Ontario’s ‘minivan’ Liberals look to kick-start leadership race

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The joke at Queen’s Park has long been that Ontario’s Liberals, with just eight MPPs, could hold their caucus meetings in a minivan.

It’s a line that’s trotted out by Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford, who still regularly blames the province’s problems on the Liberal Party despite nearly wiping it out with his election win over premier Kathleen Wynne in 2018. But even interim Liberal Leader John Fraser often self-deprecatingly refers to his “minivan party.”

But the minivan is now at a crossroads. This weekend, Liberals from across the province are gathering in Hamilton to vote on proposed changes to their process of picking a new leader. That is expected to kick-start a race to fill the vacancy left by Steven Del Duca, who quit and later won the mayor’s chair in Vaughan after leading the party to its second humiliating loss in a row in last year’s provincial election and failing in his own attempt to win a seat at Queen’s Park.

The stakes are high. Many Ontario Grits acknowledge that they simply cannot afford another leader who produces an electoral disaster. The catastrophic loss after the province soured on Ms. Wynne five years ago revealed a party in shambles, with a large number of riding associations essentially defunct. The pandemic then hampered efforts to rebuild under Mr. Del Duca.

Meanwhile, most provincial Liberal parties outside Atlantic Canada are anemic or virtually non-existent. And, a recent ill-fated attempt by some Ontario party heavyweights to publicly recruit Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner as a leadership candidate alienated some Liberals.

But the party’s diehards are also quick to look at the bright side. They point to the 1,500 people signed up to attend this weekend’s annual general meeting, saying it’s the largest turnout in 20 years.

They note that even though they won just eight seats, the Liberals earned slightly more votes overall, at 1.117 million, than the NDP last June. (The concentration of those votes meant the NDP retained Official Opposition status and won 31 seats.) And they see an opening with Mr. Ford’s PCs on the defensive over their move to open up parts of the Liberal-created protected Greenbelt area to developers.

Also, unlike the NDP, which acclaimed Toronto MPP Marit Stiles last month to replace that party’s defeated leader, Andrea Horwath, the Liberals are about to have a headline-generating leadership battle.

Several candidates are mobilizing: Party members consider federal Liberal MPs Nate Erskine-Smith and Yasir Naqvi, a former Ontario attorney-general under Ms. Wynne, as potential front-runners. Both are actively campaigning and putting teams in place, but have not formally committed to running. Kingston and the Islands MPP Ted Hsu, a former MP, has also assembled a team and is expected to run. Toronto MPP Stephanie Bowman, a former bank executive, says she is exploring one as well.

And Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, a former Liberal MP, is being wooed to run by some in the party and is attending this weekend’s AGM, where she will hold court in a hotel hospitality suite. She said this week that calls for her to run are “flattering” but that she is “solely focused on the priorities of Mississauga.”

Liberals hope a lively race will re-engage party members and voters, attract donors and generate some momentum. But before that fight begins, this weekend’s meeting could still lay bare the party’s divisions.

Delegates are set to vote on proposals to scrap the party’s delegate system for leadership conventions, criticized as elitist, and replace it with a one-member, one-vote system that would allow all members to cast ballots. The proposals include provisions to weight the results to ensure regions across the province have an equal say. Proponents say every other major political party in the country has switched. Mr. Erskine-Smith, Mr. Naqvi and Mr. Hsu have all come out in favour of the change.

But many in the party’s old guard want to preserve the existing system. They successfully killed the idea before the last leadership race. In 2019, a similar reform earned 57 per cent of the vote but still died, as such measures need two-thirds to pass. Voting results on the issue this time are expected on Saturday evening.

The party must also elect an executive and a new president, choosing from three candidates in the first contested race for the post in decades. This vote, too, appears set to pit younger Liberals and grassroots volunteers against establishment party figures. Opposing factions have been bickering over changes to voting times and delegate eligibility rules.

Ms. Wynne herself is attending the weekend’s events and sees hope for renewal. She says she is undecided on the issue of scrapping delegated conventions. And she acknowledges some in the party want a new leader with fewer ties to her than Mr. Naqvi, whom she appointed to cabinet. She said his experience would be an asset, but that debate is healthy for the party.

“I think it’s an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Ms. Wynne told The Globe and Mail. “There’s not a sense of doom and gloom. I think people are energized, and want to be more energized.”

Scott Reid, a communications director for former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, says the party could bounce back, as its banner could still attract up to 30 per cent of voters on its own. But he criticizes what he calls the party’s “Messiah problem,” which sees it cast about for a new leader as a saviour, such as the “ridiculous” effort to lure Mr. Schreiner.

“I think what folks are striving to get their heads around, and this weekend will be instrumental in, is that they’re not going to get the son of God,” Mr. Reid said. “They’re going to get a good, hard-working human to lead them. … The obvious answer is, there are no shortcuts.”

With a report from Laura Stone