Gaining GTA votes godsend for Tories

The Ontario Liberals’ electoral strength on Toronto is waning, at least according to a Forum Research Poll. If that’s true, then Premier Kathleen Wynne and her colleagues aren’t likely to win the 2018 election — because they’ve worn out their welcome in the rest of Ontario.

Forum’s poll, conducted June 20-22, found that if an election was held today the Progressive Conservatives would attract 38 per cent of the Toronto vote, compared to 32 per cent for the Liberals. The NDP would pick up 21 per cent, while the Green Party would receive six per cent.

The information is meaningful only because it shows a shift in Ontario’s biggest urban centre away from the Liberals. Forum’s polling results are consistent with falling Liberal support in the rest of the province, but the election will be held next June and a lot can happen within 11 months.

The Liberals’ political support has been mostly urban-based and concentrated within GTA ridings. By winning those crucial ridings, first Dalton McGuinty and now Wynne have been able to govern all of Ontario. Their party has been a party that has catered almost exclusively to urban voters and their sensibilities.

Indeed, the Liberals have at times ignored the wishes of rural voters. The Green Energy Act, for example, has since 2009 allowed a central government the authority to circumvent local municipal planning. In most cases this has angered rural constituents, and any goodwill the Liberals have enjoyed outside of the GTA has been exhausted.

Yet when residents in Mississauga and Oakville expressed angst over a gas-fired energy plant being built within their communities, the Liberal response was swift; construction was cancelled, and at great cost to every Ontario taxpayer.

Gaining a foothold in Toronto would be a godsend for Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown and his colleagues. The Conservatives’ strength in recent elections has been outside of Toronto and the GTA — but never enough to form a government.

That’s not to say Toronto has always been Liberal. It was consistently Tory during the Bill Davis era. Ironically, the Liberals in the 1960s and 1970s found their strength mostly in rural Ontario.

One truth remains: To form a majority government in Ontario, a political party must win the hearts and votes of Toronto and the GTA. The Liberals have managed to do that for 14 years, but if they lose that grip, they lose their grip on Queen’s Park.