Ontario general election, 2007

Liberal

Until just weeks before the election, the governing Liberal Party planned to run primarily on its record. The idea, advocated most often by campaign chair Greg Sorbara, was to go to the people with the achievements of the previous four years and a message of good government. In the summer before the election, a subset of the campaign team began promoting the idea of polarizing the election around Progressive Conservative leader John Tory's proposal to fund religious education, increase the role for the private sector in health care and reduce environmental protections. This view won out, and the Liberals determined their best strategy was to polarize the election into a referendum on public vs private. This would marginalize the NDP, while containing the threat from the right. It also had the added benefit of increasing the negatives for Tory, who had been enjoying positive media coverage for the most part in the build up to the campaign.

PC

The Progressive Conservative Party (PC) plan was to attempt to polarize the election around leadership, using the advantage of John Tory's high net positive public opinion ratings to turn the election into a referendum on the performance of Premier Dalton McGuinty. From the name of the platform to the campaign graphics, Tory was the new PC Party brand. Due to the involvement of a high number of veterans of the 1988 federal election, there was considerable hope invested in a "bomb the bridge" strategy aimed at the perceived weak link in Liberal support. As John Turner had proven vulnerable to direct attack in 1988, the PCs hoped McGuinty would prove similarly vulnerable in 2007 Ontario.

NDP

The Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) was focused on directly confronting the phenomenon of "strategic voting" which had seen NDP support fall in each of the three previous elections. They hoped that the election of a Liberal government would reduce the growing tendency of the electorate to polarize between the PCs and Liberals. By emphasizing populist issues like MPP pay increases, the NDP hoped to push down support for the Liberals generally, push voters to either opposition party and gain seats in those areas where the NDP was the logical non-Liberal vote.

Issues

Although all four parties released a variety of detailed platform proposals, the campaign was dominated almost entirely by John Tory's promise to extend public funding to Ontario’s faith-based schools.

In Ontario at present, the Catholic school system is fully funded in the same manner as public schools. However, other religious schools, such as Jewish, Muslim or Evangelical Christian schools, are not funded by the province. This discrepancy has been cited as discriminatory by both the Supreme Court of Canada and the United Nations Human Rights Committee, although to date the province has taken no action to change its existing school funding policies, on the grounds that Catholic school funding in the province is mandated by the Constitution of Canada.

Tory's proposal to extend funding to religious schools was controversial, with polls confirming that a clear majority of Ontarians opposed the proposal. Even some of Tory's own caucus, most notably Bill Murdoch and Garfield Dunlop, openly criticized the proposal during the election campaign. After heavy opposition, Tory changed his position later in the campaign, promising a free vote on the issue.

The Liberals and the NDP were both opposed to non-Catholic religious school funding, while the Green Party proposed eliminating the province's existing Catholic school funding in favour of a single public school board.

There was a brief flurry of interest in health care issues when John Tory emphasized his support for an increasing role for the private sector in health care.

In the final week of the campaign, NDP leader Howard Hampton criticized the media for focusing almost entirely on religious schools and virtually ignoring other issues.

Ridings

With the passing of Bill 214 and the Representation Act, 2005 in 2005, Ontario’s electoral boundaries are no longer identical to the federal electoral boundaries. The province is now divided into 11 northern electoral districts that are identical, except for a minor boundary adjustment, to the ones that existed on October 2, 2003, and 96 southern electoral districts that are identical to their federal counterparts as they existed on September 1, 2004.

The 11 northern electoral districts are: Algoma—Manitoulin, Kenora—Rainy River, Nickel Belt, Nipissing, Parry Sound—Muskoka, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Thunder Bay—Superior North, Timiskaming—Cochrane, and Timmins—James Bay.

As a result of the redistribution, none of the three major parties took fewer seats than it held at the dissolution of the previous legislature. The Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives each gained seats, while the New Democratic Party's seat total remained unchanged.

