By Canadian Press

Liberals leading in most ridings in battleground Ontario

Oct 21, 2019 | 9:19 PM

Toronto and its surrounding regions appear to have once again played a key role in delivering the Liberals an electoral victory.

The so-called 905 area ringing the city and southwestern Ontario is home to several ridings that were considered up for grabs — and a key path to forming government — and with results starting to solidify, the Liberals were leading in most of those seats.

An hour after polls closed, the Liberals were also leading in every Toronto seat, holding off challenges from the NDP, who had hoped to regain four ridings they lost in 2015.

Ontario, which holds nearly a third of the country’s seats, proved irresistible to the leaders of the three major parties, who visited the province far more than any other.

The province’s premier was a central focus for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s re-election campaign, as he constantly name-dropped Doug Ford, invoking the spectre of “doubling down” on Conservative governments and cuts.

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He attempted to tie Ford to Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer like an anchor to sink Tory prospects in the province.

Scheer and Ford themselves took massive pains to avoid helping voters make that connection. Scheer nearly managed to make it through the campaign without even saying Ford’s name, and the Tories dispatched Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to stump for Conservative votes in Ontario, including on Ford’s own turf. Ford kept an extremely low profile, making few public appearances and avoiding questions from reporters except on two occasions in northern Ontario.

Ford’s Progressive Conservatives won a majority government last summer on the strength of a campaign replete with populist promises but also an electorate eager for change following 15 years of Liberal governments.

Since then, however, Ford’s popularity has tanked, thanks in part to a wide range of cuts in his first budget and a variety of patronage scandals.

Trudeau was trying to entice voters who helped elect Ford in 2018 and may now be regretting that choice — polling suggests that may be 10 to 15 per cent of last year’s Tory voters — and scare left-leaning voters into coalescing around the Liberals.

“The NDP wasn’t able to stop Doug Ford,” Trudeau said. 

Ford’s provincial riding of Etobicoke North is also a federal Liberal stronghold, and Dean Peruzzi, a lifelong Conservative voter who lives in the north Toronto riding of Willowdale, has a theory as to why. 

“People like free things,” he said outside of Perkins, a family restaurant that’s a frequent hangout spot for Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford. “The more free things you offer, the more people come out and vote.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2019.

— With a file from Nicole Thompson

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press