By Pepper Parr
February 22nd, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Catching up politically …
We will know late Thursday night – Friday morning at the latest what the results of the provincial election are going to be.
Doug Ford has a lot to think about during the week we are going into.
Will the public punish Doug Ford for calling a snap election that many people feel wasn’t necessary?
Will Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie have managed to get through the impact Ford Nation has had on this election?
Has Doug Ford earned being returned to office?
Has Marit Stiles changed minds – enough to be returned as the Leader of the Opposition in a minority government? She certainly served the public with her getting a devastating report from the Auditor General and a strong report from the Provincial Integrity Commissioner
Has Marat Stiles managed to get through to the public?
Will the NDP and Liberals combined hold the balance of power and leave Ford leading a minority government?
And if that happens – will he stick around?
Did the high turnout for the advance polling mean anything?
Will Mike Shreiner manage to add one more Green Party member to the Legislature?
Bonnie Crombie finally came out with a strong performance during the debate.
From time to time elections manage to make a difference.
Recall when Brian Mulroney challenged John Turner on the Senate appointments Turner made before the election. That was a pivotal point which saw Mulroney elected as the Prime Minister.
A decade later he gave up being Prime Minister and handed over power to his cabinet minister Kim Campbell in June 1993.
The unpopularity of the GST and the controversy surrounding its passage in the Senate, combined with the early 1990s recession, the collapse of the Charlottetown Accord, and growing Western alienation that triggered the rise of the Reform Party, caused a stark decline in Mulroney’s popularity, which induced him to resign.
In the 1993 election the Progressive Conservatives were reduced from a majority government of 156 seats to two.
Is this kind of thing a possible scenario for Ontario?
Elections do make a difference.
Is the poor Doug Ford performance on health care, education, failure to build the housing that is needed, the number of jobs that have been lost, the tearing down of the Science Centre and promoting a theme park that is going to cost billions going to have an impact.
Add to that the highway that Ford proposes be built as a tunnel underneath the 401.
The Progressive Conservative candidate was a no show during the debate in Burlington.
All the signs point to a change – just what that change is going to be will be clearer next Friday.
Will the deeply rooted conservative mind set in Burlington be strong enough to have Natalie Pierre returned to office?
Lot’s to think about people.
Do the thinking, don’t get trapped in the “I have always voted for …) Vote for the person you think is going to serve you and your community best.
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