Doug Ford’s Ontario PCs win re-election, with tariff threats approaching

TORONTO — Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives won’t have long to sit back and bask in the glow of winning a third majority government, with an imminent tariff threat around the corner.

The Tories won Ontario’s snap provincial election Thursday with Ford speaking about the need to fight U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs at nearly every turn on the campaign trail.

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Just days later those threats may become reality, as Trump has said 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods will be imposed starting Tuesday.

The Progressive Conservative seat count is largely unchanged, while the NDP will again form the official Opposition, though with a reduced seat count.

The biggest change of the night was for the Liberals, who won enough seats to regain official party status for the first time since 2018 — but Leader Bonnie Crombie did not win a seat.

She said in her election night speech that she is staying on, but whether party members are content to have her lead from outside the legislature or whether there will be brewing discontent remains to be seen.

Andrea Lawlor, an associate political science professor at McMaster University, said the election can definitely be seen as a success for the Liberals, but there are always different factions in a broad tent party.

“I’m sure there will be some very frank conversations happening in the party headquarters over the next couple of days about what went well, what went wrong and what portion of that could be assigned to Bonnie Crombie,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ford will need to get to the business of governing, something he and his team are well-prepared to do, having already been in government for the past seven years.

Karim Bardeesy, executive director at The Dais, a public policy think tank at Toronto Metropolitan University, said Ford will have to decide what he wants his next government to look like.

“The main decisions that are being made at this point are who’s in the cabinet … (and) what are the ministries?” said Bardeesy, who was also a top staffer in the former Ontario Liberal government.

Governments often change the scope and names of ministries in order to signal different priorities, balance different regional considerations and eye the size of cabinet.

In his last government, Ford split up several ministries, creating a large cabinet of 37 people.

“I don’t know if it’s possible to make this one any larger,” Bardeesy said.

The new government will also start preparing a throne speech, which opens a new session of parliament and sets out a government’s planned agenda, and working on bringing back legislation that died when the election is called, such as a bill that was intended to help municipalities clear homeless encampments out of public parks.

As well, the next provincial budget will have to be tabled soon.

“As it turns out, just because of where we are in the cycle, you’d go immediately into budget preparation, or picking up where the budget preparation left off,” Bardeesy said.

The budget is typically tabled before the end of March.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 28, 2025.

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press