Not 1990
Another early election in Ontario, but a very different premier.
Apologies to my non-Ontario readers, but a provincial election is underway in Ontario, and even I, co-editor of the sole textbook on Ontario politics, keep forgetting about it. If it wasn’t for my faithful NDP neighbours getting their lawn sign up as quickly as always, and the Elections Ontario notice in my mailbox yesterday, it could slip my mind entirely.
When rumours began last year that Doug Ford was going to call an early election I, and everyone else of a certain age, immediately thought “Peterson 1990.” As talk grew stronger, I kept muttering “Peterson 1990.” As evidence piled up that this was really going to happen, I sat gasping: “Peterson 1990!” The last time an Ontario premier called an early election, David Peterson went down to a humiliating defeat, losing even his own seat. But - so happy I can go back and edit these newsletters if needed - this election is highly unlikely to repeat Peterson 1990.
There is a fine book on that election, Not Without Cause: David Peterson’s Fall from Grace, by Georgette Gagnon and Dan Rath. It’s a thriller by Canadian politics standards, a fly-on-the-wall chronicling of the campaigns and what people thought at the time as a cranky, discontented electorate, battered by economic recession, a divisive constitutional debate, and a deeply unpopular federal government and prime minister. The Peterson Liberals saw all these ominous trends, and decided to try and get ahead by locking in a new majority three years after the last election. (Distance between the 1987 and 1990 elections: almost exactly 36 months. 2022-2025: a little less than 33).
It didn’t work. One reason was the Liberals underestimated the rapid shift in societal attitudes; Peterson won in 1985 as an up-to-date urban professional - the Yuppie premier - but by 1990, a good suit was now a liability. While it seems, er, modest now, there was a backlash against elites of all kinds. This leads to the second reason: the miserable bankruptcy of the federal Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney. Despite Peterson’s clashes with the federal Tories on other files, his fervent support of the failed Meech Lake Accord associated him with the deeply unpopular Mulroney.
A third was the contrasting brands of the opposition parties. The provincial PCs under a new fellow named Mike Harris pretty much disavowed their federal cousins and any hopes of winning government, pushing a strong anti-tax platform that retained their core support. Meanwhile, the NDP was headed by one of the most eloquent and thoughtful Canadian politicians of all time, Bob Rae, so close to Liberalism anyway that he later switched parties. Enough Ontario voters decided to give Rae a chance that the NDP won a majority with an efficient 37.6% of the vote. (These days people would have just stayed home; turnout in 1990 was 64%, compared to 44% in 2022.)
While conditions look similar in 2025: cranky electorate; anti-elite backlash; premier hanging around an unpopular prime minister; much is different. The key is Doug Ford, who despite being premier for seven years (Peterson served for five) maintains an anti-elite image of impressive durability. As I wrote a while back, the entire Ford political philosophy is retail and individual, not systemic or ideological, built on “customer service,” and a history shared with his brother of battling “downtown elites.” David Peterson may have been from London, but he looked like a guy from Bay Street. Doug Ford, whose family business is located in a light industrial zone right beside the 401 in north Toronto, does not.
Within a certain range, Doug Ford is eminently flexible. As I’ve said before, you could have a drinking game based on hearing the phrase “Doug Ford apologized…” While David Peterson went down fighting for the Meech Lake Accord and national unity, Ford has built his entire brand on pivoting as necessary. We saw an unusual version this week when he was overheard saying he welcomed the Trump victory in November and was surprised that “the guy pulled out the knife and f--king yanked it into us." Despite his apparent shock that Donald Trump is unpredictable, Ford has brilliantly used his position as current chair of the premiers’ council to become our latest Captain Canada, complete with Canada is Not For Sale hat.
The ability of Doug Ford to suck up all the oxygen in Ontario politics is impressive. I’m confident in saying that not only can most Ontarians not name any of the opposition leaders (Marit Stiles of the NDP; Bonnie Crombie of the Liberals, and Mike Schreiner of the Greens), they can’t name a cabinet minister either. It’s all Ford all the time. I’ve long dwelled on the extent to which gender is a factor here; three of the four major opposition leaders including former NDP leader Andrea Horwath have been women, while Stephen DelDuca had the unlucky timing of a pandemic encompassing his brief time as Liberal leader. It may be harder for women to get traction against this alpha male premier.
Yet it goes deeper. Ford’s flexibility also benefits from the general ideological realignment of traditional politics - the politics of 1990 - in which left vs right means less and less, and all parties focus on tangible retail promises rather than structural visions. I quote myself from the last election:
Future political junkies can play a quiz: “Who promised what in the 2022 Ontario election?” Which party promised to bring back Grade 13? Who promised to end truck tolls on Highway 407? Which party promised to increase disability benefits by five per cent?
The correct answers respectively are the Liberals, the Greens and the NDP, and the PCs. (Seriously; does anyone remember the Liberals promised to bring back Grade 13? I forgot too until I looked back for this quote.) We see similar randomness in 2025; yesterday Ford showed up in Ottawa and pledged to take on the city’s multi-billion LRT bill, something I did not expect. While the opposition may rage that the big-ticket areas of health, education, and social services desperately need more money, Ford has avoided confrontations that make him look like a heartless skinflint. In fact, in the last election, Ford even faced modest right-wing rebellions in two separate renegade parties, New Blue and the Ontario Party, both of which remain active but even less consequential, along with a intra-party skirmish that led to Ontario’s first independent MP in three decades.
So I doubt this will be a repeat of Peterson 1990. That election was wild, starting with Peterson being ambushed by an activist at his opening press conference (now longtime Toronto councillor Gord Perks) and the Liberals spiraled down from there. In contrast, I’ll probably forget again about the 2025 Ontario election soon after writing this, so I’ll keep this on my desk as a reminder.
