Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie is branding her party the “people’s opposition” after it won almost one-third of votes in the province’s snap winter election, but secured only 14 seats in the legislature.
Crombie, who was unable to win a seat herself during the general election, said her party effectively held Premier Doug Ford to account before the election and had come out of the ballot stronger.
“We’ve become the people’s opposition with 30 per cent of the vote share,” she told reporters.
“We’ve always punched above our weight, we’ve always frankly gotten the premier out of his seat during question period. Now we have an enhanced team, we have a bigger team, a tougher team and we will be in there fighting.”
Without a seat, however, Crombie will be unable to lead her party in the house. She said she wouldn’t ask any of her MPPs to step aside to give her a chance to run in their seat.
“I will not ask any of my incredible caucus members to step down,” Crombie confirmed.
“I will at the right time find a seat. I think we made immense gains, immense gains as I travelled the province. We increased our share of the vote, we increased five seats and that work will continue — the same work I have been doing across the province.”
Meanwhile, the Ontario NDP came out of the election with 20 per cent less of the vote than it won in 2022 and four seats fewer. The party still won 27 ridings compared to the Liberals’ 14.
“I am very excited about the opportunity to step forward again as the Official Opposition Leader,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said.
“We fought hard in this election. The Conservatives started this election targeting NDP seats in regions like Windsor and Niagara and northern Ontario; in Oshawa, we fought back hard.”
Stiles said she was “proud” of the campaign her party had mounted and said she had managed to “hang on” to most of its seats.
“The Conservatives have been running a campaign against the NDP for two-and-a-half years now before they went into that election and Mr. Ford was quite shameless in his assertion that he was going to take our seats — look at where he started his campaign, look at where he ended his campaign, it was in NDP seats,” she said.
“He put millions and millions of dollars in to do what? To try and take a couple of seats back from the NDP.”
Both Stiles and Crombie have demanded Ford recall the Ontario legislature immediately and strike a cross-party working group to address the threat of tariffs from the United States.
Ford has said he “doesn’t need the legislature right now” to tackle the trade war and its consequences.