be the first premier since Conservative Leslie Frost in 1959 to form three consecutive majority governments and the first Liberal to do so since Sir Oliver Mowat, one of the Fathers of Confederation, in the 19th century.
For the past two years, it had seemed as if the campaign would be a referendum on his leadership — especially after the 13 per cent harmonized sales tax was introduced on July 1, 2010, raising levies on hydro bills, gasoline, and numerous other goods and services.
Indeed, facing a dynamic duo of younger rivals, McGuinty had braced for an all-out assault on his record in power, including past broken promises about not raising taxes and the eHealth Ontario expenses scandal, among other transgressions.
But both Hudak and Horwath released relatively centrist electoral programs months before the vote that only promised to tinker with the HST and most other Liberal initiatives, essentially arguing it was time for a change for change’s sake.
Hudak, who succeeded predecessor John Tory as PC leader in June 2009, pressed a few hot buttons — such as vowing to force provincial prisoners to work on chain gangs and equip sex offenders with GPS bracelets so they could be tracked — but he pledged to maintain Liberal levels of spending on health care and education.
That seemed to be a concession that by and large schools, colleges, universities and hospitals have improved under the Grits, a theme McGuinty emphasized almost every day of the writ period.
Hudak’s platform, Changebook, revealed he would keep running deficits as long as the Liberals planned to, not getting the province into the black until 2017.
It was a cautious, focus-group-tested manifesto that Tory strategists pored over to ensure there would not be a reprise of the 2007 election fiasco that saw them disastrously promise to expand the funding of faith-based schools beyond just the publicly financed Catholic system.
They also feared the Liberals would successfully attack Hudak, a minister from 1999 to 2003 in the PC governments of former premiers Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, as a Common Sense Revolutionary of that tumultuous era.
Still, the Tories appeared to have blundered by pouncing on a leaked Grit campaign promise to spend $12 million on tax credits to help 1,000 foreign-trained new Canadian professionals get jobs.
Thinking they had lucked into a “wedge issue” that could be exploited the way Harris used resentment over welfare benefits and pay equity in 1995, Hudak’s campaign spent their first week of the election talking of little else.
They launched aggressive ads claiming the program — which the Liberals belatedly christened “No Skills Left Behind” — was for “foreign workers” and that “Ontarians need not apply.”
Convinced the strategy was attracting voters in parts of Ontario hard hit by job losses, the Tories initially hammered away on it until realizing the attacks were hurting their fortunes in cities like Toronto.
At the same time, the Liberals couldn’t believe their luck. Instead of talking about soaring hydro bills or the rising tax burden that could be blamed on the governing party, Hudak was fixated on a boutique Grit promise and looking like a xenophobe for his trouble.
Horwath, for her part, exceeded all expectations, putting a fresh face on a party predecessor Howard Hampton had led to defeat in 1999, 2003 and 2007.
While her campaign got off to a slow start, she hit her stride in the Sept. 27 leaders’ debate.
Polls and pundits agreed she was the strongest performer, sounding honest and homespun, and coming across as more affable than her testy male rivals.
Yet aside from Horwath’s gaining attention for her likability on TV, the debate did not seem to change the complexion of the contest.
McGuinty returned to the campaign trail talking about the 50,000 green energy jobs his subsidies for wind and solar power would create by the end of next year and his plan to cut college and university tuition by 30 per cent for low- and middle-income students.
His tightly focused, disciplined campaign met with only one major controversy — the decision to move a Mississauga gas-fired power plant already under construction in order to save Liberal seats there and in Etobicoke.
Hudak, meanwhile, was hindered by problems related to municipalities. His candid admission that a Tory government could not continue the Liberals’ uploading of civic social service costs to the province infuriated mayors like Ottawa’s Jim Watson and Mississauga’s Hazel McCallion.
As well, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s surreptitiously taped summer musings at a barbecue with Mayor Rob Ford about a Tory “hat trick” in Ottawa, Queen’s Park and city hall at a barbecue did not help the provincial Tories.
