The 2018 Ontario general election was held on June 7, 2018, to elect the 124 members of the 42nd Parliament of Ontario. The

Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (french: Parti progressiste-conservateur de l'Ontario), often shortened to the Ontario PC Party or simply the PCs, colloquially known as the Tories, is a centre-right political party in Ontario, Canad ...

, led by

Doug Ford Douglas Robert Ford Jr. (born November 20, 1964) is a Canadian politician and businessman who has served as the 26th and current premier of Ontario since June 2018 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, Progressive Cons ...

, won 76 of the 124 seats in the legislature and formed a majority government. The

Ontario New Democratic Party The Ontario New Democratic Party (french: link=no, Nouveau Parti démocratique de l'Ontario; abbr. ONDP or NDP) is a social democracy, social-democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. The party currently forms the Leader of the Opposition ( ...

, led by Andrea Horwath, formed the Official Opposition. The

Ontario Liberal Party The Ontario Liberal Party (OLP; french: Parti libéral de l'Ontario, PLO) is a political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. The party has been led by interim leader John Fraser since August 2022. The party espouses the principles of lib ...

, led by incumbent Premier Kathleen Wynne, lost official party status in recording both the worst result in the party's 161-year history and the worst result for any incumbent governing party in

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. The Green Party of Ontario won a seat for the first time in their history, while the Trillium Party of Ontario lost its single seat gained by a floor-crossing during the 41st Parliament.

Background

Redistribution of seats

The ''Electoral Boundaries Act, 2015'' increased the number of electoral districts from 107 to 122, following the boundaries set out by the federal 2013 Representation Order for Ontario, while preserving the special boundaries of the 11 seats in

Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on part of the Superior Geological Prov ...

set out in the 1996 redistribution. The Far North Electoral Boundaries Commission, appointed in 2016, recommended the creation of the additional districts of Kiiwetinoong and Mushkegowuk—James Bay, carved out from the existing Kenora—Rainy River and Timmins—James Bay ridings, which accordingly raised the total number of seats to 124. This was implemented through the ''Representation Statute Law Amendment Act, 2017''. The new districts have been criticized as undemocratic, as they have a population of around 30,000 people compared with over 120,000 people in some southern Ontario constituencies. ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with ...

'' columnist Josh Dehaas suggested that the small population sizes of the ridings might violate the

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms The ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' (french: Charte canadienne des droits et libertés), often simply referred to as the ''Charter'' in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part ...

. In September 2017, a research firm analyzed the impact of redistribution if the boundaries had been in effect for the previous election.

Change of fixed election date

Under legislation passed in 2005, Ontario elections were to be held on "the first Thursday in October in the fourth calendar year following polling day in the most recent general election", subject to the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario's power to call an election earlier. As the current government had a majority, the passage of a non-confidence motion was not a likely option for calling an early election, though Premier Kathleen Wynne stated in June 2015 that she would likely advise to dissolve the Legislature in spring 2018 rather than in October of that year in order to avoid any conflict with municipal elections and take advantage of better weather and longer days. To put this on a statutory footing, in October 2016 Attorney General of Ontario Yasir Naqvi introduced a bill in the Legislative Assembly which, in part, included moving the election date to "the first Thursday in June in the fourth calendar year following polling day in the most recent general election", and it came into effect in December 2016.

Prelude to campaign

The

attempted to win their fifth consecutive general election, dating back to

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, disintegrated during reentry into Atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an 2002– ...

. The

won their first election since

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school s ...

, and the

attempted to win their second election (having previously won in 1990). Numerous other extra-parliamentary political parties also vied for votes. The Liberals under Kathleen Wynne headed into the 2018 campaign trailing far behind the Progressive Conservatives, led by former Toronto City Councillor

. The Liberals' standing with voters had been badly hurt when they partially privatized Hydro One in 2015, after campaigning against it in the 2014 election, as well as rising criticism over "ballooning provincial debt, high electricity prices and costly, politically expedient decisions". In early April, the CBC published their analysis of aggregate polls showing that Ford and the Progressive Conservatives were ahead of the other parties averaging 42.1% support, compared to 27.2% for the governing Liberals, 23.4% for the NDP and 5.7% for the Greens and with 11 Liberal MPPs announcing they would not be running for re-election or having already resigned their seats in the months leading up to the election. According to Wynne, voters were offered a "stark choice", between "cutting and removing supports from people" with "billions in cuts", which she alleged the Progressive Conservatives would do if they won the election, and expanding investments in social programs such as prescription drugs and

childcare Child care, otherwise known as day care, is the care and supervision of a child or multiple children at a time, whose ages range from two weeks of age to 18 years. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(r ...

