Campaigns dig up dirt, sling mud as Ontario election enters final post-debate stretch

TORONTO — Ontario’s snap election campaign is heading for its post-debate home stretch, with political parties starting to dig up dirt, sling mud and change course.

The Feb. 27 vote is now less than 10 days away, and while there is nary a costed platform to be found, aside from the Greens’, the campaign appears to have entered a different phase.

The Progressive Conservatives are showcasing problematic posts from Liberal candidates with increasing frequency. The Liberals are road testing a new tactic of trying to woo NDP voters, though denigrating the party as acting like “money grows on trees.” The NDP is dismissing the Liberals as desperate.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie first tried out her pitch to NDP voters during Monday night’s debate, then drove it home Tuesday by going to Hamilton, a city that traditionally shows deep NDP support, to repeat the message.

“I’m reaching out today to NDP voters, and I’m asking them, if you want to change our health-care system, please vote for Ontario’s Liberals, and together, we can change the government,” Crombie said.

“We have the momentum. We have the wind at our sails, but we can’t make that change without your support.”

Crombie is pitching herself as the strongest alternative to Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford, though polls suggest the Tories have a sizable lead over both the Liberals and NDP.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the Liberals’ goal is just to try to get official party status.

“That just tells you everything you need to know about that party, where they’re at,” she said at an announcement in Toronto. “Their path is they’re just trying to make party status. Look the truth is, my focus is, and continues to be, flipping blue seats to orange.”

Political parties require at least 12 seats in the legislature to get party status, which gives them more resources and more opportunities to ask questions and participate in debates. At dissolution, the Liberals held nine seats.

Ford had been scheduled to fly to Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., for an announcement, but the party said delays at Pearson International Airport prevented him from leaving Toronto.

The Progressive Conservatives did not respond to an inquiry about whether he would make himself available for questions in Toronto instead.

Ford last took questions in Washington, D.C., when he and other Canadian premiers travelled there to push back against U.S. tariffs, but the last time he took questions in Ontario during the snap provincial election he called for Feb. 27 was one week ago Monday.

Stiles said Ford is “in hiding.”

“Last night, after the debate, he wouldn’t even stand up in front of the reporters,” she said. “He will not defend his government. He will not take responsibility for the state of this province. He is hoping that people are just going to stay home and not vote.”

Progressive Conservative staffers have been spending a lot of time going through social media posts of Liberal candidates and have highlighted several that they call homophobic, misogynist and offensive.

Crombie has largely dismissed the Tories’ efforts and has not dropped any of the candidates, but she did denounce one post Tuesday from her candidate in Oshawa.

Viresh Bansal posted a response in 2023 to an NDP statement on the killing of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government had “credible allegations” linking agents of the Indian government to the fatal shooting in B.C.

“You can thank India for cleaning trash people. Ask your gay friend @JustinTrudeau to do the same,” Bansal wrote.

Bansal wrote an apology after the World Sikh Organization of Canada called on Crombie to withdraw him as the Liberal candidate.

“I want to sincerely apologize, especially to the Sikh and LGBTQ2S+ communities,” he wrote in a social media post Tuesday. “My words were offensive and wrong, and I take full responsibility for the harm they caused.”

Crombie condemned the statements but did not drop him as a candidate.

“He managed to offend two beloved groups in one tweet, and this is completely unacceptable,” she said Tuesday. “It is not who I am. I don’t stand for this. It is not who the Ontario Liberal Party is.”

The Progressive Conservatives also unearthed posts from the Liberal candidate for Timiskaming-Cochrane making a joke about transgender people and another in which he shared a meme suggesting the only thing men know about women is that they have breasts.

Rick Ellsmere posted an apology on social media Tuesday, saying he regrets past “hurtful comments I’ve made” and hopes to earn his community’s trust.

Crombie went on the offensive with her own response Tuesday evening. “Doug Ford is just trying to distract from his failures and scandals. I’m not going to play this game,” she said in a written statement. “This candidate has apologized. And if Doug Ford has a problem with MY campaign – he should say it to my face.”

The Tories have also pointed to another candidate’s post from 2012 saying “consent is not sexy” and 2014 posts from another candidate professing admiration for Jian Ghomeshi’s “genius” despite his “peculiarities,” at the time when Ghomeshi was facing four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking.

Liberal press secretary Bahoz Dara Aziz said in a statement that, “Doug Ford must be pretty desperate if he is digging up social media posts from more than a decade ago.”

The Liberals are also raising questions about allegations against the Progressive Conservatives’ Newmarket-Aurora incumbent candidate Dawn Gallagher Murphy of workplace bullying, as reported by Newmarket Today.

Ford was previously asked about the allegations and he said while he hadn’t heard them, his team always acts professionally.

“We always respect our employees,” he said. “I do support Dawn. She does incredible work within our community.”

The news outlet reported that Gallagher Murphy’s office said it would not comment on the labour concerns.

– With files from Sammy Hudes in Toronto and Sharif Hassan in Hamilton.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 18, 2025.

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press