Doug Ford positions PCs as the natural governing party

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National Post’s Chris Selley and National Post contributor Anthony Furey discuss the latest in the 2025 Ontario election. Watch the video or read the transcript.

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Chris Selley: Hi, I’m Chris Selley, National Post columnist. I’m here with Anthony Furey, who’s a National Post contributor. It’s the morning after the one and only Ontario leaders’ debate. Well, there was another one. There was the Northern issues debate, but the one that’s aimed at the whole province was last night. And I thought it was an interesting exchange in a lot of ways, but also kind of a bewildering exchange. I kind of found myself putting myself in the shoes of someone who hadn’t been paying attention to this campaign thinking they might tune in to see what the issues are, and it was just sort of this series of claims and counterclaims that you had very little insight into which might be true, and I guess that’s true of all debates to a certain extent, but I felt I found myself thinking it’s unlikely to have moved the needle. Did anything stand out for you, Anthony?

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Anthony Furey: I do think people watched it, which I was a little surprised by, because there’s so little interest in this entire election. But as I looked at some of the repeats of live feed, and it said on CPAC 25,000 people had watched on the CPAC clip. I thought, oh, that’s a lot, because if you add up a few others, ou get to like 200,000 all in, I go, that’s quite a lot for watching a debate where there should be no interest in it. I would agree with you that bewildering is the right way to put it when you have these sort very specific technical debates over this number of billion and to this number of nurses over this number of years, and people are left going what’s the context there, and I think for that reason it does turn out to be a bit of a wash, because Doug Ford ultimately appeared to be the steady hand on the tiller throughout the whole process.

Selley: The thing I found interesting was how often when he was sort of cornered a little bit, on things like, I mean, you mentioned the state of Ontario schools in a previous video or health-care or law and order. And people were saying, you know: “You’ve been premier for seven years. You know, where are the results?” And he would sort of come back with this argument that sort of, “Well, we can’t do any of these things if the economy isn’t strong, and you three are going to destroy the economy,” which I thought was kind of interesting, this sort of, I mean, can you imagine someone else being premier? I mean, what an awful idea. I just thought that was an interesting kind of pitch, because he called this election and the whole idea is to imagine someone else being premier.

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Furey: I think he’s flipped the script though, because he is now thinking of himself, and the party is now treating themselves like the natural governing party, which is normally what you hear from liberals previously in elections, both federal and Ontario, when Dalton McGinty was premier, the idea, can you imagine these PCs forming government? And he’s kind of flipped that on its side. And I also think that to go back to that refrain that he made about, can’t do any of this without the economy, he’s focusing on his strength, and I think most people would silently agree with him. They’re like, yeah, that is a good point. We do need jobs and opportunity and a strong tax base, and this is the guy who’s most focused on all of this. So, alright, point for Doug Ford. So it was good of him to keep going back to that because that’s kind of the primary differentiator, I think, between him and the other candidates.

Selley: I guess, yeah, I think you’re right. The only thing I wondered was — it can be dangerous, you know, if parents think that their schools are falling apart. There was a moment where he said, “Well, no one has ever invested more in schools than we have.” And I wonder, it’s always kind of dangerous to tell people that not to sort of believe their lying eyes, you know? And that’s not quite what he was doing, but he was sort of saying, well, you know: “Law and order is a mess. Oh, but we’ve spent a gazillion dollars on it.” Oh, OK, and your plan is to spend more, so we need to know more about this plan, I think. But that’s not what a debate is for, obviously.

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Furey: No, and when it came to other issues that he was able to be the differentiator on, he also pointed out that he’s the one who’s most focused on keeping taxes low, lowering taxes. I know Bonnie Crombie countered and said, well, “Hold on a second — I’m the only one promising a tax decrease.” But Doug Ford said multiple times, don’t forget the main difference between me and everyone else is they believe that this money is their money that they can spend. However they want, I believe it’s your money. And that’s my sort of overarching philosophy. And that’s where it makes us different. And again, I think he did a good job setting that differentiator there because people go, okay, yeah, fair point. I guess that makes sense.

Selley: Yeah, I, it seemed to me that neither, I suppose it’s Marit Stiles job to differentiate herself from Bonnie Crombie at this point — looking at the polls and not vice versa. But you know, the only real difference I heard from Stiles, versus Crombie, is on the tax cut. But at the same time, Stiles was saying, well, “I’m going to give you a grocery rebate.” So it’s still, you know, it’s still money, or it’s still foregone revenue from the government. I just remember I was thinking: I don’t see how this really woos any Liberals back to the NDP side, whereas Bonnie Crombie made an explicit plea to NDP voters to come back to the Liberals.

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Furey: Yeah, we definitely didn’t see from Marit Stiles’s sort of leaning into being an NDP-er to really invigorate that base. It’s almost like they all acknowledge Doug Ford is leading so much in the polls that they just want to seem like Doug Ford-lite: “Oh, I’m NDP, so I’m just a little less like him if you’re unhappy with him.” And I don’t know if that’s a winning proposition for someone who wants to be a different choice.

Selley: Yeah, Ontarians are not known for flying off the handle and making crazy choices. They’ve done it once or twice in the past, but it’s not a normal thing. Anyways, we’re out of time. Thanks everyone for joining us, and have a good day.

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