Following Ontario's
first ministry post
Confederation (a predominately Conservative ministry led by a Liberal being opposed by the majority of the Liberals in the first legislative assembly), the Ontario Liberals went through an extended period of dominance, governing the province for 34 of the 50 years between Confederation and
World War I.
Sir Oliver Mowat, one of the
Fathers of Confederation, led the party and the province for 24 of those years, and remains the province's longest-serving premier (and the third longest of any first minister in Canada). It however spent much of the following century in the wilderness. Bitter internal division ended a nine-year Liberal government in 1943 and produced the province's shortest-serving premier to date in
Harry Nixon. Follow four decades in opposition,
David Peterson with the support of the NDP ended 42 consecutive years of Progressive Conservative rules in 1985, and led the province for five years. After the turn of the millennium,
Dalton McGuinty led the party back to government in 2003. Kathleen Wynne, a minister in the McGuinty ministry, won the party's leadership in 2013, becoming the first woman to serve as Premier of Ontario, and the first openly gay person to serve as first minister anywhere in Canada. She led the party to its most recent victory in 2014, before leading it to its historic defeat in 2018. File:Edward Blake.jpg||alt=Edward BlakeLeader 1970-72Premier 1871-72 File:Oliver Mowat.jpg||alt=Sir Oliver MowatPremier & Leader1972-96 File:Arthur Sturgis Hardy.jpg| File:Honourable GW Ross, Prime Minister for Ontario (HS85-10-12129).jpg| File:Mitchell Hepburn1 crop.jpg| File:Hon. Gordon Conant, M.L.A. 1937 (cropped).jpg| File:Harry Nixon MLA.jpg| File:David Peterson (2005).jpg| File:Dalton McGuinty Crop 2.jpg|alt=| File:Hon Kathleen Wynne MPP Premier of Ontario (cropped).jpg|alt=|
Origins The Liberal Party of Ontario is descended from the
Reform Party of
Robert Baldwin and
William Lyon Mackenzie, who argued for
responsible government in the 1830s and 1840s against the
conservative patrician rule of the
Family Compact. The modern Liberals were founded by
George Brown, who sought to rebuild the Reform Party after its collapse in 1854. In 1857, Brown brought together the Reformers and the radical "
Clear Grits" of
southwestern Ontario to create a new party in
Upper Canada with a platform of democratic reform and annexation of the north-west. The party adopted a position in favour of uniting Britain's North American colonies, a concept that led to
Canadian Confederation.
Confederation After 1867,
Edward Blake became leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. The party sat in opposition to the
Conservative government led by
John Sandfield Macdonald. Blake's Liberals defeated the Tories in
1871, but Blake left
Queen's Park for Ottawa the next year, leaving the provincial Liberals in the hands of
Oliver Mowat. Mowat served as
Premier of Ontario until 1896. While the Tories became a narrow, sectarian
Protestant party with a base in the
Orange Order, the Liberals under Mowat attempted to bring together
Catholics and Protestants, rural and urban interests under moderate, religiously liberal leadership.
Decline and opposition The Liberals were defeated in
1905 after over thirty years in power. The party had grown tired and arrogant in government and became increasingly cautious. As well, a growing anti-Catholic sectarian sentiment hurt the Liberals, particularly in Toronto where they were unable to win a seat from 1890 until 1916. The Liberals continued to decline after losing power, and, for a time, were eclipsed by the
United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) when the Liberals were unable to attract the growing farmers' protest movement to its ranks. Debates over the party's policy on
liquor divided the membership, forced the resignation of at least one leader,
Hartley Dewart, and drove away many reform-minded Liberals who supported the federal party under
William Lyon Mackenzie King but found the provincial party too narrow and conservative to support. The party was so disorganized that it was led for seven years (and through two provincial elections) by an
interim leader,
W.E.N. Sinclair, as there was not enough money or a sufficient level of organization, and too many divisions within the party to hold a
leadership convention. By 1930, the Liberals were reduced to a small, rural and
prohibitionist rump with a base in south western Ontario.
