The Election of Unrequited Dreams

by Barry Weisleder

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 victory.

Ontario Tories won a majority of seats on February 27, but failed to get the BIGGER mandate that (Captain Canada) Premier Doug Ford sought. Naturally, taxpayers are on the hook for the $189 million dollars spent on the exercise. The 43.3 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.

There is no denying that the result in Hamilton Center is disappointing. It shows that a vibrant grassroots campaign, headed by pro-Palestinian, anti-poverty activist Sarah Jama, was unable to overcome the deep institutional power of a broadly labour-based party. Hamilton Center 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 disproven, somewhat reminiscent of radical candidates who ran unsuccessfully against the Bob Rae-led NDP in 1995. It is evident 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.

There is some solace for the left 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 clear that mass job action (not just the threat of it) will be absolutely necessary.