Editorial Position
Its precise position in the political spectrum — especially in relation to one of its principal competitors, The Globe and Mail — is at times disputed but the Star is generally considered to be the most leftwing of Canada's major papers. Long a voice of Canadian nationalism, the paper opposed free trade with the United States in the 1980s and has recently expressed concern about U.S. takeovers of Canadian firms.
Editorial positions sometimes surprise readers. The Star was an early opponent of the Iraq War and sharply criticized most policies of George W. Bush, but supported Canadian participation in U.S. continental missile defense. Editorials have denounced political correctness at Canadian universities, opposed proportional representation, and yet called for more restrictive copyright laws.
The paper usually endorses the Liberal Party federally. The Star was the only major daily to do so in the 2006 and the 2008 federal elections while many of the other major papers endorsed the Conservatives. The Star endorsed the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Ed Broadbent in 1979 and Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield in 1972. The paper endorsed the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in many of the provincial elections from the 1940s to the 1980s, and endorsed strategic voting to try to defeat Mike Harris in 1999 which they failed to do.
Though Toronto mayoral elections are non-partisan, during the 2010 mayoral election, it endorsed George Smitherman, who before the election was a provincial cabinet member of McGuinty's Liberal government.
The Toronto Star endorsed the NDP for the 2011 federal election, stating that its platform "puts people first" and that Jack Layton has won the trust of many voters. To avoid vote-splitting that could inadvertently help the Conservatives under Stephen Harper, which it saw as the worst outcome for the country, the paper also recommended Canadians vote strategically by voting for "the progressive candidate best placed to win" in certain ridings.
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