How the leaders' debate affects the rest of the Ontario election campaign
Liberal's Bonnie Crombie told Doug Ford, 'You were raised privileged,' as she amps up attacks on PC leader
Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford's campaign slogan is "Protect Ontario," but during the province-wide leaders' debate on Monday night, he seemed to switch it to "Protect My Lead."
Ford played it safe for the 90 minutes of televised debate time, and he played it even safer after the broadcast by skipping out on the scheduled post-debate news conferences.
That's the second straight time Ford has refused to participate in a post-debate Q and A, as he did the same thing on Friday after the northern debate. This means Ford has now gone more than a week without taking any questions from reporters on Ontario soil, smack-dab in the middle of an election campaign that lasts just four weeks.
It's all part of a very clear Ford strategy that was also on display during the debate: sticking to his single-minded campaign message of protecting Ontario from the threat of tariffs, and spending as little time as possible talking about anything else.
Among Ford's rivals, Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie was the most aggressive at attempting to knock him off his talking points.
The debate format gave each leader one opportunity to go one-on-one against each other for two minutes, and Crombie started off her segment with Ford with a bang.
"Doug, I have one question for you and one question only," Crombie said, as she appeared on a split screen with Ford. "After seven years of lies, why should anyone trust a word you say?"
Crombie — who spent some of her childhood living in a rooming house — ratcheted up her attack on Ford near the end of the debate with a comment about him being born into wealth.
'Silver spoon in your mouth'
"You don't get the plight of real people because you were raised privileged, with a silver spoon in your mouth," Crombie said. "You didn't have to work for anything. You had a company handed to you, Doug, so you don't understand how expensive things are today. I bet you couldn't tell me what the cost of eggs are."
If Ford didn't know the price of eggs before the debate, guaranteed that his handlers will tell him by the next time he faces reporters.
Crombie is attempting to chip away at the "For The People" persona that Ford has successfully portrayed throughout his time in politics. That's a rather difficult task.
Laryssa Waler, Ford's former communications director, says Liberal and NDP messaging has typically failed to hurt Ford because it's been attacking a version of him that she says doesn't exist.
"You can't convince everyday voters that Doug Ford doesn't care about you, because he genuinely does," said Waler in a recent interview.
When NDP Leader Marit Stiles had her two-minute opportunity to go one-on-one with Ford, in contrast to Crombie, she spent nearly 45 seconds on preamble, before getting around to tackling him on per-student funding in the school system.
'Class sizes are huge'
Near the end of that two-minute exchange, Stiles challenged Ford's boast about hiring more teachers.
"Parents with kids in our schools right now, they know that that's not true. The class sizes are huge," said Stiles. "You've actually reduced funding by $1,500 per student."
The NDP issued a news release declaring Stiles the winner of the debate. Although she came across as comfortable and warm on screen, it's quite a challenge to find moments where Stiles said something particularly punchy and memorable.
Stiles did drop a mini-bombshell against Crombie, alleging the Liberals received $25,000 in political donations from what she called "private health-care insiders."
Asked for further details, an NDP official provided a list of 11 Liberal donors, including executives of companies involved in long-term care homes, medical laboratories and health-care services.
Crombie pitches to NDP voters
It's not a stretch to say that Stiles and Crombie faced the toughest assignments of the four leaders.
As rookie leaders of their parties, in their first province-wide televised debate, with more Ontario voters watching them at any one time since they took on their jobs, the stakes were pretty high for both.
They needed to strike the right balance between speaking about their own policies, going after Ford for his record, and going after each other in their effort to position themselves as the best alternative to the PCs.
Crombie made a blatant pitch to NDP supporters in her closing statement. "I'm asking those of you who voted NDP in the last election to vote Liberal, to vote for a government that will fix our health-care system and to get you a family doctor," she said.
Crombie's aggressive approach to Ford, and her direct courting of NDP voters, could shift the dynamic in the campaign — maybe not enough to influence who wins the election, but maybe enough to determine who comes second and forms the official opposition.
The fourth leader on stage, Mike Schreiner of the Green Party, accomplished what he needed to simply by being there.
He focused his time on articulating his party's policies, and if it didn't make for a compelling viral moment, it did help boost his profile in his efforts to add another Green seat or two at Queen's Park.
Debate went beyond tariffs
The debate format and questions aimed to broaden the discussion beyond tariffs to other key issues that matter to provincial voters, including health care, affordability, public safety, education and climate change. (Full disclosure: I was part of the editorial team that developed the structure, chose the topics and worded the questions.)
The segment in which each party leader was forced to defend a specific campaign promise, and then explain the holes in their platforms, generated some of the most revealing non-answers of the night.
- Ford refused to address the price tag of what is quite possibly the single most expensive campaign promise ever made by an Ontario party leader: building a tunnel under the 401.
- Crombie danced around the fact her middle-class tax cut doesn't help anyone earning less than $50,000 per year.
- Stiles offered little in the way of specifics about dealing with the addictions crisis.
- Schreiner was called out for dropping his long-running promise of eliminating Catholic school boards.
We'll know whether the debate had an impact on voters once the results comes in on election night next Thursday.
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