Motion rejecting an early election call gets unanimous support at Queen’s Park

Thestar.com
October 6, 2020

MPPs have voted unanimously in favour an opposition Liberal motion designed to discourage Premier Doug Ford’s governing Progressive Conservatives from calling an early election.

Tories, New Democrats, Liberals and Green Leader Mike Schreiner supported MPP Mitzie Hunter’s motion that “it would be reckless and unnecessary” to hit the hustings before the scheduled 2022 vote by a 45-0 margin.

“The government needs to stop taking its eye off the ball and get back to work,” Hunter (Scarborough-Guildwood) said Monday.

“They were busy politicking. We have rumours of an early election, fuelled by reports of PC incumbents being acclaimed to run in the next election, and every riding would have nominated candidates by March,” she said.

While Ford has insisted he does not want a snap election, his party stepped up fundraising and fast-tracked nominations last month, acclaiming all 72 Tory MPPs as candidates.

“We want to get our folks prepared for the election and have said before we aren’t going to be calling it in the spring. We’ll be calling it the regular time,” the premier said on Sept 28.

Some PC strategists want to exploit the party’s current resurgence in polls and hold an election before the pandemic-induced recession gets worse.

But the premier, who was elected in 2018, has stressed there would be no vote before June 2, 2022.

Government house leader Paul Calandra said the Conservatives enthusiastically backed Hunter’s motion, claiming it was “a vote of confidence” in how Ford’s administration has handled COVID-19.

“I have never seen an opposition party bring forward a motion of support, a motion of confidence in the government, begging all colleagues to join with the member for Scarborough-Guildwood, join with the leader of the Liberal Party, in expressing confidence in the actions of this premier and what he has accomplished over these very many months,” said Calandra.

But Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said “only Doug Ford and his friends could twist the logic on this one.”

“Frankly, Doug Ford got caught. He got caught preparing for an early election call in the midst of the second wave of the pandemic that he is not ready for and his government is not ready for,” said Del Duca.

“The fact is the people of Ontario want them to do one thing and one thing only -- and that’s to manage through the second wave.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said MPPs “spent way too much time” debating the motion and talking about the possibility of a snap pandemic election.

“Nobody cares about an election right now,” said Horwath, scolding the Tories for “their antics” and the Liberals for putting a potential campaign on the front-burner.

“People want this government to step up to the plate ... and start investing in the kinds of initiatives that will save lives and protect people from COVID-19,” she said.

The Green leader, for his part, said he didn’t think anyone in Ontario wants an election campaign right now.

“We should all be focused on combating the second wave and then looking at what economic recovery is going to look like,” said Schreiner.

“The government is engaged in a lot of spin on this one,” he said of Calandra’s view on the motion.

A Campaign Research survey for the Star found 51 per cent of respondents believed “all the parties and leaders should be focusing on the pandemic and stop wasting time on this.”

At the same time, 16 per cent felt the opposition parties were stoking the chatter that Ford might call an early election to cash in his current popularity in the polls in order “to attack him.”

Similarly, 13 per cent said they did not believe the premier when he said the next vote would be June 2, 2022.

Campaign Research polled 1,017 people across Ontario last Wednesday through Friday using Maru Blue’s online panel. It is an opt-in poll, but for comparison purposes, a random sample of this size would have a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.