Ontario’s election is today. Here’s what you need to know about party platforms and how to vote

February 27, 2025 WOL

Ontarians hadn’t expected another new provincial election until 2026 – but, like much of the world, they learned the second Donald Trump era is a time of surprises. The U.S. President’s tariff threats have put Canadians on a path to a trade war. Ontario, the most trade-dependent province, stands to lose a lot. While there had been talk of a snap election before that turn of events, that was Doug Ford’s stated reason for dissolving the legislature, sending the province to the polls on Feb. 27, 2025.

The Progressive Conservative Leader, who already has a majority, says he hopes to get a strong mandate to confront Washington. The NDP and Liberals, which chose new leaders after the 2022 election, say they won’t let him win without a fight, and are pressing him on more traditional campaign issues such as health care.

Here’s a primer on where the parties stand, who leads them and what you’ll need to cast a ballot today.

What’s at stake in this provincial election? Ontario politics reporter Jeff Gray spoke with The Decibel about how we got here and what the opposition is doing.

Ontario’s party leaders

Doug Ford, 60, cuts steel at Heddle Shipyard in St. Catharines, Ont., engraved with the PC campaign slogan, ‘Protect Ontario.’Peter Power/The Canadian Press

Doug Ford

As the son of an MPP and brother of Toronto’s late mayor, Mr. Ford was no stranger to politics when he took over the Progressive Conservatives, then struggling with a leadership crisis, in 2018. He’s won two straight majorities and kept his polling numbers high, despite controversies over a Greenbelt land-development scheme (which the RCMP is still investigating), relocating the Ontario Science Centre, the costs of speeding up alcohol sales in corner stores and other policies.

As current head of the Council of the Federation, he’s recently been a point man for the premiers on fighting back against the Trump administration, which is why he’s spent part of this election cycle in Washington. That’s led to accusations that he used those trips to campaign, inappropriately blurring the lines between premier and party leader.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles, 55, voted in Feb. 20’s advance polls in her riding of Toronto-Davenport.Giordano Ciampini/The Canadian Press

Marit Stiles

Ms. Stiles, a Newfoundlander, got into politics during her studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, then worked as an NDP MP’s assistant and later a school trustee. When the Ontario NDP surged to Official Opposition status in 2018, she became education critic, then took the leadership in an uncontested race in 2023 months after Andrea Horwath stepped down on election night.

Ms. Stiles has been warning supporters about an early election call since this past summer, but when it finally came, the tariff issue forced her and the party to pivot quickly in its messaging. Trade issues are top-of-mind in some of the “orange/blue” ridings where she is targeting the PCs, such as the Niagara Region and Southwestern Ontario.

Bonnie Crombie, 65, is coming after the Tories on ‘hallway health care,’ featured in the Liberals campaign ad at rear.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press

Bonnie Crombie

The former mayor of Mississauga took the reins of a much-diminished Ontario Liberal Party in 2023. It was reduced to third-party status in the 2018 rout of the Kathleen Wynne government and failed to rebuild support in the following election.

Ms. Crombie – who has said the party drifted too far to the left under previous leaders, and has distanced herself from Trudeau policies such as carbon pricing – has tried to shift her party to the centre while accusing Mr. Ford of poor stewardship of provincial finances and services. Targeted Liberal ads seek to sway NDP and Tory voters alike to her cause in strategic ridings. She’s also endorsed Mark Carney for the federal Liberal leadership race, which is set to be decided on March 9. “Wishing you the best on Thursday, and let’s keep building!” Mr. Carney replied in a Feb. 25 post on X.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner canvasses in Kitchener, where his deputy holds a seat.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press

Mike Schreiner

Mr. Schreiner has been in charge of his party longer than any of the other leaders. The Greens chose the Kansas-born entrepreneur in 2009 after his years of community organizing in Guelph, where he broke through in 2018 as the first Green MPP in Ontario history. A second MPP, Kitchener’s Aislinn Clancy, joined him at Queen’s Park in a 2023 by-election, and now both are racing to keep their seats and add more if possible.

Party platforms: Four charts to understand the key issues

The economy is front and centre in the platforms that the Tories, New Democrats, Liberals and Greens have released so far, but not everything comes down to tariffs. Here’s an overview of four key issues.

Tariffs and trade

Ontario sells and buys more goods internationally than any other province, and the United States accounts for more than 85 per cent of its exports. U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, set to take effect March 12, will make it more costly for Americans to buy Ontario’s metals – but before that, wider trade restrictions could be even more painful for other industries. Every Ontario party proposes to limit the damage with some form of buy-local strategy and lifting limits on interprovincial trade.

PCs: Pledging to spend $40-billion on tariff measures, including a $5-billion Protect Ontario Account to guard against tariff uncertainty; prioritize Ontario steel, lumber and other products in government procurement; speed up highway and transit construction; recognize out-of-province standards and certifications in key sectors; remove all of Ontario’s party-specific exemptions under the free-trade program CAFTA.
NDP: Launch a tariff emergency fund to support businesses; prioritize Canadian goods in government procurement, and Ontario goods in public infrastructure; “strengthen and diversify Ontario’s trade relationships.”
Liberals: Exclude U.S. companies from provincial procurement; speed up infrastructure projects; “eliminate nonsensical interprovincial trade barriers” by recognizing skills and regulated work from the rest of Canada.
Greens: Buy Ontario procurement strategy; “aggressively diversify our trade partners”; remove interprovincial trade barriers; set up an Ontario Foodbelt, create local food hubs and give tax incentives to agriculture so Ontario food supply chains are more self-reliant.

