Andrea Horwath fought back tears on Thursday evening when she announced that after 13 years, she was resigning as leader of the New Democratic Party of Ontario.
Horwath made the announcement during his award speech at the Hamilton Convention Center after another defeat in the provincial election. His party will return as the official opposition at Queen’s Park.
“My commitment to you will never waver, and I will continue to work to earn your trust every day. I will continue to do so. But tonight, it is time to pass the torch, to pass the baton to deliver the leadership of the NDP, ”said an emotional Horwath.
“And you know what, it makes me sad, but it makes me happy because our team is very strong right now.”
Horwath said that although his party did not win, as an official opposition, the NDP will be ready to fight “Doug Ford’s cuts.”
“I’m not shedding tears of sadness. I’m shedding tears of pride. Look at you. Look at you all. Look at what we’ve done together,” he said.
“I can assure you, Ontarians, that as an official opposition, we will work hard every day to fix what matters most to the people of our province of Ontario. Do you know why? Do you know why we will do it? “Your priorities were before the election. And they were our priorities during the election. And they will be our priorities after the election because that’s how we are as new Democrats,” Horwath added.
As of 11:30 p.m., Thursday, the NDP was elected or leader in 31 constituencies. If the results hold, the party will lose nine seats it won four years ago.
Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party is expected to form a second majority government.
The results of Thursday’s election were not surprising, as some polls had predicted a similar result.
For Horwath, who was competing to lead Ontario for the fourth time, the results were not what he expected after his party’s strong performance four years ago.
At the start of the election campaign, the NDP was in a strong position with dozens of incumbents and party coffers full.
However, the NDP was unable to increase momentum during the four-week campaign in which Horwath tested positive for COVID-19 at one point, prompting it to briefly move its policy online. Polls predicted that the party was not in the race to form a government, but was fighting for second place with the Liberals.
And even though he won that battle on Thursday, the NDP will return to Queen’s Park with fewer seats than it had in the dissolution.
In 2018, the new Democrats won 40 of the 124 seats in the provincial parliament, the largest since 1990, when Bob Rae’s NDP formed a majority government.
In Brampton, the NDP was unable to maintain its three seats, losing all of them to the PCs.
Meanwhile, in Toronto, the party was expected to lose two of the 11 seats it won four years ago. The York South-Weston entourage will be represented by a PC MPP for the first time with Ford’s nephew, former councilor Michael Ford. The Liberals grabbed Toronto’s other horse, Beaches-East York, which will be served by Mary-Margaret McMahon, another former city councilor.
The NDP also lost a seat in Steeltown. Hamilton East-Stoney Creek had been a stronghold of the NDP, with Paul Miller representing the group since 2007. However, Miller was expelled from the party earlier this year on charges of being a member of an Islamophobic Facebook group. He repeatedly denied the allegations and then sued the party.
Former CFL player Neil Lumsden, the PC candidate, won the competition on Thursday. Miller, who ran as an independent, finished fourth.
Horwath won his riding at Hamilton Center, which he has been performing since 2007.
Many political experts hoped that this year’s election would be Horwath’s last chance to become prime minister, and any result other than that would mean the end of his time as NDP leader.
The 59-year-old became the party’s first female leader when she was elected in 2009. Despite finishing third in her first two NPD leadership elections, Horwath survived the leadership revisions. He was credited with growing party support culminating in 2018, when the NDP garnered more than 1.9 million votes.
“I want to end up assuring all Ontarians that we will always, always work for you,” Horwath said. “Thank you so much.”