Liberals’ Bonnie Crombie takes aim at premier in campaign-style speech at AGM

Ontario’s new Liberal leader took aim at the premier over the weekend as she tested out a new slogan in a campaign-style speech at her party’s annual general meeting.

Bonnie Crombie’s address to members came on Saturday while the party gathered in London, Ont., to set policies amid the threat of an early election call.

“It’s time for a government that does less for them and more for you,” Crombie said.

She used the “more for you” line a number of times, saying it’s what Ontarians deserve.

It was Crombie’s first speech at the annual meeting since winning the party’s leadership race late last year.

She used much of her speech to blast Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservative government, refering to the party nearly two dozen times throughout her remarks.

“Right now people aren’t thriving, they’re barely surviving,” Crombie said.

“And you know what? Doug Ford’s to blame.”

The premier’s office declined to comment.

The former mayor of Mississauga, Ont., pledged to do more on health care, education and housing, but did not offer details about how she would do so.

Ontario, like the rest of Canada, continues to grapple with an affordability crisis, especially in housing. Ford has promised to build 1.5 million homes by 2031, but a difficult market with high interest rates and several missteps has kept his government well off the pace to achieve that goal.

The RCMP is currently investigating Ford’s Greenbelt fiasco, which saw the province open up 15 parcels of protected land to build 50,000 homes. Two provincial investigative bodies have said the province favoured certain developers over others during that process.

Ford eventually returned those lands to the Greenbelt and his government has tried a number of different approaches to spur housing development.

Health care organizations across the province continue to deal with staffing shortages among doctors, nurses and a variety of other support workers.

While Crombie spoke at length about Ford, she did not mention her federal Liberal counterparts, namely embattled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

But the annual meeting heard from several outspoken Liberal critics of Trudeau, including former B.C. premier Christy Clark.

She said the Ontario Liberals must be focused on one issue to be successful.

“If you want to win elections, you need to put the economy front and centre,” Clark said in an interview.

“The Liberal party has always been a party that understands that we want to have generous social programs and we’re committed to that and we know that we have to grow the economy in order to be able to pay for that.”

Crombie is positioning the Liberals as a scrappy party and the only challenger to Ford, despite the fact they currently hold the third-most seats at Queen’s Park behind the Official Opposition New Democrats.

Ford has mused about an early election instead of the fixed election date set for June 2026 and has not ruled out calling one next year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2024.

-With files from Mia Rabson in Ottawa

Liam Casey, The Canadian Press