Results by party

Incumbent MPPs who did not run for re-election

Opinion polls

Since the 2003 general election, several polls have been conducted to determine the current preference of voters. They showed a decline in Liberal support following the 2004 Ontario budget. Overall, support for the governing Liberals has declined slightly since the 2003 election, the NDP has gained some ground since the 2003 election, and the PCs' poll numbers have not changed significantly since 2003. Support for the Green Party has increased significantly, a shift which parallels the increase in support for the party's federal counterpart. During the pre-election period, the Ontario Greens did not appear as an option in some of the polls.

Polls indicate results for decided voters. More information can be found in the footnotes to each poll, including undecided results, if provided by the pollster. A dash indicates the absence of a prompt for that party.

Timeline

Election results

At 9:23 pm EDT, Citytv projected a Liberal majority government. CTV News made the same call at 9:30 pm EDT, followed by CBC News at 9:37 pm EDT, and Canadian Press at 9:52 pm EDT.

Also at 10:30 pm EDT, CBC and CTV reported that Progressive Conservative leader John Tory had called Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty to concede the election. At 10:39 pm EDT, Tory was declared defeated by Canadian Press in the riding of Don Valley West.

At 10:43 pm EDT, Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty took the stage to give his speech to the public, breaking tradition of the defeated party leaders going first.

Each party lost at least one incumbent MPP — Liberals Mario Racco and Caroline Di Cocco, PCs Joe Tascona, Tim Peterson and John Tory and NDP Paul Ferreira were all defeated. However, each party's losses were offset by gains in other seats. The actual changes in party standings were accounted for entirely by the four new seats resulting from redistribution and the defeat of Peterson. Overall, however, most incumbent MPPs were returned in their ridings.

McGuinty became the first Liberal leader in Ontario to win two successive majorities in the legislature since Mitchell Hepburn in the 1937 election.

Northern Ontario

All eleven ridings in Northern Ontario were retained by their incumbent parties. The popular vote, however, shifted dramatically, with several Liberal incumbents holding on only very narrowly against NDP challengers. Most notably, Bill Mauro retained Thunder Bay—Atikokan by a margin of just 36 votes against John Rafferty, whom Mauro had defeated in 2003 by a margin of over 11,000 — Rafferty, in fact, spent much of the night leading Mauro. A judicial recount on October 31 increased Mauro's margin of victory to 50 votes. David Ramsay, similarly, trailed New Democrat John Vanthof in Timiskaming—Cochrane for much of the night, pulling ahead to a winning margin of 634 votes only in the final few polls to report. This was the narrowest margin of victory in Ramsay's 22-year career. Michael Gravelle also retained Thunder Bay—Superior North by an uncharacteristically narrow margin over Jim Foulds.

As well, Monique Smith retained Nipissing by just 377 votes over Progressive Conservative candidate Bill Vrebosch — in 2003, she had defeated Progressive Conservative incumbent Al McDonald by a wider margin of over 3,000 votes.

In keeping with this trend, New Democrat incumbents Howard Hampton and Gilles Bisson widened their margins of victory over Liberal challengers compared to 2003, and France Gélinas maintained the same margin that her predecessor, Shelley Martel, had attained in the previous election.

Notably, the rise in popular support for the New Democrats in Northern Ontario carried over into the 2008 federal election, in which the NDP won nearly every seat in the region for the first time in its history.

Eastern Ontario

In Eastern Ontario, the new riding of Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington was carried by PC candidate Randy Hillier, while all 13 existing ridings were carried by their incumbent parties. With the exception of Yasir Naqvi, who carried Ottawa Centre by a much smaller margin over the NDP than Richard Patten had attained in 2003, Liberals in Ottawa improved their winning margins, although outside of Ottawa the popular vote trend remained relatively stable.

Central Ontario

The most conservative-friendly area of the province, the PC vote largely held up, with the only Liberal gain being Aileen Carroll winning Barrie, the seat she used to represent federally. This was countered by a PC nominal gain in Newmarket—Aurora. The area also delivered the strongest support in the province for the Green Party, with Shane Jolley finishing a very strong second in Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound with 33.1% of the vote, the best finish ever received by any Green candidate in Canada to that point. The Greens also knocked the NDP into fourth place in a majority of area ridings.

