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Tag: Ontario Election
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.”
![Click to play video: 'Ontario election: Doug Ford’s PC party projected to form majority government']()
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.
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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.”
![Click to play video: 'Ontario election: NDP projected to form official opposition']()
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.
“So I’ll say this tonight: Doug, we’ll be watching. We know Ontario can do so much better.”
![Click to play video: 'Ontario election: Green Party leader Schreiner vows to hold Ford accountable as ‘unofficial official opposition’']()
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.
![Click to play video: 'Ontario election: Moment Doug Ford, PC party campaign HQ watches election call']()
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
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Battle of Ontario: What election stops tell us about party hopes
Voters in southwestern Ontario are getting used to the sight of orange and blue battle buses swinging into their towns and cities, with party leaders visiting ridings they think they have a chance of flipping ahead of election day.
Ontario’s election campaign is playing out on several fronts, with canvassers knocking on doors all over the province and ads promoting social media users to consider certain candidates.
Where the leaders go — and the locations they choose to hold big policy events or photo ops — is another facet of the campaign, hinting at which areas the central campaign is optimistic or nervous about.
Over the opening two weeks of the campaign, Global News has tracked the locations of public events all four party leaders have held and which ridings they’re appearing in most.
Southwestern Ontario battleground
Progressive Conservative Party Leader Doug Ford launched his re-election campaign deep into territory the Ontario NDP won in 2022.
His first event of the campaign in Windsor West was a riding the NDP won in 2022, as were his next stops in London—Fanshawe and London North Centre.
A photo opportunity in St. Catharines took Ford into a riding the NDP’s Jennie Stevens won in 2022, while two separate trips to Niagara Falls also took the PC onto the NDP’s patch.
Southwestern Ontario ridings appear to be on the target list for the PCs, who are promoting trade union endorsements in blue-collar areas, promising construction jobs and funding skills development training.
It’s also a part of the province the NDP could be worried about.
In Niagara Centre, the NDP’s Jeff Burch won with a two per cent margin in 2022 and, in Niagara Falls, Wayne Gates had a 12 per cent margin. Lisa Gretzky in Windsor had a seven per cent win for the NDP in 2022 and London’s Terence Kernaghan had nine per cent.
Polling conducted on the opening two days of the campaign for Global News found the NDP vote strongest in southwestern Ontario but still trailing the Progressive Conservatives.
The PC campaign ignored questions for this story before publication.
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Ford isn’t the only leader visiting the southwest, with several NDP stops already in the area and more on the agenda for the coming days.
On the third day of the campaign, NDP Leader Stiles visited Gretzky’s campaign for a photo opportunity in Windsor, also holding a news conference in Windsor—Tecumseh, which the PCs won last time around.
On Monday, she began driving west, stopping in Niagara Centre where Burch is seeking re-election.
She made a separate stop in Hamilton Centre, where a new NDP candidate is hoping to win the riding back from independent Sarah Jama, who was removed from the party in 2023.
Tuesday sees Stiles canvassing in London.
Both Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie and Stiles have made trips to northern Ontario during the campaign, appearing in ridings their parties failed to win last time around.
The NDP chose to launch its health-care platform in Sault Ste. Marie. It’s a northern city where the party is hoping to make gains and blame the previous government for an incident at the start of this year when local Steelworkers lost access to a family doctor.
The riding was won by the PCs’ Ross Romano in 2022 but the former chief whip chose not to run again. The NDP is running a local councillor in the riding, hoping for a name-recognition boost.
One campaign source told Global News the NDP is feeling particularly optimistic about the riding. They say roughly 100 people came out in the snow to see Stiles when she arrived.
Sault Ste. Marie is one of several PC wins from 2022 that the NDP hopes it can flip. The vast majority of places Stiles has visited in the first two weeks of the campaign voted either NDP or PC in 2022 — the leader has visited one lone Liberal riding so far.
Beyond Sault Ste. Marie, hours up the Trans-Canada Highway in Thunder Bay, Crombie has also been campaigning. She made a series of visits to two ridings in the northern hub, one won by the NDP and the other by the PCs in 2022.
Ford’s campaign is yet to make a stop in the north.
Toronto and Peel Region fight
Seat-rich Toronto and the surrounding 905 are key battlegrounds in every election and 2025 looks set to be no different.
In 2022, the PCs completed a sweep of every suburban riding around the city with the exception of Oshawa, won by the NDP.
This time around, the Ontario Liberals hope to mount a suburban battle, especially in Brampton and Mississauga. Their leader, Crombie, was mayor of Mississauga for a decade before entering provincial politics, something the party hopes to leverage.
One Liberal campaign source said Crombie’s name recognition in the region was “second to none” with canvassing stops slowed by requests for photos with the former mayor.
Crombie, who didn’t hold a seat at dissolution, is running in Mississauga East—Cooksville, where she spent the entire second day of the campaign.
She’s also stopped in Brampton for an announcement, although the riding in which she held that event didn’t yet have a party candidate nominated to run.
The PCs — who won all 11 of Peel Region’s seats in 2022, up from eight in 2018 — have also sent Ford to the region. The Progressive Conservative leader made two stops at the beginning of February in Brampton ridings, holding a news conference and launching a local campaign.
The Liberals and NDP have made several visits to the ridings in Toronto’s 416 area. Both held news conferences in Spadina—Fort York on Monday — the riding was won by the NDP’s Chris Glover in 2022.
Focused Green Party campaign
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner, who has an electric car instead of a battle bus, has been focused on a select few ridings in his campaigning.
Schreiner won Guelph in 2022 and added a second MPP to his party’s fold at the end of 2023 when his party won the Kitchener Centre byelection. He has devoted significant time already in the campaign to those ridings as he looks to win both again.
He’s also headed north several times to Parry Sound—Muskoka, where the Greens came within striking distance of winning in 2022. In the last election, the PCs’ Graydon Smith won 20,216 votes and the Greens’ Matt Richter won 18,102.
Both are running again.
Additionally, Schreiner has spent time in Wellington-Halton Hills. The rural riding was represented by Ted Arnott, who ran under the Progressive Conservative banner but served as the Speaker.
