After a tough campaign and tapping into the populist wave in the province, the PC leader has won the 2018 Ontario election.
Doug Ford, Ontario PC Party leader. Chatham, Ontario, April 20, 2018. (Photograph by Cole Burston)
Ontario PC leader Doug Ford has won the provincial election with a majority government, overtaking both NDP leader Andrea Horwath and incumbent Premier Kathleen Wynne.
Just 15 minutes after polls closed, the PCs had a commanding lead. Both CBC and CTV quickly called the election in favour of Ford.
See the latest results as they come in here.
Ford successfully channelled populist sentiment in Ontario and successfully galvanized voters’ anger towards the Liberals, who spent the last 15 years in power. Ford had banked on voters believing in his vision for change and pledges to cut government spending, slash taxes for the middle class and offer relief to minimum-wage workers.
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In “Are you ready for Premier Doug Ford?” associate editor Shannon Proudfoot explored what would happen if the policy-averse leader of Ford Nation actually won the election. In an excerpt from Proudfoot’s piece, she writes:
“Those who worked with Ford in municipal politics describe a businessman with an unhealthy confidence in his own judgment and a disdain for painstaking policy construction; someone who is entertaining and charming, but also quick to anger and unwilling to compromise—a “one-man band” on the cusp of running Canada’s largest province. “I think Doug Ford is so underestimated in every way possible that a lot of people think, ‘Oh, this can’t happen, he can’t be elected premier.’ Or if he does get elected premier, he’ll tone it down, he’ll become more mainstream,” says John Filion, a Toronto city councillor who wrote a book on the Ford era. “And all of that is wrong.”
When it comes to how governing could work in Queen’s Park:
“If Ford and his party sweep into Queen’s Park with a majority, of course, he will have both the leadership position to impose his will and the votes to push things through the legislature—provided there is no mutiny from within. But Ford’s type of intransigent tribalism would make any workplace a little fraught, let alone one with the egos, competing interests and shifting allegiances of politics.
READ MORE: Are you ready for Premier Doug Ford?
After mounting pressure from his opponents, the Ontario PCs released a more detailed look at Ford’s list of promises with less than a week left in the campaign. Although much of the platform didn’t contain detailed costs, it provides the most insight into what’s in store for Ontarians. Ford vowed to cut $6 billion from Ontario’s budget, slash middle-class income taxes by 20 per cent, add 15,000 new long-term beds, spend $1.9 billion over the next decade on mental health and addiction support, expand sales of beer, wine, cider and coolers into corner stores, replace the sex-ed curriculum and end Ontario’s Green Energy Act.
We listed some of the promises that Ford has made throughout the campaign broken down by category (For the full list click here):
In contrast to his opponents, Ford is the only leader campaigning on a promise to quickly balance the books and keep them that way.
The PCs under Doug Ford have vowed to shrink government and cut taxes, but questions remain about how many platform policies from Patrick Brown’s “People’s Guarantee” will be adopted. So far, Ford has promised:
Doug Ford has said he’d fire the CEO of Hydro One. Since the utility’s privatization, however, that power no longer rests with the provincial government. Other highlights:
On the health care front, Ford and the Ontario PCs’ platform has promised to:
Doug Ford previously said he’d consider privatizing the sale and distribution of weed and alcohol but later softened his stance:
Doug Ford has said he wants to “review the curriculum in all core subject areas thoroughly“:
Ford has said his platform will have neither a cap-and-trade system nor a carbon tax (despite the $10-billion hole it would leave in the Tory fiscal plan). Highlights:
Doug Ford laid out his infrastructure promises which include: