Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Allison Jones and Liam Casey, January 26, 2025

Ontario’s political parties have been preparing for months for the possibility of an early election, but next week’s snap election call has pushed planning to a fever pitch.

Premier Doug Ford has announced that he will meet with the lieutenant-governor on Tuesday to trigger an election campaign beginning Wednesday, for a vote on Feb. 27. 

He said he needs a new mandate, with the biggest majority in provincial history, in order to represent Ontario’s interests amid threatened tariffs. 

But opposition parties accuse Ford of opportunism and trying to capitalize on favourable polling.

Regardless of the reason, it’s happening, and the parties are all now in a flurry of nominating candidates, finalizing platforms, making ad buys, and training volunteers.

Liberal campaign co-director Genevieve Tomney says the party has been getting ready for months and putting an emphasis on fundraising so they would be ready whenever an election was called.

“Are we kicking into high gear in a way that is now on a super expedited timeline?” she said. “Sure, but we’ve been preparing to put these building blocks in place, and we’re ready for it.”

As of Friday, the Liberals said they had more than 100 candidates nominated, though that includes some with final administrative steps “pending.” 

But their website only showed 46 candidates and Rose Zacharias, one of the party’s two campaign co-chairs, isn’t set to be officially nominated until Feb. 1. Half a dozen candidates were set to be officially nominated throughout the weekend.

The NDP said it had nominated 36 candidates as of Friday and would have 39 by the end of the weekend, with several more to come next week. The party held a “campaign school” last weekend, training campaigners on organizing canvassing, managing data and getting supporters to the polls.

The Progressive Conservatives have candidates in 88 ridings, who so far largely consist of returning caucus members, with a ways to go before reaching a full slate of 124.

The party was set to hold a “super caucus” meeting this weekend, bringing Tories together to discuss strategy as they prepare to launch the campaign.

Ford was asked on Friday if he would be unveiling a fully costed platform at some point during the campaign and he offered contradicting responses.

“That’s why we have budgets,” he said at first, though a minute later he committed to “fully releasing it.” 

During the 2022 campaign, the Progressive Conservatives ran on a budget they tabled but didn’t pass before triggering their election, having it effectively serve as their platform. 

In 2018, Ford’s campaign had a compilation of campaign promises but the document did not account for how he intended to pay for those. 

The Greens have also been busy nominating candidates, celebrating reaching half of a full slate on Friday. 

They broke a record last year by raising $2.4 million and will be zeroing in on a few ridings where they believe they can win, including Parry Sound-Muskoka, which is currently held by Progressive Conservative Graydon Smith. The Greens’ Matt Richter came second there in 2022.

They’re also looking at Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound and Wellington-Halton Hills in southwestern Ontario, where they have local councillors running.

“We’re prepared and ready to go,” Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said. 

The Greens believe they have momentum after doubling their seat count — to two — in late 2023 when Aislinn Clancy took Kitchener-Centre in a byelection. Schreiner hopes to double or triple that number in this election.

“We’re confident that we’re going to increase our seat count,” Schreiner said over the phone from a campaign office in Bracebridge, Ont.

“We’re the one party really talking about putting people before profits, especially when it comes to addressing the housing affordability crisis, the fact that we want people to have access to a family doctor, we don’t want to see rural hospitals closed and addressing overcrowded classrooms.”

2) (Updated) Ontario voters officially headed to polls early for provincial election

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Allison Jones and Liam Casey, Jan. 28, 2025.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford officially set a provincial election in motion Tuesday for Feb. 27, more than a year before the next fixed election date.

The election had been set for June 2026, but Ford said he needs a new mandate to deal with four years of a Donald Trump presidency in the United States.

Ford has said Trump’s threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods would hit Ontario and its auto sector hard, and the provincial government would need to spend tens of billions of dollars to protect jobs and the economy.

Cabinet has discussed an “economic action plan” to respond to tariffs from the United States, the premier said earlier Tuesday.

Officials say the economic action plan has not yet been approved by cabinet and therefore won’t be implemented during the campaign — and Ford instead suggested it will be rolled out as announcements.

“We want to move forward and make sure that we give certainty,” Ford said.

“Right now, President Trump … has put uncertainty to every single Canadian, a lot of other countries around the world, and this isn’t going to happen overnight. It may not happen Feb. 1, I’m sure something’s coming, but this is going to be a battle for the next four years, and I want to make sure that I have a strong mandate to outlast President Trump.”

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said merely announcing such a plan once tariffs are in place doesn’t make sense.

“If the premier has an economic action plan ready to go, why not just implement it?” Schreiner wrote in a statement. “Why not work across party lines to protect Ontario workers, Ontario jobs and Ontario companies?”

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the threat of tariffs is precisely why Ontario should not be plunged into an election campaign right now.

“While the people of Ontario are anxious about the grave threat of tariffs, Doug Ford is pursuing his own political gain,” she wrote in a statement. “People need a premier who will fight like hell for every single job that’s at risk, not run to the polls over a year early.”

