Ontario Liberal Party - Return To Power

Return To Power

In the 2003 election, however, the Tories ran the poor campaign, and their new leader, Ernie Eves was seen to be weak and untrustworthy. The Tories' attempt to repeat the 1999 attacks on McGuinty were unsuccessful. A strong performance by McGuinty on the campaign trail and in the debates led to a 72-seat majority government.

The new government called the Legislature back in session in late 2003, and passed a series of bills relating to its election promises. The government brought in auto insurance reforms (including a price cap), fixed election dates, rolled-back a series of corporate and personal tax cuts which had been scheduled for 2004, passed legislation which enshrined publicly-funded Medicare into provincial law, hired more meat and water inspectors, opened up the provincially-owned electricity companies to Freedom of Information laws and enacted a ban on partisan government advertising.

The McGuinty government also benefited from a scandal involving the previous Progressive Conservative government's management of Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One, which broke in the winter of 2003-04. It was revealed that a number of key figures associated with Mike Harris's "Common Sense Revolution" had received lucrative, untendered multi-million dollar consulting contracts from these institutions. Among the figures named in the scandal were Tom Long, former Harris campaign chairman, Leslie Noble, former Harris campaign manager and Paul Rhodes, former Harris communications director.

On May 18, 2004, Provincial Finance Minister Greg Sorbara released the McGuinty government's first budget. The centrepiece was a controversial new Health Premium of $300 to $900, staggered according to income. This violated a key Liberal campaign pledge not to raise taxes, and gave the government an early reputation for breaking promises. The Liberals defended the premium by pointing to the previous government's hidden deficit of $5.6 billion dollars, and McGuinty claimed he needed to break his campaign pledge on taxation to fulfill his promises on other fronts.

The Ontario Health Premium also became a major issue in the early days of the 2004 federal election, called a week after the Ontario budget. Most believe that the controversy seriously hampered Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin's bid for re-election.

Also controversial were the elimination of coverage for health services not covered by the Canada Health Act, including eye examinations and physical therapy. Other elements included a four-year plan to tackle the deficit left behind by the Progressive Conservatives, free immunization for children, investments in education and investments to lower waiting times for cancer care, cardiac care, joint replacement and MRI and CT scans.

Soon after the federal election, McGuinty hosted a federal-provincial summit on public health-care funding which resulted in a new agreement for a national health accord. This accord allowed the provincial Premiers and territorial leaders to draw more money from Ottawa for health services, and requires the federal government to take provincial concerns such as hospital waiting-lists into account. McGuinty's performance at the summit was generally applauded by the Canadian media.

The McGuinty government brought forward a number of regulatory initiatives in the fall of 2004. These included legislation allowing bring-your-own-wine in restaurants, banning junk food in public schools to promote healthier choices, outlawing smoking in public places and requiring students to stay in school until age 18. Following a series of high-profile maulings, the government also moved to ban pit bulls.

During early 2005, McGuinty called the Legislature back for a rare winter session to debate and pass several high-profile bills. The government legislated a Greenbelt around Toronto. The size of Prince Edward Island, the Greenbelt protects a broad swath of land from development and preserves forests and farmland. In response to court decisions, the Liberals updated the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples.

McGuinty also launched a PR campaign to narrow the politically charged $23 billion gap between what Ontario contributes to the federal government and what is returned to Ontario in services. This came as a sharp turn after more than a year of cooperating with the federal government, but McGuinty pointed to the special deals worked out by the federal government with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia as compromising the nature of equalization. In particular, McGuinty noted that immigrants in Ontario receive $800 in support from the federal government, while those in Quebec receive $3800.

In the 2003 campaign, the Liberals denounced public-private partnerships (also known as "3P" deals) for infrastructure projects such as the building of hospitals. Following the campaign, however, the McGuinty government allowed "3P" hospital construction deals arranged by the previous government to continue.

The Ontario Liberals won their second majority in a row on October 10, 2007, winning 71 of the province's 107 seats. Winning two majorities back to back is a feat that had not occurred for the party in 70 years.

In the next general election on October 6, 2011, McGuinty led the Liberals to win a historic third consecutive term and to once again form government, albeit with a minority of seats in the legislature. The Liberals won 53 of the 107 seats, just short of a 54-seat majority government. On October 15, 2012, McGuinty announced that he would resign as leader and Premier.