The debate results are in: Ontario Loses!

"Please explain the origin of the universe in 15 seconds."

The leaders of Ontario’s four major parties stand at their podiums, as CBC journalist David Common hosts their debate for the 2025 election. | Copyright © CPAC, licensed under fair dealing.

From 18h30 to 20h00 Eastern Time last evening, a consortium of broadcasters in Ontario aired the Ontario Leaders’ Debate. This group included CBC, TVO, CHCH, Rogers, Bell, and Corus; in essence, every station you can get on your antenna.

The four participants in this debate included Doug Ford of the PCs, Marit Stiles of the NDP, Bonnie Crombie of the Liberals, and Mike Schreiner of the Greens. Before dissolution, the PCs held a large majority government, while the NDP held official opposition; the Liberals and the Greens languished below party status.

To start things off on a sour note, the CBC only broadcasted this debate on the paid-access CBC News Network, not on the free-access local CBC stations across Ontario. I assume this may have been an arrangement with the consortium, so that capitalist media could air it on their local stations instead.

Despite the CBC moderating and hosting the debate for the broadcast consortium, without any warning the CBC preempted the beginning of the debate to cover the crash of a Delta Air Lines flight at Pearson.

This story had been reported on extensively in the hours before the beginning of the debate. There were no updates in the story by the time the debate began, and there were still no updates by the time the debate had ended!

Because of this, if you were watching on the CBC like I did, you jumped into the debate while candidates were already answering questions, skipping the beginning where they actually explain the rules.

And when it comes to post-debate coverage? The CBC opted to not have any, instead airing a full hour of baseless speculation on the cause of the plane crash, before leading into The National and ending live coverage of news.

There was a post-debate scrum with Crombie, Stiles, and Schreiner, although Ford opted against participating in the scrum. And I can’t blame him for not doing so, because the CBC didn’t care enough to air the scrum! It only aired on other channels in the consortium, despite the debate largely being a CBC production.

The debate itself was, to put it mildly, painful. CBC journalist and host of Metro Morning David Common would ask questions about incredibly complex issues, and then demand answers within absurdly short periods of time, sometimes as small as fifteen seconds!

Further, in one open debate segment, Common allowed Ford to attack Stiles without giving her a chance to respond to the claims he made about her. Time was wasted on aggressively pointless questions like “where do you go on vacation” and “what was your first job”, rather than the actual issues that face the people of Ontario.

Bonnie Crombie was by far the most energetic candidate…but not in a good way. She went aggressive on the attack against Ford, while Schreiner and Stiles both conducted themselves in a cool and collected fashion.

Her vibe and demeanour did not match the tone of the conversation, and on more than one occasion she interrupted Common while he was moderating. Her answer to the question of how she would fight climate change was to spend the entire thirty seconds rambling about how she’ll never increase taxes.

At her worst moments in the debate, Crombie said she would “throw the book” at young children accused of crimes, and when interrogated by Stiles over accepting large donations from people in private healthcare, could only say that she “followed the rules.”

Personally, when your political opponent challenges something you’ve done as immoral, I would not recommend you respond with “my immoral acts were legal!” Technically true, perhaps, but not a selling point!

It’s probably not a good sign for Crombie that she ended the debate begging NDP voters to pick her instead, after she spent the last year boasting that she was going to make the party right-wing, and that she didn’t need progressives or their votes.

And if we’re speaking of progressives, Marit Stiles comfortably positioned herself on the progressive side of the spectrum. There was no doubt that she was the candidate of the left, and she has finally begun to differentiate herself from Crombie.

But in my opinion, she didn’t go after Crombie enough. Numerous Liberal candidates have been revealed in the past few days as having behaved extremely inappropriately; Stiles should have asked Crombie why she is actively defending candidates like Brian Hamilton in Thunder Bay, who said the following:

I miss Jian Ghomeshi. Even if he is an ass slapping lady choker. His peculiarities don’t neutralize his genius.

This was a clear and obvious instance where Stiles could have pulled away progressive voters from Crombie. This debate aired to a wide public audience, and Stiles should have pointed out that Crombie tolerates and endorses violent misogyny within her caucus.

