Ontario Election 2007

I miss it a lot as I watch from... Yellowknife Northwest Territories, where my job in Calgary Alberta has taken me this week.

So, how shall we do this?

1. Congratulations Premier McGuinty on your re-election as MPP for Ottawa South, as Premier of Ontario, and of the first consecutively-elected Liberal governments in Ontario in 70 years. That is significant. Even Allan Gregg just said it is significant.

9:15 PM (ET) CTV/Newsnet declares a Liberal victory but does not gues at majority or minority (even though that has looked obvious since polls about two weeks ago)
9:34 PM (ET) approx CTV/Newsnet declares a Liberal majority
9:39 PM (ET) approx CBC/Newsworld declares a Liberal majority

2. Reduction of Liberal vote percentage: it should concern or surprise nobody that the popular vote for the Ontario Liberal Party has slipped. They're the incumbent government. Swing voters who helped them in in 2003 probably went away, and much of the campaign was about Liberal broken promises. There's probably a perpetually grumpy vote that votes against _every_ single government.

2B. Looks like voter turnout is down to near 50%. What does this mean? For one thing, it may mean that the majority of Ontarians didn't feel motivated to get to the polls and make a great change in the province. Personally, I'm always a little bit disappointed when voter turnout is down.

3. Was it a one issue campaign? Clearly John Tory made an error with the concept of public funding to other faith-based schools. On pure logic it may have made sense as a policy, but it does not constitutionally. And, frankly, I would rather a great public education melting pot than elitism or separatism and fragmentation. It is fairly simple for me. Anyway, moving on, I don't think it was a one-issue election. I think there is an endorsement here of the successes and basic stability that the Ontario Liberal Party under Dalton McGuinty has delivered. The voters are never wrong and a clear strong majority of ridings, and a strong 40+ per cent of the total vote, have spoken.

4. Jai Aggarwal [Liberal] Nepean-Carleton; Yasir Naqvi [Liberal] Ottawa Centre; and Megan Cornell [Liberal] Carleton -- Mississippi Mills: Congratulations all on running. Nepean-Carleton is just not winnable for Liberals in its demographics: high end suburbs and rural. More or less a ditto for Lanark-Carleton. If it was just Kanata, we would have a shot, but...

5. Some results at 10:15 PM

Ottawa Centre: Yasir Naqvi (LIB) leads 1890 - 1633 [CBC] looking good there alongside a strong Liberal trend and majority

Ottawa West -- Nepean : Jim Watson (LIB) is pretty much doubling Mike Patton [CBC] (only the blindest of sheep are surprised) * by coincidence I flip to CPAC and see Jim's speech on there... where I was in 2003, a Ukrainian Banquet Hall.

Ottawa-Orleans: Phil McNeely (LIB) comfortably leading over Graham Fox (a guy I attended high school with) there was lots of early hype there

6. An hour and a half in, the trend is very strong and clear: Seat Count 71 Libs, 25 Conservatives, 11 Dippers. This makes the reduction in the popular vote almost an afterthought. This is a very successful re-election campaign of an incumbent government.

7. Oh God, Randy Hillier is coming, ahm, coming to Queen's Park. Thankfully, he is, ahm, the Conservative Party's internal challenge, and probably a reporter's dream. "Don Cherry in a flannel shirt and rubber boots" says CBC Ottawa's Lucy VanOldenBarnevold [yikes I must not attempt to type that name out ever again!]

8. Conservatives appear shutout in Toronto, though some of the poll counts are still a bit early. York South - Weston: Lara Albanese is winning in the general election (proving once again that by-elections are often anti-government protest votes.)

9. John Milloy re-elected in Kitchener, comfortably it looks. Way to go John. Sorry I could not donate this year (from Alberta!)

10. 10:45 PM (ET) Dalton McGuinty is on stage to make his speech. A good speech. Concise and effective. Forward-looking. Grateful. High Road. Generous in tone. Humble as well. Just right.

11. Awkward: CTV is interviewing Premier McGuinty live while John Tory is taking the stage at his HQ and mouthing the words thank you. CTV has also declared that Tory was defeated in the Don Valley West riding he chose to run in by incumbent Liberal dynamo Kathleen Wynne. CTV exited gracefully from Dalton and picked up on John Tory, who is conceding. I don't think personally that John Tory made a mistake in taking a harder route to try to get in to Queen's Park (not on safe Blue Tory Dufferin riding coattails but on his own merit) A stronger central Conservative campaign would have made a difference here. That did not come to pass. John Tory says it was his first campaign as a Party Leader and a learning experience. He will be back. (apparently not after losing a subsequent self-engineered by-election opportunity, ed.) To my own Liberal friends: do not rest on laurels and do not get complacent. John Tory is a smart guy and wwe've learned from Stephen Harper that a good "review and learn" can turn around a campaign for next time (especially if combined with some scandal...)

Liberal Majority. Stability. No chaos. Solid economy. More challenges ahead. A good man and team in charge, to take them on further.

Hear Hear!