Canadian Political Science Review Vol. 11, No. 1, 2017: 157-181 Triple Play: The Ontario 2014 General Election Andrea M.L. Perrella, Wilfred Laurier University – Email address: [email protected] Simon J. Kiss Wilfred Laurier University – Email address: [email protected] Barry J. Kay Wilfred Laurier University – Email address: [email protected] Introduction The result of the June 2014 general election in Ontario was to some quite a surprise. The incumbent Liberal government was expected to lose, yet it reversed its fortunes and was re-elected. Furthermore, the narrow 53-seat Liberal minority government resulting from the October 2011 general election was converted into a 58-seat majority (see Table 1). Perhaps the two-and-a-half-year interim was filled with many political moves and events, some of which may have contributed to the Liberals’ 2014 win. Alternatively, the election result may reflect the inability of the opposition parties to secure a winning strategy. In particular, 2014 can be regarded as the third-straight election that the Progressive Conservatives squandered. Since 2007, the PCs had three elections to replace an embattled Liberal government. In 2014, it once again found itself on the losing end, and losing nine seats since 2011, arguably due to some ill-considered campaign announcements. The New Democratic Party, too, failed to leverage its key role in supporting the minority Liberals. The NDP did not lose seats, and in fact gained a handful, but failed to resonate with enough discontented voters to stop another Liberal government. 157 Canadian Political Science Review Vol. 11, No. 1, 2017: 157-181 Table 1: Vote and seat results in 2011 and 2014 2011 2014 Votes Seats Votes Seats Liberal 37.7% 53 38.7% 58 PC 35.5% 37 31.2% 28 NDP 22.7% 17 23.8% 21 Other 4.10% 0 6.3% 0 The purpose here is to shed some light to the dynamics of the 2014 election in order to draw some conclusions, even if only tentative, as to the factors that help explain the outcome of the general election. Out review begins by going back a few years to shortly after the 2011 election, which produced a razor-thin Liberal minority government. The party then pursued a change in leadership and, consequently, a change to the head of government. We take a brief look at the leadership campaign and the subsequent style of leadership of the new leader and premier, Kathleen Wynne. Our analysis of the 2014 election results then take into account several empirical dimensions. This includes a look at party platforms and the narrative that each party pursued. It also includes the analysis of an Ipsos survey data conducted on the day of the election. The survey data allows us to look at which issues were considered important among voters, and whether these, among other factors, help explain their vote choice. Pre-Campaign Context The 2011 general election returned the Liberals to government with 52 seats, one seat short of a majority. As described in our review of the 2011 election (Kiss, Perrella and Kay 2014), the Liberals had an opportunity to tilt the balance in their favour with some by-elections. In April 2012, long-standing MPP Elizabeth Witmer, who represented the 158 Canadian Political Science Review Vol. 11, No. 1, 2017: 157-181 Progressive Conservatives in the seat of Kitchener-Waterloo, was offered – by Premier McGuinty – to become the chair of the Workplace Safety Insurance Board. This led to her resignation as a member, forcing a by-election for June. It seemed like a good bet since the Liberals in the riding normally place second behind the PCs. Alas, the by- election did not go as the Liberals had hoped, with the NDP candidate Catherine Fife winning the seat with 37 per cent of votes cast, comfortably ahead of the second-placed Liberal candidate, who won 32 per cent of the votes. This result obviously failed to change the balance of power in the provincial parliament. In July, one month after the by- election, McGuinty announced his resignation, ending a nearly 10-year run as premier. McGuinty’s resignation was not met with much public sadness, as polls showed he and his Liberal government to be very unpopular. His final years in office were marked with the stench of scandals. Two prominent issues that dogged McGuinty are the financial mismanagement of the province’s air ambulance service, ORNGE, and the decision to cancel the construction of gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville. The leadership race to succeed him as leader and, automatically, as premier of Ontario, attracted six candidates, most of whom had held cabinet positions. Three were from Toronto: Eric Hoskins, Gerard Kennedy and Kathleen Wynne. Two were from Mississauga: Harinder S. Takhar and Charles Sousa. The final candidate, Sandra Pupatello, represented a Windsor riding. The January 2013 convention ran through three ballots, in which the top two candidates were Pupatello and Wynne. The third, and final, ballot carried Wynne to the leadership with 57 per cent of the votes, anointing her as Ontario’s 26th premier, its first female premier, and the first openly gay first minister in Canada. 