The vote-rich Greater Toronto Area, where any party must perform to have a chance of winning an election in Ontario, has tightened its Ford Nation membership.

Progressive Conservative gains in the GTA were quickly called Thursday night with another majority government for party leader and Premier Doug Ford.

Opposition parties have failed to turn Ford’s handling of the pandemic and controversial GTA proposals, including the construction of Highway 413, into electoral gains.

Among GTA’s biggest losers on election night – Steven Del Duca, who succeeds Kathleen Wynne as leader of the Liberal Party after she was blamed for the ruling party’s devastating defeat in 2018.

Del Duca failed to retake the Vaughan-Woodbridge seat he held for nearly six years before being beaten by PC Michael Tibollo in 2018.

Amid another loss to Tibolla and his party’s failure to regain official party status, let alone official opposition status, Del Duca announced he was following Wynne out the door. .

The NDP did not make major gains, but took enough seats in the GTA and across Ontario to remain the Official Opposition at Queen’s Park. Horwath won re-election in Hamilton Center but quickly announced she was stepping down as leader too, saying it was time to “pass the torch”.

PC wins in the GTA, at press time, included Caroline Mulroney at York-Simcoe; Michael Parsa at Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill; Daisy Wai in Richmond Hill; Stephen Lecce in King Vaughan; Raymond Cho in Scarborough North; Aris Babikian in Scarborough-Agincourt; Patrice Barnes at Ajax; Michael Kerzner at York Centre; Kaleed Rasheed in Mississauga East-Cooksville; Logan Kanapathi in Markham-Thornhill; Prabmeet Sarkaria in Brampton South; Sylvia Jones in Dufferin-Caledon; King Surma in Etobicoke Centre; Peter Bethlenfalvy in Pickering-Uxbridge and Christine Hogarth in Etobicoke-Lakeshore.

Liberal wins in the GTA included Mitzie Hunter at Scarborough-Guildwood; Adil Shamji in Don Valley East; and Stephanie Bowman winning in Don Valley West, beating PC candidate Mark Saunders, the former Toronto police chief, in a constituency formerly held by Kathleen Wynne.

The NDP applauded the election of former Toronto City Councilor Kristyn Wong-Tam in Toronto Centre, which was a vacancy with the political withdrawal of Suze Morrison from the NDP. The party also won in University-Rosedale, where voters re-elected Jessica Bell, and in Humber River-Black Creek, where Tom Rakocevic held his seat.

In Oshawa, NDP MP Jennifer French battled PC challenger Alex Down while Jill Andrew won re-election for the NDP in Toronto-St. Paul’s.

The 2022 blue wave was larger than the 2018 blue wave which crossed almost the entire horseshoe surrounding Toronto. En route to its first majority government, the Ford government had made solid gains in Toronto, winning 11 of 25 seats in what had for years been a Liberal stronghold.

Ford, a former Toronto city councilor and failed 2014 mayoral candidate, easily returned to his seat in Etobicoke North on Thursday. He will welcome his nephew, Toronto City Councilor Michael Ford, as the new PC MP for York-South Weston. Young Ford ousted NDP incumbent Faisal Hassan.

In a statement, Toronto Mayor John Tory congratulated Premier Ford.

“We have forged a strong intergovernmental partnership during the COVID-19 pandemic and I will work to ensure that continues so that Toronto’s economy and Ontario’s economy – which are heavily dependent on our city’s success – find each other. stronger than ever,” Tory wrote. .

“Along with a strong economic recovery, I am committed to working with the province on Toronto’s priorities, including building supportive and affordable housing, building more public transit, improving community safety and investing in mental health and addiction issues.

Tory noted that before and during the Ontario campaign, Ford and his government “committed to working with the Government of Canada to provide the city with relief funding to cover its remaining $875 million in 2022 COVID-19. impacts on the operating budget, mainly the result of including tax shortfalls and extraordinary housing costs.

Tory said he looks forward “to working with Toronto MLAs from all parties who were elected tonight. I thank everyone who applied.

“I also want to thank all Toronto residents who voted in this election to ensure that our city’s collective voice was heard.

In an interview ahead of the election, Myer Siemiatycki, professor emeritus of political science at Metropolitan University of Toronto, said provincial parties have taken a “seek and hide” approach with Toronto voters.

They sought support in a city that has 25 constituencies, roughly a fifth of the entire legislature, with policies that ‘seemed to tick all the boxes’ – but were hiding in the sense that they weren’t promising too much, or anything too specific, to alienate voters in other parts of Ontario.

Ford’s party “in the last provincial election made solid and perhaps surprising gains in Toronto — 11 of 25 seats. Unlike federal elections where they win 0 out of 25 seats,” Siemiatycki said.

“The City of Toronto is a very important battleground to determine who will form the next government of Ontario and under what conditions. The key question is whether the Conservatives can keep what they won in the last provincial election.

Doug Ford, who was ridiculed for launching his PC party leadership in the basement of his mother’s house in 2018, did just that.

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