Interim leader of Liberal party says Ontario made the right call voting them out

TORONTO – The interim leader of Ontario’s struggling Liberals said voters made the “right call” in stripping his party of power – and official party status – in the last provincial election.

John Fraser, who was one of only seven Liberals to win a seat in June’s vote, told the Ontario Liberal Provincial Council that the party must acknowledge and learn from its mistakes.

“The truth is last June voters told us in pretty unequivocal terms, they’d had enough of us. That after 15 years, they wanted change,” Fraser said.

“They put us in the penalty box. Time will tell for how long. And, frankly, they made the right call.”

He said the party lost its message during the campaign, and in turn, lost the election. To regain it, he said he’d look to the party grassroots – and particularly the Ontario Young Liberals – for guidance.

“That’s the foundation,” said Fraser. “That’s where a lot of our energy and ideas and leadership has always come from. From young, bright, talented, motivated people with new ideas for a new era.”

He said he foresees more young people being driven to the Liberals by what he characterizes as “chaos” brought on by Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government.

He also pointed to the party’s history in coming back from adversity, noting that Dalton McGuinty rebuilt the party in the 1990s with a team of volunteers “riding by riding, meeting by meeting, dollar by dollar, driving across this province.”

After his speech, Fraser highlighted that the “dollar by dollar” piece of rebuilding will be particularly important, noting that the campaign put the party more than $9 million in debt.

“We have a plan in place. We’ve got to raise money, but we’ve done it many other times,” he said. “It’s going to be hard work. All of this is going to be hard work.”