WINNERS
Liberal Minister of Labour Charles Sousa, Mississauga South: The Liberals killed plans for a Mississauga power plant midway through his campaign. This proved to be a good move — Sousa beat Conservative candidate Geoff Janoscik in the traditionally Tory territory.
Liberal Minister of Health Promotion Margarett Best, Scarborough-Guildwood: Conservative Gary Ellis, a retired police officer, ran against Best, but she was able to keep her seat by a large margin.
Liberal Monte Kwinter, York Centre: Kwinter won this riding the eighth time. He has held the seat for this area since 1985. Going into the election, polls suggested he was neck-and-neck with Conservative candidate Michael Mostyn, a lawyer.
Conservative Vic Fedeli, Nipissing: Fedeli won his seat by a large margin in a contest against Liberal Catherine Whiting. Fedeli has been the respected mayor of North Bay for the past seven years — he was elected twice with strong majorities.
Liberal Dave Levac, Brant: Levac won his fourth term in office. He made headlines in September when he misspoke about a carbon tax when he meant cap and trade.
Conservative Laurie Scott, Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock: Scott beat Liberal incumbent Rick Johnson. Scott was the MPP of the region until she stepped down to allow former party leader John Tory a chance at the seat in a by-election in March 2009, which he lost to Johnson. Johnson wrote the Liberals’ campaign song.
Conservative Monte McNaughton, Lambton-Middlesex-Kent: McNaughton beat Liberal Maria Van Bommel, who was trying for her third consecutive win in the rural riding. This was an important seat for the Conservatives as the region voted for the Tories in May’s federal election.
LOSERS
Conservative Rocco Rossi, Eglinton-Lawrence: The Conservatives had a lot riding on Rossi, a former Toronto mayoral candidate. The riding voted Conservative in this year’s federal election, but incumbent Mike Colle won the seat for the Liberals.
Liberal Bernie Farber, Thornhill: Although it was a close race, the popularity of Farber, the former head of the Canadian Jewish Congress, wasn’t enough to beat Conservative incumbent Peter Shurman.
Revenue minister Sophia Aggelonitis, Hamilton Mountain: Aggelonitis lost her seat to NDP candidate Monique Taylor, a community activist.
Minister of Education Leona Dombrowsky, Prince Edward-Hastings: Dombrowsky has been an MPP since 1999. She ran against Conservative Todd Smith, a Belleville radio personality.
Minister of Agriculture Carol Mitchell, Huron-Bruce: Seeking her third consecutive term, Mitchell lost to Conservative candidate Lisa Thomson. Mitchell had been criticized for backing wind energy without enough consultation with the area’s farmers.
Conservative Randall Denley, Ottawa West Nepean: Ottawa Citizen columnist Denley garnered support in his first political race, but he couldn’t gather enough steam to win against Liberal incumbent Bob Chiarelli. Chiarelli, the infrastructure minister, has been in politics since 1987.
Green party Leader Mike Schreiner, Simcoe-Grey: Schreiner lost to Conservative incumbent Jim Wilson by a wide margin.
Ford plans to push for more TTC cash
Premier Dalton McGuinty and Mayor Rob Ford, seen here in March, will no doubt be having more talks as Toronto pushes for more subway funding.
VINCE TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR “Myself and all the councillors get to work with all the leaders now,” said Ford on Friday on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, as smoke cleared from Thursday night’s provincial election that left Premier Dalton McGuinty one seat short of a majority.
“I’ve worked well with Mr. McGuinty,” Ford said, congratulating the premier and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and the Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, who hold the balance of power in the Legislature.
“I think it’s been a victory for all three parties.”
Asked what he’ll be seeking from the new government, Ford said: “It all comes down to funding for the TTC. We just can’t depend on the fare box and we need some help.”
Ford met with the three leaders during the campaign, asking for TTC funding and for the province to upload the cost of subsidizing 2,000 child-care spots.
The mayor told host Matt Galloway that all parties pledged to work with him but neglected to mention Horwath was alone in agreeing to pick up half the TTC’s operating costs. The NDP leader could potentially force McGuinty to provide the funding.
But Ford will also renew pressure on the premier for $650 million to jump-start construction of the Sheppard subway, a key part of Ford’s transit plan that replaced the provincially funded Transit City routes.
