Even a small shift could oust Ford

NDP, Liberals must keep differences aside for voting strategy to oust PCs

If a relatively small proportion of erstwhile New Democratic Party voters are prepared to hold their noses long enough to vote Liberal on June 2, Doug Ford will be ousted as premier of Ontario. If they are not, the Progressive Conservatives stand to be re-elected with a second (though reduced) majority government.

These predictions are derived from an examination of the results of the three most recent provincial elections (2011, 2014 and 2018), the shifts in popular vote in those elections and changes in party support in recent opinion polls.

There are 124 seats in the Ontario legislature with 63 required for a bare majority. In 2018, the PCs took 76 seats (61 per cent of the seats) with 41 per cent of the popular vote. Resignations and defections have reduced the seat count to 67, four above the minimum for a majority. Ford’s popularity and his party’s support have suffered in four uneven years in power, though not disastrously so. The Tories’ average in polls taken so far this year has been running in the range of 35 to 37 per cent — not great, but good enough, in the opinion of analysts, to yield a majority government of about 71 seats.

The analysis, however, rests on an expectation that Ontarians who do not choose to vote for the government party will divide their support more or less evenly between the two principal opposition parties, saving a small slice for the Green Party. That’s the Ontario way.

Maybe not this time. The PCs and the New Democrats were beneficiaries of the collapse of Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government in the 2018 election. Both saw their popular vote increase by about10 per cent from their 2014 results. This year’s polls indicate the Conservatives have given back half of their 2018 windfall, while the NDP has fared much worse. From 34 per cent in 2018, the party has fallen to a poll average of 22 per cent this year. In other words, the NDP has regressed. It has fallen back into its accustomed range of 22 to 24 per cent, and is headed to a thirdplace finish.

To date, the NDP has not revealed any policies that would distinguish it materially from its election competition. And it is burdened with a leader, Andrea Horwath, who has already led it to three straight election defeats.

The only party with momentum is the Ontario Liberal party. Left for dead — and leaderless — in 2018, it is experiencing a modest resurrection this year under its new leader, Steven Del Duca. Recent polls have put the Liberals within four percentage points (32-36) of the PCs. That’s not close enough. With just a month to go until the election, it seems unlikely that the Liberals can pull enough new supporters into their tent to disable or defeat the Tories. Unless.

Unless they reach out to disaffected New Democrats — disaffected by the performance or style of the Ford government or by the futility of their own party — and persuade them to hold their noses and vote Liberal.

It won’t be easy. The two provincial parties don’t share the same synergy as their centreleft counterparts in Ottawa. They don’t much like each other. They are usually happiest when fighting between themselves.

Still, the Ford PCs are their common enemy. A shift of three or four points from NDP to Liberal would probably be enough to reduce the Conservatives to a minority government, which the opposition parties could dispose of on the floor of the legislature.