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Topic spans: 1985 - 2002
Ontario Elections: 25 Tumultuous Years
The Ontario Legislature used to be called "the dullest chamber in all of Canada." For 42 years, the Progressive Conservatives and their "Big Blue Machine" ruled the province. But 1985 ushered the PCs out and an age of turbulence in with a Liberal-NDP coalition. In the next three elections, voters handed majorities to all three parties: a sweep for the Liberals, a stunning NDP victory and a sharp right turn with Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolution. In 2002, it looked like a new blue era was settling in, with Harris passing the Tory torch to Ernie Eves. But Dalton McGuinty's Liberals swept the 2003 and 2007 elections and won a third time with a minority in 2011.
11 television clips
10 radio clips
Astonishing victory for the NDP
Broadcast Date: Sept. 6, 1990
NDP campaign workers cheer and a Liberal strategist shrugs in disbelief. Even NDP leader Bob Rae himself admits he's surprised by the results of the 1990 election. The NDP has won a majority in Ontario for the first time ever. It's the voters' rebuke to an overconfident David Peterson who called this snap election just three years into his mandate. CBC reporter Kelly Crowe is in the scrum as reporters swarm "Premier Bob."Astonishing victory for the NDP
• Certain that his party would win again, Premier David Peterson called the 1990 election very suddenly three years after the Liberals' massive sweep. The Liberals held 93 seats heading into the election, but had just 36 when it was over. Observers said voters regarded Peterson's move as opportunistic, cynical and unnecessary.• Peterson was beaten in his own riding by 8,000 votes and later that night announced he would resign as Liberal leader.
• After the results were tallied the NDP had taken 74 of 130 seats, up from their pre-election total of 19. The Tories, headed by new leader Mike Harris, ended up with 20 seats and third-party status.
• This was the first-ever NDP government for Ontario and the first outside Western Canada. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and B.C. had all had NDP governments at some time during the previous 20 years.
• Bob Rae and his party campaigned to bring in public auto insurance, levy a minimum tax on corporate profits and boost the minimum wage. Rae also pledged a war on poverty by increasing welfare payments and not taxing poor families.
• Before the election was called, polls showed 26 per cent of voters would choose the NDP. The party captured almost 38 per cent of votes in the election.
• Before the election David Peterson tried to warn voters away from the NDP. He said it was no time to "gamble on some cockamamie socialist view of how to run the province."
• Of the 25 members of the legislature in Rae's cabinet 11 were women — a record for Ontario.
• Rae's government succeeded in passing new rent control laws and employment equity legislation and in banning replacement workers during labour disputes. All were later repealed by Mike Harris's Conservative government.
• According to Maclean's, Ontario's business leaders were apprehensive about what an NDP win would mean for commerce in the province. Media baron Conrad Black went so far as to pull his company's assets out of Ontario. "I think it is fundamentally not desirable to have the New Democrats governing a province that is fundamentally anti-social," he said at the time.
• The hallmark of Rae's time as premier was his Social Contract, a public policy document that sought to guarantee wages and standards of living. But it was criticized by the other parties and by the unions, particularly for its 12 yearly mandatory unpaid days off. This job-saving measure, dubbed "Rae Days," was imposed on government workers, teachers and other public-sector employees.
Astonishing victory for the NDP
Medium: Television
Program: CBC Television News Special
Broadcast Date: Sept. 6, 1990
Guest(s): David McNaughton, Bob Rae
Host: Steve Paikin, Lynn Whitham
Reporter: Kelly Crowe, Havard Gould
Duration: 5:55
Last updated:
March 6, 2008
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Bob Rae is great!
Submitted by: Fan