Bonnie vs. The Boys, Doug vs. The Don
Dock parties and damage control
ABOVE THE FOLD
The provincial Grits are eating their own — again. Less than two months out from BONNIE CROMBIE’s leadership review, party insiders are leaking, scheming and sharpening their attacks — some even wondering aloud if it’s too late to find a new captain. Meanwhile, DOUG FORD is hosting his fellow Premiers in cottage country, with Blue Rodeo, beer (policy) and a little lakeside bonding with the Prime Minister on the docket — but tariffs, health care and possibly even constitutional reform won’t be far behind. Let’s hop to it.
RED ALERT — The Ontario Liberals are at war with themselves again. With Crombie’s leadership review around the corner in September, it appears she’s on thin ice with some in her base. She’s been schmoozing, but not quite selling herself in a way people want — and that’s ticking off some of the party faithful. NATE ERSKINE-SMITH — the Beaches-East York MP and runner-up in the 2023 leadership race — is circling like a vulture, and not being subtle about it.
And so: The Liberals are not just divided on if Crombie should stay, but on whether NES is a viable alternative.
Erskine-Smith blasted an email Friday all but calling for Crombie’s resignation. “Renewal starts at the top,” he wrote, taking square aim at her February campaign showing, which he said was not “anywhere close to good enough.” The email accused Crombie of being “unprepared for an early campaign” that pretty much everyone and their mother expected, “invisible for too much of 2024,” and lacking a vision for Ontarians, who have kept the Libs in the penalty box for the past two elections.
“We were just another not Doug Ford party,” he charged, “and failed to unite progressive Ontarians looking for serious leadership and change.”
One Liberal operative’s read on all that: “Nate declares war.”
Hours earlier, Crombie’s crew — in a message not personally signed by her, or anyone specific besides “Team Bonnie” — sent a missive of their own, warning that triggering a new leadership race would give “Doug Ford exactly what he wants: a distracted, divided party.” The internal vote, they stressed, “is not a leadership review or a campaign review — this is a vote on whether or not to call a new leadership election.” The email raised concerns about party finances (leadership races don’t come cheap, especially when you’re still paying off campaign debt), stalled momentum and the risk of drifting inward instead of focusing on legislative moves at Queen’s Park.
Between the lines: Crombie’s camp is betting on the fear that if they ditch her now, the party collapses into chaos. Or, as the email put it bluntly: “Let’s move forward, not backward.”
But but but: The New Leaf Liberals — a group tied to Erskine-Smith’s 2023 leadership bid — are circulating a petition demanding Crombie step down if she doesn’t hit 66 per cent support at the September AGM. Technically, she only needs 50 per cent plus one to survive. But in practice, anything below two-thirds is seen as a political kiss of death. Just ask ex-PC leader JOHN TORY.
Erskine-Smith made that crystal clear in his email: “51% is obviously not enough.” Salt in the wounds: “The leader and her team are trying to socialize the idea that an untenable 51% mandate is an acceptable result…If a leader can’t earn clear majority support of card-carrying Liberal members, how can they possibly be expected to earn the support of the millions who did not vote Liberal in the election?”
Behind the scenes, the dynamic is even more raw. Liberal sources tell me Crombie’s one-on-one charm offensive with would-be delegates is falling flat. “She’s not [explicitly] asking for their vote,” said one longtime Grit. “She’s acting like this is in the bag, but it’s not — not by a long shot.” Another strategist summed up the stakes like this: “If she wins, even if she just scrapes by, she can say she beat Nate…again.”
Not-so-behind the scenes: Erskine-Smith’s broadside may have backfired. His critics say the move is already forcing people to choose sides — and caucus is closing ranks around Crombie.
Ex-interim leader and longtime Liberal heavyweight JOHN FRASER declared his support the next day. “JOHN is very thoughtful and doesn’t endorse lightly,” the party’s former D-Comms noted on X. “Nate has already polarized the review in Crombie’s favour.”
Others were more savage. Said rookie MPP ROB CERJANEC: “I’m tired of this crap.” He acknowledged the last campaign “had its issues,” but said he’s had “good conversations with Bonnie Crombie about what went wrong and what we need to do to win. She agrees we need to do things differently.” A new leadership race, he added, “isn’t going to help us build the party.”
And MPP STEPHEN BLAIS went in for the kill: “The Ontario Liberal leadership isn’t a backup plan or safety net. Building for the future takes hard work and someone who is going to stick it out.”
Ivory tower irks: Don’t forget, the party’s executive and caucus formally backed Crombie’s leadership after the election — a move that irked some grassroots members who saw it as premature and orchestrated by party brass. But insiders are quick to note: those endorsements don’t actually count for much. It’s the delegates who get to decide her fate in September.
Still, it’s clear the NES email has turned a slow simmer into a roiling boil. “People who were lukewarm on Bonnie are now rallying behind her. And that’s not necessarily because she nailed the campaign — it’s because Nate made it about himself.”
LESS DOCK PARTY, MORE DAMAGE CONTROL — It may be peak cottage season in Huntsville, host of this summer’s Council of the Federation meeting, but the Premiers didn’t come to roast marshmallows — they came to put out political fires.
Topping the agenda: DONALD TRUMP’s latest tariff tantrum. The U.S. president has threatened a 35 per cent levy on all Canadian imports starting August 1, and that’s got the First Ministers bracing for economic impact.
Expect a big show of performative unity — or at least the illusion that the provinces and feds are rowing in the same direction — as both supply chains and political egos hang in the balance.
As this year’s chair of the Council of the Federation (and a rumoured PM hopeful), Ford is relishing the spotlight.
He’s billed the summit as a chance to “unleash the full potential of Canada’s economy” — code for: pipelines, mining and deregulation. That means lots of talk about the Ring of Fire, interprovincial trade barriers, and why it’s totally fine to fast-track major projects (even as Ontario and Ottawa face blowback from First Nations over the duty to consult).
Speaking of which: Indigenous partnerships will be front and centre on Day 1. At the table: The Assembly of First Nations, the Metis National Council and the Native Women’s Association of Canada. Ditto PM MARK CARNEY, who, like Ford, will probably get an earful about their respective Bill C-5 and Bill 5, which are heavy on the megaprojects, light on the consultation side.
That said: Ford has his host hat on and will be looking for a win — or at least a kumbaya-esque photo-op. A potential monkey wrench in all that: Alberta Premier DANIELLE SMITH’s wild-but-Wild-Rose-base-friendly pitch to reopen the constitution.
Protests aplenty: Meanwhile, the Ontario Health Coalition is planning to picket next door to the Deerhurst Resort where the Premiers are meeting.
Tuesday evening, the First Ministers will trade policy points for power chords at a Very Canadian gala. It’s part off-the-record networking event, part hangover in the making. The closing presser goes down Wednesday afternoon.