Ontario Election 2022

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Durham, Halton, Peel and York are Toronto's "collar counties."

Aren't the collar counties very white?

Definitely much more so than the four "collar regions" of the GTA, but race isn't as much of a decisive factor in OnPoli.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

"Collar regions" or just the regions is just an attempt to come with an alternative name.

Durham and Halton seem the most "North American"-like in terms of suburbs, while Peel and southern York Region feel the most distinctly GTA/Canadian.

Durham and Halton are rapidly-changing too. Oakville and especially Milton have seen a huge influx of South Asians in recent years, while Ajax has been majority-minority for a while now. The GTA doesn't have the same "white flight suburbia" phenomenon as many parts of the US, in fact recent immigrants are increasingly likely to settle in the suburbs in the first place nowadays instead of taking the old "move to Toronto and branch out" path

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Time to bump this thread

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Three ON polls out recently:

EKOS: 34.8, 26.6, 26.3, 4.9, 7.5 (Other)
Abacus: 37, 28, 25, 5, 2.5
Innovative: 36, 35, 22, 5, 2

Innovative is clearly the outlier here, they do tend to have a Liberal house effect. But overall, the PCs in the mid-30s with the Liberals having a slight edge over the NDP has been the recent trend. Ford's handling of COVID in the next few months could end up being decisive.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

So am I right to think the left-wing vote is very volatile? So it would all come down to the campaign, how the leaders do and particularly how they stand up against each other in events like debates.

Pretty much, yeah. The Liberal brand is stronger in Ontario by default, when Ontarians want to kick out a Tory government, they have always gone to the Liberals (the NDP did win an election in 1990, but they unseated an incumbent Liberal government, not PC). So that's what they have going for themselves. But the other fundamentals suggest that the NDP is stronger - they got more votes and vastly more seats in 2018, their fundraising is better, and the NDP leader is more well-known and popular (though neither she nor the new Liberal leader are exactly political dynamite).

The Tories will try to hold on to the 35ish percent support they have - the Mainstreet poll is an outlier, all others have them in the mid-30s. Barring a catastrophe, I don't think anyone who supports them now is likely to change their minds. The key will be whether one centre-left party can unite the anti-Tory vote - and in the event of a minority, an anti-Tory coalition.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Angus Reid has the ONDP ahead today

https://angusreid.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022.01.20_provincial_politics_vote.pdf

36% NDP, 33% PCO, 19% LIB
These 3 leaders are so unlikeable. If I had to choose one to "have a drink with" it would probably be Ford, even though I disagree with him on almost everything.  Del Duca is so unlikeable, unattractive (I think this does matter), not to mention the pool-gate and Kirby GO stuff, people won't embrace him.  Andrea needs to lay down on the angry yelling in Queens park.  Not every issue needs to be a yelling/screaming thing.  I'll probably vote for Schreiner.  I wish we could have PEI type politics, kind, respectful, people who happen to disagree, instead of this vile kind of mudslinging that has become Ontario politics.

This is really going to be the "lesser of 3 evils" type of election.

To repeat: while she isn't a bundle of electrifying charisma the way that Le Bon Jack was federally, Andrea's not nearly the party liability that naysayers claim her to be.  And a lot of her present "angry yelling" impression has to do with her working against a gaslighting, nails-on-chalkboard-labelling stacked deck in the form of Doug Ford.

Once again:  she's always been more broadly "attractive" and "popular" among the electorate than naysayers (who almost invariably tend to be male) would have it.  (And of course, said almost-invariably-male naysayers put off by her "shrillness"--yeah, the same old "shrill woman" electoral pigeonhole--very often like to declare their "principled" support for conveniently-male Mike Schreiner instead.  Who isn't exactly any more Mr. Charisma, except to political nerds.  And I know, because I witnessed them declaring such intent in '18 as well, and would probably spin Schreiner winning his own seat as being more of a political victory than the shrill-Andrea wave landing the NDP in a wet dream of a solid official opposition position but Still Not Winning).

I agree that people are overly critical of Horwath. Even her biggest supporters have to admit that she's pretty boring and a thoroughly average politician at best, but some of the criticism levied against her go too far. Taking a hostile tone towards Ford is probably not even a liability if her goal is to unite the anti-Ford vote, who easily outnumber the pro-Ford vote. Maybe she can tone it down a bit, but for a leader of a centre-left party in Ontario, being too critical of Ford is far better than not being critical enough.

