(Nathaniel Arfin is one of the smartest minds in progressive politics, a former Special Assistant in Justin Trudeau’s PMO, and one of the co-founders of the New Leaf Liberals. He also played a significant role in Nathaniel Erskine-Smith’s digital operation in 2023, and I’m happy to have my friend write for Scrimshaw Unscripted on the leadership question facing the OLP.)
I would have loved to have been wrong.
I worked on Nate Erskine-Smith’s 2023 campaign, but I’m a committed Liberal who wants Doug Ford to lose. I’m the husband of an educator who sees the damage he’s causing to her profession up close, and that alone drives me to want better and more, let alone all his other failures. I wanted to be wrong.
The implicit, and sometimes even explicit, pitch Bonnie Crombie made was that she could win the election, and stop Doug Ford. She didn’t run in Milton because there were things she could do from outside the legislature to strengthen the party. She was going to revive the party in the 905, where her time as Mayor of Mississauga was going to be the key to doing what my old boss couldn’t do.
I wanted to be wrong about the quotes in December’s Starprofile about how she thought it would be easier and how she wasn’t really ready for the job, that she’d be able to recover from them. I wanted to be wrong before and during the campaign, when they projected confidence I didn’t understand. And even after the election, when it was clear Crombie wasn’t going to resign willingly, I wanted to be wrong that she needed to go, because I wanted to be surprised by the nimbleness and usefulness of our People’s Opposition. But I haven’t been.
Crombie’s time as leader has seen the party remain complacent, treating insufficient progress as a cause for celebration and failing to focus on what could have been. My home riding of Burlington was lost by 39 votes, one of the many second places often touted by Crombie’s team. We shouldn’t feel good about that result, or the number of other close losses - we should feel deep shame that we failed good candidates who ran great campaigns.
The platform had great ideas, but launching the platform less than a week before the election and after the debate was a big error. We had the ideas to do great things for Ontarians, and we didn’t have the leadership. The NDP managed to hold the line in their core seats, meaning Doug Ford was vulnerable. Maybe we were never going to deprive him of a majority, but there were seats we should have won that would make the job easier next time.
Crombie, faced with the prospect of losing her job, has embarked on a summer tour, meeting as many Liberals as she can to try and keep her job. I don’t blame her for that, anyone is going to fight for their job. But it does raise an obvious question - where were these public events in 2024, when she was fighting Doug Ford? On this site, a barnstorming tour was proposed last summer highlighting key issues and the Liberal solutions to them a year ago. It may sound unfair, but why does Crombie only go on tour when it’s to save her leadership?
Her refusal to even consider a deal with the Greens that could have potentially helped us win seats is the same problem - it’s unambitious at a time when we need to be trying everything. At a time when there’s no idea too crazy to at least consider, when we need a Liberal government more than anything, we have to at least consider every offer. We have to take risks, because the status quo left us with 14 seats and 3rd place.
Crombie did Theresa Lubowitz’ podcast – a commendable choice, to talk about the campaign and her leadership in long form. It was an attempt to answer questions that served only to raise more. The party refused to spend any money on ads in 2024 because of the risk of an early 2025 election, but they weren’t planning for a 2025 election until January 2025. There were “issues” with Mississauga East-Cooksville, but Crombie never explains why she didn’t make a decision about where to run until late in the game. But more than anything, she never gave us a reason to believe this result was good enough.
If you had told anybody in 2023 that we’d only gain 5 seats, the Leader would still be outside the Legislature, and they’d be attempting to stay on, they’d laugh. If they found out it was Crombie, who ridiculed the campaign I worked with for saying it would take multiple elections to form government, they would be shocked. This would never have been good enough, and we all know it. Her backers have to pretend Crombie didn’t say we’d win, and then pretend that the December Star piece set the bar at double what we ended up with, and then pretend even the night of the election the bar was 20 seats with Bonnie having one. But we don’t have to pretend.
I want an Ontario Liberal Party that can win the next election. That’s what matters, and if the answer is a more moderate leader than my views I will joyfully embrace their leadership. But if the tradeoff was moderation in the name of winning, winning has to be the result. Saying now that you’ve learned vague lessons isn’t enough. The vote in September is about whether we can trust that this leadership – who have failed once already - will be the ones to save the day next time. I don’t think they’ve earned that trust.
