The Ontario Liberals suffered a disastrous night on Thursday, barely out of “minivan” party status with their leader Steven Del Duca losing in his hometown.
CTV News predicts that Del Duca’s Liberals will remain the third party in the 43rd provincial parliament, with Doug Ford winning a second term as prime minister by a considerable margin.
The NDP under Andrea Horwath will remain the official opposition in the province, according to CTV News projects.
The Liberals’ performance is a slight improvement over four years ago, when they only won seven seats and were unable to secure access to the privileges of official party status at Queen’s Park.
They currently lead in 10 seats.
Del Duca lost to current PC candidate Michael Tibollo at Vaughan-Woodbridge, who also beat Del Duca on the same bike in 2018.
Tibollo leads Del Duca by 1,359 votes.
The Grits appear to have performed below the average suggested by the most recent polls.
Del Duca was first elected to the provincial office in 2012 and served as Minister of Transportation and Economic Development in the Wynne government from 2014 to 2018.
He became the party leader in a 2020 contest quickly overshadowed by the arrival of COVID-19 in Canada.
He said earlier this week that he would continue as a leader regardless of whether he won a seat or not.