Midwestern Ontario

A politically mixed region, Midwestern Ontario had every incumbent party re-elected, as well as some anomalous results; in an election where the PCs were largely held to rural areas, and the Liberals consolidated an urban/suburban base, Elizabeth Witmer held onto the riding of Kitchener—Waterloo for the PCs, while the Liberals won in rural ridings in which they were the incumbent party, such as Huron—Bruce and Perth—Wellington. Further away from the provincewide result, on an election night which demonstrated Liberal strength province wide, Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant delivered the most crushing defeat for a Liberal candidate in the province, with the victorious PC incumbent Toby Barrett coming out 16,571 votes and 38.6% ahead of the Liberal.

Brampton, Mississauga & Oakville

Although the suburban Western GTA had traditionally been a good area for the PCs, winning many seats in the area as recently as the Harris days, where it formed part of the 905-area backbone of the PC government, the Liberals won every seat in the area handily, with the victorious Liberal candidates averaging at around 50%. Even Mississauga South, which prior to the 2003 election had not voted Liberal provincially since the riding's creation, and had been expected to be a very tight race, proved a surprisingly easy victory for Charles Sousa, who gained the seat back for the Liberals from Tim Peterson, who had crossed the floor. The NDP continued to be a non-factor in the area, while the Greens growth in popular vote across the province was reflected, with the Greens even beating the NDP into fourth place in Oakville, which ironically had been the only riding in the province the Greens had not run in the previous election.

Southern Durham and York

The Liberals continued to dominate York Region, with each incumbent being re-elected by a comfortable margin except in Thornhill where Mario Racco lost to PC candidate Peter Shurman. The newly created riding of Ajax—Pickering, projected to be a close race, elected Liberal Joe Dickson by over 6,000 votes despite having no party nominate incumbents. In southern Durham Region, Liberal Wayne Arthurs was re-elected to the newly distributed Pickering—Scarborough East, while Progressive Conservative Christine Elliott was re-elected to Whitby—Oshawa. Despite high expectations for Sid Ryan's fourth run as an NDP candidate in Oshawa, PC incumbent Jerry Ouellette was again re-elected by a wider majority than in 2003.

Hamilton, Burlington & Niagara

An area with several close seats, and a fairly even distribution of seats, every party had a realistic chance of increasing its seat count here. Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, which was a merger of a Liberal held riding and an NDP held riding, and had neither incumbent running, was the most interesting match of the night, with the NDP winning a close race. It proved to be the only change of the election, and every other riding returned the incumbent party, although many in close races, such as Hamilton Mountain (Liberals over NDP), Halton, (PCs over Liberals) and Burlington (PCs over Liberals).

Southwestern Ontario

In an area with a strong rural-urban divide, both the NDP and PCs had strong hopes of making gains against the Liberals. The NDP had strong hopes of upsetting high-profile Liberals in both Windsor West, and Windsor—Tecumseh, given the NDP's ownership of those seats federally, and the continued decline of the local industrial economy. London—Fanshawe was similarly also a top target, as the NDP has the riding federally and finished a close second in 2003. Overall, however, the only area seat that changed hands was Sarnia—Lambton, with Culture Minister Caroline Di Cocco, the most high-profile Liberal casualty of the night, losing to PC challenger Bob Bailey.

Toronto

All ridings in Toronto were retained by their incumbent parties, with the exception of York South—Weston. New Democrat Paul Ferreira, who had won the seat from the Liberals in a by-election in February 2007, was narrowly defeated by a swing back to Liberal candidate Laura Albanese. Almost twice as many people voted in the riding in the general election compared to the by-election.

In Toronto's other notable race, Liberal incumbent Kathleen Wynne defeated PC leader John Tory in Don Valley West. Tory previously represented Dufferin—Caledon, but had chosen to run in a Toronto riding in the general election.

Toronto's only incumbent from 2003 not to run again was Liberal MPP Mary Anne Chambers. The Liberals successfully retained the seat under new candidate Margarett Best.