, which the Liberal platform promised. In March 2018, the Liberals tabled a pre-election budget in the provincial legislature which promised billions of dollars in new spending for free childcare and expanded coverage for dental care but replaced the government's previous balanced budget with a $6.7 billion

deficit A deficit is the amount by which a sum falls short of some reference amount. Economics * Balance of payments deficit, when the balance of payments is negative * Government budget deficit * Deficit spending, the amount by which spending exceeds ...

projected to last until 2024–2025. PC leader Doug Ford called the budget a "spending spree".

Mood of the voters

According to ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...

'' columnist Susan Delacourt, voters were motivated by a desire for changesuch desire being more driven by emotion than by ideologyand one researcher estimated that more than half of the electorate was undecided in who they were likely to vote for. The '' Huffington Post'' reported that half of voters were basing their vote intentions on how best to block the party they oppose. In February 2018, Campaign Research conducted a gap analysis on voter intentions in Ontario, and determined the following:

Events leading up to the election (2014–2018)

Campaign period

Issues

Party slogans

Endorsements

Candidates

Candidate nominations

In February 2018, the PC leadership overturned the nomination of candidates Karma Macgregor in Ottawa West—Nepean and Thenusha Parani in Scarborough Centre because of irregularities and allegations of ballot stuffing at their nomination meetings. Both candidates denied these claims. The nomination meetings were reorganized, and both candidates lost the nomination at those meetings. However, the PC leadership decided not to overturn the nomination meeting's result in

Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas (french: Hamilton-Ouest—Ancaster—Dundas) is a federal electoral district in Ontario. It encompasses a portion of Ontario previously included in the electoral districts of Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough— ...

, where a similar situation took place, because of an ongoing police investigation on this situation. In March 2018, the NDP nominated Lyra Evans as their candidate in

Ottawa—Vanier Ottawa—Vanier (formerly known as Ottawa East) is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 1935. Previous to that date, it was part of the Ottawa electoral district th ...

. Evans was the first openly

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

candidate nominated by a major party to run in an Ontario general election.

Incumbents not running for reelection

Results

Elections Ontario used electronic vote tabulator machines from Dominion Voting Systems for counting the ballots. Tabulators were deployed at 50 per cent of polling stations at a cost of . This election was the first time Ontario used vote counting machines for a provincial election, although tabulators have been used in Ontario civic elections for more than 20 years, and also in a 2016

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election ( Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election use ...

in Whitby-Oshawa. The original paper ballots marked by voters will be kept for a year along with the digital scans of each ballot by the tabulator. Ontario_general_election_2018_-_PC_Party_Vote_Strength_by_Riding.svg, The percentage of votes cast for the Progressive Conservatives by riding. Ontario_general_election_2018_-_NDP_Vote_Strength_by_Riding.svg, The percentage of votes cast for the NDP by riding. File:Ontario_general_election_2018_-_Liberal_Party_Vote_Strength_by_Riding.svg, The percentage of votes cast for the Liberals by riding. Ontario PC Party Vote Swing in the 2018 Ontario Election.png, Change in Progressive Conservative vote share by riding compared to the 2014 Ontario election. File:Voter Distribution By Party.png, Each dot represents five-thousand votes for the party of the associated colour. Data is based on individual riding results. Dots are placed at random positions within the ridings that they belong to. File:Ontario 2018.png, A cartogram showing popular vote in each riding. File:Gallagher 2018Ontario.svg, The disproportionality of elections to the Legislative Assembly in the 2018 election was 17.96 according to the Gallagher Index, significantly in favour of the PCs.

Synopsis of results

Detailed results

. , - ! colspan=2 rowspan=2 , Political party ! rowspan=2 , Party leader ! colspan=5 , MPPs ! colspan=3 , Votes , - ! Candidates !