Jobs and cost of living

The usual campaign questions about employment, wages and personal finance are hard to separate from the trade feud, which could erase thousands of jobs if all of Mr. Trump’s proposed tariffs are enacted. Stimulus programs carry their own inflationary risks, as Canadians learned during the pandemic, so supporting employers will be a careful balancing act for the next government.

PCs: Give employers and small businesses up to $3-billion in tax and payroll relief; defer business taxes for six months; add $1-billion to a skilled-trades development fund; permanently cut gas taxes; lower the minimum retail price for alcoholic beverages.
NDP: Negotiate with Ottawa to expand EI for Ontario workers; remove provincial income tax on supports for workers who lose their jobs due to tariffs; no income-tax increases for people earning less than $220,000.
Liberals: Permanent income-tax cuts; use a Fight Tariffs Fund to give Ontario businesses lower-than-market interest rates; use tax credits to create 40,000 new paid co-op, internship and apprenticeship jobs.
Greens: Tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners; stimulate job growth with green-economy and infrastructure projects; enact stricter anti-price-gouging laws for grocers; raise minimum wage to $20 and index it to inflation.

Housing

Seven years of upheaval in housing policy has not done much to improve Ontario’s real-estate crunch. In 2021, Mr. Ford promised 150,000 new housing starts each year until 2031; but every year since, the number of new housing starts has gone down. Opposition parties, hammering him on that record, are making a case that they can better manage the housing file.

PCs: The PC platform has no dedicated section on housing, but it does mention $50-million for “more factory-built homes and innovative home-building technology.” A section on parks and public spaces reiterates past pledges to clear homeless encampments.
NDP: Set up a “Homes Ontario” program to build, acquire and repair at least 300,000 affordable homes; reassert provincial control over housing and homelessness policies devolved to cities; apply rent control to the rental itself, not just the tenancy; protect the Greenbelt within pre-2022 urban boundaries.
Liberals: Eliminate land-transfer taxes for first-time homebuyers, downsizing seniors and non-profit builders; introduce “fair, phased-in rent control” and a bank to give interest-free loans to tenants in financial emergencies.
Greens: Build two million homes in 10 years; overhaul building codes; expand the Greenbelt and set up a Bluebelt of protected waterways; reinstate rent control on all units; combat speculation with a multiple-property speculation tax, a provincewide vacant homes tax and an anti-flipping tax.

Health care

The crisis in family medicine is not unique to Ontario, and its roots predate the Ford government. But as voters heads to the polls, the problem is forecast to get worse. There are 2.5 million Ontarians without family doctors, and that could reach 4.4 million by next year, the Ontario Medical Association says. Hospitals, where emergency rooms are not meant to keep patients waiting more than eight hours, are mostly unable to meet that target, and have not come back to the 25-per-cent success rate of pre-pandemic times.

PCs: Open two new medical schools in Toronto; expand undergraduate medical spots and residency spots by 40 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively, by 2028; allow health workers registered in other provinces to start work in Ontario with less paperwork; implement the primary-care action plan led by Jane Philpott, a former federal health minister hired last fall to explore new models of team-based care.
NDP: Invest $4.1-billion over four years in team-based primary care; add 3,500 primary-care physicians; centralize medical referrals; introduce universal mental health care; expand OHIP to prescription contraceptives, HPV vaccines and take-home cervical cancer tests.
Liberals: Recruit 3,100 family doctors by 2029; create two new medical schools; centralize medical referrals; phase out fax machines; introduce universal mental health care; ban private nurse-practitioner clinics.
Greens: Recruit 3,500 more doctors through expanded med-school spots; introduce electronic prescriptions; expand and fund more family health teams; cover mental health and addiction care through OHIP.

Setting up polling stations, mailing out voter cards and keeping registries up to date is a complex task for Elections Ontario, which has had to mobilize a year ahead of schedule.Giordano Ciampini/The Canadian Press

Where do I vote on election day? What documents do I need?

What’s my riding? Who are my candidates?

There are 124 electoral districts in Ontario. Search by postal code to find which one you live in, and where its election office and polling places are. (If you don’t have a permanent address, use the place where you’ve eaten and slept the most in the past five weeks.) Search here to find local candidates by riding, surname or political party. Polls are open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET.

Registering to vote in Ontario

The window for online registration has passed, but don’t worry: If you’re a new voter, you can register at the polling place. Anyone is eligible if they’re a Canadian citizen aged 18 or older who lives in Ontario. Registered voters are supposed to get an information card in the mail at their last recorded address. If you’ve moved and didn’t get the card, you can still vote. First, search Ontario’s register to see whether you’re already on it and where.

Ontario voter IDs

You’ll need to bring one piece of approved identification to the polling place. It doesn’t have to have your photo on it, only your name (and your address, if you’re voting without a voter card). Driver’s licences and health cards are fine, as are documents such as utility bills, pay stubs or tax notices.

When will we know the results?

After the polls close at 9 p.m. ET, you’ll start to see Elections Ontario’s early results come in. News media watch the results carefully and do the math, calling the outcome only when all other scenarios can be ruled out: You can find The Globe’s final call on our website and alerts from our mobile app. A decisive result could take hours, but Ontario races are usually confirmed before the next morning: Days-long nail-biters such as last year’s B.C. election are rare in any province.

To form a majority government, a party needs at least 63 seats: At dissolution, the PCs had 79, the New Democrats 28, the Liberals nine and the Greens two. Minorities – where the largest party holds less than half the legislature, and needs other parties’ support to govern – are less rare in Ontario than the rest of Canada, but still uncommon: The last one was under Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals from 2011 to 2014.

With reports from Laura Stone, Rachelle Younglai, Jeff Gray and Kelly Grant