Liberals crown Crombie

Mississauga mayor claims victory on third ballot

It was third time lucky for Bonnie Crombie.

The Mississauga mayor is the new Ontario Liberal leader after a dramatic third-ballot victory in the party leadership race Saturday

Crombie eked out a win with 53.4 per cent support and will lead the Liberals against Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in the 2026 election.

“There is no question — being an Ontario Liberal is back,” she told more than 1,000 Liberal members gathered at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

“Ford and his Conservative cronies have been the opponent in all of our sights for this entire campaign,” Crombie said, as cheering backers brandished red-and-white signs reading, “Stop Ford” and “2026.”

Speaking to reporters, she hailed that it was “such a competitive race.”

MP Nate Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York) was the runner-up, with a surprising 46.6 per cent.

“I always thought it would be close,” said Erskine-Smith, a selfstyled maverick who will not seek re-election federally but hasn’t “ruled out running provincially,” after the final results.

MP Yasir Naqvi (Ottawa Centre) was eliminated after the second ballot.

It was a bitter disappointment for Naqvi, a former provincial cabinet minister who had been party president a decade ago.

“I will be united behind our new leader so that we can rebuild this party in every part of the province and defeat Doug Ford in 2026,” said Naqvi, his teary-eyed son standing nearby.

In a statement, the Tories — whose leader, Ford, is a multimillionaire scion of a wealthy, politically connected family — said Crombie “doesn’t get the concerns of everyday people.”

“She drives fancy cars and vacations at her home in the Hamptons,” said the Tories.

Crombie noted she doesn’t “even own a car,” although “we have inherited a home from an aunt and uncle that passed away.”

But she shrugged off the attacks. “It sounds to me like they’re very concerned, and they should be.”

The New Democrats, who acclaimed leader Marit Stiles in February, said “today’s rocky results from the Liberal leadership announcement show a divided party still searching for purpose.”

“Turnout in the Liberal leadership race was abysmal,” the NDP said in a statement, urging ErskineSmith’s followers to support the NDP instead.

While 103,206 party members were eligible to vote across Ontario Nov. 25-26, only 22,827 actually bothered to cast ballots.

The Mississauga mayor raised by far the most money and garnered the greatest number of endorsements as the front-runner in a race that officially began in April.

But her rivals had hoped she would not have enough support to emerge victorious and banked on one of them pulling off an upset win on a later ballot.

A fifth hopeful, MPP Adil Shamji (Don Valley East), arguably the most progressive candidate in the contest, withdrew from the race on Sept. 28 to endorse Crombie.

This is the first time the Liberals used a one-member-one-vote system, in which each riding had the same value regardless of population.

It’s the same method the Tories used to elect Ford in March 2018.

In the past, the Liberals held delegated conventions dominated by party insiders and elected officials and where backroom deals could determine the outcome.

Under the new system, each of 124 Ontario ridings were worth 100 points awarded on a proportional basis.

There were also 10 campus clubs with 50 points each and eight Liberal women’s associations with five points apiece.

That means a total of 12,940 points were up for grabs and the first candidate to secure 6,471 points was the winner.

After each ballot, the lowest ranking candidate’s votes were redistributed until Crombie secured a majority.

Hand-counting of the 139 ballot boxes, which were under lock and key since Sunday, began around 8 a.m.

Former Liberal leader Steven Del Duca, now mayor of Vaughan, congratulated Crombie, saying “you have an important challenge ahead of you, but I know your commitment to public service and progress-focused values will make you an effective and successful leader.”

In a sign the Liberals are no longer distancing themselves from the controversies of their almost 15 years in office between 2003 and 2018, they honoured former premiers Kathleen Wynne and Dalton McGuinty at Saturday’s event.

“I’m the ghost of Christmas past,” joked McGuinty, premier from 2003 until 2013.

“When Dalton speaks, he’s a philosopher king — I’m more of a street fighter,” quipped Wynne, his successor as premier from 2013 until Ford’s Tories unseated the Liberals in 2018.

The leadership race has given the moribund party media attention, helping to generate interest and funds.

Each candidate paid a $100,000 entry fee plus a $25,000 refundable deposit and was able to spend up to $900,000, excluding registration and a 20 per cent party tithe.

But their new leader will have their work cut out for them.

The Liberals only hold nine seats in the 124-member legislature, three shy of the dozen needed to qualify for official party status in the house, and far behind the 79 of Ford’s Tories and 28 of Marit Stiles’s New Democrats. The Greens hold two, there are five Independents and one vacancy.

An Abacus Data poll for the Star on Thursday found Crombie would give the Liberals a boost, but Ford’s Tories still hold a solid lead despite the $8.28-billion Greenbelt landswap scandal now under RCMP investigation.

‘‘ Ford and his Conservative cronies have been the opponent in all of our sights for this entire campaign … It sounds to me like they’re very concerned, and they should be. BONNIE CROMBIE NEW ONTARIO LIBERAL LEADER