Route links
- Toronto
- Ontario Elections
- News
- Canadian politics
- Canada
Not even the two-time majority winner Mike Harris won more seats than Ford, who improved his record the second time.
Date Posted:
June 3, 2022 • 39 minutes ago • 2 minutes reading • 96 comments With 83 seats, the number of Ford seats exceeds any conservative progressive leader of the modern era.
Content of the article
When Howard Ferguson of the former Conservative Party of Ontario ran for re-election as Prime Minister in 1929, he was on the verge of setting a higher point in the Conservative seat count at 90.
Content of the article
Before him, the most seats ever won by a party prime minister in Ontario were in 1908, when Sir James Pliny Whitney, also a Conservative lawyer from Eastern Ontario, was best remembered as the namesake. from a public office block near Queen’s Park, he won 86 seats in the province’s 12 elections.
Doug Ford didn’t match Ferguson or even Whitney’s total seats, but he got very close.
David Peterson, a former Liberal prime minister, still holds the 95th seat total in 1987.
Former Ontario Prime Minister David Peterson
But Ford surpassed any conservative progressive leader of the modern era.
Mike Harris won 82 seats in the 1995 election that led to NPD Prime Minister Bob Rae, now ambassador to the United Nations. Like Ford, Harris won a second majority in 1999, but with far fewer seats.
Content of the article
Unlike Harris, however, Ford improved his own record for the second time.
Former Ontario Prime Minister Mike Harris
Bill Davis, who also won two majorities for 14 years as prime minister, never won more than 78 seats.
Former Ontario Prime Minister Bill Davis, who died in 2021 at the age of 92.
Results Friday morning had Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party leading or elected with 83 seats, having reduced the opposition’s NDP to 31. The Liberal Party had only eight seats, still not enough for official status. party.
To find a Conservative leader with such a high number of seats, it is necessary to go back to when Leslie Frost also occupied 83 seats for her fifth first office in 1955.
Turnout was an all-time low for Ontario, at around 43%, and Ford’s party got a higher turnout than even the boldest pollsters predict, at around 41%.
-
Ivison: Doug Ford gets it
-
Leave it blue: Doug Ford’s computers are roaring for a second major victory in Ontario
Content of the article
Ford also countered the historical trend that for the first few to win repeated victories, their number of seats tends to decrease over time. This was the case with Liberal Dalton McGuinty, who won first with 72 seats in 2003 and the last with 53 in 2011. This was the case with Harris, who won a second majority with only 59 seats. Davis saw his seat count drop to two elections before gaining his second majority by 70, but was still lower than his first by 78. John Robarts won two majorities in 1963 and 1967 by 77 and then 69 seats.
Ford was first elected in 2018 with 76 seats.
Much of this increase occurred at the expense of the NDP in suburban areas northwest of Toronto, Thunder Bay, and southwestern Ontario.
Liberal leader Steven Del Duca lost his own horse in north Toronto. NPD leader Andrea Horwath won in Hamilton. They both agreed to resign.