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

! Dissol. !2018 !± !# !% ! ± (pp) , style="text-align:left;",

, 124 , 28 , 27 , 76 , 48 , 2,326,523 , 40.19% , 9.08 , style="text-align:left;", Andrea Horwath , 124 , 21 , 18 , 40 , 19 , 1,929,966 , 33.34% , 9.68 , style="text-align:left;", Kathleen Wynne , 124 , 58 , 55 , 7 , 51 , 1,124,346 , 19.42% , 19.10 , style="text-align:left;", Mike Schreiner , 124 , – , – , 1 , 1 , 264,519 , 4.57% , 0.31 , style="text-align:left;", Allen Small , 117 , – , – , – , – , 42,822 , 0.74% , 0.04 , style="text-align:left;", Greg Vezina , 42 , – , – , – , – , 16,146 , 0.28% , 0.20 , colspan="2" style="text-align:left;", Independents and no affiliation , 32 , – , 2 , – , – , 8,226 , 0.14% , 0.06 , style="text-align:left;", Bob Yaciuk , 26 , – , 1 , – , – , 8,091 , 0.14% , 0.13 , style="text-align:left;", Trevor Holliday , 10 , – , – , – , – , 5,912 , 0.10% , 0.08 , style="text-align:left;", Brad Harness , 10 , – , – , – , – , 2,682 , 0.05% , , style="text-align:left;", Paul McKeever , 14 , – , – , – , – , 2,565 , 0.04% , 0.20 , style="text-align:left;", Jason Tysick , 5 , – , – , – , – , 2,316 , 0.04% , , style="text-align:left;", Yuri Duboisky , 16 , – , – , – , – , 2,199 , 0.04% , 0.03 , style="text-align:left;", Dave McKee , 12 , – , – , – , – , 1,471 , 0.03% , 0.01 , style="text-align:left;", Bahman Yazdanfar , 5 , – , – , – , – , 1,239 , 0.02% , 0.01 , style="text-align:left;", Queenie Yu , 3 , – , – , – , – , 1,078 , 0.02% , , style="text-align:left;", Joshua E. Eriksen , 3 , – , – , – , – , 802 , 0.01% , , style="text-align:left;", Daryl Christoff , 3 , – , – , – , – , 634 , 0.01% , , style="text-align:left;", Hilton Milan , 5 , – , – , – , – , 631 , 0.01% , , style="text-align:left;", Kevin Clarke , 6 , – , – , – , – , 628 , 0.01% , 0.01 , style="text-align:left;", ''vacant'' , 2 , – , – , – , – , 386 , 0.01% , , style="text-align:left;", Ken Ranney , 2 , – , – , – , – , 340 , 0.01% , , style="text-align:left;", Patrick Knight , 2 , – , – , – , – , 321 , 0.01% , , style="text-align:left;", Paul Figueiras , 2 , – , – , – , – , 256 , – , 0.02 , style="text-align:left;", Arthur Smitherman , 3 , – , – , – , – , 215 , – , , style="text-align:left;", Wasyl Luczkiw , 2 , – , – , – , – , 191 , – , , style="text-align:left;", Derrick Matthews , 2 , – , – , – , – , 176 , – , , style="text-align:left;", John Turmel , 2 , – , – , – , – , 112 , – , , style="text-align:left;", Abu Alam , 2 , – , – , – , – , 67 , – , , style="text-align:left;" colspan="4", Vacant , 4 , colspan="5", , - , colspan="8" style="text-align:left;", Blank and invalid ballots , align="right", 61,426 , align="right", 1.06 , align="right", , -style="background:#E9E9E9;" , colspan="3" style="text-align:left;", Total , 825 , 107 , 107 , 124 , , 5,806,286 , 100.00% , , -style="background:#E9E9E9;" , colspan="8" style="text-align:left;", Registered voters / turnout , 10,246,066 , 56.67% , 5.38

Summary analysis

Regional analysis

Most marginal 2-way and 3-way contests

Significant results among independent and minor party candidates

Those candidates not belonging to a major party, receiving more than 1,000 votes in the election, are listed below:

Opinion polls

Campaign period

Opinion polling during the 2018 Ontario provincial election campaign

Best Premier and Party Leader Approval Ratings

Major Regional Polls – Toronto

Pre-campaign period

References

External links

Elections Ontario
{{Ontario elections Ontario 42nd 2018 in Ontario 2018 June 2018 events in Canada