The Ontario Liberals have a genius for throwing away elections at the last minute and are in danger of doing it again.
Premier Dalton McGuinty and his party had held leads in polls big enough to win a majority for most of the last four years, but are stumbling in the Oct. 10 election and running only neck-and-neck with the Progressive Conservatives.
The Liberals’ decline is almost entirely of their own making. Conservative leader John Tory has established himself as steady with a few new policies and persistent in pointing to Liberal failings.
But the Liberals have lost ground particularly because they failed to protect buyers of lottery tickets from fraud by sellers, and steered funds for immigrants disproportionately to those who are Liberals.
These are medium-sized issues, and McGuinty could have taken some of the heat out of them, but as an example, yielded to opponents and had the auditor general investigate the immigrants’ issue, although the watchdog has a record of not shirking from criticizing government and promptly found the Liberals at fault.
Earlier Conservative premiers usually asked judges sympathetic to their party to investigate allegations of wrongdoing—William Davis even called on one who had nominated a candidate for Conservative leader at a convention—and they usually found their party as clean as sheets washed in Tide.
But Liberals have been throwing away elections for decades. Lyn McLeod had led in polls for years and was at a safe-looking 51 percent when an election was called in 1995.
She was quickly overtaken by the Conservatives under Mike Harris, who promised a simply explained program of smaller government, tax cuts and balanced budgets very much in tune with voters’ thoughts.
McLeod delayed announcing a less aggressive version until after the election was called to avoid giving opponents a chance to criticize it, but voters already had chosen Harris.
Liberal premier David Peterson was also well ahead in polls in 1990, but misjudged how voters would react when he called an election after only three years instead of the normal four.
There had been other early elections, including one Peterson called in1987 after only two years leading a minority government with the New Democrats’ support, but voters felt he coped well in that delicate situation and was entitled to seek a majority.
The second time Peterson claimed he needed a new mandate to negotiate on national unity, but voters wondering why he was in such a rush discovered an economic downturn was on the way and Peterson eager to get the election over in case he was blamed, and helped him pack.
Stuart Smith was a Liberal leader in the 1970s, after Davis had been reduced to minority government, and psychiatrist and intellectual from Montreal, and the Liberals liked to boast he was another Pierre Trudeau.
There was some thought Smith might finish Davis off, but when Davis called an election, Smith was caught so unprepared his press aide was out sailing for the day and news media could not even find his itinerary.
Another Liberal leader, Robert Nixon, had a better chance to push out Davis in 1975 because of indications the Conservative party sought donations by offering favours from government and ministers profited from advance knowledge of land developments.
But voters felt Nixon went too far in calling their government corrupt, and the Conservatives held on with a minority government.
The Liberals have lost many elections they appeared on the verge of winning for varied reasons and a prime one is they have lacked a constant supply of advisers experienced in government who knew what a party could get away with and what it should avoid.
This is not surprising, because the Liberals have been in power only nine of the last 64 years.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
