Bonnie Crombie wins Ontario Liberal leadership after third ballot

Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie is the new Ontario Liberal leader. Nate Erskine-Smith was the runner up.

thestar.com
Dec. 4, 2023

It was third time lucky for Bonnie Crombie.

The Mississauga mayor is the new Ontario Liberal leader after a dramatic third-ballot victory in the party leadership race Saturday

Crombie eked out a win with 53.4 per cent support and will lead the Liberals against Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in the 2026 election.

“There is no question --- being an Ontario Liberal is back,” she told more than 1,000 Liberal members gathered at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

“Ford and his Conservative cronies have been the opponent in all of our sights for this entire campaign,” Crombie said as cheering backers brandished red-and-white signs reading, “Stop Ford” and “2026.”

Speaking to reporters, she hailed that it was “such a competitive race.”

MP Nate Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York) was the runner-up with a surprising 46.6 per cent.

“I always thought it would be close,” said Erskine-Smith, a self-styled maverick who will not seek re-election federally but hasn’t “ruled out running provincially,” after final results.

MP Yasir Naqvi (Ottawa Centre) was eliminated after the second ballot.

It was a bitter disappointment for Naqvi, a former provincial cabinet minister who had been party president a decade ago.

“I will be united behind our new leader so that we can rebuild this party in every part of the province and defeat Doug Ford in 2026,” said Naqvi, his teary-eyed son standing nearby.

In a statement, the Tories --- whose leader, Ford, is a multimillionaire scion of a wealthy, politically connected family --- said Crombie “doesn’t get the concerns of everyday people.”

“She drives fancy cars and vacations at her home in the Hamptons,” said the Tories.

Crombie noted she doesn’t “even own a car,” though “we have inherited a home from an aunt and uncle that passed away.”

But she shrugged off the Tory attacks.

“It sounds to me like they’re very concerned and they should be.”

The New Democrats, who acclaimed leader Marit Stiles in February, said “today’s rocky results from the Liberal leadership announcement show a divided party still searching for purpose.”

“Turnout in the Liberal leadership race was abysmal,” the NDP said in a statement, urging Erskine-Smith’s followers to support the NDP instead.

While 103,206 party members were eligible to vote across Ontario Nov. 25-26, only 22,827 actually bothered to cast ballots.

Crombie was the leading candidate throughout the contest, winning 46.7 per cent on the second ballot.

Erskine-Smith was in second with 29.3 per cent after that ballot.

Naqvi (Ottawa Centre) was eliminated after that ballot with 24 per cent and his supporters’ second choices were tabulated to determine the final results.

After the first ballot, MPP Ted Hsu (Kingston and the Islands) had dropped off with 10 per cent and his voters’ ranked choices redistributed.

“I’m a little bit surprised at the low result, but it is what it is,” said Hsu.

On that initial ballot, Crombie was at 43 per cent, Erskine-Smith 25.7 per cent while Naqvi had 21.3 per cent.

The Mississauga mayor raised by far the most money and garnered the greatest number of endorsements as the front-runner in a race that officially began in April.

But her rivals had hoped she would not have enough support to emerge victorious and banked on one of them pulling off an upset win on a later ballot.

Erskine-Smith and Naqvi joined forces on Nov. 9 by urging their voters to rank them first and second on the preferential ballot.

The MPs argued Crombie was too much like Ford because she accepted donations from some of the same people who contribute to the Tories.

They also expressed alarm after she chided the Liberals for moving too far to the left in recent elections, saying she would return them to the centre of the political spectrum.

Hsu refused to participate in the ABC --- “Anybody But Crombie” --- alliance, insisting he wanted to campaign for something rather against someone.

A fifth hopeful, MPP Adil Shamji (Don Valley East), arguably the most progressive candidate in the contest, withdrew from the race on Sept. 28 to endorse Crombie.

This is the first time the Liberals are using a one-member-one-vote system in which each riding has the same value regardless of population.

It’s the same method the Tories used to elect Ford in March 2018.

In the past, the Liberals held delegated conventions dominated by party insiders and elected officials and where backroom deals could determine the outcome.

Under the new system, each of 124 Ontario ridings were worth 100 points awarded on a proportional basis.

There were also 10 campus clubs with 50 points each and eight Liberal women’s associations with five points apiece.

That means a total of 12,940 points were up for grabs and the first candidate to secure 6,471 points was the winner.

After the third ballot, Crombie had 6,911 points while Erskine-Smith had 6,029 points.

After the second ballot, she had 6,047 points and he had 3,792 points with Naqvi at 3,101 points.

On the first ballot, Crombie was at 5,559 points, Erskine-Smith 3,320 points, Naqvi 2,760 points and Hsu 1,300 points.

After each ballot, the lowest ranking candidate’s votes were redistributed until Crombie secured a majority.

Hand-counting of the 139 ballot boxes, which were under lock and key since Sunday, began around 8 a.m.

Former Liberal leader Steven Del Duca, now mayor of Vaughan, congratulated Crombie, saying “you have an important challenge ahead of you, but I know your commitment to public service and progress-focused values will make you an effective and successful leader.”

In a sign the Liberals are no longer distancing themselves from the controversies of their almost 15 years in office between 2003 and 2018, they honoured former premiers Kathleen Wynne and Dalton McGuinty at Saturday’s event.

“I’m the ghost of Christmas past,” joked McGuinty, premier from 2003 until 2013.

“When Dalton speaks, he’s a philosopher king --- I’m more of a street fighter,” quipped Wynne, his successor as premier from 2013 until Ford’s Tories unseated the Liberals in 2018.

The leadership race has given the moribund party media attention, helping to generate interest and funds.

Each candidate paid a $100,000 entry fee plus a $25,000 refundable deposit and was able to spend up to $900,000, excluding registration and a 20 per cent party tithe.

Earlier this year, the Grits announced they had eliminated their campaign debt from the June 2022 election they lost to Ford’s Tories.

But their new leader will have their work cut out for them.

The Liberals only hold nine seats in the 124-member legislature, three shy of the dozen needed to qualify for official party status in the house, and far behind the 79 of Ford’s Tories and 28 of Marit Stiles’s New Democrats. The Greens hold two, there are five Independents and one vacancy.

In terms of fundraising, Elections Ontario filings show Crombie brought in $1,203,695 compared to $515,852 for Erskine-Smith, $389,518 for Naqvi, and $379,365 for Hsu.

An Abacus Data poll for the Star on Thursday found Crombie would give the Liberals a boost, but Ford’s Tories still hold a solid lead despite the $8.28-billion Greenbelt land-swap scandal now under RCMP investigation.

Without her name atop the ballot, the Tories were at 42 per cent, the NDP at 24 per cent, the Liberals were at 23 per cent, and the Greens were at seven per cent.

When Abacus included Crombie’s name as leader, the Liberals surged to 31 per cent, the Tories dipped to 39 per cent, the NDP dropped to 20 per cent, and the Greens to six per cent.

Using online panels based on the Lucid exchange platform, Abacus surveyed 1,500 Ontarians between Nov. 23 and last Tuesday.

Although opt-in polls cannot be assigned a margin of error, for comparison purposes, a random sample of this size would have one of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.