Return to power under Mitch Hepburn After a series of ineffective leaders, the Liberals turned to
Mitchell Hepburn, an onion farmer, federal
Member of Parliament and former member of the UFO. Hepburn was able to build an electoral coalition with
Liberal-Progressives and attract reformers and urban voters to the party. The Liberal-Progressives had previously supported the UFO and the
Progressive Party of Canada. A "wet", Hepburn was able to end the divisions in the party around the issue of
temperance which had reduced it to a narrow sect. The revitalized party was able to win votes from rural farmers, particularly in southwestern Ontario, urban Ontario, Catholics and francophones. It also had the advantage of not being in power at the onset of the
Great Depression. With the economy in crisis, Ontarians looked for a new government, and Hepburn's populism was able to excite the province. In government, Hepburn's Liberals warred with
organized labour led by the
Congress of Industrial Organizations, who were trying to unionize the auto-sector. Later, he battled with the federal
Liberal Party of Canada government of
William Lyon Mackenzie King, which, Hepburn argued, was insufficiently supportive of the
war effort. The battle between Hepburn and King split the Ontario Liberal Party and led to Hepburn's ouster as leader. It also contributed to the party's defeat in the
1943 election, which was followed by the party's long stint in opposition. The Liberals declined to a right wing, rural rump. The "Progressive Conservatives" under
George Drew established a dynasty which was to rule Ontario for the next 42 years.
Opposition during the post-war boom Ontario politics in recent times have been dominated by the
Progressive Conservatives, also known as the Tories. The Liberals had formed the Government for only five years out of sixty years from 1943 to 2003. For forty-two years, from 1943 to 1985, the province was governed by the Tories. During this period, the Ontario Liberal Party was a rural, conservative rump with a southwestern Ontario base, and were often further to the
right of the moderate
Red Tory Conservative administrations. In 1964, the party changed their name from the "Ontario Liberal Association" to the "Liberal Party of Ontario". In September 1964, the party
elected Andy Thompson as its leader. While the leadership election garnered some attention, it looked like Thompson would have a hard time winning an election. The Liberals had held office only three times for 13 years since 1900 and the party caucus was not that much different from the time between 1959 and 1963. They failed to get a popular candidate,
Charles Templeton, elected in a by-election. They also lost another riding to the PCs when
Maurice Bélanger died in March 1964. Thompson would last only two years as leader before resigning due to stress-induced health problems. Peterson was able to form a
minority government from 1985 to 1987 due to an accord signed with the Ontario NDP. Under this accord, the NDP agreed not to trigger an election via a non-confidence vote in exchange for the Liberals implementing certain agreed upon policies and not calling an election for the next two years. Once the accord expired, an
election was called and Peterson won a strong
majority government with 95 seats, its most ever. Peterson's government ruled in a time of economic plenty where occasional instances of fiscal imprudence were not much remarked on. Peterson was a close ally of
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney on the
Meech Lake Accord, but opposed Mulroney on the issue of
free trade. The majority Liberal government of 1987 to 1990 was less innovative than the previous minority government. The Liberals' increasing conservatism caused many
centre-left voters to look at the Ontario NDP and its leader
Bob Rae, and consider the
social-democratic NDP as an alternative to the Liberals. The Liberals went into the
1990 election with apparently strong support in the public opinion polls. This support quickly evaporated, however. On the campaign trail, the media reported that the Liberals were met by voters who were angry at going to the polls just three years into the government's mandate. Another negative factor was Peterson's association with Mulroney and the failed
Meech Lake Accord attempt at constitutional reform, about which the public felt strongly. The campaign was also poorly run: a mid-campaign proposal to cut the
provincial sales tax was a particularly bad blunder. The party had also underestimated the impact of the
Patti Starr fundraising scandal, as well as allegations surrounding the Liberal government's links with land developers. In the 1990 election, the Liberals only finished five points behind the NDP in the popular vote. However, the NDP took many seats from the Liberals in the Toronto suburbs. The NDP promised a return to the activist form of government that had prevailed from 1985 to 1987, and its co-operation with the Liberals during that time made it appear more moderate and acceptable to swing voters in the Toronto area. Due to the nature of the first-past-the-post system, the Liberals were decimated, falling from 95 seats to 36. The 59-seat loss surpassed the 48-seat loss in 1943 that began the Tories' long rule over the province. Peterson himself was heavily defeated in his own London-area riding by the NDP challenger.
