What the federal parties can learn from Doug Ford’s election win

After a provincial election campaign fought in the shadow of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs and annexation, federal parties could draw some lessons from the way Doug Ford and his Ontario PC Party romped to victory.

Ford pitched himself as the best leader to protect the province against those threats and even made Protect Ontario his campaign slogan.

His campaign focused almost exclusively on that one issue and he was rewarded with a third straight majority government, something no leader has accomplished in Ontario since 1959.

It’s a formula that strategists of all political stripes say the federal leaders should emulate if they hope to win the general election on April 28.

Kory Teneycke, who managed all three of Ford’s provincial campaigns and advised Stephen Harper during his time as prime minister, says the federal parties must acknowledge what matters to voters right now.

The number one issue driving voter intent in the Ontario provincial campaign was clearly Trump and tariffs, said Teneycke in an interview. There’s a lot of national polling data that would indicate that the same is true now in the federal election campaign, only even more so.

WATCH | What Doug Ford’s election win can teach the federal leaders:

What can federal parties learn from Ford’s successful Ontario run?

Ontario is shaping up to be a key battleground in the upcoming federal election. As CBC’s Mike Crawley explains, federal parties are looking to copy Premier Doug Ford’s success after he sailed to his third consecutive victory last month.

It’s almost impossible to win federally in Canada without winning Ontario.

Over the past 50 years, the party that took the most seats in Ontario won 14 of the last 15 elections. The only exception: when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives won their first minority, in 2006.

‘The only issue in this election’

It’s rare to have a federal election follow so closely on the heels of an Ontario election; rarer still to have the same political theme resonate so profoundly in both contests.

The only issue in this election is protecting Canada and Trump and tariffs, said Marion Nader, co-founder of consulting firm Nexus Strategy Group and a veteran adviser to New Democrat politicians in Ontario and Alberta.

If any party tries to make the ballot question anything other than Trump, then they’re going to get drowned out and they’re going to be irrelevant, Nader said in an interview.

Nader says a key to the election will be how each federal leader frames their message on the Trump and tariffs issue.

I think what what Canadians want is someone who’s going to unify, talk about solutions, be the adult in the room, she said.

Over the past 50 years, it has been next to impossible to win a federal election without winning Ontario. The party that took the most seats in Canada’s largest province has won 14 of the last 15 elections. The only exception was in 2006, when Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party formed a minority government despite winning fewer seats in Ontario than the Liberals. (CBC) Photo: (CBC)

Teneycke believes the Trump presidency and his repeated threat of tariffs poses a particular challenge for Poilievre, but not an insurmountable one.

Poilievre’s Conservative team did an incredible job in laying the groundwork over the past two-plus years to fight an election against Justin Trudeau on the carbon tax, affordability and housing, says Teneycke.

Many Ontario voters strongly against Trump

The situation has changed, he said. You’ve got to fight the campaign that’s ahead of you, not the one that you wanted to fight necessarily.

Teneycke says the Ontario PC campaign’s research found large numbers of voters vehemently opposed to Trump and everything about him. He says the only time he saw the party’s polling numbers dip during the campaign was after a camera caught Ford saying he was 100 per cent happy that Trump had won the presidential election last November.

The lesson for Poilievre, according to Teneycke: avoid sounding anything like Trump, whether in words or tone.

Talking about your big, beautiful, bring-it-home tax cut, talking about sneaky Carney, talking about fake news, these are all lines pulled from the lexicon of of Trump, he said. Probably the worst of them is saying Canada First, which sounds, I think to a lot of voters, like America First.

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CBC News asked the Conservative Party to respond to Teneycke’s comments. Pierre Poilievre has been talking about his plan to put Canada First and make Canada stronger in order to stand up to Trump, and will continue to do so, said a party spokesperson in an email.

While the CBC Poll Tracker (new window) suggests the Conservative Party has lost more than seven percentage points nationally since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Teneycke thinks it’s not impossible for Poilievre to win back those voters.

‘Hard to change a ballot question’

Ashley Csanady, who worked as an adviser on the Ontario Liberal campaign, saw firsthand how difficult it is to fight an election on any issue other than tariffs at this time in Canada.

It’s pretty hard to change a ballot question when you have something that’s as big and as looming as the shadow of Donald Trump and our largest trading relationship, said Csanady, a vice-president at McMillan Vantage, a public affairs firm.

In the past Ontario election, Bonnie Crombie’s Liberals campaigned largely on fixing the health care system, and although they attracted nearly 30 per cent of the vote provincewide, that only translated into 14 of a total 124 seats.

The overall take away is that when voters are are looking at Trump and tariffs and they’re scared about what’s going on, they’re voting based on who they think is the best option to take on that threat, Csanady said.

In the federal election, Csanady believes this gives the advantage to Liberal Leader Mark Carney.

The fact that he sort of presents as this kind of boring dad, technocrat, smart guy economist is actually a superpower right now, she said. I think with all the bombast coming out of the States, that calm presentation is the sort of thing that Canadians are looking for.”

Nader, the NDP strategist, says a key lesson for the federal party from the Ontario election is the value of targeting key ridings with extra campaign support. The Ontario New Democrats won 27 seats — nearly double the Liberal total — with less than 19 per cent of the vote share province-wide.

She also says NDP leader Jagmeet Singh can win over voters by pitching his campaign message in a way that speaks to people’s concerns.

It is about Trump and who’s going to be best to stand up to Trump, but reframe it, said Nader. Who is going to be prioritized in that battle? Who’s going to stand up for families and workers?

There’s a long-held notion in politics that incumbency is an advantage when contesting an election in times of crisis. The Progressive Conservative victory in Ontario — in which only two of the party’s incumbents seeking re-election lost their seats — would appear to bolster that notion.

The federal Liberals, who took 78 of Ontario’s 121 seats in the last federal election, will be hoping that pattern from the provincial election in late February repeats itself come voting day in late April.

This article is republished from RCI.