I think her being a woman definitely lends itself to these "shrill" accusations, but for a more gender-neutral criticism, I think the fact that she's been around for ages has worsened her appeal. For better or worse, Canadians are used to seeing frequent changes in leadership (unless the leader is a premier/PM), and Horwath's star seems to have burned out after 2018. But she's not a completely ineffective leader, and frankly far better than Del Duca who is even more uncharismatic and has not been able to build up the OLP to the extent required if they want to go from 7 seats to government in one cycle.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Under that circumstance, I'm not sure whether her star's burned out or just placed under a deep freeze until the next writ period.

Do you think she'll get another writ period though? She's been NDP leader for nearly 13 years now and 2022 will be her fourth election, and that kind of leadership longevity is very rare, even by NDP standards. Unless the NDP wins this election (or forms government with some deal with the Liberals), it's hard to imagine her getting a fifth kick at the can.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Under that circumstance, I'm not sure whether her star's burned out or just placed under a deep freeze until the next writ period.

Do you think she'll get another writ period though? She's been NDP leader for nearly 13 years now and 2022 will be her fourth election, and that kind of leadership longevity is very rare, even by NDP standards. Unless the NDP wins this election (or forms government with some deal with the Liberals), it's hard to imagine her getting a fifth kick at the can.

By "next", I mean "this", i.e. 2022, as opposed to 2026 (or earlier).

And of course, the *other* factor that could give oxygen to the so-called "split" NDP/Lib opposition: a split in the *right*, in case forces like Randy Hillier's Ontario First gain momentum...

Possibly, but but the right-of-Tories is significantly more divided in Ontario, than they were federally. Instead of the right wing criticism of the Tories uniting around the PPC with a couple sideshows, we have three squabbling pygmies duking it out. I have a hard time seeing someone break out of that mess to challenge Ford.

Yeah, I don't really see the right-of-Tories taking much oxygen out of the PCs. If the PPC is any indicator of the strength of this brand of politics, it suggests that any "right-of-tory" surge will happen in either:

1. Very right-wing places, particularly in rural Southwestern Ontario. Chatham-Kent-Leamington and Haldimand-Norfolk are good examples where the PPC got 14% and 11% respectively, but barring some major change, these aren't places the PCs have to worry about. I guess Hillier brings Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston into this column, but again, Tory margins are high and the centre-left is not very competitive there.

2. "Left-populist" areas, like Windsor-Tecumseh, London Fanshawe, Nickel Belt, and most famously, Timmins-James Bay where not only did the PPC get 13%, but this mainly came at Charlie Angus' expense (whether this was due to lower indigenous turnout, etc, that is to be seen after the poll-by-polls come out). In any case, these are places that the Tories need not worry about.

The part of Ontario that the Tories will absolutely need to worry about holding onto is the 905 and the outskirts of the 416. Broadly speaking, this area saw the PPC's worst performance in the province.

Essentially, the places that saw the biggest surge in PPC support were either places the Tories just won't win, or places where they just won't lose. The places where the Ford PCs could actually lose seats, are not very conducive to the PPC. So while I wouldn't completely write off these fringe movements on the right, it's not clear to me that this is going to be Ford's biggest problem.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Yeah, I don't really see the right-of-Tories taking much oxygen out of the PCs. If the PPC is any indicator of the strength of this brand of politics, it suggests that any "right-of-tory" surge will happen in either:

1. Very right-wing places, particularly in rural Southwestern Ontario. Chatham-Kent-Leamington and Haldimand-Norfolk are good examples where the PPC got 14% and 11% respectively, but barring some major change, these aren't places the PCs have to worry about. I guess Hillier brings Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston into this column, but again, Tory margins are high and the centre-left is not very competitive there.

2. "Left-populist" areas, like Windsor-Tecumseh, London Fanshawe, Nickel Belt, and most famously, Timmins-James Bay where not only did the PPC get 13%, but this mainly came at Charlie Angus' expense (whether this was due to lower indigenous turnout, etc, that is to be seen after the poll-by-polls come out). In any case, these are places that the Tories need not worry about.