As a party, we’ve seen what a new leader can do when we take a chance. Stale leadership hanging on because of inertia nearly left us with a Poilievre government and no ability to enact progressive change for a decade federally. We can’t make that mistake again. It’s time for new ideas, a broad field of contenders to make their pitch, and the Ontario Liberal Party to decide that “good enough” isn’t actually good enough. There’s a chance to make our party a fighting force that can go into every community and make the case for Liberal values. There’s an opportunity to rebuild trust with unions and labour. There’s an opportunity to meet with community groups and every-day people who want a better Ontario. There’s a chance to make a stronger Ontario Liberal Party to defeat Doug Ford.
It’s in our hands.
I don't completely disagree with this piece. It does speak to me in some ways. But, the stated singular ambition of winning and beating Doug Ford is problematically hollow - and speaks to a large problem that needs to be solved before winning can happen. Of course, the goal of a party should be to win, but a party also needs policy goals to stand for in order to attract votes. It needs a raison d'être other than just winning or keeping the other leader/party out of the seat of power.
I know leaders take over a party and help to drive the policy platform, so it's premature to create a policy agenda here and now. But, it's also not convincing to non-Liberals to just talk about winning, replacing, a leader that can win, etc. It just stinks of self-interested partisan competitiveness without concern for the public or interest in actually accomplishing important things for the public's benefit. It would have been more persuasive and compelling to see this piece discuss general principles and goals that you would like to see the party pursue under Crombie or a different leader - rather than just winning. Especially when we can't know definitively at this point what will comprise a winning leader and party in the next election.
The critique of Crombie is also rather superficial. Yes, we can critique a losing campaign. Sure. There are always mistakes to learn from. But, maybe Crombie and her team have learned from any mistakes. Maybe not - and I need to see more from them before I'll believe they've learned and improved. But, criticizing the lack of ad spend in 2024 either willfully or ignorantly overlooks the fact that the party did not have enough money for an impactful pre-election ad campaign in 2024. Criticizing Crombie for rhetoric about her ability to win the election ignores the fact that this is how all leaders and parties need to talk because they have to project an image of a leader/party that can win, so that voters don't write them off as a wasted vote. It's just silly to hold her accountable for that rhetoric.
And, also, lets acknowledge the elephant in the room: It was likely impossible to beat Doug Ford in that election, given how Trump altered the political terrain and the masterclass Captain Canada performance Ford delivered in response to that shift. It is always difficult for new leaders who are not highly familiar to voters to attract their vote, but it was much more difficult in a scary environment of uncertainty where voters wanted stability and protection from (the devil) leaders they knew and trusted.
For me, this New Leaf movement needs to speak more substantively about policy and mission rather than just about winning and hypothetical alternative leader figures that supposedly can win bigger than Crombie. What are the principles and policies you disagree with her on? What would you like to see different in the policy agenda for the party? What will be the party's mission for the next election and if they win government. For me, that's substantive and important. And it is for the public too. Otherwise, it just looks like parties seeking power for themselves.
I say all this as someone that would probably like Crombie to leave and a new leader to take her place. But, I am also under no illusions that it will be easy to find a good, compelling, election-winning leader. The grass is always greener, folks. Who knows if Crombie will be replaced by someone better. Who knows if she might be better in a second campaign - I'm doubtful, but I was doubtful about McGuinty after his first losing campaign too.
I'd probably like to see her vacate the position, but the New Leaf movement isn't exactly knocking my socks off with their weak criticisms, the lack of substantive policy and mission talk, and naive assumptions that you'll definitely replace her with a winner.
Also, the New Leaf movement totally appears to just be Nate's leadership campaign pretending to be a movement - all the while just looking to install him as leader by riding a faux "movement". So, there's that.
And, I'm not opposed to Nate as leader either. He might be good. He might not. I see pluses and I see cautions. I love his policy depth and ideas. I don't love his aggressive response to not being put into cabinet or his frequent impulsiveness. I'm not ready to knock him down or oppose him, but I'm also not putting him on pedestal.
There needs to be a different face, different voice and plan for the Liberals. It is still so hard for me to understand why Bonnie won over Nate. I just shake my head at this. How far Ontario could have gone by now to improving the lives of people in the province. Love to see Nate there but he’s been bounced around by every liberal party he’s been attached to, and honestly, not sure if I was him, if I’d attached myself to them future. (Maybe orange is his new best friend). But Liberals need strong, transparent, progressive leadership. Not centrist … we’ve got a Federal Government that is almost tiger striped red and blue. They enjoy a great popularity now, but that’s typical of war time govt and Canadians feel we are at war or on the cusp of it. Bonnie is too blue. Not new. Tested and failed. Next…