If you’re a backer of either the Liberals or the Conservatives, you can read the Ontario results in the federal election in both optimistic and pessimistic ways.
For Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals, the pessimistic view is that a poorer-than-expected showing in Ontario is precisely what kept him from forming a majority government.
The Liberals lost a string of ridings in the Greater Toronto Area that they had held for the past three straight elections, and Liberal incumbents also went down to defeat in places with notable working class populations such as Hamilton, Windsor and Sudbury.
The optimistic view is that taking 69 seats in Ontario is vastly better than what the Liberals were expecting just four months ago when Justin Trudeau was still leading the party — and it helped them win the election.
For Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, the optimistic view is that the party upped its seat count in Ontario by a dozen, making inroads in those above-mentioned places where the Liberals lost, suggesting he has broadened his party’s appeal with suburbanites and blue collar workers.
That positive spin is tarnished by the Conservatives’ fourth straight election loss, by Poilievre’s own defeat in the Ottawa-area riding he’d held for 20 years and by lingering questions about whether he’d have won by more closely following the campaign playbook employed by Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives to win their third straight majority.
So, if you’re the Ontario premier, what do you see in this new political landscape? Perhaps an opportunity to leverage things you want from the federal government for your province and to gain even more backing for the agenda you’ve just set out during your election victory.
Why the Conservatives’ message resonated with voters in many GTA ridings
Laryssa Waler, a Conservative strategist and a former director of communications for the premier, note Ford and Carney already have a good relationship.
“Doug Ford is an excellent negotiator,” said Waler. “He is willing to make a deal as long as he thinks it’s for the best interest of Ontario, and that I think that’s what we’re going to see with the Carney government.”
“I think that they’re going to work well together when they’re taking on Donald Trump, when they’re working on priority projects and getting other premiers on side. I think Mark Carney’s probably going to lean on Doug Ford a lot for that,” Waler said.
The pair sat down for breakfast just a few days after Carney won the Liberal leadership, a notable contrast from Ford’s strained relationship with Poilievre, who had not spoken to the premier during his two and a half years as Conservative leader until a pre-campaign phone call last month.
Karl Baldauf, a former senior adviser to the Ontario PC government, now partner at the public affairs firm McMillan Vantage, says the Ford and Carney governments share similar views on a number of key issues, including protecting the auto industry and expanding the production of critical minerals.
“Doug Ford in his time as premier of this province has demonstrated that he is a very pragmatic politician. He’s willing to work with anyone to get his agenda through,” Baldauf said in an interview.
“He has established with Mr. Carney a strong working relationship over the last few months, and I think you can only expect that will continue and perhaps enhance over the coming years,” said Baldauf.
Ford himself told reporters Tuesday that a key priority is for Carney to follow through on his commitment to speed up approvals for resource projects, particularly extraction of critical minerals in northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire.
A senior Ford government official says Carney will need to be attuned to his relationship with Ontario and should be aware that issues around affordability and housing matter to voters in the province, particularly to many who voted Conservative.
“I think everyone hopes Prime Minister Carney will take this government in a new direction, especially with not dividing but uniting the provinces,” said the official, who spoke to CBC News on condition they not be named.
One other side effect of the election results could be quieting the persistent rumblings that Ford is keen to replace Poilievre at the helm of the Conservative Party.
Asked Tuesday whether Poilievre should remain as leader, Ford replied, “That will be up to Pierre Poilievre, it will be up to the federal party. I am focused on Ontario.”
At Issue | Can Mark Carney unify with a minority?
Those rumblings ramped up when Kory Tenycke, the senior strategist who managed all three of Ford’s successful election campaigns, criticized the Conservatives for blowing a 20-point lead in the polls and failing to pivot the focus of their campaign to the threats from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Now, in the wake of election night, Teneycke says Poilievre’s position as leader is very safe.
“I don’t think he’s going anywhere and I don’t think there’s going to be any serious challenge to him,” Teneycke said on the Curse of Politics podcast on Tuesday.
“That caucus has a bunch more people who were elected under his name and are loyalists to him.”
The federal Conservative caucus view of Ford however may not be so charitable.
Re-elected Conservative Jamil Jivani blasted the premier during a live interview with David Common on CBC’s election night coverage. Jivani slammed Ford as an opportunist, called his advisers “goons” and shot back at his critiques of the Conservative campaign.
Conservative MP Jamil Jivani criticizes Ford after re-election in Bowmanville-Oshawa North
Ford “couldn’t stay out of our business, getting his criticisms and opinions out, distracting our campaign, trying to make it about him,” Jivani said. “He’s not doing a great job running his province and now he’s trying to exercise his influence over other levels of government.”
Ford brushed off Jivani’s remarks the following morning.
“I’m not worried about that,” he said.
“I’m focusing on unity right across this country. We have to bring this country together like we never have before. Each other is not the enemy. There’s one person that’s causing a real problem, not just here, around the world, and that’s President Trump.”
Ford reacts after Toronto MP accuses him of sabotaging election
For federal New Democrats in Ontario, the only way to read the results is as a wipeout.
The NDP lost all five seats it previously held in Ontario, meaning the party will have no members from Canada’s largest province in the House of Commons, a situation the New Democrats also faced for a seven-year stretch in the 1990s.
The NDP’s share of the vote in Ontario fell below the five per cent mark, a drop of nearly 13 percentage points from its 2021 totals in the province.
“This was a tough election,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said in a statement. “Canada’s NDP has lost dedicated and principled MPs. Now is the time to reflect on what we’ve learned, and how we can build a stronger movement that can change lives.”
Jagmeet Singh, who became the federal leader in 2017 after two terms as an MPP for Brampton, lost his seat in British Columbia and resigned. Stiles thanked Singh for his role in negotiating the dental care and pharmacare programs introduced by the Trudeau government.