Having trouble attracting private investment, the mayor is demanding the provincial money now, although there is a signed agreement that sees the cash flow only if there is a surplus from the yet-to-be-built Eglinton crosstown line.
Ford, a staunch Conservative who decided not to endorse a provincial leader, was asked if his sagging popularity during the city’s budget saga helped shut the Conservatives out of Toronto for a third-straight election.
“Not at all,” he said chuckling. “Last time I checked we never had a seat, the Tories never had a seat, and my name wasn’t on the ballot.”
Ford and his campaign strategist Nick Kouvalis were credited with helping the federal Conservatives win Toronto seats on the way to a majority government in May.
In August, at an invitation-only Tory barbecue in Ford’s mother’s backyard, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the crowd that, with a Conservative federal government and a Conservative federal mayor, it was time to “complete the hat trick and do it provincially as well.”
Political observers say that plea, along with Ford’s increasing unpopularity, hurt Hudak’s campaign. The mayor allowed Friday that “some” Torontonians are unhappy with the spectre of deep cuts — he promised none during the election campaign — but added: “I’m getting a lot of support.”
In Ford’s first appearance on the top-rated morning show — he usually frequents private talk-radio shows that give him a warm welcome, and also appeared Friday on Newstalk 1010 — Galloway asked the mayor about his budget scrap with police Chief Bill Blair.
Ford said he’s confident Blair will find savings to cut 10 per cent from the police budget without laying off officers, although the chief is adamant that can’t be achieved without big staff cuts that will jeopardize public safety.
Asked if Blair must go if he can’t find the savings, Ford said: “I can’t predict the future, I don’t have a crystal ball,” and repeated his belief Blair can find the savings. The police services board this week gave the chief the option of making the cut over two years.
Finally, asked what he loves about Toronto, the mayor said: “This is a great city. We’ve cleaned it up, there’s less graffiti, we’ve made it a safer city.”
How the Conservatives blew it
Tim Hudak holds his daughter Miller during her fourth birthday party on Oct. 2.
But that evening as he prepared to go into the studio for an interview at CP24 News, a staffer emailed the next round of tracking results by Nanos Research that had Hudak down by four and a half points. For the campaign-weary Lietaer, it was a punch in the gut.
“I was taken aback. That’s a pretty big drop in one day,” says Lietaer, who was still able to maintain his game face for an upbeat performance. “I knew it was bad news and it was not a good feeling.”
But that slide pales in comparison to the Conservatives’ plunge since the spring. In June, Hudak enjoyed a double-digit lead — 15 points, according to Forum Research — over McGuinty.
News organizations reported the polls as predicting a march to a Conservative majority. After two terms in office, McGuinty appeared to be toast, only four points ahead of NDP leader Andrea Horwath.
On election night, however, Hudak fell far short of a majority, having to gamely give a concession speech while McGuinty celebrated a historic hat trick, only one seat short of a majority.
In his first campaign, Hudak, leader since 2009, lifted the party by 12 seats, a major gain under most circumstances. This time, however, he was judged not by what he did but by expectations of what might have been.
Arguably, the defining narrative of Ontario’s 2011 provincial election was how the Tories blew it. When results came in — 53 seats for the Liberals, 37 for the Tories and 17 for the NDP — Lietaer sounded glum and defensive.
There were many stumbles. However, political analysts agree on two major mistakes by the Conservative team: a failure to brand their guy in the public mind and an inability to recognize the state of the economy.
“I don’t understand the Conservative team. I don’t think they ever took the chance to brand him, the way the Liberals did with McGuinty in 2003,” says Rob Silver, a political consultant and former McGuinty staffer.
“I think that Tim is a really good guy but it didn’t come across.”
It seems ironic. After all, it’s the federal Conservative party that has shown itself to be the master in creating the public image of their opponents.
Through the cycle of two Liberal leaders, Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, Conservative strategists had their way with them through advertising. They portrayed Dion as a bumbling politician who wasn’t ready for prime time — “not a leader” — while Ignatieff was labeled as a dilettante who “didn’t come back (to Canada) for you.”
