Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie attends the International Ploughing Match in Lindsay, Ont., on Oct. 1.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Nearly a year after Bonnie Crombie became leader of the Ontario Liberals, the party is gearing up for a year-end fundraising push as it lags significantly behind Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in both donations and in the polls, with the Premier mulling an early election call.
Ms. Crombie, the former three-term mayor of Mississauga, took over the legislature’s third-place party last December after it suffered two disappointing election defeats that have left the Liberals with only nine seats.
Despite being well known in the Greater Toronto Area, Ms. Crombie has been unable to overtake Mr. Ford in public-opinion polls and she is weighed down by a deeply unpopular federal Liberal government that is hurting her party’s brand in the province.
Without her own seat in the legislature, Ms. Crombie’s team is now preparing to release an advertising campaign and has planned a fundraiser in December that Liberals hope will raise hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
The Ontario Liberals this summer named Ms. Crombie’s campaign team, which includes co-campaign directors Chad Walsh, a former top provincial aide, and ex-journalist Genevieve Tomney. Veteran political organizer Tom Allison is serving as campaign chair. Mr. Allison told The Globe and Mail that the party has a plan for every riding that will kick in whenever the election is called, including the “wildly unlikely” scenario that it happens this year.
Ms. Tomney, who described the campaign team as grassroots and “scrappy,” said Ms. Crombie has a “steep hill to climb” to get better known in the province. After months of attack ads targeting Ms. Crombie from Mr. Ford’s governing PCs, Ms. Tomney said the party will soon launch its digital campaign to reintroduce the leader to the public, particularly women.
The Liberals will focus on health care when the Ontario Legislature resumes on Oct. 21, Ms. Tomney said in an interview. She said the party’s polling suggests swing voters are concerned about Mr. Ford’s management of the system, as well as potential “privatization.”
The Ontario Liberals welcomed former federal health minister and physician Jane Philpott – who had a falling out with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before leaving federal politics – at the provincial party’s annual meeting in London, Ont., last month. The focus was on finding family doctors for all Canadians.
Staring down a potential early election sometime next year – which The Globe has previously reported remains an option for Mr. Ford – the Liberals are looking to make big fundraising gains.
For a December banquet at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, general tickets run $1,600 and include a cocktail reception and dinner, while a $3,375 “leader’s ticket” buys access to a VIP reception with Ms. Crombie. The party has hired veteran fundraiser Karen Miller, who has drummed up millions in past years for charities, Toronto mayoral candidates and the PC Party.
The Liberals haven’t held such a significant fundraiser in a decade. “It’s a machine that has not been firing on all cylinders for some time and we are shaking off the cobwebs and getting it moving again,” Ms. Tomney said.
Despite the fact that Ms. Crombie’s ability to raise money was central in her pitch to the party during her leadership campaign, some Liberals point to fundraising so far as a disappointment.
Ms. Crombie herself acknowledged earlier this year that she had taken her “foot off the gas,” on fundraising, after a year-end blitz last year that saw her push the party to raise more than $1-million in just the month after she took the reins.
Liberal spokesman Carter Brownlee says the party’s own accounting shows that it brought in $1-million in the third quarter (the months of July, August and September), with the total raised so far this year now at about $2.8-million.
The NDP said earlier this month that its internal fundraising total for the third quarter came to $1.22-million, which the party said was a record for a non-election year. So far this year, the NDP says it has brought in $2.9-million.
Neither comes close to the governing PCs, whose MPPs and cabinet ministers attend a jam-packed calendar of fundraising events, often charging $1,000 a head.
The PC Party did not respond to a request for its internal fundraising numbers. But according to Elections Ontario’s official tally, which doesn’t include donations of less than $200, Mr. Ford’s PCs have raised $10.3-million so far this year.
Adding to the financial woes for the Liberals is Mr. Ford’s move to end a taxpayer subsidy for political parties, a proportionately harsher blow for the opposition parties, which raise far less cash than the governing PCs.
Most published opinion polls show Mr. Ford with a commanding lead that could mean an even larger majority if an election were held now, at close to 40-per-cent support. Those same polls tend to show Ms. Crombie’s party in the mid-20s, slightly ahead of the NDP.
Scott Reid, a consultant and onetime senior aide to former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, said Ms. Crombie has rightly been focused on the behind-the-scenes work of rebuilding the party’s organization and fundraising machinery. Despite a lack of visibility, he said, the polls now suggest that the Liberals are positioned ahead of the NDP as the main challenger to Mr. Ford.
“I think that Bonnie has provided the party with a real sense of hope and that it has a shot,” Mr. Reid said. “And it’s felt like a long time since the party could look in the mirror and say, ‘we have a shot.’ ”
Omar Khan, a former campaign adviser and war-room head for the Ontario Liberals, said Ms. Crombie and her team should continue to focus on preparing for a snap election, including hiring campaign managers, targeting winnable ridings and raising cash.
The Ontario Liberals have so far nominated 21 candidates, with a half-dozen more expected in the coming days, for the 124 ridings. Their roster includes contenders that the party counts as star candidates, such as finance executive Vince Gasparro, a former aide to Mr. Martin and ex-Toronto mayor John Tory, who will carry the party banner in Toronto’s Eglinton-Lawrence, a riding currently held by the PCs.
“We really need to focus on the nuts-and-bolts fundamentals of the campaign and not get distracted by the day-to-day news cycle,” Mr. Khan said. “Because most Ontarians don’t pay attention to provincial politics until right when the election starts.”