As she poured some amazing draft beer from the taps of Mississauga’s famous Stonehooker Brewing Company on the eve of this snap election, it’s lost on no one how much political capital Bonnie Crombie has poured into her quest to become Ontario’s premier.
You have to hand it to her. She doesn’t play it safe. In fact, Crombie has laid all of it on the line and jumped out of the political plane with no parachute.
“I am feeling very positive,” Crombie told me to applause inside the popular Lakeshore Rd. brew pub on Wednesday.
No big reward comes without big risk.
“I had a great job in Mississauga,” the Liberal leader told John Moore earlier in the day on Newstalk 1010.
She sure did. Crombie was a three-time elected mayor of Mississauga and, at only 65 years old, she probably could have kept getting re-elected for another quarter century and still would be three years younger than her predecessor Hazel McCallion was when she retired in 2014 at age 93.
Crombie had the golden key to political stability but decided she could do more by passing the municipal torch and jumping up to the next level.
“It was a great job, but I needed to do more,” Crombie said of what she thought she could do to make people’s lives better.
So, she pointed her political compass toward Ontario and ran for and won the Liberal party leadership 14 months ago. She has been getting a feel for things while waiting to run in a by-election to get a seat to sit across from Premier Doug Ford and Opposition Leader Marit Stiles from the NDP.
Then the writ was dropped, and she found herself on the campaign trail without a seat and running in the Mississauga East-Cooksville riding against Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown’s mother-in-law Silvia Gualtieri. Some polls show the race in her local riding could be a photo finish. Others show Ford has a commanding lead on both of his main opponents to be re-elected for a third time.
Crombie took a real gamble giving up a sweet gig she could likely have kept for decades ahead. She put it all on the long shot of becoming Ontario’s next premier. The Ontario Liberal leader has a lot riding on what Ontarians decide to do when they go to the polls Thursday.
Now comes the day where she will find out how the dice land. Do they come up sevens or snake eyes?
The former mayor of Mississauga either comes out of this election advancing the Liberal fortunes from being a mini-van party back into official party status, or perhaps the official opposition, or she gets walloped as former Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne did two elections back to put the party in this unwanted position.
On her final day of campaigning, Crombie was showing none of that pressure. Whether at her campaign office in Oakville, or in Mississauga East-Cooksville, or Mississauga Centre, or the Orchard Family Restaurant on Hurontario St., at the Hamilton Mountain, or here at Stonehooker, she has appeared to be loose, laughing, feisty and seemingly having a blast.
On Thursday, Stonehooker’s owner Ross Noel led her, Mississauga-Lakeshore Liberal candidate Elizabeth Mendes (a regular at this establishment along with her husband and two kids), and Mississauga Councillor Alvin Tedjo on a tour of the craft brewery and we learned just what a small operation like that, up against the beer conglomerates, is faced with in terms of tax and regulations as its customer base has difficulty paying their rent of mortgages.
“Ross is bringing me up to speed on the beer can tax. It sounds like an easy regulatory change,” Crombie said, adding if she wins she will also be cutting business and individual taxes that she believes will really help people.
For instance, Crombie suggested that a business like Stonehooker could save about $18,000 a year while an income tax cut and the HST taken off of home heating and hydro would allow people earning between $50,000 and $75,000 a year to “save almost $100 a month” or “$1,150 a year.”
It all sounds pretty good, but the question is, is this resonating with the voting public and will it transfer into votes on this election day? If it does and Crombie wins her seat and her candidates take a leap past the NDP, or there is a miracle perhaps as a result of low voter turnout and Conservative party apathy and she wins the election, her longshot bet will have paid off.
If it doesn’t, Crombie could find herself out of a job and even politics, which illustrates just how much she has invested in risk by departing as the chief magistrate of an iconic city. Some have suggested to me that Crombie’s decision to leave the mayor’s office was not smart, but I don’t look at it that way. There’s nothing wrong with taking a shot for something you believe in — specifically if you think you can make a difference.
I respect Crombie’s swing for the fences and will watch closely to see if she hits a home run or ends up with a loud pop out. Next time I see at Stonehookers, she will either be premier, opposition leader, an MPP, or unemployed.
Perhaps with her pouring skills, Crombie could end up tending bar, there which in many ways may be the best job of all.