Bonnie Crombie wins Ontario Liberal leadership after 3 rounds of voting
CTV
Ontario Liberals have selected Bonnie Crombie, a three-term big city mayor and former MP who boasts that she gets under the skin of Premier Doug Ford, as their next leader to go head to head with the premier in the next provincial election.
Ontario Liberals have selected Bonnie Crombie, a three-term big city mayor and former MP who boasts that she gets under the skin of Premier Doug Ford, as their next leader to go head to head with the premier in the next provincial election.
Crombie was voted to the top job as the legislature's third party looks to rebuild following two successive electoral drubbings, and she said there is a lot of hard work ahead between now and the 2026 campaign.
“We have built this big, strong Liberal team and now, I hate to break it to you, but we have to dig a little deeper,” she told the leadership convention crowd in her victory speech Saturday.
“You know why, because Doug Ford and his Conservatives, they will be coming after us any minute now, so we have to be ready. We have to be ready to work even harder, but together...Ford and his cronies have been the opponents in our sights for this entire campaign.”
The mayor of Mississauga, Ont., beat Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith, Liberal MP and former provincial cabinet minister Yasir Naqvi, and former Liberal MP and current provincial caucus member Ted Hsu at an Ontario Liberal leadership convention that went through three rounds of ballot counting.
Crombie said she wants to see through the Mississauga and Peel Region budgets, then plans to resign as mayor “early in the new year.” She is so far undecided on whether she will seek a seat in the legislature, or if she will just travel the province to introduce herself to voters and drum up support for the party.
The Liberals had boasted that the leadership race saw the candidates sign up a record number of members, with more than 100,000 people eligible to vote for the new leader - up from 44,000 and 38,000 in the two previous contests.
