Ontario New Democratic Party - The Rae Years

The Rae Years

The 1985 election resulted in a minority legislature: the Tories under Premier Frank Miller won 52 seats, the Liberals won 48, and the NDP 25. The New Democrats entered negotiations with both the Tories and the Liberals. The NDP signed a two-year accord with the Liberals, in which the Liberals would form government with the NDP's support in exchange for the implementation of a number of NDP policies. This was not a coalition government as the NDP declined an offer to sit in Cabinet, preferring to remain in opposition. The governing Tories were defeated by a non-confidence motion and Miller resigned.

When the accord expired in 1987, Premier David Peterson called an election and the Liberals were re-elected with a large majority. The NDP lost seats but emerged as the largest opposition party, with Bob Rae becoming Leader of the Opposition.

Shortly before the general election of 1990, the governing Liberals held a solid lead in the polls, though their popularity had tailed off from 1987. However, Peterson's government was soon mired in scandals and many regarded the early election call as cynical. Under Rae, the NDP ran a strong campaign, which was also aided by a successful federal NDP showing a couple years earlier. Although the NDP finished only three percentage points ahead of the Liberals, they managed to take many seats in the Greater Toronto Area away from the Liberals. As a result, the NDP won a large majority government of 74 seats while the Liberals suffered the worst defeat in their history.

Bob Rae became Premier of Ontario during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. In government, the NDP disappointed supporters by abandoning much of its ambitious program, including the promise to institute a public auto insurance system. As the recession worsened, the NDP implemented what it called the Social Contract — which represented a shift to fiscal conservatism that anticipated that of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom under the leadership of Tony Blair. This was a package of austerity measures that:

• reopened the collective bargaining agreements of public sector unions;
• implemented a wage freeze for public servants; and
• imposed Rae Days, which were a schedule of days in which government workers were given days off without pay.

The Social Contract resulted in a major breach in the NDP's alliance with the labour movement as several trade unions turned against the party. Rae's government passed employment equity legislation and amended the province's labour law to ban the use of replacement workers during strikes, but this did not win back union support.

At one point, the NDP fell to a low of 6 percent support in polling. An ominous sign for the party came in the 1993 federal election, in which all of the NDP's Ontario MPs lost their seats. It was obvious by the 1995 election that Rae's government would not be re-elected. The official opposition Liberals under Lyn McLeod were initially the beneficiaries of the NDP's unpopularity, but their poor campaign saw the momentum swung to the resurgent Tories under Mike Harris, who vaulted from third in the legislature to win a large majority. The NDP fell down to 17 seats, third place in the Legislative Assembly. In 1996, Rae stepped down as party leader and resigned his seat in the legislature.

Despite these shortcomings, the Rae years did witness a number of reforms in the field of social welfare being enacted. In 1991, the Rae government increased basic social assistance rates by 7% and shelter rates by 10%. Single parents were uploaded from the municipalities and all lone parents were raised to the same income standard. In 1992 and 1993, the Rae government implemented successive increases to social assistance.