But more than any electoral advantage it would gain? It would have been the right thing to do. Someone on that stage needed to call out what Crombie is abiding, yet neither Stiles nor Schreiner did; this is a clear moral failure.

On the topic of Mike Schreiner, his rhetoric was…remarkably conservative. He attacked Marit Stiles for her plan to build public housing, saying that instead of single government entity, it would somehow be “more efficient” and “reduce bureaucracy” to give the money to dozens of private organizations that can’t be held accountable.

And on the topic of merging the Public and Catholic school boards, Schreiner stated that he would no longer commit to this, despite admitting it is morally correct, because he believes that doing so would be financially costly.

Every time I heard Schreiner launder right-wing policies using “finances” as his justification, it only confirmed my previous bias that the Greens are simply Tories on Bicycles. And if any Greens reading this piece are upset to hear that? Good. You should feel bad.

But Schreiner did ask a good question of Doug Ford in one segment, noting that all three opposition parties have pledged to double ODSP, while he is unwilling to. Currently, ODSP does not pay enough for a disabled person to live; disabled Ontarians are condemned to starve without food, to freeze on the streets, and to die in agony.

What did Ford respond? He doesn’t care that people on ODSP are dying, because he’s not going to raise taxes and if that means disabled people die, so be it.

Unfortunately, this debate already happened in 2022 during the last election; Ontario decided they agreed with Ford’s policy, and that they’d rather their own disabled family die than spend a single fucking loonie to help them.

But don’t call the selfishness of the people of Ontario “eugenics”, because voters will get upset that you’re describing their terrible actions accurately!

For his own part, Doug Ford was weird. While the other three candidates would look at each other while talking to them, Ford would stare directly into the camera. It felt uncomfortable to watch at home, like he was trying to be Ghost Rider from Marvel Comics and unleash torment upon my soul with his Penance Stare.

What did he talk about during the debate? He promised lower taxes, and lower taxes, and did he mention lower taxes? He falsely claimed to be funding hospitals and schools, which is obviously untrue considering both are severely overcrowded.

And at probably the lowest point of the debate, David Common had to tell Ford to not mispronounce Marit Stiles name…a flagrant act of disrespect towards a colleague whom he is extremely familiar with. Ford knows damn well how to properly say her name.

But will it matter? Probably not. Doug Ford stayed above the fray, and his opponents all spent the debate defining themselves in opposition to him…which means that love him or hate him, he was the focus, and viewers will remember his name the most.

Did anybody win this debate? No. But the entirety of Ontario sure did lose.

What did we get here?

• A refusal by the CBC to air the opening minutes of the debate they hosted and paid for, and a further refusal to air any post-debate analysis of the debate that, again, they hosted and paid for.

• A chaotic debate where candidates aren’t allowed to spend more than 30 seconds discussing climate change, because David Common wanted to ask “what would you make the other leaders if they came over for dinner?”

• Greens who acted like Tories, Liberals who acted like Tories and then begged for NDP votes, NDP begging people to see that the Liberals are gleefully acting like Tories, and Tories grinning ear-to-ear that even if they lose, their opponents are all acting like Tories.

Disgraceful. I am dumber for having gone through this experience. But do you know who I reserve the most blame for?

You.

Yes, you. Everything that has happened here is your fault. You, the people of Ontario, have told politicians that the only thing you care about is having the lowest possible tax rate, with no concern for the damage it has done to your society and your neighbours.

With your votes, you have told politicians you don’t care about healthcare. You have told them you don’t care about education. You have told them that you don’t care about infrastructure.

Regardless of whoever wins this election, the people of Ontario lose, because they have decided to lose. With every passing day, I question why I’m still living in this province, where elections are a race to the bottom between Tories and Diet Tories.

I blame all of you for the state of affairs. None of these politicians would have power if they did not appeal to your worst impulses as a society. You, the voters, have touched the stove, you have been burned, and now you reach back to touch again. Pathetic.

If Ontario wants to keep punishing itself like this, fine. I have no intention of continuing to watch this circus. This is the last column about the election that I’m going to write.