Return to opposition By the
1995 election, the NDP government had become very unpopular due to perceived mismanagement, a few scandals, and because of the severe downturn in the economy. The Liberal Party was expected to replace the unpopular NDP, but it ran a poor campaign under leader
Lyn McLeod, and was beaten by the Progressive Conservatives under
Mike Harris. Harris swept to power on a right-wing "
Common Sense Revolution" platform. In 1996, the Ontario Liberals selected Dalton McGuinty as their leader in a free-wheeling convention. Starting in fourth place, McGuinty's fiscally prudent record and moderate demeanor made him the second choice of a convention polarized around the candidacy of former Toronto Food Bank head
Gerard Kennedy. In the
1999 election, the governing Conservatives were reelected on the basis of strong economic growth and a negative campaign tightly focused on portraying McGuinty as "not up to the job". A poor performance in the leader's debate and a weak overall campaign hamstrung the new leader, but he was able to rally his party in the final weeks of the campaign. The Ontario Liberals garnered 40% of the vote, at the time their second-highest total in 50 years. McGuinty's second term as opposition leader was more successful than his first. With the Liberals consolidated as the primary opposition to Harris's Progressive Conservatives, McGuinty was able to present his party as the "government in waiting". He hired a more skilled group of advisors and drafted former cabinet minister
Greg Sorbara as party president. McGuinty also rebuilt the party's fundraising operation, launching the Ontario Liberal Fund. He personally rebuilt the party's platform to one that emphasized lowering class sizes, hiring more nurses, increasing environmental protections and "holding the line" on taxes in the buildup to the 2003 election. McGuinty also made a serious effort to improve his debating skills, and received coaching from
Democratic Party trainers in the United States.
"Choose Change" the McGuinty government In the
2003 election, McGuinty led the Liberals to a majority government, winning 72 out of 103 seats. The PC government's record had already been marred by a number of prior events, including the death of
Dudley George, the
Walkerton water tragedy and the government's performance during the
SARS outbreak. The PC's election campaign relied on attack ads against McGuinty, while the McGuinty campaign kept a positive message throughout. The PCs' negative attacks on McGuinty backfired throughout the campaign. The new government called the Legislature back in session in late 2003, and passed a series of bills relating to its election promises. The government brought in auto insurance reforms (including a price cap), fixed election dates, rolled-back a series of corporate and personal tax cuts which had been scheduled for 2004, passed legislation which enshrined publicly funded
Medicare into provincial law, hired more meat and water inspectors, opened up the provincially owned electricity companies to
Freedom of Information laws and enacted a ban on partisan government advertising. The McGuinty government also benefited from a scandal involving the previous Progressive Conservative government's management of
Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One, which broke in the winter of 2003–04. It was revealed that a number of key figures associated with Mike Harris's "Common Sense Revolution" had received lucrative, untendered multimillion-dollar consulting contracts from these institutions. Among the figures named in the scandal were
Tom Long, former Harris campaign chairman, Leslie Noble, former Harris campaign manager and
Paul Rhodes, former Harris communications director. On May 18, 2004, Provincial Finance Minister
Greg Sorbara released the McGuinty government's first budget. The centrepiece was a controversial new Health Premium of $300 to $900, staggered according to income. This violated a key Liberal campaign pledge not to raise taxes, and gave the government an early reputation for breaking promises. The Liberals defended the premium by pointing to the previous government's hidden deficit of $5.6 billion, and McGuinty claimed he needed to break his campaign pledge on taxation to fulfill his promises on other fronts. The
Ontario Health Premium also became a major issue in the early days of the 2004 federal election, called a week after the Ontario budget. Most believe that the controversy seriously hampered Liberal Prime Minister
Paul Martin's bid for re-election. Also controversial were the elimination of coverage for health services not covered by the
Canada Health Act, including
eye examinations and
physical therapy. Other elements included a four-year plan to tackle the deficit left behind by the Progressive Conservatives, free
immunization for children, investments in education and investments to lower waiting times for cancer care, cardiac care,
joint replacement,
MRI and
CT scans. Soon after the federal election, McGuinty hosted a federal-provincial summit on
public health-care funding which resulted in a new agreement for a national health accord. This accord allowed the provincial
Premiers and territorial leaders to draw more money from Ottawa for health services, and requires the federal government to take provincial concerns such as hospital waiting-lists into account. McGuinty's performance at the summit was generally applauded by the Canadian media. The McGuinty government brought forward a number of regulatory initiatives in the fall of 2004. These included legislation allowing bring-your-own-wine in restaurants, banning junk food in
public schools to promote healthier choices, outlawing smoking in public places and requiring students to stay in school until age 18. Following a series of high-profile maulings, the government also moved to ban
pit bulls. During early 2005, McGuinty called the Legislature back for a rare winter session to debate and pass several high-profile bills. The government legislated a Greenbelt around Toronto. The size of
Prince Edward Island, the Greenbelt protects a broad swath of land from development and preserves forests and farmland. In response to court decisions, the Liberals updated the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples. McGuinty also launched a PR campaign to narrow the politically charged $23 billion gap between what Ontario contributes to the federal government and what is returned to Ontario in services. This came as a sharp turn after more than a year of cooperating with the federal government, but McGuinty pointed to the special deals worked out by the federal government with
Newfoundland and Labrador and
Nova Scotia as compromising the nature of
equalization payments. In particular, McGuinty noted that immigrants in Ontario receive $800 in support from the federal government, while those in Quebec receive $3800. In the 2003 campaign, the Liberals denounced
public-private partnerships (also known as "3P" deals) for infrastructure projects such as the building of hospitals. Following the campaign, however, the McGuinty government allowed "3P" hospital construction deals arranged by the previous government to continue. The Ontario Liberals won their second majority in a row on October 10, 2007, winning 71 of the province's 107 seats. Winning two majorities back to back is a feat that had not occurred for the party in 70 years. In the next general election on October 6, 2011, McGuinty led the Liberals to win a historic third consecutive term and to once again form government, albeit with a minority of seats in the legislature. The Liberals won 53 of the 107 seats, just short of a 54-seat majority government. On October 15, 2012, McGuinty announced that he would resign as leader and Premier. At the end of January 2013, the party elected MPP Kathleen Wynne as leader, making her the 25th Premier of Ontario.
