Adam Scotti

L. Ian MacDonald

June 3, 2022

As Ontarians proved in multiple elections during the years when Bill Davis ruled at Queen’s Park and Pierre Trudeau reigned in Ottawa, they have their own version of political checks and balances: Blue provincially and Red federally.

And they’ve just done it again, re-electing Doug Ford’s blue Progressive Conservatives for a second consecutive majority mandate, while Justin Trudeau’s red Liberals are on their third straight term in Ottawa, thanks in large part to Ontario voters.

Perhaps in recognition of this dichotomy, the provincial Blues and the federal Reds have worked as close partners on defining issues of the national interest, as they have for the last two years on the pandemic, and as they invariably do on the economy.

Only days before Ford dropped his election writ, a smiling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared with him at a joint multi-billion dollar announcement for transforming the Ontario auto industry to EVs, the coming wave of electronic vehicles.

The provincial Liberals never saw it coming, never knew what hit them, and with the hapless Steven Del Duca as their leader, never had a chance anyway in Thursday’s Ontario election, a Conservative sweep called by the networks within minutes of the polls closing at 9 p.m. Blue at Queen’s Park, Red in Ottawa.

It’s been like that for most of the last century.

From the Second World War until the mid-1980s, a Conservative dynasty governed Ontario for 42 consecutive years, from George Drew in 1943 and Leslie Frost in 1949 to John Robarts in the 1960s to the four consecutive terms of Bill Davis from 1971-85. Meanwhile the Liberals generally ruled in Ottawa, from the end of the Mackenzie King era, to the golden age of Louis St.-Laurent to the progressive reforms of Lester B. Pearson to those four terms of Pierre Elliott Trudeau that coincided with the Davis years.

Their party affiliations did not prevent Trudeau and Davis from working across party lines as indispensable partners, culminating with the patriation of the Constitution with the entrenched Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1981-82.

It was only when Brian Mulroney swept the country in 1984 that Ontario voters responded by electing David Peterson’s provincial Liberal minority government in 1985, re-electing them with a strong majority in 1987. The electoral balance prevailed, only in reverse—blue in Ottawa, red at Queen’s Park.

Like Trudeau and Davis before them, Mulroney and Peterson were close partners on constitutional reform, with the Meech Lake Accord of 1987 that eventually died in 1990, lacking unanimous consent of the provinces within three years of the agreement recognizing Quebec as a distinct society within Canada. And when Peterson called an unnecessary election that fall, Ontario voters dumped him in favour of Bob Rae’s NDP, who represented a variation of the rule of fed-prov balance, Orange rather than Red, for a single mandate.

Their party affiliations did not prevent Trudeau and Davis from working across party lines as indispensable partners, culminating with the patriation of the Constitution with the entrenched Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1981-82

But by 1995, balance resumed with the return of the Blue team under Mike Harris at Queen’s Park, to accompany the federal Liberal restoration under Jean Chrétien from 1993-2003. But then, after the Ontario Liberals of Dalton McGuinty won the provincial election of 2003, Stephen Harper’s re-unified federal Conservatives took office in early 2006, and governed for nearly a decade until the end of 2015. Red at Queen’s Park, Blue in Ottawa.

And so it remained until Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won a throw-the-bums-out federal election in October 2015. But no worries. At the first opportunity, Ontario voters, fed up with the provincial Liberals after 15 years in office, elected Ford in the time-for-a-change election of 2018.

Here we are again—Blue at Queen’s Park, Red in Ottawa, until at least the next federal election. And with the supply and confidence peace pact between the Libs and Dippers in the minority House of Commons, the next federal election won’t be until October 2025.

So, there are Ford and Trudeau—partners in Confederation again.

Campaigns do matter, but so does history.

In the short 30-day Ontario campaign, all that really mattered was the one leaders’ debate, with Ford, Del Duca, the NDP’s Andrea Horwath and Green leader Mike Schreiner, who made a strong impression in a format in which all participants are created equal.

But Ford won the debate in a single sound bite, responding to criticism that he had mismanaged Ontario’s response to the pandemic. He said that he’d made mistakes, and that they were all on him. Voters like authenticity and humility and that’s what Ford showed.

In fact, the pandemic changed the course of his first term from a leader suffering from self-inflicted wounds, to a premier who reached across the partisan divide, and became an amiable partner of Prime Minister Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, the Torontonian finance minister who has become chief operating officer of the federal government.

In that context, his approval numbers recovered and steadied for the last two years. And neither Horwath nor Del Duca was able to make a compelling case for change. The question is, why did the Ontario Liberals turn to someone so lacking in charisma and ideas that he lost his seat in 2018 as their new leader in 2020, when they must have known he didn’t have it? He failed to win his seat again this time, and once again the Liberals, with only eight seats, fell short of the 12 ridings needed to achieve recognized party standing in the Legislature, and the staff funding that goes with it.

The important numbers: Ford’s Conservatives won 83 seats out of 124,  an increase of seven, with 41 percent of the vote. The NDP remained Official Opposition at 31 seats with 26.7 percent of the vote, tied with the Liberals in the pop-vote, but with an obviously much more efficient vote in terms of seats. Schreiner won his riding and increased the Green vote from 4 to 6 percent. There was also one independent. And in an unprecedented development, both Horwath and Del Duca resigned on election night, within half an hour of one another during their concession speeches.

The turnout was an abysmal 43 percent, the lowest in Ontario history, down from 57 percent in 2018.  But that was a change election. This one was about continuity, which is why the Tories played it safe. And, as it turns out, smart.

The campaign behind him, one of the questions that arises is whether Ford will exercise any influence on the federal Conservative leadership campaign. There’s no way a centrist like Ford would endorse Pierre Poilievre’s populist but fringe-worthy positions against vaccination mandates, central banks, global organizations like the World Economic Forum, while supporting crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin. The two  mainstream candidates are obviously former federal PC leader and Quebec premier Jean Charest, and Ontario’s own Patrick Brown, mayor of Brampton, the town that Bill Davis made famous. Ford’s quiet support of both could be influential in the race in which new party memberships were closing Friday having reached record highs.

And never mind any suggestion that Ford himself might seek the federal leadership one day. Quite apart the fact that he speaks no French, there’s the matter of history. No Ontario premier has ever gone on to become prime minister of Canada. George Drew is the prime example. After his one term as founder of the modern Ontario PC dynasty, he became leader of the federal Conservatives and was easily defeated by the beloved “Uncle Louis” St-Laurent in 1949 and 1953.

Then again, Ontario premiers generally win second terms. And Ford is the latest example of that. Ontario’s love of balance wins again. Blue at Queen’s Park. Red in Ottawa.

L. Ian MacDonald is editor and publisher of Policy Magazine.