Ontario politics

The progressive-conservative party dominated Ontarian politics from 1943 to 1985 and therefore earned the nickname The Big Blue Machine . During this period, the party was led by Red Tory : George Drew , Leslie Frost , John Robarts and Bill Davis alternately became prime ministers. Their governments carried out the most progressive policies in the provinces: they created the Ontario Human Rights Code, a number of state-owned companies, and implemented the modern principle of a patron state in the province. In 1985, instead of the popular Bill Davis , the conservative progressives elected Frank Miller to be their leaders, which meant a significant movement of the party to the right. This decision was very unpopular. After 42 years in power, conservatives in the provincial elections were able to achieve a ruling minority with a margin of only 4 seats over the liberal party . The next time they received even less percent of the vote than the liberals. Miller whipped up an alliance with the NDP, as Davis had already done while in the minority (from 1975 to 1981 ), but failed to secure their support. The coalition with the NDP of Bob Ray was formed by the liberals of David Peterson , and they managed to remove Miller from power and put an end to the longest political dynasty in Canadian history.

Peterson managed to give energy to his party to bring it to power. A coalition of liberals and new democrats from 1985 to 1987 successfully worked under the leadership of Peterson as prime minister. In exchange for the support of the new democrats for a certain liberal policy and for avoiding their withdrawal from the coalition, which would lead to the overthrow of the Peterson government, the liberals agreed to carry out the part of the NDP that Miller opposed. However, in the 1987 elections, Peterson's liberals managed to gain a substantial majority in the legislature, ending the two-year coalition with the new democrats. The results of the reign of Peterson are assessed rather moderately. Five years of his reign proved to be Ontario's best years economically; however, by the end of his term, government spending increased. In 1990, despite the government’s prediction of a budget surplus, liberals created a $ 3 billion deficit in Ontario’s budget.

Social contract

The Liberal Party paid dearly for its decision to declare elections in 1990 , only after three years in power. Until Peterson announced the election, according to polls, his government was supported by 54% of voters; but the early elections, which were perceived by the population as arrogance, coupled with the high demands of teachers, environmentalists, and doctors turned against him and led to a loss. These were some of the most unexpected election results in Ontarian history when the NDP, which forms the majority government led by Bob Ray , came to power, although it was supported by only 37% of voters. This government became the second social democratic government of Ontario (after the government of United Farmers Ernest Charles Drury from 1919 to 1923 ), and its result secured the PDP power in Ontario at the beginning of the next decade.

The NPD campaign concerned mainly the promise of introducing a state motor insurance system; having received power, they neglected this promise. They also did not keep their promise to create a new electoral system and increase social spending. Finally, the new democrats reduced their social programs and also introduced a “ social contract, ” which obliged public sector employees to take unpaid leave annually, which became known as the “Rae days”. They also froze wages.

The social contract outraged almost the entire trade union movement. A longtime ally of the NDP, the head of the TCA (Professional Union of Canadian Automotive Workers ) Buzz Hargrove, the Ontario Public Employees' Trade Union, and other public sector trade unions turned their backs on Bob Ray and promised to overthrow his government. The taxes that Ray introduced also put an end to his re-election. Thousands of members left the party, and it became obvious that the NDP was waiting for the defeat in the 1995 elections .

In 1995, the Ontario unemployment rate was skyrocketing, as was the budget deficit , which convinced the majority of the population that the Bob Ray government had become ineffective. A number of observers predicted an easy victory for the liberals, Lean MacLeod, but in the resurgent Progressive Conservative Party of Mike Harris , recognized as second-rate in 1987 , there was a sensational upsurge, and it won the majority. MacLeod pushed voters away from himself by a sharp change of opinion on campaign issues such as civil marriage for people of the same sex. In the end, the liberals tried to imitate Tory politics. Mike Harris, on the other hand, campaigned on a controversial but frank program known as the Common Sense Revolution, promising to solve Ontario’s economic problems by tax cuts, the role of the state, and policies to create jobs for businesses. In the 1995 elections, the Progressive Conservative Party won a large majority and the Tories returned to power after a long absence, however, without their traditional centrist Red Tory positioning.

The new right-wing government of Mike Harris implemented a neoliberal program to reduce social spending and taxes (the “ common sense revolution ”), and he managed to balance the budget and significantly reduce taxes of most Ontarians, both middle and working classes. Some blame this “revolution” for the inadequate quality of the health and education system and the transfer of the cost burden of a number of programs from provinces to municipalities. The reduction in federal health financing by the liberal government of Jean Chretien also led to failures in the Ontario health system. Moreover, critics of the government tried to cite the fact that government cuts in the Ministry of the Environment and the privatization of drinking-water quality testing laboratories markedly reduced the level of control that led to the "Walkerton tragedy." An outbreak of E. coli bacteria infection in May 2000 from contaminated waters in the Ontarian city of Walkerton ended with a considerable number of dead and sick. Responsible for the tragedy were found civil construction manager Stan Köbel and his brother Frank, who extremely carelessly managed the safety of the city’s water supply. Among the points of indictment brought against them, one can note a threat to public health, the production of fake documents and the abuse of trust.

