After nearly 6 years in power, Doug Ford's PCs start casting eyes on next election

Based on recent history, any Ontario premier who is midway through their second term in office ought to be looking over their shoulder with great concern.

In the past 40 years in this province, only one person has led their party to more than two election victories, and Dalton McGuinty was hobbled with a minority in that third win.  

Yet here is Premier Doug Ford, two majorities under his belt, nearing six years in office, and his PCs are sitting comfortably ahead in various publicly reported polls. That's despite the Greenbelt scandal and the ongoing RCMP investigation into it, despite the high cost of living eating into people's paycheques, and despite new leaders helming the opposition NDP and Liberals.

Perhaps that's why the mood was so upbeat among the Progressive Conservative members and political staffers at the party's policy conference this weekend in Niagara Falls.

The conference was the first gathering of its kind for the party since Ford admitted he'd been wrong to give developers the right to build housing on Greenbelt land, apologized for breaking his promise not to touch the protected area, and scrapped the policy that he'd been pushing for nearly a year.

He did all that in September in a Niagara Falls parking lot, just around the corner from the site of this weekend's party conference. While it may seem early to even think of the 2026 election, Ford's party held the conference both to hear from the PC grassroots about potential campaign ideas, and to shower a little love on them. 

"It's because of our members that we were first elected in 2018," Ford told a crowd of about 1,000 during his keynote speech on Saturday evening. "And it was because of you, our members, that we received an even bigger majority mandate in 2022."  

How big an achievement would a third straight majority be for Ford? No Ontario politician has accomplished that since the 1950s. 

Ford's speech was the only part of the PC conference open to media. He made no new announcements in the speech, instead focused on touting the province's economy and listing off his government's achievements. 

"Bringing prosperity the likes of which this province has never seen before," Ford said as he neared his conclusion. "Friends, together we will get it done." 

"Get it done" was of course the PC campaign slogan in the last election. To win the next election, according to party insiders, Ford needs to show voters that his government turned that catchphrase into action. 

"They're pushing forward on hospital builds, long-term care builds, schools," said Laryssa Waler, a Conservative strategist who previously worked as Ford's director of communications.

"You need those shovels in the ground well before an election. You really want some of those projects finished before the election, so that you can show progress and you can show that you're really responding to the needs of Ontarians," Waler said in an interview in Niagara Falls over the weekend.

Karl Baldauf, who served as a senior political adviser in the government's first term and is now senior vice president of the public affairs firm McMillan Vantage, says Ford needs to remain focused on things that are important to people, including affordability and jobs.