EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
With their hearts on their sleeves and their priorities on their hats, Ontario’s political leaders launched their election campaign tours on Wednesday.
Protect Ontario
Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford kicked off his campaign outside in Windsor, Ont., Wednesday morning with the Ambassador Bridge behind him. Journeymen from the building trades in neon vests and local PC candidates wearing hats proclaiming that “Canada is not for sale” also served as backdrop.
The PCs’ theme is “Protect Ontario.” Ford made the case that he is the best choice to protect the province’s interests in a trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump — and that he needed to trigger an early election in order to do so.
“As premier, my mandate can only come from the people, not from other politicians, and the bigger the mandate I receive from you, the better we'll be able to protect our province,” he said.
Reporters pressed Ford on his pitch that he would be Ontario’s best negotiator across the table from Trump — and the other leaders, Liberal Bonnie Crombie and New Democrat Marit Stiles, would be “a disaster.”
A reporter for the Toronto Star asked Ford about the deal his government negotiated with the three big brewers that own The Beer Store — it allows beer, wine and ready-to-drink mixers to be sold in big-box and corner stores, but the expected cost to the province is $1.4 billion by the end of 2030, according to a recent analysis by the province’s fiscal watchdog.
The reporter asked Ford why, considering that deal, voters should believe he’s better at “the art of the deal” than Trump.
“This is about convenience,” Ford said, defending the booze deal. “This is about creating tens of thousands of jobs in convenience stores and retail stores.”
Ford has been trying to get a meeting with Trump, but said he hasn’t secured one yet, and didn’t meet with Trump during the president’s first administration when Ford was premier, and Canada was in a battle with the U.S. over tariffs and trade.
“I just feel very simply: we have a stronger team. We have a brighter team. We have stronger leadership, and we'll sit down with the representatives, and if we have an opportunity to sit down with President Trump, we’ll do that.”
Ford got the loudest cheers for repeating the line he made famous for sporting it on a ball cap after Trump threatened to use economic force to make Canada a U.S. state: “Canada is not for sale.”
Do it with Stiles
Stiles, whose NDP was the official opposition before parliament was dissolved, launched her campaign in Toronto, standing in front of a giant Canadian flag, flanked by about two dozen candidates.
She pitched herself as the real Captain Canada.
“Doug Ford? Our negotiator? Is he kidding?” she said.
The PC leader was “taken to the cleaners” by Therme on its Toronto spa deal, she said. Later, she added deals with The Beer Store and Staples to that list.
“Is he the guy for the job?” she asked.
“No!” replied her party faithful, about 100 of whom were gathered at a community centre in Toronto's Regent Park neighbourhood.
Supporters wore orange shirts, some emblazoned with the leader’s blown-up face on the front and “DO IT WITH STILES” on the back. A party spokesperson said they were not official merchandise — the real slogan is “on your side.”
“I will support a strong, smart, tough tariff response that hits back hard,” Stiles said.
Stiles pledged an income protection plan should the tariffs hit but declined to provide more details to reporters in a scrum after her speech.
The NDP leader said she’d work with Ottawa to forge alliances with democracies in Canada and around the world.
“We have a lot of friends out there. And the thing is, Trump is trying to pick us off one by one. So let's stand together at home and overseas, right?” she said, promising she’d have “a lot more to say about that” as the campaign plays out.
Stiles took some time in the middle of her speech to go poaching. Addressing Liberal voters directly, she said the Grits did some good things while in office, like all-day kindergarten.
"But those are not the values of the current leader of the Ontario Liberal Party," she said. "Today's Liberal leader would be right at home as a cabinet minister in Doug Ford's government. Bonnie Crombie doesn't want to get rid of Doug Ford. Bonnie Crombie wants to be Doug Ford."
Still, she said her main goal was to win in PC ridings and hold onto incumbents.
“I intend to flip blue ridings to orange. That's what we're focused on,” she said.
Outside of tariffs, Stiles promised to hire more doctors, build more homes, fix schools and make life more affordable.
Her first campaign pledge, announced on Tuesday, was to remove tolls on Highway 407. She again declined to provide a price tag. Ford has estimated that a buyback of the highway could cost $35 billion.
Real leaders fix health care
Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie had to keep her “real leaders fix health care” ball cap from blowing in the winter wind as she launched an election campaign centred around addressing health policy issues such as Ontario’s shortage of family doctors.
Crombie held a press conference outside a medical campus in Barrie alongside her local candidate, former Ontario Medical Association (OMA) president Rose Zacharias. Crombie said she chose Barrie as the first stop of the campaign because 55,000 area residents don’t have a family doctor.
“We are here today because Doug Ford doesn't care about you,” declared Crombie. “He's decided to spend $175 million on an early election that we don't need rather than spending that money on getting you a family doctor.”
Zacharias told reporters that the PCs have failed in their promise to fix “hallway health care” and that “it’s time to take seriously our health-care system.”
“Real leaders fix health care, and that's not happening right now,” said Zacharias while emphasizing her decades of experience as an emergency room doctor and at the OMA.
Just days before the election, however, the PC government rolled out its “Ontario's Primary Care Action Plan” which proposes to fix the shortage of family doctors by the end of the 2028/29 fiscal year.
Weeks before, the Liberals had released their own plan, which they said would “guarantee a family doctor for everyone in Ontario” by the end of their first term.
The PC and Liberal plans are fairly similar. Both call for the training of new doctors, the expansion of “team-based” primary care providers and the Ontario Health Teams, and reducing paperwork for family doctors.
Asked what she thinks of the PC plan and to explain how her approach will be different, Crombie said the PC plan is “too little, too late,” arguing that the PC Party has squandered the past seven years by failing to address the shortage.
“Our plan will create 3,100 doctors in family medicine and team care so that everyone in Ontario will have access to a family doctor,” said Crombie while promising the Liberals will elaborate on their proposal and provide costing during the campaign. “It will cost as much as the pre-election cheques did.”
Zacharias added that the PC’s decision to hire former federal Liberal cabinet minister Dr. Jane Philpott to craft the government’s strategy “shows that even the Conservatives are asking Liberals to fix health care.”
The PCs responded to Crombie’s press conference by releasing a statement noting that Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall has endorsed the PCs. Crombie shrugged it off.
“Does the mayor of Barrie understand that 55,000 people in his own community don't have access to health care? How does that help the situation? How does that help solve the health care,” she wondered.
People over profits
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner kicked things off at Queen’s Park Wednesday morning before heading to Guelph in the party’s custom green electric tour car.
“We should be here at Queen's Park working across party lines to show Donald Trump strength through unity, but instead Doug Ford has called an election abandoning the people of Ontario when people need him the most,” Schreiner said.
He criticized Ford’s actions on housing, health care and education, saying the number 1 issue in this campaign is “Doug Ford’s record of failure.”
“His failure to fix the housing crisis, his failure to fix health care, his failure in the fact that students are learning in overcrowded classrooms, his failure to put people before the profits of big developers and oil and gas companies,” said Schreiner, adding that the Greens’ vision is to “put people over profits.”
The party expects to have a full slate of candidates “shortly,” Schreiner said, noting that, so far, they’ve got 80 nominated, with more in the works.
“We're running a strong slate of candidates in every riding in this province, people who are committed to being local champions and advocates for their riding at Queen's Park, not their leader’s voice in the riding,” he said.