And yet, after Hudak won the leadership in 2009, it seems as if the Tory brains’ trust forgot they’d have to sell him to the public at election time.
Throughout the campaign, Lietaer worried Hudak’s personality wasn’t coming across. There was “simply an inability to get Tim Hudak out there as the great guy he is,” he explains.
Consultant Robin Sears agrees: “He is a much more interesting human being than they framed him to be.”
Hudak’s wife, Deb Hutton, was a senior staffer in premier Mike Harris’s office. Jokes Sears: “I would suggest that Tim and his savvy strategist wife are saying to each other this weekend that they could have done better themselves.”
The experts also say Hudak’s team didn’t understand the state of the economy.
“The fundamental strategy of the Hudak campaign was framed more than a year ago,” says Sears, adding he knows because he talked to the people who framed it then. “But times changed and they failed to change with it. They didn’t notice that thunderclouds had rolled in.”
A year ago, the economy had recovered, albeit weakly. Not so now. Ontario voters — like voters everywhere — went to polls worried about lost jobs, a precarious situation in the U.S. and European problems that seem poised to devour investors everywhere.
When people are worried about jobs, they don’t necessarily want to hear about cutting taxes. And yet the Hudak campaign endlessly hammered home its theme of high taxes.
“Dalton McGuinty is the tax man,” says one ad. “Dalton McGuinty keeps making you pay,” says another.
Liberals argue that the Conservative campaign was negative but failed to offer a meaty program of its own for tough economic times.
Jaideep Mukerji, managing director of Angus Reid Public Opinion, says Hudak tried to convince voters he could do better on the economy, but Ontarians “gave McGuinty the benefit of the doubt.”
Critics cite other mistakes that include Hudak’s harping on “foreign workers” in response to a Liberal tax incentive, as well as a pamphlet criticizing sex education for schoolchildren that was described as “homophobic.”
“The Liberals ran a better campaign than we did,” said Conservative fundraiser Ralph Lean. “We made a big mistake in the first week of the campaign by focusing on that word, ‘foreign.’ It didn’t make sense.”
Hudak didn’t break through in vote-rich Toronto. That was expected, but Lean says he was surprised the Conservatives didn’t do better in 905 ridings, citing Markham and Brampton, and points to the “foreign workers” focus as a turnoff for ridings with large immigrant populations.
“It wasn’t for lack of trying,” says Lietaer, adding the Hudak bus spent more than half of the campaign in the GTA.
Political consultant John Duffy names another drawback for Hudak: “In the GTA and Toronto area, the exposure to the Ford administration has made voters more skeptical of the notion of tax relief without painful cuts.”
The apparent campaign gaffes have left Conservatives in a bad mood. It’s rare for a stalwart like Lean to publicly criticize his own party — and he’s not alone.
Sears, with his ear to the ground, notes that Conservatives “are just carving each other up. They are furious and there’s a bad taste in a lot of mouths.” He cites the “foreign workers” remark, as well as “that ridiculous ‘homophobic’ flyer in the last week. There were gay Conservatives who didn’t think it was a good idea and they got the response, ‘Just do as you’re told.’ ”
According to Sears, those moves unnecessarily lost them votes among new Canadians, anybody who’s ever been a foreigner, teachers and gay Canadians. Moreover, it’s hard to come across as a great guy while being on the attack about foreign workers.
Even ultra-Conservative Guy Giorno, who was best man at Hudak’s wedding, offered a cautious criticism, though of the team rather than Hudak.
“Obviously he will have to look at how to fine-tune his campaign leadership to see how he can improve . . . But I have nothing but praise for him personally.”
Sears believes the Conservative hangover isn’t aimed so much at Hudak as against the campaign team headed by Mark Spiro, a Conservative strategist and consultant. Spiro didn’t respond to messages from the Star.
Sears too thinks Hudak himself is safe: “People get pissy on the morning after, but he’s got pretty firm control on the party. Look, they have to be careful (about going after their leader) or they will turn into the federal Liberals.”
Interestingly, the Liberals didn’t forget about Prime Minister Stephen Harper. They made good use of his tactics in winning last May’s majority government.
