Tension emerges in second Ontario Liberal leadership debate

Former federal industry minister Navdeep Bains, who has raised the most money of the five candidates toward a $1 million spending limit in the Nov. 21 contest, proposed lower transit fares and expanded child care.

Then came Dylan Marando, 38, a policy adviser to Dalton McGuinty, Kathleen Wynne and Justin Trudeau when they were in power, warning “the affordability crisis is not going to be solved by Bay Street … the answers are going to come from Main Street.”

That’s when Eric Lombardi, a 32-year-old financial technology engineer, decided it was time to make a point.   

“Dylan, that sounded very nice, but I don’t think it said very much at all. And Nav, I haven’t seen that kind of planning or thinking on the actual substantive solutions that we need to be pursuing.”

Bains, 49, had a reply for Lombardi, who, like Marando, has never held public office.

“I definitely have a plan, and the reason I have a plan is because I know how to win. I won five times,” said Bains, who noted he was part of a team that helped former prime minister Justin Trudeau take the federal Liberals from a third-place party to government in 2015.

“And by the way, I have been on the ballot more than anyone on this stage, and I know what winning looks like.”

Bains has been touting that electoral experience to offset arguments from the other two candidates in the race — MPPs Stephanie Bowman (Don Valley West) and Lee Fairclough (Etobicoke-Lakeshore) — that they have something the last two party leaders have not: a seat in the legislature.

On affordability, Bowman, an accountant and former bank executive, pushed her plan for a small business tax cut and doubling Ontario Disability Support Program payments so that recipients do not have to live in “legislated poverty.”

She called for “an economy with heart” and said “Ontario is at a critical point” because people are worried about “crumbling public services.”

From a television studio in Brampton where the debate was livestreamed across the province, Fairclough, a former hospital chief executive who played on Canada’s 1998 World Cup rugby team, told viewers she’s the only candidate who has run a multimillion-dollar organization. 

Fairclough, 53, also hit on the need for renewal in a party that has had trouble making inroads with voters despite regularly holding second place in public opinion polls behind Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives and ahead of the official opposition New Democrats led by Marit Stiles.

After winning in a former PC riding by about 4,000 votes in last year’s election, she described how she did that following a narrow loss in the 2022 election — by going door-to-door in the interim, by holding events to attract residents to the Liberal brand.

“The work between elections matters,” she said. 

Bowman agreed, calling for a “stronger foundation for the party.”

The new Liberal leader will be chosen by ranked ballot, which generally makes candidates reluctant to take shots at each other because they are looking for second-ballot support.

Thousands of party members will vote online from Nov. 9 to 20, with the winner being announced the next day. The deadline for joining the party with voting rights was Sept. 7 for most and last Friday for members of campus Liberal clubs.  

Ottawa South MPP John Fraser is in his third stint as interim Liberal leader after Steven Del Duca, now mayor of Vaughan, and Bonnie Crombie quit after failing to win ridings in the 2022 and 2025 provincial elections, respectively.

Crombie is running again for mayor of Mississauga, a job she held for almost 10 years before resigning to run for Liberal leader. She quit that job in January after earning tepid support at a leadership review a year ago this month.