Opposition parties have insisted an early election is not necessary, because they would support stimulus spending and Ford already has a mandate after voters handed him a large majority last time. Going to the polls now is opportunism to capitalize on good polling, they charge.

“Doug Ford’s Ontario has failed you,” Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie wrote in a statement. “He’s wasting $175 million on an early election instead of using it to fix our broken health-care system and make your life more affordable.”

The premier visited the lieutenant-governor Tuesday to dissolve the provincial legislature, and writs ordering elections in all 124 of the province’s electoral districts are to be issued on Wednesday.

Ford has said he needs the “largest mandate in Ontario’s history.”

His Progressive Conservatives won 83 seats in the 2022 election, though that now stands at 79 due to various resignations.

Ford has said he plans to continue acting in his capacity as premier, including visiting Washington, D.C., in February with a group of other premiers, while also campaigning as leader of the Progressive Conservatives.

Critics have said he shouldn’t campaign and act as premier at the same time, but Ford has dismissed that.

“I’m the premier,” Ford said Tuesday morning.

“I’m going to work hard, which I have been, 18 hours a day, to make sure our province is prosperous and we have economic development, and make sure we have a loud voice when we’re negotiating against these tariffs.”

3) (Updated) PC Leader Ford to honour Ontario’s EV commitment, Crombie and Stiles less definitive

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Liam Casey, Jan. 30, 2025.

Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford said Thursday he will honour Ontario’s commitment to the burgeoning electric vehicle sector if re-elected, while his main political rivals were less definitive.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said his country does not want or need Canadian cars despite signing a free trade deal with Canada and Mexico in his first term. He has threatened 25 per cent across-the-board tariffs on Canadian imports unless border security is improved.

Trump has also made it clear that he’s going after Ontario’s automotive industry, hoping to increase vehicle production at home. 

Ford’s government agreed to an auto pact with the federal government in 2023 to pay one-third of production incentives in deals with Volkswagen, as well as Stellantis and LG Energy Solution, for their EV battery plants.

The two governments ponied up the money in order to compete with former U.S. president Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which included a tax credit for clean vehicle purchases.

Trump has frozen funding under the act and has threatened to end it altogether.

“Even if President Trump tears up America’s commitment to the auto industry, we will not,” Ford said at a campaign stop in London, Ont.

“I want to make it clear to every partner we have in Ontario’s electric vehicle and battery supply chain: a re-elected PC government will honour our commitment to invest in the sector.”

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said she’ll protect the auto industry, though she said she wanted to have a look at the deals with Stellantis and Volkswagen.

“I believe in the EV sector, I think this is important for the future of our own economy,” Stiles said at a campaign event in Toronto.

But she is not convinced the Stellantis and Volkswagen deals are good for Ontarians.

“Doug Ford does not make good deals for Ontario generally, and I’m going to be looking very carefully at the details of the deals that he’s struck with those folks,” she said.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie said she wanted to diversify Ontario’s economy when asked whether she’d support Ontario’s EV manufacturing and supply chain market.

“I’m very concerned that the premier has put all our eggs in the EV basket, has not tried to diversify our economy, insulate us in any way, and brought different kinds of investment into Ontario and create jobs,” Crombie said at a stop in Mississauga, Ont.

She said she would bring back EV rebates as one way to help grow the sector.

Should Trump follow through on his threat to go after Ontario’s auto sector through tariffs and cancelled subsidies, Ford said he would invest an additional $1 billion in a skills development fund for autoworkers to transition to a different trade.

He also pledged $100 million for an employment program to help workers “in sectors that are vulnerable to trade disruptions” train and transition to “in-demand” jobs.

Ford has made a big bet on electric vehicles during his first two terms as premier. In addition to the deals with Stellantis and Volkswagen, Ford again worked with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to help attract Honda, which plans to open its own battery-making facility next to its production plant in Alliston, Ont.

That deal does not involve production subsidies, but the federal government will provide the Japanese automaker with $2.5 billion through tax credits.

Ontario committed to providing up to $2.5 billion directly — such as for capital costs — and indirectly, such as for covering site servicing costs.

The province has also attracted several related businesses, including a cathode production plant and a separator plant, both producing materials needed to build electric-vehicle batteries.

Ford has also promised to deliver an end-to-end manufacturing chain that would see critical minerals extracted from the ground in northwestern Ontario and shipped south for processing and assembly.

Canadian automaker leaders and union executives descended on Washington, D.C., en masse for Trump’s inauguration last week in an effort to push back on possible tariffs, which would decimate the industry and make cars significantly more expensive in the U.S.

Materials, parts and vehicles cross the border numerous times in a pact that was recently updated and initiated by Trump in his first term, as part of a renegotiated free trade agreement between the two countries and Mexico.

Ontario voters will head to the polls Feb. 27.

— With files from Allison Jones in London and Maan Alhmidi.