However, despite disagreements, cutbacks in social and educational programs, and a general strike by teachers across the province in 1999 , Mike Harris was re-elected in the 1999 election, defeating liberals Dalton McGinty . His victory was facilitated by the unsuccessful campaign of the liberals, the creation of a large number of jobs during the time Harris was in power, and his results in tax cuts. Tory's campaign ad, claiming McGinty’s lack of qualifications for future duties, also contributed to Harris’s re-election.

Harris resigned in 2002 and was replaced by Ernie Ives after the party’s election. The Eaves government is known mainly for freezing Harris’s highly unpopular plan to privatize Ontario Hydro’s electricity monopoly, but only after some of its branches have been privately owned.

In the 2003 Ontarian elections, Dalton McGinty led the liberals to an impressive victory over the Tories of Ernie Ives , distinguished by their internal divisions, and gained a stable majority. The main promises of McGinty were: an increase in health care costs, the abolition of Mike Harris's transformation in the field of education and the solemn promise not to increase taxes.

However, shortly after the election, the provincial controller began to conduct a study that suggested that the conservatives Harris and Eaves concealed a budget deficit of at least $ 5.6 billion. Indeed, federal transfers and the alleged sale of LCBOs and other assets, which the liberals held after coming to power, offset this deficit. Despite this, Treasury Secretary Greg Sorbara presented a budget that included an increase in taxes and fees on goods and operations, the introduction of health care payments for all Ontarians except low-income citizens, and the exclusion of certain services from the PMSO - Ontario Health Insurance Program. This budget, along with the permission to build in the environmentally sensitive Oak Ridgez moraine and the failure to fulfill almost all the promises made during the campaign, made the McGinty government extremely unpopular in its first months in office. A month after the election, McGinty was satisfied with only 8% of the population, which was a record low result.

However, after the first year in power, his situation improved. The Ontario government has been able to negotiate a national health agreement with the federal government and other provinces; free vaccination for children was introduced; McGinty announced plans to create a "green belt" (fiercely contested by most farmers and rural communities) in the Greater Toronto area to curb the sprawl of the city; a plan was also announced to create a “City Assembly” to explore the possibility of electoral reform. The Tories, for their part, made the move to the center of the political arena when they elected John Tory , former assistant Bill Davis, to the party ’s leadership. Tory is opposed to privatization by Mike Harris and Ernie Ives for canceling health care payments, and his social program is similar to the McGinty program.

McGinty’s government is the author of several legislative initiatives, including a law allowing customers to come to a restaurant with their own wine, a ban on the sale of harmful foods in public schools, a ban on smoking in public places, and compulsory schooling under the age of 18. In 2005, the government amended Ontario Property Law. Also, after a series of published attacks on people of pit bull dogs, the government proposed to ban the breeding of these dogs, which is a highly controversial project that provokes strong resistance from some people and strong support from others.

In the summer of 2003, a decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal made Ontario the first and only Canadian province to recognize gay marriage as legal. In response to the court decision, the McGinty liberals changed the provincial law regarding spouses to exclude from it any mention of the sex of partners so that same-sex couples could be counted among them.

Ontario, despite the dominance of federal liberals from 1995 to 2004 , was a province with a wide variety of political relations due to the division of right-wing voters between the more centrist Progressive Conservative Party and the more conservative Canadian Union ; the reunification of right-wing parties in the Conservative Party of Canada helped to reduce liberal dominance.

• The Greater Toronto area at the federal level is a very diverse and multicultural region that clearly gravitates to the left wing . But interestingly, in the 1995 and 1999 elections, the Toronto constituency was more progressive and conservative than ever and supported the Tories during the decline of economic liberalism under Red Tory. He is now the stronghold of the liberals, with the exception of several districts in the city center that support the NPD . Conservative support is limited to the suburbs, where this party received several seats.
• Southwest Ontario is similar to the American Midwest, to which it adjoins, urban districts usually gravitate there to the left wing (especially Winsor is a union stronghold), and rural areas are moderately conservative; however, mainly due to the high industrialization of the region, they are less conservative than the rural areas of some Ontarian regions and neighboring US states. An exception to this pattern is the strip between London and Brantford , as well as the area north and south of this strip; they are more conservative and more typical of areas of central Ontario.
• The center and east of Ontario are definitely more conservative provinces due to their large agricultural and religious bases, which, in terms of public conservatism, makes them look like some parts of the Canadian West and some rural areas of the United States . The exception is the center of Ottawa , where activist and trade union movements are very strong, and the easternmost regions, where the share of the French-Ontarian population is very large and which to date are the strongholds of the liberals. However, a significant portion of the entire region is inclined to vote for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario at the provincial and for the Conservative Party of Canada at the federal level. Also, this region is characterized by a strong hostility of the village due to policies such as the "green belt" (the opponents of which claim that it will become an obstacle to farmers' trade and may not prevent the city from growing) or the prohibition of pit bulls.
• Northern Ontario usually supports liberals and new democrats, mainly because of the high percentage of union members in the area, as well as the high concentration of indigenous people. At the same time, the more southern regions are more conservative than the northern ones in economic and social terms. This is especially evident in Parry Sound and Muskoka counties, in areas around North Bay and on Manitoulin Island .

• Canada policy
• Ontario political parties