Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie and the NDP’s Marit Stiles are desperately trying to find something, anything really, to close the gigantic gap in popular support between their parties and that of Ontario PC leader Doug Ford.
How about that NDP promise of a “grocery rebate” that would cost nearly $5 billion a year?
Or maybe voters will like the latest Liberal plan to launch a big investigation into Ford’s “shady deals.”
The Liberals just can’t let go of the idea that vilifying Ford is their key to success. The party spent big money on an attack ad that ran during the Super Bowl broadcast with the shocking revelation, caught on a hot mic, that Ford wanted Donald Trump to win last year’s U.S. election. Had people pegged him as a Kamala Harris fan?
Hoping for Trump to win was a bad choice, as it turned out, but as Ford has made abundantly clear, the point of his provincial election is to fight the American president’s tariffs. An Abacus poll conducted after Ford’s Trump support comment showed that 43 per cent of the people surveyed said Ford’s statement had no effect on their voting intentions and 22 per cent said it made it more likely they’d vote for Ford.
With just over two weeks until election day, Crombie and Stiles are flailing about like two non-swimmers struggling in deep water.
By contrast, Ford is cruising along the surface, spending much of his time repackaging earlier announcements and talking about endorsements from union locals. He caught a break when Trump announced tariffs on steel and aluminum Monday, putting Ford’s key issue back in the spotlight just before the premier’s visit to Washington on Tuesday.
Of his two opponents, Crombie is the only one showing potential signs of life. A new Nanos Research poll has Crombie’s Liberals at 30.9 per cent of decided voters polled. The NDP trails badly at 18.8 per cent. Ford is still well ahead at 43.8 per cent.
So far, Stiles has the lead only in the worst campaign promise category. Her so-called grocery rebate takes vote buying to a whole new level. Ford’s ill-advised $200 “tax rebate” cost the provincial treasury $3.1 billion, but at least it was only one time. Stiles justifies her handout by saying the cost of groceries has gone up under Ford, so here’s money. A family of four could get $122.40 a month, with the amount reduced for higher incomes and cut off at $100,000 in income. Just what Ontario needs, a new entitlement program.
The NDP has also promised to buy back Highway 407, a privately owned toll road that runs through Toronto and environs. The party hasn’t said what that would cost, but it would be in the multi-billions. Ford felt obliged to counter with a tiny promise of his own, to cancel tolls on the provincially owned portion of the highway at an annual cost of $72 million. The fact that the PC government was collecting tolls at all may have surprised some people, since it banned tolls on provincial roads in 2024.
Both Crombie and Stiles would like a health-care election. The problem is that neither of their plans to fix the primary-care shortage appears better than Ford’s. He spiked that issue just before the election, when he promised $1.8 billion over four years to connect two million Ontarians to primary care. Of that money, $400 million had already been promised.
The two main opposition parties have made similar promises, but with higher price tags. Crombie has pledged to spend $3.1 billion and hire 3,100 doctors. Naturally, the NDP has the high bid at $4 billion and 3,500 doctors.
Why do these two parties think people would switch governments and pay more to get essentially the same result?
The Liberals and the NDP both have one attractive policy that Ford has not matched. Crombie and Stiles have promised to double payments for people on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). It currently provides an individual with a measly $1,368 a month, a pitiful sum for those too disabled to work. Doubling the amount would raise recipients out of poverty.
It has never been clear why both Liberal and PC governments in Ontario thought it reasonable to beggar those who are least able to help themselves. In 2022, Ford increased ODSP payments by five per cent and there have been inflationary increases since. The amount is still far too little to live on.
Fixing the problem would cost about $6 billion a year. It’s the right thing to do and far more sensible than the PCs’ favourite industrial subsidies or the NDP’s grocery rebate. Unfortunately for the disabled, neither of the parties making this humane promise is likely to be elected.
National Post
[email protected]
Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.