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One measure of the effectiveness of the PC campaign is the desperation shown by other parties in recent days.
Date Posted:
May 26, 2022 • 4 p.m. 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS / Frank Gunn
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In the final week of the provincial election campaign, Ontario PC leader Doug Ford has things as he wants. His two key opponents are fighting for second place. Survey after poll shows that a majority Ford government is likely. The media, not seeing any convincing horse racing, has focused its attention on other issues. The same for the public.
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For the Ford campaign team, things couldn’t have gone much better. This is not just good luck. The Ford team has run a well-crafted and disciplined campaign, just as PCs struggled to deliver during the 15 years of the liberal regime.
Successful platforms focus on just a few points. For computers, they are jobs, economics, building things, and affordability. There are many details under these headings, but the topics are easy to understand, as is the “Do It” slogan.
The Liberals and the NDP, on the other hand, have made the mistake of offering policies on all conceivable issues and not limiting their focus to a couple of things where they could plausibly claim that they do better than PCs. The net result is that neither NPD leader Andrea Horwath nor Liberal Steven Del Duca seem confident in their own priorities.
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Del Duca likes to repeat the truth that governing involves making decisions, but it doesn’t seem to be his forte. His party has an affordability plan, which is a good idea, but he has 19 points. Did the Liberals really have to promise a snow tire tax cut and the elimination of the provincial tax on food sales of less than $ 20? These are not exactly the kind of changes that will drive people to support them.
Del Duca made it worse by signing a “promise of accessibility,” swearing he would actually do so. He recalled that Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty had signed a pledge not to raise taxes and then raise taxes.
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It is Del Duca’s first campaign as a leader, and most likely his last, but Horwath has no excuse for inexperience. He also lacked the discipline to choose two or three things that define his party. The NDP’s plan to double disability and welfare payments, even though it was stolen from the Greens, would have been her best way of arguing that she has compassion and Ford does not.
The PCs have made things difficult for both parties by removing the ability to break the promise of the relatively more conservative party. The PC budget projected a deficit of $ 19.9 billion. This creates a lot of room for spending promises, so much so that the Liberals chose only to match it and the NDP to modestly surpass it.
Any worries about deficits or moderation would have left PCs open to accusations of “cut” opposition. The allegations have yet to be made, but they are not credible.
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One of the fears of any campaign manager is that a candidate will say or do something stupid that will attract headlines, distract the intended message of the party, and force him to be defensive. PC candidates have kept a low profile in these elections, avoiding debates and public forums in favor of door-to-door consultation. This devalues the individual candidate, but avoids problems. Even Ford has not yet entered dangerous territory. This is a success.
One measure of the effectiveness of the PC campaign is the desperation shown by Del Duca in the last days of the campaign.
On Wednesday, Del Duca said Ford was “the puppet of the big billionaires.” (It would have referred to Ford’s multimillion-dollar friends, but the term “friends” appears to have been a trademark of the NDP).
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On Tuesday, the Liberal leader accused Ford of being “a denier of climate change” for failing to make the mandatory speech linking last week’s severe storm to climate change. Del Duca himself is a proponent of climate change policies, except that he supports the temporary reduction of Ford’s gasoline tax, which undermines the federal carbon tax.
For years, the Liberals won the Ontario election by demonizing the PCs. “Shut down the computers!” it is a war cry that has not had much of an impact in this campaign. Perhaps after four years in power, at least some Ontarians have learned that a Ford government does not mean cuts in everything they love.
Parties that are lagging behind in the polls like to point out that campaigns matter. Yes, they do. Both Horwath and Del Duca had little hope for this election. Thanks to their poor performance, these hopes will be even lower on June 2.
Randall Denley is an Ottawa journalist, author and former PC candidate for Ontario. Contact him at randalldenley1@gmail.com
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