Statement Adopted by the Ontario Socialist Caucus
The snap 2025 Ontario election did not produce very snappy results. To save face, the leader of every major party is busy putting lipstick on the pig in a vain effort to portray some semblance of their ‘victory.’
Ontario Tories won a majority of seats on February 27, (80 in total), but failed to get the BIGGER mandate that Premier Doug Ford (wrapped in his Captain Canada costume) publicly sought. Naturally, taxpayers are on the hook for the $189 million dollars spent on the exercise. The 45.4 per cent turnout for the mid-winter frost-fest was pitiful, just two per cent up from the worst-ever showing. All around, it was an election of unrequited dreams.
The New Democratic Party hung on to Official Opposition status — mainly thanks to the undemocratic First Past The Post system, and an uncanny concentration of support in some 27 of the 124 Ontario ridings. With four fewer seats and a 5 per cent lower vote share than in 2022, the NDP top brass have little to celebrate.
There is no denying that the result in Hamilton Centre is particularly disappointing. It shows that a vibrant grassroots campaign, headed by pro-Palestinian, anti-poverty activist Sarah Jama, was unable to overcome the deep institutional footprint of a broadly labour-based political party. Hamilton Centre voted NDP as usual, notwithstanding the distorted candidate selection process imposed by party headquarters in Toronto. The notion that leftist dissidents can displace a bureaucrat-dominated mass working class party, as an act of will, is again disproved. It is somewhat reminiscent of the outcome for radical candidates who ran unsuccessfully against the Bob Rae-led NDP in 1995. Evident is the fact that the fight for an anti-capitalist Workers’ Agenda should be waged inside unions and the NDP, as well as beyond. The NDP Socialist Caucus is in the best position to play an indispensable role in this process.
Some solace for the left is found in the failure of former Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie to win a seat. She promises to stay on as Liberal Party leader, claiming success at boosting the Liberal vote share and regaining official party status with 14 seats in the Legislature. Time will tell whether Crombie’s Ford-lite brand will last.
What about the ONDP leader? For her milquetoast policy platform and grossly undemocratic expulsion of MPP Jama, not to mention cancellation of her party’s provincial convention, Marit Stiles should get the boot.
Remember the near general strike that forced the Tories to rescind anti-labour Bill 124 in November 2022? To shorten the term of Thug Ford, it should be quite clear that mass job action (not just the threat of it) will be absolutely necessary.
