Ontario election campaigns launch as Ford vows to fight tariffs and opposition parties aim at health care
Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford meets with supporters during his campaign launch in Windsor, Ont., Jan. 29.Dax Melmer/The Canadian Press
Doug Ford launched his early election campaign at the Canada-U.S. border on Wednesday pledging to fight for Ontario in the face of potential tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump. But the Progressive Conservative Leader still offered no firm details about his promised plan to respond to threat, as the opposition parties accused him of mismanaging the province and worsening the crisis in health care.
Standing at the foot of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Mr. Ford portrayed himself as fighter who can take on Mr. Trump, asking Ontarians to give his PC Party a third majority in a snap vote being held 15 months before what would have been the next election in June, 2026.
“I’m asking the people for a strong, stable, four-year mandate to do whatever it takes to protect Ontario,” Mr. Ford said.
The opposition calls Mr. Ford’s early election political opportunism, accusing him of seeking another four-year mandate before the economy sours, the federal election brings cost-cutting Conservatives to power, or the RCMP lays charges in its probe of the government’s aborted move to allow a small group of developers to profit from building housing in the protected Greenbelt.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles launched her campaign in Toronto, pitching herself as the best person to fight back against Mr. Trump, while Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie appeared in Barrie, an hour north of Toronto, and focused on improving health care. Both have dismissed the early election as needless.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles launches her election campaign, in Toronto, Jan. 29.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Ontario’s Chief Electoral Officer, Greg Essensa, released the expected price tag for the snap vote, telling reporters at Queen’s Park his agency is budgeting $189-million for the election, which will see voters head to the polls Feb. 27.
Speaking to reporters in Windsor, Mr. Ford said that Mr. Trump’s threat to impose 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian goods starting Saturday will have a devastating impact on the economy, and the government will need to spend tens of billions on a bailout plan for workers and businesses.
Asked for details, Mr. Ford said he wouldn’t respond until the U.S. President acts first. He said he is set to meet with his fellow premiers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday morning to discuss federal retaliatory tariffs if Mr. Trump goes ahead with the punishing levies.
“Once it comes, you’ll hear loud and clear how we’re going to support the people of Ontario,” Mr. Ford said.
Although he has publicly stated he wants a meeting with Mr. Trump, Mr. Ford said he has not yet secured one. He will travel to Washington twice during the campaign to meet with governors and members of Congress to lobby against tariffs.
He also faced questions about the report from Ontario’s financial watchdog this week that found his move to speed up the expansion of alcohol sales to corner stores will cost taxpayers $1.4-billion, much more than the government had said.
Mr. Ford said the plan was about convenience and choice and will create jobs for convenience and retail stores.
“They don’t put down the close to billion dollars of economic growth that we’re going to see when we do this,” he said.
Opposition parties were expected to focus on health care, and the 2.5 million people without a family doctor in the province. The Ontario Medical Association on Wednesday said despite the government’s commitments to fix the problem, the family doctor shortage has shown “no improvement” in the past year and there are 2,600 vacant physician positions across the province.
On the eve of the election call, the Progressive Conservatives promised to spend an additional $1.4-billion to ensure every resident of the province has a family doctor or nurse practitioner, a pledge announced on Monday by Health Minister Sylvia Jones and Jane Philpott, the physician who leads the province’s primary-care action team and is a former federal Liberal health minister.
On Wednesday, Mr. Ford said his government has hired thousands of nurses and registered more than 15,000 doctors since taking office, and will open two new medical schools in the province.
The NDP Leader, surrounded by party candidates, told an audience in Toronto’s Regent Park that Mr. Ford shouldn’t be trusted to advocate for the province against Mr. Trump.
Ms. Stiles cited the government’s 99-year lease with a foreign-owned spa and waterpark operator at Ontario Place on Toronto’s waterfront, which requires $2.2-billion in subsidies, according to the auditor-general, despite PC pledges that taxpayers would only be on the hook for a fraction of that amount.
“Doug Ford has shown he can’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag,” Ms. Stiles said, pledging an “strong income-protection program” for workers affected by any tariffs, a response that “hits back hard” against the U.S., and to work with Ottawa to “find allies in the democratic world.”
She also accused the government of neglecting schools and hospitals and engaging in “corruption and bad deals on housing,” and taking credit for pushing the province to abandon its plans to develop parts of the protected Greenbelt.
Ms. Stiles, who has led the Official Opposition at Queen’s Park since being acclaimed leader two years ago, also took aim at Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie.
Ms. Crombie, trying to lead her party back from two elections left its seat count in single digits, has pledged tax cuts and even a “centre-right” approach in the past. On Wednesday, Ms. Stiles asked progressive Liberals to consider voting for her party instead, because the current Liberal Leader is too much like Mr. Ford.
Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, right, and Barrie Liberal candidate Dr. Rose Zacharias speak to the media during a campaign stop outside the Barrie Primary Care Campus in Barrie, Ont., Jan. 9.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
“Today’s Liberal Leader would be right at home as a cabinet minister in Doug Ford’s government,” Ms. Stile said. “Bonnie Crombie doesn’t want to get rid of Doug Ford. Bonnie Crombie wants to be Doug Ford.”
Ms. Crombie launched her campaign in Barrie, north of Toronto, alongside local Liberal candidate Rose Zacharias, an emergency physician and past president of the Ontario Medical Association. Both said Mr. Ford had failed in his 2018 pledge to put an end to hallway healthcare, which sees patients lined up in corridors in jammed hospitals – and has let an acute doctor shortage only worsen.
Both women wore white-and-red baseball caps reminiscent of those worn by Mr. Trump and in recent days by Mr. Ford but that read: “Real Leaders Fix Healthcare.”
The Liberal Leader said her plan would see the hiring of 3,100 additional family doctors, which she said would allow everyone access to a primary-care physician. She said the $3-billion the government is spending sending $200 cheques to most Ontario residents would cover the costs.
Asked about Ms. Stiles’s comment that Ms. Crombie was too conservative, the Liberal Leader shot back at the NDP, saying it had done too little to hold the government to account.
“I would say we’re a centrist party. I would say all Ontarians are centrist,” said Ms. Crombie, the former mayor of Mississauga and a former Liberal MP. “I think I’ve proven myself at two other levels of government. I’m very fiscally responsible, but I’m very socially progressive.”
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner, whose party has two seats in the Ontario legislature, launched his re-election bid in Toronto on Wednesday before heading to his Guelph riding, saying the election is “a referendum on Doug Ford’s poor track-record of the past seven years.”