SCOOP: Who's who on Crombie's campaign crew
And meet Milton's likely Liberal candidate
ABOVE THE FOLD
UPDATE: The Liberals have since revealed her official campaign team. The article below is unchanged.
First in Observer I — Twenty years later, BONNIE CROMBIE is reviving her old campaign crew for 2026.
Just over two years out from the next election, the new Grit captain isn’t wasting any time (and when it comes to her image, neither are her rivals). Crombie’s already enlisted election readiness and policy development heads on the caucus side, and now, she’s assembling a campaign team that can give DOUG FORD and the PCs — and MARIT STILES’s NDP for that matter — a run for their money.
Fresh and familiar faces: Sources tell me veteran Grit operative TOM ALLISON will be the campaign director. Allison most recently worked on ANA BAILÃO’s bid for Toronto mayor, and is helping Queen’s Park alumni and mayoral hopeful DIPIKA DAMERLA in Mississauga. And the rest:
CHAD WALSH, who worked on KATHLEEN WYNNE’s 2018 campaign and in the then-premier’s office, will lead fundraising efforts.
STEVIE O’BRIEN, former top staffer at the Park and on the Hill, is the nominations commissioner and will head up the candidate selection process.
Lawyer ALEXIS LEVINE will serve as Crombie’s representative and liaison to the Ontario Liberal Party executive, including party prez KATHRYN McGARRY.
Party counsel MILTON CHAN and repeat chief returning officer SIMON TUNSTALL will also hold senior roles on the Grits 2026 revival squad.
Ditto pollster DON GUY, longtime DALTON McGUINTY-era aide DAVID GENE and senior strategist TIM MURPHY.
No word on what campaign role, if any, will go to DARRYN McARTHUR, who’s been Crombie’s right-hand person since the leadership contest.
Putting the old band back together: Crombie and Allison go way back, to their days working on MICHAEL IGNATIEFF’s unsuccessful bid for federal leader circa 2006, for which he was the runner-up. Levine and Walsh were also on Team Ignatieff.
Some Liberals aren’t happy about that political baggage. “Crombie has reunited the crew behind the Hindenburg,” texted one cheeky insider.
Still, it’s been nearly twenty years since the Ignatieff flop, with plenty of campaign wins and losses since. “All you have to do is just look at the polls in those key ridings — it’s anybody’s game at this point,” said another senior Grit operative.
UPDATE II — I’m naming more names on the campaign crew.
UPDATE: SARAH MARSHALL is no longer in the running for Milton. The Grits are going back to the drawing board — but what’s almost certain: Crombie isn’t expected to run. Get the latest here (the story below has not been updated).
First in Observer II — MEANWHILE IN MILTON — SARAH MARSHALL is expected to carry the Grit banner for the upcoming byelection.
Sources tell me Marshall — a local councillor who reps Ward 4 in Milton — could be named the candidate. That means seat-less Crombie, who had been mulling a bid of her own, won’t be attempting to join the (unrecognized) Liberals at the Leg just yet.
Crombie hinted as much when she was in the riding for a Women’s Day rally, telling reporters that Milton deserves a strong local contender and that “if it won’t be me, it’ll be the best candidate” for the community.
Sources first told me they expect the byelection call to come any day now, likely by the end of the month, and that it could be a double-header with the byelection in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex.
Back in Milton, the PCs have picked candidate ZEE HAMID, the former councillor with close Liberal ties. Hamid has enlisted BLAIR HAINS to manage his byelection campaign. Regular readers will know by now that Hains is chief of staff to Education Minister STEPHEN LECCE and, before that, chief to the Long-Term Care Minister.
HAPPENING TODAY
9:30 a.m.: NDP Leader MARIT STILES is in the Media Studio to pump up her motion aimed at unlocking “thousands of hours of direct care to patients amid a provincewide shortage of doctors,” which is up for debate this afternoon. (More on that momentarily.)
ON THE ORDER PAPER
And we’re back! MPPs return from their ridings following the constit week break.
First up: It’s another round of third-reading debate on Bill 149, Labour Minister DAVID PICCINI’s Working for Workers Act 4.0.
Recall: That’s the labour-friendly package that includes banning unpaid trial shifts for hospitality workers, beefing up rules to stop employers from deducting wages if customers dine-and-dash or gas-and-dash, and forcing employers to disclose if they are dipping into the pooled tip jar. Also: Banning NDAs re: workplace misconduct, disclosing salary ranges, and prohibiting employers from requiring Canadian work experience in job postings.
After the morning’s Question Period, a deferred vote: On PC RUDY CUZZETTO’s (now-fulfilled) motion calling on the feds to scrap the booze tax hike slated for April 1 (it’s been capped at 2 per cent for another two years).
Later on, it’s Oppo Motion Day #2. NDP Leader MARIT STILES will kick off the special debate on her motion calling on the Ford government to “urgently implement a strategy to increase the number of staff support for primary care providers so they can spend their time treating patients instead of doing paperwork” — especially in light of bleak stats that show 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor.
Reminder: Motions are non-binding but have symbolic value — and force the ruling PCs to vote on pitches that don’t exactly paint them in the best light.