4) Tariff fight takes centre stage as Ontario election campaign kicks off

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Allison Jones, January 29, 2025

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles, Conservative Leader Doug Ford, Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner and Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie are shown in these recent file photos. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette, Chris Young, Arlyn McAdorey; Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford pitched himself Wednesday as the best steward of the economy in the face of looming tariffs, but the other party leaders say his record from the last seven years suggests otherwise.

Ford says he needs the strongest majority in Ontario history in order to effectively deal with the threatened 25 per cent tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump, and has called a snap election for Feb. 27, nearly 1 1/2 years before the scheduled June 2026 vote.

This election will cost about $189 million to run, the chief electoral officer of Elections Ontario said Wednesday.

Ford held his first official campaign event in Windsor, with a backdrop of the Ambassador Bridge to the U.S. to highlight the tariffs issue.

“The bigger the mandate I receive from you, the better we’ll be able to protect our province, because this is a game to the president,” Ford said. 

“He seeks to divide and conquer. Whether he imposes tariffs next week, next month, or waits another year or more, Trump’s threats are not going away.”

But as focused as Ford has been lately on the tariff fight, he has taken his eye off the ball on other pressing provincial issues, Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie suggested.

“While the premier is running around the province pretending he’s Captain Canada, he’s not solving the basic issues that matter to Ontarians,” she said at her campaign launch in Barrie. 

“He said he’d fix hallway medicine. He didn’t get it done. He said he’d cut your taxes, and he didn’t get it done. He said he’d build 1.5 million homes. He didn’t get it done. I’ve looked at the homelessness, mental health and addiction crisis that exists here in Barrie. He is not helping the situation here in Barrie on the ground, or fixing the doctors crisis.”

Crombie was in Barrie alongside Liberal candidate in Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte, Rose Zacharias, an emergency and family doctor as well as past president of the Ontario Medical Association. They highlighted a promise to ensure everyone in Ontario has a family doctor within four years.

Crombie also noted why she chose Barrie as her launching location.

“Because we wanted to highlight the very difficult issue, the crisis that Ontarians are facing with a lack of access to family medicine and to health care,” Crombie said.

“And the fact that there are 55,000 people right here in Barrie that don’t have access to a family doc[tor] – it’s the most critical issue for Ontarians.”

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie Kicks Off Campaign in Barrie

https://youtube.com/watch?v=rkcZ4jqFhLc%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said the whole election is unnecessary. With potential tariffs on the horizon, which Trump has mused about implementing Feb. 1,  Ontario would be better positioned to respond if they didn’t come in the middle of an election campaign, he said.

“We should be here at Queen’s Park working across party lines to show Donald Trump strength through unity, but instead, Doug Ford has called an election abandoning the people of Ontario when…people need him the most,” Schreiner said. 

“But you know, this should come as no surprise, because over the past seven years, since the Ford government has taken office, housing starts are down, housing costs are up, 2.5 million Ontarians don’t have access to a family doctor, (there are) unprecedented emergency room closures and hallway health care out of control, overcrowded classrooms and the rich just seem to be getting richer while the rest of us struggle just to get by.”

NDP Leader Marit Stiles touted her own bona fides in taking on the tariff fight, saying she has bargained and negotiated with American and multinational corporations to protect jobs. Meanwhile, she suggested that Ford called this snap election not over tariffs, but to protect his own job.

“He says it’s because he wants us to hire him to be our negotiator with Trump,” she said in a speech. “Doug Ford, our negotiator? Is he kidding? I mean, just look at Doug Ford’s track record.”

Stiles pointed to a 95-year lease for a spa on Toronto’s waterfront, and that just Monday the province’s financial accountability officer found that Ford’s decision to speed up access to beer and wine in corner stores by one year will cost the province $612 million.

His government is also under criminal investigation by the RCMP, who are looking into Ford’s decision to open up the protected Greenbelt lands to housing development. It is a now-reversed decision that the auditor general said stood to benefit certain developers to the tune of more than $8 billion.

Elections Ontario got little more notice than the public that an election campaign would begin Wednesday, Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa said, but had started preparations in May, when Ford first sparked early election speculation by refusing to rule out a 2025 campaign.

“Obviously, we planned for an election based on a fixed date, so we had our plans all centred around June of 2026,” he said. 

“I immediately had our organization sort of change our readiness date till April 1. We started moving that back to March 1 and February.”

Nonetheless, Elections Ontario will be ready to run the election, he said, with all 124 returning offices set to open Wednesday. Due to the snap vote, advance voting days will be limited to three instead of the usual 10. As well, Essensa said he is working with Emergency Management Ontario to plan for contingencies should extreme weather hit on Feb. 27.s to housing development. It is a now-reversed decision that the auditor general said stood to benefit certain developers to the tune of more than $8 billion.

– With files from Liam Casey in Windsor, Maan Alhmidi in Barrie, Rianna Lim in Toronto, and Barrie 360.