Candidates bet big-name endorsements will help sway Ontario Liberal leadership race

Party veterans say endorsements, especially from prominent Liberals, are becoming increasingly important in the race where ranked ballots will be cast online in 124 ridings across the province for 12 days before the winner is announced.

That’s in contrast to the party’s last delegated convention in 2013, when more than 2,000 Liberals from across Ontario crowded into the Mattamy Athletic Centre at the old Maple Leaf Gardens. After the candidates took the stage to make final appeals for votes, delegates picked Kathleen Wynne on a dramatic third ballot that crowned her leader — and premier.  

“These endorsements now make more of a difference because people are making up their minds before they walk into the room,” Wynne told the Star in an interview this week.

The rush is on to line up endorsements — influencers, if you will — with a looming Sept. 7 deadline to join the party in order to vote for a new leader to tackle Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in the next election, which is expected in 2029.  

“In a race like this, where none of the frontrunners are all that well known, having the backing of someone else can be pretty helpful,” said former deputy premier and veteran cabinet minister Dwight Duncan, who ran for leader in 1996.

The winner that year was Dalton McGuinty, a little-known backbencher from suburban Ottawa who later served as premier from 2003 to 2013.

Candidates in this fall’s contest are touting their endorsements on social media and on their websites in a competition to show momentum and appeal.

Former federal cabinet minister Navdeep Bains, for example, has Burlington MP Karina Gould (who ran for federal leader last year against Mark Carney), MPP Andrea Hazell (Scarborough-Guildwood), former Ontario energy minister Brad Duguid and Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi (a 2023 Ontario Liberal leadership candidate), to name a handful.

“These are people who’ve worked alongside him, watched him deliver and believe he has what it takes to rebuild the party and help Ontario lead again,” said Bains spokesperson Belinda Bien. 

The fundraising leader to date, Bains is facing challenges from two MPPs who argue the party needs a leader with a seat in the Ontario legislature — something the last two did not have.

“Endorsements demonstrate to party members that people they know and trust have made the decision to get behind a candidate,” said MPP Lee Fairclough (Etobicoke-Lakeshore).

Her backers include fellow caucus members Stephanie Smyth, Tyler Watt, Ted Hsu and Lucille Collard, former deputy prime minister John Manley, former Ontario health minister and deputy premier Deb Matthews, and former Ontario finance minister and current Mississauga-Lakeshore MP Charles Sousa — who himself ran for leader in 2013. 

Second-term MPP Stephanie Bowman, from Wynne’s old riding of Don Valley West, has three fellow members of the legislature in her camp — Mary-Margaret McMahon, Rob Cerjanec and Karen McCrimmon — as well as former Ontario health minister Elinor Caplan and former deputy prime minister Sheila Copps.

“Stay tuned for more,” Bowman told the Star.

Dylan Marando, who served as a policy adviser to Wynne, McGuinty and Justin Trudeau when they were in power and worked as a health company executive before entering the race, counts several high-profile Liberals on his roster. 

“We have built a team that knows how to win and knows how to govern,” he said, noting backers include former MP Adam Vaughan, former McGuinty and Trudeau adviser Ben Chin, former federal Indigenous affairs minister Bob Nault, and Chris Ballard, a former Ontario housing and environment minister.

Leadership hopeful Eric Lombardi, a financial technology engineer and housing advocate, scoffed at the trend.

“Endorsements make a campaign look bright and shiny, but they don’t lower the price of groceries, they don’t fix a broken health-care system, and they don’t build a single home,” he said in a statement.

“I’m not chasing a list of names. I’m focused on the ideas that will actually make life easier for people in this province: more homes, better primary care, a growing economy, and a party that works for its members,” he added.

“I’d rather earn votes with a plan than collect names for a headline.”

Earning endorsements takes work, Wynne and Duncan said.

In her 2013 leadership bid after McGuinty resigned, Wynne recalled meetings with Hazel McCallion, then mayor of Mississauga.  

“She wasn’t a Liberal … but she was such a strong woman figure in Ontario that it was a real honour to have her sitting beside me at the convention with (former Liberal leader) Lyn McLeod on the other side,” said the first woman to become Ontario’s premier.

“They sent a message to the women in the party and the party in general.”

Wynne has donated to the campaigns of Fairclough and Marando but has yet to issue a formal endorsement.

Backing from MPPs sends a strong signal, said Duncan.

“If you have a lot of support from your caucus colleagues, that’s a good barometer of the kind of person you are, both as a leader and as an individual,” he added.

“When you get caucus support, you’re hoping that you’re going to get organizational muscle. Some of them deliver.” 

After eight years mired in third place behind the New Democrats in the legislature since Ford’s landslide 2018 victory, Duncan said Liberals have their fingers crossed for a breakthrough in the next election.  

“The Ford government’s getting a little long in the tooth now. It’s got some baggage and made some mistakes. There’s clearly an opportunity.”