Bonnie Crombie admits Ontario Liberals made mistakes in losing campaign, says she'll ‘address our weaknesses'

Hamilton Spectator

17-07-2025

As an
Ontario Liberal leadership review vote looms later this summer
,
Bonnie Crombie
is going on the offensive.
The Liberal leader has
released a four-minute video
aimed at party members, acknowledging the shortcomings of her Feb. 27 provincial election campaign and promising changes going forward.
Crombie, who has spent the past few months travelling Ontario to huddle with Liberals, said party stalwarts have been candid with her about what is needed to topple Premier Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives.
'I've heard some common themes, constructive criticisms and some suggestions,' she says, staring into the camera.
'We could have opened candidate nominations earlier to allow more time for local fundraising and door-knocking,' adds Crombie,
who herself was not nominated in Mississauga East-Cooksville until shortly before the election and then lost to Tory Silvia Gualtieri
.
'And in response to that, I'll say that right now, we intend to open nominations in many ridings as of January 2026 to ensure that we have a head start recruiting candidates,' intones the leader.
'We could have done more to lift up and engage the rural and northern parts of Ontario, too,' she says, referring to the fact the Liberals' support is concentrated in and around Toronto and Ottawa.
Crombie says she plans 'to address this issue head-on' to 'ensure that there are dedicated resources, such as staff, in place to support rural and northern ridings long before the next writ is dropped.
'We will use the learnings from this campaign to make sure the next campaign is run differently. We must evaluate and build on our strengths and identify and address our weaknesses. We'll also be having hard internal conversations about the choices made and speaking with our campaign leadership team to identify the successes and the failures.'
With a mandatory leadership review vote at the Liberals' Sept. 12-14 annual general meeting at the Sheraton Centre in Toronto, Crombie is moving to shore up support.
To that end, her video touted the fact the Grits won 30 per cent of the popular vote — behind the Tories' 43 per cent, but ahead of the 18.5 per cent of Marit Stiles's New Democrats — and returned the party to official status in the legislature for the first time since 2018.
That latter achievement is 'unlocking millions in resources to support our team with policy, research and communications efforts,' she says.
'All of our caucus members were re-elected. We picked up five new seats. We improved our vote share in 102 of the 124 ridings. We came in second in 77 ridings.'
However, the Liberals' inefficient vote, a perennial challenge for the centrist party, meant they only won 14 seats in the 124-member legislature to 80 for the PCs and 27 for the NDP. Mike Schreiner's Greens won two ridings and Independent Bobbi Ann Brady was re-elected.
Despite a unanimous post-election endorsement from the Liberal caucus and party executive, there are rumblings of discontent.
A small group called New Leaf Liberals — co-founded by a backer of MP
Nate Erskine-Smith
(Beaches-East York), runner-up to Crombie in the party's
2023 leadership contest
— says she should resign if she fails to win 66 per cent support in the review.
As of Wednesday afternoon, only 242 people had signed the insurgents'
online petition
, many with just their first names.
In an interview with the Star earlier this summer, Crombie insisted she was 'confident' she would secure the leadership review threshold of more than 50 per cent as required by the Liberal constitution.