Ontario votes: Crombie projected to lose Mississauga race, will stay on as Liberal leader

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie says she will stay on as head of the party even though Global News is projecting she will not get elected to Ontario’s legislature.

Crombie, who took the helm of the party in 2023, lost to Progressive-Conversative candidate Silvia Gualtieri in Mississauga East—Cooksville by just under 1,200 votes, preliminary data shows.

Gualtieri, a financial services professional and long-time Conservative organizer, has sought political office before, most recently running in the 2022 Mississauga municipal election where she finished third in the Ward 2 race. Gualtieri is also the mother-in-law of Brampton mayor Patrick Brown, and the sister of Rudy Cuzzetto, incumbent PC candidate in Mississauga–Lakeshore.

Even though the party is making gains, it has fallen short of becoming the Official Opposition, with that title being retained by Marit Stiles and the Ontario New Democratic Party, Global News projects.

As of 11 p.m., the Liberals were leading or elected in 14 seats, just two above the 12-seat threshold for official party status. Before dissolution, the Liberals had just nine seats in the legislature.

Official party status comes with additional funding and debate rights within the legislature. The party lost such status after the 2018 election when they were decimated after 15 years in government.

Crombie told the crowd at her Thursday night election party that regardless of the result, she is staying on as party leader.

“I know tonight isn’t exactly the result we were looking for, but you should be very, very proud of what we did tonight,” she said.

“People counted us out. They said the Ontario Liberal Party was dead. Tonight, you proved them wrong.”

Stiles’ electoral victory – both in the Toronto riding of Davenport and for the NDP – maintains a somewhat status quo in the legislature with Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives securing another majority government. As of 11 p.m., the NDP were leading or elected in 25 seats. Before dissolution last month, the NDP had 28 seats in the legislature.

The sudden winter campaign was Stiles’ first as leader of the NDP. In 2023, she took over from Andrea Horwath, now mayor of Hamilton. Horwath stepped down after the 2022 race after her party lost a significant number of seats to Ford, who made rare gains after four years in government.

Meanwhile, Mike Schriener’s Green Party is leading or elected in two ridings. Schriener also secured reelection in Guelph.

“Our job is to hold this government to account, and that is the job that we are going to do with our usual fight and our determination but also with love, hope and optimism,” Stiles told the crowd at her election night gathering.

“You know what? In another few years, we are going to face a rematch, and I’m there for it my friends.”

Crombie, the former mayor of Mississauga, announced in January she was running in Mississauga East—Cooksville for the snap election — a riding held by Kaleed Rasheed, a former Progressive-Conservative (PC) minister who left the party in 2023 over a Greenbelt-adjacent scandal.

Crombie has been without a seat in Queen’s Park since her successful leadership bid for the Liberal Party in December 2023. Before her tenure as the city’s top elected official, Crombie was a city councillor and an MP for Mississauga-Streetsville.

Crombie has been hoping to poke a hole in the PC’s stronghold of Mississauga as the party holds five of the six provincial ridings in the city.

She didn’t congratulate Ford during her remarks Thursday, but acknowledged his win.

“Look, voters have given Doug Ford another mandate tonight, smaller but nonetheless. Many of you are asking for a strong voice to hold him accountable as premier, and you can count on me,” Crombie said.

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“So I’ll say this tonight: Doug, we’ll be watching. We know Ontario can do so much better.”

U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats were used by Ford as his primary reason to call the snap election at the end of January. Ford, who has served as premier for nearly seven years, said the threat meant that he needed a new, stronger mandate than the 79 seats he had at dissolution.

Stiles cited the Trump threat in her remarks.

“I congratulate tonight, Premier Ford, on his victory. I really do want to offer him any possible help that we can provide in the face of the threat of Donald Trump,” she said.

“The threat is real, and I deeply believe that we can overcome it with a strong team Ontario and a strong team Canada approach.”

Ford’s early election call did send his opponents scrambling.

While Ford focused on Trump, Crombie’s team put together a campaign with health care at its core, promising to connect everyone in the province with a family doctor.

Meanwhile, Stiles and the NDP picked affordability and pledged to introduce a grocery rebate. Schreiner kept his activity to a few seats where his Green Party stood a good chance of expanding its caucus.

At the beginning of the campaign, polling conducted for Global News by Ipsos Global Affairs put Ford in a commanding position with a massive 26-point advantage over both the Liberals and the NDP. That poll had the PCs at 50 per cent, the Liberals at 24, the NDP at 20 and the Greens at six per cent.

Towards the end of the campaign, another poll conducted by Ipsos showed Ford holding onto the lead he had at the start of the campaign.

The poll showed the PCs at 48 per cent and the Liberals at 28 per cent. The NDP were at 16 per cent and the Greens at eight.

— with files from Isaac Callan

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