Anthony Furey: Bonnie Crombie’s spectacular flameout

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Whatever happened to Bonnie Crombie? The Ontario Liberal leader was supposed to turn her party’s prospects around. Instead, Crombie has failed to make a meaningful dent in her party’s support levels during this current election campaign, her first and possibly her last.

The provincial Liberals had recently fallen into a slump somewhat similar to what their federal counterparts experienced following their own brutal loss in the 2011 election. While Dalton McGuinty governed from the centre for a decade as Liberal Premier, the party nosedived after Kathleen Wynne became one of the most unpopular politicians in recent history for taking the province too far to the left. Wynne collapsed her party from 55 seats to seven, putting the Liberals in third place. Then along came Steven Del Duca, the Liberal leader in the 2022 election, who did little to nothing to turn his party around.

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Enter Crombie. She had been serving as mayor of Mississauga for 10 years when she entered the Liberal leadership race to replace Del Duca, and was considered by many to be just what they needed. Crombie was viewed as a moderate — more fiscally conservative and business-minded, someone who would bring the Liberal brand back to something resembling the McGuinty years or the federal leadership of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. This, so went the logic, could see the Ontario Liberals jump from third place to first in one giant leap.

“There is no question, being an Ontario Liberal is back,” Crombie said during her leadership victory speech in December 2023. “Thank you for taking a spark and turning it into a big red flame.”

What Justin Trudeau did for the federal Liberals, Bonnie Crombie was supposed to do for the Ontario Liberals. Conservatives be warned.

This wasn’t just what her own supporters thought. Premier Doug Ford and the Ontario Progressive Conservatives clearly felt the same way.

Within minutes of Crombie’s leadership victory, the PCs unleashed attack ads on their new challenger. The digital ads said Crombie would deliver Ontarians “higher taxes, more gridlock, fewer homes”.

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Ford then went on the personal offensive against Crombie in the legislature. He levelled that “Bonnie’s got a beach-front house in the Hamptons” and that she is often “flying around in a private jet.” They were trying to define her as an out-of-touch elitist.

A couple of weeks after the Liberal leadership race, CityNews did a segment on the attacks on Crombie. They even asked her about the Hamptons claim.

“I do not,” Crombie said. She then paused before spinning this answer: “I have a home in Long Island that is closer to Queens.” (This means her home is on the peninsula that includes the Hamptons.)

Maybe the Liberals would have been better off leaning into the fact that Crombie and her family have found success in the business world, rather than trying to dodge it. But none of that really matters at this point, because Crombie has clearly failed to launch.

Ford and his party aren’t aggressively attacking Crombie anymore. Is this because the attacks have already worked? Is it because they have successively defined their opponent before she had the chance to define herself? That’s unlikely. It’s doubtful many Ontarians know about Crombie’s luxury real estate or anything else about her.

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No, the likelier answer is that the PC machine isn’t attacking Crombie because there is no need. They don’t need to diminish her support because there isn’t much support to diminish.

One reason that both Crombie and NDP Leader Marit Stiles have failed to generate much attention is because the main topic of this current election is the threat of tariffs and how to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Ford is speaking at high profile events in Washington, D.C., and appearing on Fox News and CNN because he’s the sitting premier. These high profile opportunities just don’t exist for opposition politicians.

Meanwhile, Crombie has resorted to embarrassing gimmicks to get attention. The other day she challenged Ford to a push-up contest. Then she said at a press conference that the “Fight Tariff Fund” she pledged to create could also be labeled the “F— Trump Fund”.

The Ontario election is two weeks away. That is, as they say, a lifetime in politics. But for now it seems like the Crombie surge is instead going to be a fizzle.

National Post

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