No Ontario Election In 2024, Doug Ford Says, But Doesn’t Rule Out Early Vote In 2025
Ontario Premier Doug Ford ruled out calling an early election this year, but left the door open on Tuesday to calling one in 2025.
The province’s next fixed election date isn’t until June 2026, but Ford continued to dance around the issue of whether or not he’ll call an early election.
“We aren’t having an election this year,” the premier said at an unrelated news conference, without providing further clarity on whether he would call an early vote.
Ford confirmed, however, that he has given his party’s members of provincial parliament a December deadline to decide if they will run again.
“You always have to be prepared,” he said when asked about the nomination process that usually kicks off some six months before an election.
“We aren’t too far from any election no matter if it’s next year or the following year and we have to know where we’re moving and going and making sure we have good candidates.”
He said in the interim, his government will focus on job creation, health care, education and infrastructure projects like building highways and transit.
“We’re going to focus on what people want right now and that’s a good paying job, making sure that we do the infrastructure right across the province that people need by building the hospitals and the schools,” he said.
The premier had previously left open the possibility of an early election when asked about one last spring.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford attends a housing announcement in Belleville, Ont., on Friday, March 1, 2024.
Those musings kicked off a summer of campaign preparations from the opposition parties, as well as the majority-government Tories.
Ontario’s New Democrats raised $1.1 million in 10 weeks over the summer as Opposition Leader Marit Stiles crisscrossed the province.
“These numbers send a clear message that Ontarians are stepping up behind Marit,” Kevin Beaulieu, the party’s provincial director, wrote in a statement.
The party said they received nearly 20,000 contributions over that time frame making the average donation just shy of $52.
“The Ontario NDP relies primarily on smaller donations from a larger number of ordinary Ontarians than the other parties,” Beaulieu said.
The Liberals — who are introducing their new leader, Bonnie Crombie, to voters — started putting out calls to potential campaign staff and volunteers this summer, and began nominating candidates.