Majority under Wynne The June 12, 2014 election was triggered by the
Ontario New Democratic Party's decision to reject the 2014 Ontario Budget. The Liberal Party under the leadership of
Kathleen Wynne won 58 seats in the Legislature, and formed a majority government. In 2015, the Liberals proposed to sell 60 per cent of the province's $16-billion share of the province's electricity distribution utility,
Hydro One. Hydro One Brampton and Hydro One Networks' distribution arm would be spun off into a separate company and sold outright for up to $3 billion. The government pivoted to the left in the lead up to the 2018 election by raising the minimum wage, introducing reforms to employment standards and labour law, bringing in a limited form of pharmacare and promising universal child care.
Loss of official party status In the
2018 general election, the Liberals were swept from power in a historic defeat that resulted in large gains for both the Progressive Conservatives and NDP. The Liberal popular vote fell to 19%, almost half their previous result; the party lost 51 seats and were reduced to a rump of only seven seats in a swing that elected a PC majority and made the NDP the official opposition. Notably, the Liberals lost all but three of their 18 seats in Toronto, were completely shut out in the
905 region and won only one seat outside of Toronto and Ottawa. The seven-member rump caucus was one short of the requirement to retain
official status in the Ontario legislature, and was also the only remnant of Wynne's cabinet. Wynne herself barely held onto her own seat by 181 votes. Accepting responsibility for the worst showing in the party's 161-year history and the worst defeat of a sitting government in Ontario, Wynne resigned as Liberal leader on election night. On June 14, 2018,
John Fraser was appointed as interim leader of the party following a vote by caucus members, riding association presidents, and party executives. In the
2018 municipal election later in the year, six of the defeated Liberal MPPs —
Bill Mauro,
Kathryn McGarry,
Jim Bradley,
Mike Colle,
Granville Anderson and
Dipika Damerla — were elected to municipal office as mayors, city councillors or regional councillors. In March 2020, the party elected former Cabinet Minister
Steven Del Duca as leader, who defeated five other candidates on the first ballot at the
leadership convention. In the
2022 general election, the Liberals finished second in popular vote but gained only one seat, once again falling short of
official status by four seats. After failing to win in his own riding, leader Steven Del Duca announced his resignation as party leader. John Fraser returned as interim leader until the
December 2023 leadership election which elected
Mississauga mayor
Bonnie Crombie as the new Liberal leader.
Leadership of Bonnie Crombie On December 2, 2023, the Ontario Liberal Party elected
Bonnie Crombie, the then-mayor of Mississauga, as the next leader of the party, defeating MP
Nate Erskine-Smith, MP
Yasir Naqvi, and MPP
Ted Hsu. On September 21, 2024, the Ontario Liberal Party unveiled their new logo alongside their slogan, "More for You." In the
2025 election, the Liberals garnered 30% of the vote, their highest total since losing government in 2018, winning 14 seats and gaining official party status in the Ontario Legislature. Party leader
Bonnie Crombie was defeated in the riding of
Mississauga East—Cooksville. Following the election, the party executive unanimously voted in support of Bonnie Crombie remaining as party leader, while scheduling a
leadership review at the party's annual general meeting on September 12–14, 2025. Crombie received 57% percent support in the vote, above the 50% support required by the party's constitution, but short of the 60%–67% many in the party had been calling for. Crombie initially announced that she would be staying on as leader, but hours after the results were announced issued a statement that she planned to resign upon the
selection of a new leader. She formally resigned as leader on January 14, 2026, with a successor to be chosen at a later date. John Fraser was again named interim leader until the
2026 leadership election. == Current Ontario Liberal Caucus ==