{"id":129647,"date":"2025-09-08T21:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T21:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/129647\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T21:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T21:14:08","slug":"ontario-liberal-campaign-missed-the-mark-and-allowed-ford-to-define-himself-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/129647\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario Liberal campaign \u2018missed the mark\u2019 and allowed Ford to define himself, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The report praised Bonnie Crombie\u2019s fundraising acumen but found that while the campaign ‘showed signs of momentum’ and the party gained five seats, the results were not what the Liberals had hoped for.Laura Proctor\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The Ontario Liberals missed the mark during this year\u2019s provincial election campaign by focusing too narrowly on health care and allowing Doug Ford<\/a> to define himself as a strong economic leader, says a new party report about the February vote.<\/p>\n

The campaign debrief, written by a trio of long-time Ontario Liberal party members and volunteers, also says leader Bonnie Crombie\u2019s campaign tour often made last-minute changes and lacked resources, which affected her performance and confidence.<\/p>\n

Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie fails to win seat<\/a><\/p>\n

The 27-page report was released to party members Monday with the full support of Ms. Crombie and Ontario Liberal Party president Kathryn McGarry, it said. <\/p>\n

It praised Ms. Crombie\u2019s fundraising acumen but found that while the campaign \u201cshowed signs of momentum\u201d and the party gained five seats, the results were not what the Liberals had hoped to achieve. Ms. Crombie also lost her bid for a seat in the February snap election<\/a> that saw Mr. Ford\u2019s Progressive Conservatives win a third straight majority.<\/p>\n

The report makes a series of recommendations for the next election, including nominating candidates earlier and improving communication with local campaigns.<\/p>\n

Ms. Crombie said the debrief was a chance to elevate the voices of the grassroots and called it a \u201cno-holds-barred assessment of what went right and what went wrong,\u201d with clear recommendations.<\/p>\n

She named five takeaways from the report: stronger regional communications; earlier nominations; deeper volunteer engagement and year-round organizing; greater investment in data and digital tools; and a \u201cclear, values-driven message about why Ontarians should choose us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDoug Ford won\u2019t be able to write his own story next time. The story we tell must be louder, truer, and heard in every corner of the province,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Stephanie Smyth once covered Doug Ford on the news. Now she faces him in the Ontario legislature<\/a><\/p>\n

The Ontario Liberal Leader is set to face the party faithful at a convention this weekend in Toronto, where delegates will vote on whether to have a leadership election. <\/p>\n

Ms. Crombie only needs a simple majority of 51 per cent or more to survive the vote, but others have said that she\u2019ll need to show much higher support if she wants to take on Mr. Ford\u2019s PCs in the next campaign.<\/p>\n

She is also facing renewed criticism from her main rival in the 2023 leadership contest, Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith. He has pushed for renewal at the helm of the party and said Ms. Crombie needs at least two-thirds of support from Liberals at the convention to stay on. <\/p>\n

The Liberals increased their seat count in the February election from 9 to 14, which allowed them to regain official party status and includes a significant bump in resources in the Ontario legislature. <\/p>\n

But Ms. Crombie, the former mayor of Mississauga, failed in her attempt to win a seat in that city and the party remains in third place in the legislature after losing government in 2018.<\/p>\n

Opinion: Booze, business and populism: Doug Ford\u2019s antics evoke lessons from the past<\/a><\/p>\n

The campaign debrief says the party\u2019s focus on health care did not align with what many local campaigns were hearing on the ground, which was concerns about affordability and economic uncertainty.<\/p>\n

They said the campaign lacked an answer to the central question: \u201cWhy should I vote for Bonnie?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIn particular, participants noted that we allowed Doug Ford to define himself,\u201d the report said. <\/p>\n

\u201cDespite a record marked by policy reversals, scandal and underperformance, he was able to present himself as a steady hand in uncertain times. We did not sufficiently challenge this narrative or connect his actions to the instability and economic anxiety Ontarians were experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also said the campaign platform \u201cmissed the mark\u201d by focusing too narrowly on access to a family doctor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith affordability and job precarity dominating the public conversation, many felt the platform did not meet the moment or position the party as a credible alternative,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Ontario has more family doctors, but fewer are working in primary care, study shows<\/a><\/p>\n

The report found that many voters \u201cdid not know much\u201d about Ms. Crombie\u2019s values or experience, especially as a business leader. \u201cConservatives were able to fill this knowledge gap with significant negative advertising, especially in her home community,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

However, it said that early polling and focus groups determined that Ms. Crombie could not compete with Mr. Ford on the issue of facing U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> or tariffs and that health care was identified as her strongest issue.<\/p>\n

The report also found that Ms. Crombie\u2019s campaign tour \u201cfaced significant challenges\u201d because of lack of resources and last-minute changes, and that local Liberals \u201cwere often dismayed\u201d to hear that she passed through the region without stopping, particularly in southwest Ontario.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: The report praised Bonnie Crombie\u2019s fundraising acumen but found that while the campaign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,66,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-129647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-science","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}