Fresh from winning a decades-long struggle to separate Mississauga from the Region of Peel, Bonnie Crombie is using the moment to catapult herself into the Ontario Liberal leadership race.
The Mississauga mayor and former Liberal MP is launching an exploratory committee for her leadership bid, formalizing a challenge that has long been rumoured in Liberal circles. The committee would mark the first formal step toward running to be Ontario Liberal leader.
The decision means that, just days after sharing a podium with Premier Doug Ford, Crombie could be set on a path that pits her directly against the premier and his PC Party.
“I want to be leader of a Liberal government that puts people first,” Crombie said on her campaign website BonnieForLeader.com.
Crombie quietly launched the website over the weekend highlighting health care, education and affordability as the key issues her campaign would focus on.
“Under this government, they have made things worse through cutbacks and underfunding of key public services,” Crombie’s message said. “They have the wrong priorities for our province.”
Crombie also takes swipes at the Ford government’s recent controversies over the Ontario Place mega spa and the taxpayer-funded parking garage, suggesting the money would be better spent on health care.
“We cannot afford more of what this government has done over the past five years,” Crombie said. “I can’t stand by as the current government takes us down the wrong path and does irrevocable damage for generations.”
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Crombie and Premier Doug Ford have sparred in increasingly bitter public debates over a range of housing and planning issues.
The tone changed on Thursday, when the province handed Mississauga a decision that both Crombie and her predecessor, Hazel McCallion, had spent their mayoral careers fighting for.
In the background, as the historic process played out, sources tell Global News that Crombie was making phone calls to gauge support ahead of the launch of her exploratory committee. She also made appearances at both the national and provincial Liberal conventions.
The Ontario Liberal Party executive said candidates will have to pay an $100,000 entry fee and a refundable $25,000 deposit.
Liberals will pick the next leader using a ranked ballot vote on Nov. 25 and 26; the party is set to release round-by-round results on Dec. 2, the weekend after the vote.
Unlike the Ontario NDP, which acclaimed Marit Stiles as the party leader after she was the sole candidate in its leadership race earlier in 2023, the Liberals have seen a number of high-profile names on the unofficial campaign trail.
Candidates include federal MP Nate Erskine-Smith, former Ontario cabinet minister and current Liberal MP Yasir Naqvi, and Ontario Liberal MPPs Ted Hsu and Adil Shamji.
Crombie’s bid could be based in part on her strong naming recognition through the vote-rich GTA-905 area and her apparent ability to get under Ford’s skin.
Crombie, for example, infuriated Ford when she led a municipal outcry against provincial legislation that stripped away the development charges Mississauga and other cities relied on to pay for infrastructure.
A mail-out campaign warning Mississauga residents of a potential tax increase related to the Ford government’s policies led to friction between the two leaders and triggered a rant by the premier at a transit announcement in Brampton.
“We have a few mayors that, you know, don’t want to play in the sandbox and one being Mayor Crombie, and I don’t know what her issue is,” Ford said in December.
In a recent re-opening of hostilities, the Ford government granted a Minister’s Zoning Order for a 16,000-unit development in Mississauga that local councillors explicitly said they did not support.
Asked about Crombie’s leadership ambitions at an unrelated press conference in Mississauga, Ford skirted the question.
“I’ve said this from day one: Mayor Crombie’s been a great partner in helping build Mississauga,” he said, pivoting to talk about the city’s growth and development.
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