What next for the Liberals?
Tough times ahead after losing official party status,
Whither the Ontario Liberal Party?
That’s the existential question the Liberals faced the day after almost being wiped off the political map in the worst drubbing in the party’s history.
Despite governing Ontario for almost 15 years, the Grits were reduced to seven seats, one fewer than official party status.
Asked if the new government would considering lowering that threshold in the House to allow the Liberals to receive research funding and be allowed to ask daily questions in the legislature, Ford was non-committal.
“We’ll be able to discuss that in the days and weeks to come,” the premier-designate said Friday.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who becomes official opposition leader, had little sympathy for the Liberals’ political plight.
“The people gave the Liberals seven seats. That’s what they’re going to have to deal with,” Horwath told a news conference at
een’s Park with almost a dozen new MPPs, as her caucus increased dramatically in size.
Premier Kathleen Wynne said she hoped Ford would consider the change — much as former premier Dalton McGuinty did to help the NDP after the 2003 election when they only won seven seats. Some 75 days after that campaign, McGuinty relented and agreed to allow the NDP to participate in the legislature’s daily question period and provided the party with $775,000 for research and communications staff.
“We made a decision that we would give them party status because we felt it was important that the NDP voice was heard at committees for example,” said Wynne, who was a backbencher at the time.
“I remember one of the points that someone made was: ‘You know, one day we could find
lves in the same position.’ So that’s a bit of a cautionary note.”
Wynne, who resigned as leader Thursday, said the Liberals have other concerns as they focus on “rebuilding” for the 2022 election.
One is finding a new leader. Cabinet ministers Michael Coteau, Nathalie Des Rosiers, Mitzie Hunter, and Marie-France Lalonde are considered potential successors. Coteau, re-elected in Don Valley East, said the party’s “natural base is still there, and I feel like it’s going to be my job, and our job to reconnect with those folks.”
“I don’t know if it’s going to take four years or eight years (to rebuild the party), but I know one thing, it’s going to take a long time and we’ll know better a year from now,” he said.
Meanwhile, David Herle, who ran the campaign, said the Liberals hit a wall named Ford.
“In this election, we faced the implacable demand for change that was out there after 15 years of Liberal government,” Herle told CP24.
“And then you had this Doug Ford weird phenomenon enter the race, which really changed he whole dynamic and the nature of the dialogue going on,” he said, referring to the radically different landscape after PC eader Patrick Brown resigned in January.
While each of the major parties will have significant postelection debt, the annual public subsidy, which is based on pervote tallies, will give the Tories $6.3 million, the NDP $5.2 million, the Liberals $3 million, and the Greens $715,000.
Ford has suggested he may eliminate the subsidy, which was part of fundraising reforms brought in last year.