159 Canadian Political Science Review Vol. 11, No. 1, 2017: 157-181 Kathleen Wynne also formed part of another historical phenomenon in Canada. Her ascendency to the premiership formed part of a growing list of female provincial premiers in power at that time, comprising Pauline Marois of Quebec, Alison Redford of Alberta, Christy Clark of British Columbia, Kathy Dunderdale of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Eva Aariak of Nunavut. She also joined a league of incumbent provincial governments likely to lose their next election. Many of the provincial premiers who assumed their high office through an internal party leadership race assumed control of a government increasingly unpopular with their voters. As noted above, the Ontario Liberals were also unpopular and facing unrelenting public criticism over some scandals and a perception of the party as “playing politics.” Even Wynne acknowledged this prospect, to a degree, and prepared for another Liberal minority government (at best!), going so far as to suggest that a future Liberal minority government might consider working with the NDP, with some suggesting a coalition. A coalition was not necessary, as it turns out. She led her party to a majority win. What we explore here are some reasons why the Liberals succeeded. As will be shown, the polls were not in their favour, yet they managed to turn things around. We begin our exploration by looking at party platforms. Platforms Much of the Liberal platform was telegraphed months in advance, and certainly seemed deliberately designed to set the party apart from the PCs, and perhaps even to capture part of the NDP’s electoral base. Wynne’s open conflict with Stephen Harper and his Conservative regime in Ottawa, particularly as it relates to certain issues such as 160 Canadian Political Science Review Vol. 11, No. 1, 2017: 157-181 Ontario’s demand that the Canadian Pension Plan be enhanced to provide Ontarians with greater pension security, certainly set her apart from Conservative partisans. Her government’s announcement of going ahead with an Ontario pension plan, independently of the CPP, and her continued scuffles with the federal government, could have helped her party regain some respect among voters, particularly among those who did not support Stephen Harper. What is curious about Wynne’s positions is that it may be perceived as taking the Liberals to the left. The Liberal policy platform heavily emphasized an activist government. It promised a jobs and prosperity fund of $10-billion that would essentially provide subsidies to business to invest in Ontario. In addition, it promised a 10-year, $130 billion, plan to support infrastructure projects. Much of this was to be dedicated strictly to transit infrastructure. Lastly, it promised a new mandatory and public pension scheme that would imitate and supplement the Canada Pension Plan. This strategy had two distinct advantages. First, it gave Liberal politicians the opportunity to do what they love to do: travel through the province making promises of investment in the local areas. In Kitchener- Waterloo, a swing riding, the Transportation Minister Glen Murray promised two-way all-day GO Train service to Toronto within five years (Bellemare 2014). The Minister also felt quite comfortable promising a high-speed rail line connecting Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo and London within 10 years (Bellemare and Grant 2014). The Liberals were also careful to ensure their transportation plan invested funds in highway transportation, not just in urban districts, enabling ministers to promise the goods in other areas of the province as well. For example, Minister Murray promised to expand the 161 Canadian Political Science Review Vol. 11, No. 1, 2017: 157-181 twinning of Highway 417 in the Ottawa Valley to ease traffic commutes (Arnprior Chronicle – Guide 2014) Second, it helped the party make an appeal to waffling and non-committal NDP voters who were both nervous of the prospect of a reenergized right-wing government under Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives and attracted to the prospect of an activist government. The NDP was hit by disaster in the middle of the campaign by a group of prominent party notables, including the feminist writer and activist Michelle Landsberg, whose husband, Stephen Lewis, was a former leader of the Ontario NDP. The group published an open letter to party leader Andrea Horwath arguing that: “From what we can see you are running to the right of the Liberals in an attempt to win Conservative votes” (Bickerton et al. 2014). Third, and lastly, the Liberals had the convenient effect of moving the agenda away from the messy business of the party’s sordid record on gas plants and other costly scandals such as the E-Health record and ORNGE scandals.