If the progressive conservative leader of Ontario, Doug Ford, obtains an important electoral victory tonight, will probably claim a strategy that focused the electoral campaign in the tariff threat of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, while eclipssa other key provincial problems, according to some analysts.
“Tariffs and Trump are such a specific and first category,” said Éric Grenier, survey and electoral analyst writes the writing bulletin. “For PCs, each survey shows that they are very ahead on that subject.”
The surveys indicate that Ford, whose campaign was sold as the only provincial leader who can protect the inhabitants of Ontario from the threat of American tariffs imposed on Canadian goods, could go to a third historical victory of most tonight.
Before the elections were called, the PCs had 82 seats in the Ontario Legislature, followed by the NDP with 30, the liberals with nine, green with two and one independent.
The inhabitants of Ontario have thrown their vote on Thursday, February 27 and now is the time to see who will form the next government in Queen’s Park. We will bring you all the most analysis of our CBC news team from 9 to 11 pm et.
Ford unleashed the instant elections saying that he needed a new mandate to deal with Trump’s threatened tariffs: 25 percent tariffs on goods and 10 percent of tariffs on energy. And since then he has assumed a so -called “Captain Canada” mantle, becoming the unofficial defender not only of the province, but of the country. He has traveled to Washington and appeared in the US media to present the case against tariffs.
This immediate tariff threat meant that Ford benefited from the fact that most of the problems consumed by the legislative approach of Ontario and its budget (medical care, education, housing and social services) never ended up being so central during the electoral campaign, according to Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, a political science professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.
‘Behemoth to the south’
More importantly, the leaders of the opposition party could not make problems within medical care or education systems stick to it, he said.
“There is a lot of ammunition here so that the opposition matches have really gone hard for history,” said Goodyear-Grant. “How do you do that land when you have this giant in the south?”
Even when Trump implemented a 30 -day rate pause, the problem never really disappeared, he said.
“There was never Trump’s rhetoric and his administration during the pause of the rate that would have caused the inhabitants of Ontario or Canadians to relax widely,” said Goodyear-Grant.
The threat of tariffs was “so much in your face” that gave Ford a very necessary approach to his campaign, Grenier said.
“Every time you turn on the news, Trump is there. He reminds people that Trump is a problem for ontarium elections. I think that is why he has dominated the approach so much.”
Meanwhile, other problems simply did not open up in these elections because the tariff message and the underlying economic uncertainty in the province “is in the center of the awareness of each voter,” said Andrea Lawlor, an associate professor of Political Science at McMaster University in Hamilton.
Much of the PC Party platform includes economically driven comments on Ontario’s potential for growth and employment trends, particularly in terms of the potential impact of rates, he said.
The platform also includes recommendations of what Ontario will advise the Federal Government to do in terms of recovering money from the buttresses.
“We see on their platform that they have put tariffs first and have made tariffs central to their message,” said Lawlor.
However, that message is not in front and the center with the opposition parties, he said.
“And to the extent that they are, it is how tariffs could affect other areas of social policy. It’s not about square tariffs, “he said.
Before launching its vote on February 27, it is important to know how the four leaders of the party are compared in hot issues. Julia Knope de CBC breaks down some of her key promises.
Grenier says that problems such as the cost of living and medical care were still considered priorities for the inhabitants of Ontario, but none, on his own, really became a voting problem in this choice.
Many voters tied the cost of living, a pocket problem, with tariffs and trusted the PC better to treat it, according to Grenier. As for medical care, liberals may have penetrated a bit on that issue, but the surveys suggested that voters did not believe that Ford’s government did such a bad job, Grenier said.
And while voters can see the medical care system as worried, people may not vote automatically for a different game, for that, said Grenier
‘Lack of faith’
“I think there is a lack of faith in which any of the parties, after decades, will really be much more capable of solving it than anyone,” Grenier said.
“If this campaign had really been about anything, then the PC could have found that in the end, they could have begun to face some of the teams of recent years,” Grenier said.
“And I think [tariffs] He gave them a problem. He gave them focus for the campaign. And in the end it seems that it will work well. “
The countdown of the results begins at 8 PM ET on CBC TV and CBC News Network and we will begin to bring results as soon as the surveys close at 9 pm, you can also see the special in CBC Gem, YouTube or on some smart televisions.