After the election, Liberals were facing grim times. McGuinty trailed in the polls, the federal election had left both Conservatives and New Democrats on a high and, in Toronto, Mayor Rob Ford appeared to be on a roll. Behind-the-scenes, many Liberals were panicking.
At a strategy meeting in June, Liberal campaign manager Greg Sorbara stood to make a point he knew wasn’t going to be popular.
“Don’t take this in a bad way,” he told the assembled team, “but our mission is to replicate exactly what Stephen Harper did in the election.”
By that, Sorbara (who held his Vaughan riding Thursday) didn’t mean Liberals should adopt Conservative policy. Rather, they should concentrate on their candidate and accomplishments, remain calm and hammer home their message no matter what.
They were confident the premier could be rehabilitated in the eyes of voters. If McGuinty’s win of a third straight term as premier is the benchmark — and not a majority — they succeeded.
“It was a difficult period and I got a lot of calls asking when we were going to fight back,” said Sorbara, referring to the dire polls of last spring. Keep it together, he told them and watch the campaign roll out. It had been designed by (among others) campaign director Don Guy, Sorbara and the premier himself.
Pollster Michael Marzolini credits Guy with the heavy lifting. “My team and I just made the snowballs — he threw them and decided where and when.”
The aim, says Sorbara, was to “run a positive campaign because Ontarians were in no mood for negativity.”
It didn’t quite work out that way. The Liberals released a negative ad warning Hudak would be a replay of the Harris government and its social spending cuts. The ad also focused on negative comments about Hudak in the media.
Says a Liberal strategist of the ad: “We wanted to remind people what a lightweight he is.”
As well, the Liberals could count on the heavy hammering of negative ads against Hudak by the Working Families Coalition, a union/corporate group that, while technically independent of the Liberal campaign, reinforces a Grit message. The ads could have been scripted by Liberal strategists.
These Working Families’ ads enrage Conservative staffers who see them as a “free ride” for McGuinty and argue they should be banned. While no numbers are available, Lietaer says Tory ad people did an estimate and came up with a figure somewhere between $6 to $8 million for the total cost of their ads.
For the most part, though, Liberal ads were positive. They focused on McGuinty, presenting him as both an achiever and a vulnerable human being.
For example, McGuinty, framed against a white background, says: “Well, the polls tell us I’m not the most popular guy in the country. I accept that. Doing what’s right is not always popular.”
Asked about advertising, that’s the ad Lean, a fight-to-the-finish Conservative, points to as a favorite.
While Hudak railed against McGuinty’s tax policies, he was still talking about the premier. The strategy of focusing on your opponent — while arguably not coming up with strong alternatives — failed for new Liberal leader McGuinty in 1999, as well as Conservative leader John Tory in 2007.
The Conservatives did try on some of the tactics of their federal counterparts, but seemingly the wrong ones. In the federal election, Harper’s warning about a coalition between the Liberals and New Democrats had traction because of the presence of the Bloc Québécois and the possibility of Quebec separation.
When Conservatives raised the same issue in Ontario, it fell flat. As expected, McGuinty lashed out against any notion of a coalition, but it wasn’t really necessary. There is no threat of separation in Ontario, although one might surmise the urban-rural split, so stark in this election, might be a warning.
Often, Hudak couldn’t win for losing. When McGuinty appeared to stumble — as he did during the debate with his continuously moving hands — the polls didn’t reflect it. In fact, Liberals reminded reporters that his early nickname at Queen’s Park was “Thumbs McGuinty.”
Hudak even failed when talking about his little girl Miller, who celebrated her fourth birthday during the campaign. He adores her and took her on the campaign bus as often as possible.
During the leaders’ debate the subject turned to public spending. Hudak criticized the maze of government agencies by saying Miller could take any three fridge magnet letters and make an acronym of a ministry or agency.
But it didn’t work.
Pollster Mukerji reports the Angus Reid “Reaction Plus” polling technique, which measures viewers’ emotions, showed that annoyance and confusion spiked during his comments.
Says Mukerji: “Some people just didn’t warm to him.”
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