Crombie For Ontario
Why The Ontario Liberals Are The Right Choice
It is fair to say I never thought I’d be writing this column, and I won’t lie to anybody and say I do it with unbridled enthusiasm. Bonnie Crombie was far from my first choice to be leader of the Ontario Liberals, and I do not resile from the criticisms of her both before and after her victory. But, today’s Day 1 of a provincial election, and it’s time to put personal grievances and wistful fantasies of different outcomes behind us, for a simple reason.
Bonnie Crombie is the best choice for Ontario at this election, and it’s not even close.
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We should start with the positive case for the Liberals, because there is actually a relatively cogent one to make. The Liberals want to make Ontario better in tangible, clear, and straightforward ways, by cutting taxes for the middle class, by dramatically increasing the number of family doctors, and by eliminating costly taxes that are making housing development not pencil out. The Housing policy is genuinely revolutionary - part of the reason that prices are so high in Ontario is that municipal governments are taxing so much per development that it’s literally impossible for units to be worth building at an affordable price. By replacing that funding with a central government fund the municipalities get cost certainty instead of a fluctuating budget line based on factors outside of their controls but developers don’t have to pay sometimes six figures a unit before they’ve hired a single contractor or bought a single piece of lumber.
It’s a huge victory for the forces of progressive politics inside the Liberal Party and a sign that left-wing Liberals can trust they will be listened to. That bridge to the left of the party is crucial, as housing the first issue Nate Erskine-Smith prioritized in his bid. Now Crombie consulted and worked with some of the authors of Nate’s housing policy for her own. It’s a credible plan to bring Ontario out of the housing crisis and get building, so that rents can fall, Ontarians can move out and move around more freely, and not spend all their income on housing.
Her tax plan is a far more substantive cut than the nothing Doug Ford has offered, leaving us with the occasional token bribe instead of any meaningful tax cut to average Ontarians. I’d prefer the tax relief to have been broader and more impactful for the poor and working class, but I have been reassured that the Liberals are not going to abandon those communities and that there will be plans coming. (I’m also sympathetic to the argument that the tax code isn’t the right mechanism to achieve outcomes for the poor and working class.)
The crisis in family doctors is a key contributor to our ER system being fucking useless as well. We are delegating routine health care to ERs, overworking doctors and nurses, and then getting fucking surprised that burnout is high and staff shortages are real. What a fucking concept. Getting people family doctors is a good idea at the basic level but also one that will have so many good consequences down the line.
But it’s not just about the Ontario Liberals, as much as I do genuinely think their offer is shaping up to be good. Doug Ford is a fucking abomination, a disaster of a Premier who has overseen a housing crisis, terrible outcomes in health care and education, a stagnant at best and now recessionary economy that is failing workers, and a calamitous budget position despite underfunding every fucking department. This is a government with the ethics of Tony Soprano and the competence of Randy Carlyle. It’s a fucking disaster.
Doug Ford has not made a single thing better since he showed up 7 years ago. Hospital wait times are up, the number of Ontarians without a family doctor is up, they’ve made the regulations on limiting class sizes looser, they created a rush of international students by limiting the funding to post-secondary education, they dismantled Wynne’s reforms to make it cheaper for the kids of low and medium income parents to go to Uni, they have fucked the housing market and stood by as municipalities do nothing, despite being fine meddling in their affairs every other time.
They make backdoor deals with corporate interests, the Premier flagrantly disobeys access to information law, he views Charter rights as optional extras to be respected when he feels like, he’s disrespected collective bargaining and cost taxpayers more in legal fees and interest payments to teachers, nurses, and public servants broadly than it would have taken to just pay a fucking fair wage in the first place.
It’s a travesty that this province might elect someone so catastrophically obsessed with the dumbest shit possible. Instead of building transit to get cars off the road, or making it easier to live near your job and not an hour's drive away by mandating 4 units or hell, stay with me, 6 units as of right, or doing any number of things to make congestion ease, he’s going to rip out bike lanes. He’s going to impose decisions on cities to rip out bike lanes. That is the great crisis of our times, that bikers aren’t dying enough. What are we even fucking talking about?
And then we come to Marit Stiles’ NDP, a fundamentally unserious party if I’ve ever seen one and one that absolutely does not deserve to keep opposition. I was fully expecting to vote for Stiles’ NDP when this election came, but the NDP have been a disaster. Their first big announcement of the campaign being a pledge to remove tolls from, and potentially buy back, the 407 - a costly and uncosted promise that would subsidize car use, induce more traffic, fail to solve any problems, and destroy what little fiscal wiggle room we have going into what could be a very painful year economically is just delightful. Truly, what a policy to meet the moment.
The party’s housing policy is a joke that every even semi serious economist has pointed out doesn’t pencil out. Their big health care announcement so far is that they want to make it easier for admin staff to do some paperwork so doctors and nurses can see more patients, which is fine but not meeting the moment. They talk a lot in vague generalities about respecting workers and paying teachers and nurses and doctors more but that’s also Liberal policy so it’s not a dividing line. And while the NDP are in many ways not objectionable, they’re also not proposing anything that makes me get excited.
Elections are not about perfection, they’re about making the best of circumstances and situations. I support Bonnie Crombie and the Liberals because they are the party best placed to make progress on the issues that matter. I’m sure I’ll be endlessly frustrated with a Crombie government if that is what is delivered, but I would much rather fight with a Crombie government that doesn't go far enough for my lefty principles than deal with another day of Doug Ford. She is the only available option for change, and it is incumbent on us to meet this moment.
February 27th, I’m voting Liberal to make Bonnie Crombie Premier.
I hope Ontario does the same.
(With the Ontario election here and the Liberal Leadership race apace, I’m continuing to ramp up coverage. If you’d like to fund the Scrimshaw Strategic Rum Reserve or just say thanks for the avalanche of content, consider a paid subscription. All my work will continue to remain free as I progressively am driven to madness.)
This was a good read, Evan. I wish I’d learned half of what you explained about Crombie’s policies from a barrage of media interviews and ads on the web.
Conservatives have been telling us all how great they are ad nauseam. My hope is that people are tired of the ever present BS (I know I am), because it doesn’t match their lived experience, but my fear is that people are all too willing to believe often repeated misinformation.
I have another suggestion for the primary care crisis: open more publicly funded nurse practitioner led clinics. These clinics engage a small number of family docs who consult whenever they’re needed, but the NPs lead — so the docs are effectively managing a much smaller caseload. There are only about 25 of these primary care clinics — yet Ontario has more qualified NPs than any other province. Our NP is wonderful, she takes time with us (she’s paid a salary from the province), she is a phenomenal advocate, and she provides the best care we’ve ever had — bar none. So yes, we definitely need to recruit more docs, but there are other ways we can connect people with care besides allowing more for-profit organizations like Maple to set up shop.
> It’s a credible plan to bring Ontario out of the housing crisis and get building, so that rents can fall, Ontarians can move out and move around more freely, and not spend all their income on housing.
This is simply totally false. These are good policies, but the private market will always reduce supply if it looks like rents/prices are falling. It is simply _not possible_ for the private market to deliver long-term affordability - if you think it will, you need to be able to explain why landowners would voluntarily destroy the value of their asset (hint: they won't). These policies will, at best, slow the rate of housing inflation. That's not nothing, but it's a continent away from "a credible plan to bring Ontario out of housing crisis". There is a 0% chance it will do that, it's completely impossible.
You've got to stop pushing that false narrative.