Premier
By 1995, the governing New Democratic Party and incumbent Premier Bob Rae had become extremely unpopular with the electorate, largely due to the state of the Ontario economy and its record debt and deficit amidst a Canada-wide recession. Lyn McLeod's Liberals were leading in pre-election polls and were expected to benefit from the swing in support away from the NDP, but they began losing support due to several controversial policy reversals and what was generally regarded as an uninspiring campaign. The turning point in the election is often considered to be Harris' performance in the televised leaders' debate. Harris used his camera time to speak directly to the camera to convey his party's Common Sense Revolution platform. He was elected with a large majority government in the 1995 election. Roughly half of his party's seats came from the suburban belt surrounding Metro Toronto, often called the '905' for its telephone area code.
The Rae government had previously lost much of its base in organized labour, due in part to the unpopularity of its "Social Contract" legislation in 1993 (which Harris, after some initial vacillations, eventually voted against). Harris' opposition to Rae's affirmative action measures helped him to capture some union support during the election, particularly among male workers. Although there were regional variations, many working-class voters shifted from the NDP to the Tories in 1995 (instead of to the Liberals as expected pre-campaign), enabling the Tories to win a number of working-class ridings, such as Cambridge and Oshawa, which had long supported the NDP.
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