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lilley: doug ford calls snap byelection
pc's look to catch liberals flat footed in bay of quinte by-election to replace todd smith.
aug 21 2024
3 minute read
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there won’t be a fall election in ontario, not even a fall byelection. instead, elections ontario has announced that voters in bay of quinte will vote on who will replace recently retired mp todd smith on sept. 19, three days before fall starts.
don’t expect a wider vote in october or november, though. it isn’t going to happen.
speculation about an early election kicked off last may around the time that premier doug ford announced that he was speeding up the sale of beer and wine in convenience stores. some saw this as a sign that ford was getting ready to ask voters for a new mandate just two years into his current one based on easier access to booze.
predictions of a summer election with voting in august, as one cbc pundit claimed, failed to materialize. now we can say there won’t be a general election just after the by-election.
todd smith answers questions at queen’s park in toronto on tuesday, april 21, 2020.
frank gunn
/
the canadian press
“there is a 0% chance of a fall election,” one top ford adviser said during a chat early wednesday morning.
of course, some have been saying that for some time and it hasn’t stopped the rumours.
ford himself hasn’t helped matters. he has refused to outright rule out an early election. though at a news conference on wednesday afternoon shortly before the byelection announcement was made public, the premier was blunt.
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“are you preparing for a fall election?” ford was asked.
“no,” was ford’s one word answer.
the transition from smith as mpp for bay of quinte and minister of education for ontario has been seamless. the pc’s didn’t have a nomination race because candidate tyler allsopp, a current belleville city councillor, was already in place when smith’s resignation was made public.
the pcs have been planning for this and the snap byelection all summer. they want to make sure voters are selecting their next mpp before the liberals get organized. the area has been held by the liberals in the past and they are normally contenders when they are in good shape, which they aren’t at this point.
the ndp aren’t normally players in this area.
ford’s decision to call the byelection early is the same reason he won’t say definitively that he won’t call an early election — it’s messes with the heads of the liberal team. the pc party is hoping that they can score a quick and clean victory in this byelection and come back to the legislature in october gloating about winning another byelection while liberal leader bonnie crombie still doesn’t have a seat.
it’s an interesting game that could bite ford’s team if the liberals can find a good candidate and get organized.
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same with his decision not to rule out an early election.
as soon as ford refused to say he wouldn’t wait until june 2026, both the ndp and liberals scrambled to get their ducks in a row. by the time an election is called, even if it is next spring or summer, the opposition parties may indeed be prepared in a way they wouldn’t have been if an early vote was a surprise.
there is an ongoing debate among ford’s advisers on whether they need to or should go to the polls early.
one school of thought in favour of it is that if the poilievre conservatives win federally in the fall of 2025, the first budget after that will include plenty of spending cuts from trudeau’s bloated budget. even if those cuts are warranted, it could sour the political moods and despite having no affiliation, it could hurt ford’s pc’s.
others around ford feel there is no need or benefit to going early and plenty of risk. for the time being, the only person that matters in that decision, doug ford, has yet to make up his mind.
expect that to happen sometime this fall, after the late summer byelection.
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