ON THE COMMITTEE CIRCUIT
9 a.m.: Rural Affairs Minister LISA THOMPSON will be the opening act for public committee hearings on Bill 155, which makes governance changes to the Agricultural Research Institute. Also on the witness roster: Deputy Minister JOHN KELLY, the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph, Berry Growers of Ontario, Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, Chicken Farmers of Ontario. Full lineup.
Over at Public Accounts, it’s a closed-session day of drafting reports re: the Auditor General’s audits of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority and Real Estate Council of Ontario.
COCKTAIL CHATTER
Receptions are also back in full swing. The Festival Management Committee, which oversees Toronto’s Caribbean Carnival, is putting on an MPP lunch in Room 228. Later on, the Mortgage Professionals of Canada is hosting in the Dining Room.
AROUND THE PRECINCT — Badge of honour: Legislative security officers are getting a new title: Protective Service Officer, which you’ll now see on their vests. It doesn’t change their authority as Peace Officers.
CLIPPINGS
— FULLERTON DISHES: The first part of ex-Long-Term Care minister MERRILEE FULLERTON’s tell-all book that this newsletter first told you about last year is now out — and it’s just as shady as we hoped. Fullerton, who’s releasing “A Physician in the Political Arena” piecemeal on Substack, explained why she abruptly exited Ford’s front benches last year.
As for why she left: “Let me tell you upfront…I learned firsthand the inadequacies of politics when it comes to making meaningful reforms to our health care system.”
She goes on to say: “In retrospect, I now better understand those blank stares from my cabinet colleagues and the officials I was working with. They were the glazed over eyes of people who had no background in medicine or science, no real-world experience with viruses or emergency health planning….I learned what it meant to have my professional voice silenced…Politics trumped medicine…I had no desire to stay and be a ‘seat filler’ in the Ford government. The trappings of ministerial office were not meaningful to me…I had to leave politics to get my voice back.”
Fullerton has already called out health care lobbyists, bureaucrats and hospital administrators. I’ll continue to parse her book for juicy tidbits so you don’t have to.
— ABOUT THAT UPCOMING HOUSING BILL: One urban planner claims Cabinet “lost their shit” about Housing Minister PAUL CALANDRA’s soon-to-be-tabled housing legislation. While there’s been speculation about the possibility of greenlighting as-of-right fourplexes provincewide, they claim “it’s been NIMBY’ed already,” so gauge your expectations.
— IT’S AN EMERGENCY! “A program that helps rural and northern Ontario hospitals avoid temporary ER closures is set to expire at the end of the month, with no signal from the government as to whether it will be extended, made permanent or simply end.” More from CP.
— ABDI CASE: “Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner will hold an inquest into the 2016 death of ABDIRAHMAN ABDI following his violent arrest by two Ottawa police officers. The 37-year-old Somali-Canadian, who struggled with his mental health, died following the confrontation on July 24, 2016.” CBC has the story.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
First in Observer — TRANSITION, EXIT — In Multiculturalism Minister MICHAEL FORD’s office, TRENT JENNETT is taking over as interim director of policy, replacing JAMES YOUSIF. Jennett and Ford go way back, to the latter’s City Hall days. More recently at the Pink Palace, Jennett was senior policy adviser.
STAFFING UP — INNA CHYRVA is now Seniors Minister RAYMOND CHO’s daily planner.
HOT OFF THE PRESS — KAREN HOWLETT, a former Press Gallery member and #onpoli scoop-machine, is retiring after four decades at the Globe.
SPOTTED:
Campaign office ribbon-cuttings in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex: PC STEVE PINSONNEAULT, NDPer KATHRYN SHAILER and Liberal CATHY BURGHARDT-JESSON…Government workers wiping away community chalk art at boarded-up Ontario Place, much to New Democrats’ chagrin…PCs NATALIA KUSENDOVA and MATT RAE talking infrastructure in Germany…Tories weigh in on Canada’s age-old debate: shawarma vs. donair.
LOBBYING DISPATCH
Here are the new, renewed and amended registrations since Friday:
Christopher Chapin, Upstream Strategy Group: Antler Kitchen and Bar, DoorDash Inc.
Aaron Gairdner, Rubicon Strategy: Ozz Electric Inc, Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario
Mitch Heimpel, Enterprise Canada: Westcliff University
Jim Burnett, Pathway Group: Niagara Global Developments Ltd.
Jordan Penic, Sussex Strategy Group: Wyse Meter Solutions
Michael Ras, Caroline Pinto, Shawn Cruz and Charles Harnick, Counsel Public Affairs: Waste Connections of Canada
Fraser Macdonald and Kelly Baker, StrategyCorp: Forum Investment Development Corporation
Aidan Grove-White, StrategyCorp: Ontario Professional Planners Institute
In-house organizations: Ontario Mining Association — Bombardier — IBM Canada — Kyndryl Canada — Cochlear Americas.
🥳 HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Retired PC JIM McDONELL.
🍽️ ON THE MENU: Wondering whether to pick up lunch or brown-bag it? Chicken stir-fry with rice and vegetables is on special in the basement cafeteria.
⏳ COUNTDOWN: T-minus 8 days until the Budget…13 days until the Sunshine List is due out…16 days until the Premier has to call a byelection for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex...149 days until the call for Milton…84 days until the Mississauga mayoral election.