Progressive conservatives in Ontario reached a second consecutive government by a majority on Thursday night, with the rival NDP losing seats and the Liberals failing to maintain official party status.
It was a big night for Prime Minister Doug Ford, who quickly realized that he would return to Queen’s Park with an even tougher mandate.
An hour later, Ford’s biggest political rivals announced that they would retire.
Here’s a brief look at how the 43rd general election in Ontario was held to reach the major parties.
Progressive conservatives
Ontario PC Party leader Doug Ford didn’t have to wait long to realize that he would have the best night of any party leader on Thursday. (Frank Gunn / Canadian Press)
RS will form a government with 83 seats. This is more than the 76 rides that the party provided in 2018.
Usually in provincial politics, majorities decrease over time. Computers have reversed that dynamic.
Computers also provided approximately 41% of the vote, slightly more than in the last election (although total turnout appears to be far lower than in 2018).
Their profits come mostly from the NDP, especially in the northern region, the 905 region and southwestern Ontario.
New Democrats
The Ontario NDP will return to Queen’s Park as an official opposition, albeit with fewer seats than in the last provincial parliament.
The new Democrats won 40 seats in 2018. With the dissolution of the legislature, they fell to 38 after one MP left to be independent and another was expelled from the group.
The party took 31 seats on Thursday, with about 32.7 per cent of the vote – not what the NDP had hoped to enter. Leader Andrea Horvat and her campaign had said early and often that they had a way to form a government, with only 10 key seats to win to take down Ford. It didn’t have to be.
The party’s evening ended with Andrea Horvat, who won her seat at the Hamilton Center, announcing that she would step down after 13 years and four elections.
WATCH Andrea Horvat says she will retire after 4 elections:
NDP leader Andrea Horvat has announced her resignation
The Hamilton politician, who won Thursday’s re-election, was emotional after failing to become Ontario’s prime minister in his fourth attempt
liberals
The Ontario Liberals had a terrible election night.
The party won eight seats, just one more than in 2018 – an election in which the Liberals were annihilated after more than 15 years in power.
This extra place came in Toronto’s traditional liberal Bees ride in East York, where he defeated a former city councilor. Liberal leader Stephen Del Duca spent most of his time campaigning in Toronto, so the party’s inability to fight for seats in the center of the new Democrats was a significant disappointment.
Del Duca also lost by a wide margin in his home drive at Von Woodbridge. Although Del Duca insisted on the last day of the campaign that she would remain the leader “regardless of the outcome”, the reality of the evening made it untenable.
The poor performance of the Liberals also means that the party has not retained official party status. This comes with huge shortcomings, mainly less money and a lack of paid staff in the legislature.
WATCH Stephen Del Duca says he will resign after being disappointed by showing:
Liberal leader Stephen Del Duca says he will step down after losing the election
Only after one election does the former cabinet minister say he will step down. He also failed to win his ride.
Green Party
Leader Mike Schreiner was the only Greens in Ontario to have a seat in the last provincial parliament. Despite the party’s high hopes of taking another one this time, Schreiner will remain a caucus.
The party presented a full list of 124 candidates, but the campaign team devoted a lot of time and resources to driving Parry Sound-Muskoka.
Studies have shown that their local candidate there, Matt Richter, is in close competition with the computer candidate and longtime Braysbridge mayor Graden Smith. In the end, that was not enough.
The Greens did increase their share of the vote across the province to about six percent, from about 4.6 percent in 2018. That was enough for Schreiner to announce that his party was here to stay.
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