If Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford scores a major electoral victory tonight, it will likely vindicate a strategy that centred the election campaign on U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threat while overshadowing other key provincial issues, some analysts say.
“Tariffs and Trump is such a specific, top-of-mind issue,” said Éric Grenier, a polls and elections analyst who writes The Writ newsletter. “For PCs, every poll shows that they’re way ahead on that issue.”
Polls indicate that Ford, whose campaign sold him as the only provincial leader who can protect Ontarians from the threat of U.S. tariffs imposed on Canadian goods, could be heading for an historic third majority win tonight.
Before the election was called, the PCs held 82 seats in the Ontario Legislature, followed by the NDP with 30, the Liberals with nine, Greens with two and one independent.
Ontarians have cast their ballots on Thursday, Feb. 27 and now it’s time to see who will form the next government at Queen’s Park. We’ll bring you all of the results plus analysis from our CBC News team from 9 to 11 p.m. ET.
Ford triggered the snap election saying he needed a new mandate to deal with Trump’s threatened tariffs — 25 per cent tariffs on goods and 10 per cent tariffs on energy. And he has since taken on a so-called “Captain Canada” mantle, becoming the unofficial advocate for not just the province, but the country. He has travelled to Washington and appeared in U.S. media to make the case against tariffs.
This immediate tariff threat meant that Ford benefited from the fact that the bulk of issues that consume Ontario’s legislative focus and its budget — health care, education, housing and social services — never ended up being as central during the election campaign, according to Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, a political science professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.
‘Behemoth to the south’
More importantly, the opposition party leaders were unable to make the problems within the health care or education systems stick to him, she said
“There’s a lot of ammo here for the opposition parties to have really gone hard on for his record,” Goodyear-Grant said. “How do you make that land when you have this behemoth to the south?”
Even when Trump implemented a 30-day tariff pause, the issue never really went away, she said.
“There was never not rhetoric from from Trump and his administration during the tariff pause that would have caused Ontarians or Canadians broadly to relax,” Goodyear-Grant said.
The threat of tariffs, was “so much in your face” that it gave Ford a much-needed focus of his campaign, Grenier said.
“Anytime you turn on the news, Trump’s there. It reminds people that Trump is an issue for the Ontario election. I think that’s why it has dominated focus so much.”
Meanwhile, other issues just didn’t break through in this election because the tariff message and the underlying economic uncertainty in the province “is at the core of every voter’s awareness,” said Andrea Lawlor, an associate professor of political science at McMaster University in Hamilton.
Much of the PC party’s platform includes economically driven commentary on Ontario’s potential for growth and employment trends, particularly as it relates to the potential impact of tariffs, she said.
The platform also includes recommendations of what Ontario will be advising the federal government to do in terms of recouping money from counter-tariffs.
“We see in their platform they have put tariffs first and they have made tariffs central to their message,” Lawlor said.
However that message is not front and centre with the opposition parties, she said.
“And to the extent that they are, it’s how tariffs could affect other areas of social policy. It’s not dealing with tariffs square on,” she said.
Before casting your ballot on Feb. 27, it’s important to know how the four major party leaders compare on hot-button issues. CBC’s Julia Knope breaks down some of their key promises.
Grenier says that issues like cost of living and health care were still considered priorities for Ontarians but none, on their own, really became a ballot-box issue this election.
Many voters tied cost of living, a pocketbook issue, to tariffs, and trusted the PCs best to deal with it, according to Grenier. As for health care, the Liberals may have penetrated a bit on that issue, but polling suggested that voters didn’t think Ford’s government did such a bad job, Grenier said.
And while voters may see the health-care system as troubled, people may not automatically vote for a different party because of it, Grenier said
‘Lack of faith’
“I think there’s a lack of faith that any of the parties, after decades, are really going to be all that much more able to solve it than anybody else,” Grenier said.
“Had this campaign been a campaign really about nothing, then the PCs might have found that by the end of it, they might have started to run up against some of the baggage from the last few years,” Grenier said.
“And I think [tariffs] gave them an issue. It gave them focus for the campaign. And and in the end it looks like it’s going to it’s going to work out fine.”
The countdown to results begins at 8 p.m. ET on CBC TV and CBC News Network and we’ll start bringing you results as soon as polls close at 9 p.m. You can also watch the special on CBC Gem, YouTube or on some smart TVs.
