Ontario Liberal Bonnie Crombie speaks after winning 57 per cent of the votes in a leadership review vote at the party’s annual general meeting on Sunday.Laura Proctor/The Canadian Press
The Ontario Liberal caucus says it did not revolt against leader Bonnie Crombie and that it was her decision to announce her intention to resign.
In a statement sent to The Globe and Mail on Monday by Liberal MPP Stephanie Smyth’s office, the caucus expressed gratitude to Ms. Crombie for her work to improve the party’s fortunes. Caucus members also say they did not pressure Ms. Crombie to step down as leader.
“The Ontario Liberal Caucus would like to express our deepest gratitude to Bonnie Crombie for all she did to bring the Ontario Liberal Party to where it is today. We are grateful for Bonnie’s unrelenting drive for our party’s success,” said the statement, which Ms. Smyth said was on behalf of all 14 MPPs.
“We are grateful too that Bonnie asked caucus for our input and there was no revolt. This was Bonnie’s decision, and we admire Bonnie’s courage to do the right thing and put her party and her team first.”
Ms. Crombie on Sunday announced she will resign after the party holds a leadership contest, after a disappointing review of her time at the helm.
Bonnie Crombie to resign after Ontario Liberals narrowly voted against leadership contest
Ms. Crombie’s decision came abruptly early Sunday evening, hours after Ontario Liberals reluctantly agreed to keep her as leader and after she initially said she intended to stay on. It means the party will hold its third leadership contest since 2018, when the party lost government and was relegated to third place in the legislature.
More than 2,000 Ontario Liberal delegates met this weekend to discuss the result of February’s snap election, which saw Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives re-elected to a third majority government, and to vote on whether the party should hold a leadership contest within the next year.
The results of the vote, announced earlier Sunday at a downtown Toronto hotel, were 57 per cent against holding a leadership contest and 43 per cent in favour of having one.
While Ms. Crombie technically cleared the threshold required to remain leader, the result was short of the two-thirds level of support some said Ms. Crombie would need to hold the confidence of the party.
Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who ran against Ms. Crombie in the 2023 leadership contest, was among those who said she needed a minimum of two-thirds support to stay on. A group called New Leaf Liberals was also pushing for a change in leadership.
Ms. Crombie, who failed in her bid to win a seat in the election, also met with her caucus before the leadership result was released, and said she had their support. But none of the 14 MPPs appeared alongside her on the stage.
Earlier Sunday, Ms. Crombie acknowledged that the outcome of the vote was disappointing but argued that holding a leadership race less than two years after she was chosen to lead the Liberals would “do more harm than good for our party.”
“It’s not the number I wanted, but it is not the finish line for me,” Ms. Crombie said in brief remarks after the result was announced.
Marcel Wieder, president and chief advocate at public affairs firm Aurora Strategy Global, who has served as an adviser to Ms. Crombie, said he believes if Ms. Crombie had won her own seat, she would have survived the leadership test.
“If you don’t have the caucus behind you, and then you’re fighting an internal revolt, it becomes a much bigger issue,” he said.