{"id":854948,"date":"2026-08-12T04:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T04:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/854948\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T04:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T04:10:13","slug":"so-far-the-ontario-liberals-leadership-race-is-an-exercise-in-meaningless-platitudes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/854948\/","title":{"rendered":"So far, the Ontario Liberals\u2019 leadership race is an exercise in meaningless platitudes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Ontario Liberal Party leadership candidate Navdeep Bains prior to the Ontario Liberal leadership debate in Brampton, Ont, on Monday.Arlyn McAdorey\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Navdeep Bains, who casual political observers might recall as the \u201csuperclusters<\/a>\u201d guy in the Justin Trudeau government, had his first debate-night opportunity to demonstrate why he is the front-runner to become the Ontario Liberal Party\u2019s next leader. Mr. Bains is the preferred candidate among establishment Liberals; he\u2019s raised the most money,<\/a> he has the greatest name-recognition, and he\u2019s backed by a well-established political machine equipped to sign up new party members to vote in November. <\/p>\n

Mr. Bains had been operating a very front-runner-type campaign up until Monday night\u2019s debate. His slogan was about promising to make Ontario \u201clead again,\u201d with pledges<\/a> to \u201cbuild new infrastructure,\u201d \u201cexpand childcare,\u201d and \u201cstrengthen manufacturing\u201d \u2013 the type of non-specific, empty declarations that were a feature of the Trudeau government\u2019s promises-as-policy ethos. The first leadership debate provided a stage for Mr. Bains to offer more substance (and perhaps a little personal charisma) and to present bold, big ideas to convince the Ontario electorate to return to the OLP after banishing it to the political wilderness in 2018. <\/p>\n

Ontario Liberal leadership hopefuls pitch themselves as best choice to take on Ford in first debate<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, when asked what he would do differently from the Ford government on health care, he replied: \u201cI would do everything differently than the Ford government when it comes to health care,\u201d and provided an answer that essentially amounted to \u201cspend more.\u201d (The Ford government is already spending record amounts on health care, without addressing its inherent inefficiencies.) When asked how he would make life more affordable for Ontarians, he lamented that life was unaffordable for Ontarians. And when asked if and when it is appropriate for Queen\u2019s Park to step in and overrule a local institution, such as a school board, Mr. Bains told a story about his sixth-grade teacher, and then noted that he considers education \u201cthe greatest equalizer\u201d in society.<\/p>\n

There were two broad but contradictory themes on stage during Monday night\u2019s Liberal leadership debate: Doug Ford has ruined Ontario, and we need to continue investing in, building, and nurturing what makes Ontario great. Only one candidate \u2013 housing advocate Eric Lombardi \u2013 offered a genuinely distinct vision for the province, arguing, for example, against a top-down vision of economic growth. \u201cWe can\u2019t subsidize our way out of an affordability crisis,\u201d he said. \u201cGovernments don\u2019t create good jobs \u2013 they create the conditions for good jobs to be created, and we have to be able to distinguish the difference between those things.\u201d Mr. Lombardi was also the only candidate to state the obvious during a segment where the four other candidates took turns pledging their commitment to keeping private operators out of our health care system: \u201cThe vast majority of medical operators in this province are privately run and OHIP-compensated.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ontario ER doctors raise alarm on hospital overcrowding<\/a><\/p>\n

But Mr. Lombardi did not demonstrate the natural charisma and on-stage confidence that, for example, Liberal policy wonk Dylan Marando boasted Monday night, nor does he already have a seat in the Ontario legislature, as MPPs Lee Fairclough and Stephanie Bowman touted as necessary to defeat Mr. Ford. But the most critical factor is that he is not Navdeep Bains, who evidently can offer candy floss as a response to specific policy questions, and still have the Liberal establishment behind him.<\/p>\n

This is the third leadership race for the OLP since Mr. Ford\u2019s PCs supplanted Kathleen Wynne\u2019s Liberals in 2018, but it is the first one where its winner might finally have the premiership of the province within his or her grasp. That\u2019s because Mr. Ford\u2019s personal approval numbers have plummeted<\/a> to their worst levels since he became Premier, coinciding with a small handful of spending scandals his government has so far been unable to shake. Indeed, the conditions are finally lining up for an election that could be the Liberals\u2019 to lose (with the caveat that many things can change between now and 2030). But the candidates vying to lead the party are by-and-large shrugging at the opportunity. Most of the evening was occupied by vague platitudes, hollow declarations and cheap pablum.<\/p>\n

In many ways Ontario has been on the same trajectory for 25 years, even though the party in charge switched over halfway through. We haven\u2019t seen any significant changes to the ways our health care and education systems operate, any substantial regulatory changes in housing, or anything approaching a reorientation of how the government relates to, or invests in, industry. <\/p>\n

Those vying to become leader of the OLP could be in a position to make those real changes in just a few years\u2019 time. But so far, most are just touting the status quo, disguised as change. That, and a story about their grade-six teacher. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Ontario Liberal Party leadership candidate Navdeep Bains prior to the Ontario Liberal leadership…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,20754,5152,295,927,66],"class_list":["post-854948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-column","tag-dei","tag-environment","tag-opinion","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854948","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=854948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}