And those two sort of intersect when it comes to a Chatham-Kent-Leamington type of seat--someplace where the "Horwath Democrats" made significant inroads in '14 vs Tim Hudak's tin-eared 2nd run, only to see dreams of taking-it-all trashed in '18.  That is, how much is it in fact '14-style Horwath populism that's poised to be hollowed out by the fringe right?  (And that goes even more so for the neighbouring, newly-open NDP seat of Essex).

"Horwath Democrats" made gains in C-K-L in part because of the traditional Liberal base of southwestern Ontario leaving the party in droves during the latter stages of the McGuinty-Wynne era. In 2003 and 2007, the Liberal incumbent Pat Hoy (who was an anti-abortion Liberal, unthinkable these days) won over 50% of the vote, and the Tories failed to cross 30. In comparison to that, even Hudak's terrible 2014 campaign did better, and NDP gains in 2014 seemed to come more from the OLP than PCs. Both the PCs and NDP gained a stronger foothold in this riding by picking up Liberal voters, who went from 59% support in 2003 to 8% in 2018.

The anti-PC vote is pretty damn united in C-K-L under the NDP at this point, the Liberals probably won't fall below last election's abysmal 8% showing. But Rick Nicholls' defection to the Ontario Party could bring it into play. If the NDP can hold onto their 2018 supporters, and Nicholls splits the right-wing vote by drawing about 16% support away from the PCs (not a far cry, as the PPC got 14%), then C-K-L is tied and the NDP could win. But of course, things aren't quite so simple. Nicholls won't only win over former Tories, as I mentioned earlier, these fringe right parties can also attract populist NDPers. Also, if the Liberals make gains at the NDP's expense, that leaves some breathing room for the PCs. A riding to watch for sure, but probably still Tory.

Essex will be a weird one. PCs seem to have the advantage because Natyshak is leaving, it voted CPC federally twice, and the margin was small in 2018. But this is a fringe-right-friendly kind of place, so a lot of it will depend on whether they primarily split the right (thus helping the NDP), or primarily split the populist bloc (thus helping the PCs, who have governed in basically a mainstream Conservative way despite Ford's early reputation). My hunch is that, in a place like Essex, this might benefit the NDP more. Unlike C-K-L where the NDP still saw an increase in 2018 at the Liberals' expense, in Essex, the NDP lost quite a bit of support to the PCs. This seems to suggest that there is a larger constituency of these "Horwath 2014-Ford 2018" voters who go for the most populist option, and saw Ford as that guy. Ford has largely been a disappointment to these voters, having governed in a more "GTA Conservative" manner, which is more true to the PC Party's constituency and ideology than the rhetorical populism of 2018. So I think Essex might stay NDP if they can get past or near 30% - if the NDP finishes in the mid-20s or below, they're not winning here.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Why did the Liberals collapse so quickly in SW Ontario?

In short: Ancestral Liberalism and realignment.

Rural farmers in SW Ontario, many of whom were Catholic or Methodist, were historically some of the biggest opponents of the Anglican/Presbytarian- dominated Tory elite. Beyond religion, there was also a Jackson/Whig kinda divide, where the Tories were the Whiggish party of industry and tariffs, while the Liberals were the more Jacksonian party. But this is way back, like pre-depression era. But the ancestral vote remained all the way until the early-2000s.

This religious, socially-conservative base of Liberal farmers (makes no sense in today's climate, lol) were helped by the fact that unions had a strong presence in many of the small industrial cities of Southern Ontario. And while most unions preferred the NDP, they'd be happy to back Liberals to defeat Tories.

By the early 2000s, it became clear that this socially conservative, rural, agrarian base was offside with the new, metropolitan-dominated Liberal Party. But incumbents kept hanging on, as they were "one of the good ones." However, as these incumbents retired, Conservatives swept in and appealed more to the sensibilities of formerly-Liberal rural voters. And in the small urban centres, a weakening labour base could no longer keep the Tories out.

Today, southwestern Ontario is the worst fit for the Liberal brand in Ontario. Rural areas no longer care about sectarian divides, but they hate social liberalism and "big government". While the post-industrial centres of southwest Ontario are a much better fit for the NDP than the Liberals for class reasons.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Also worth noting that a lot of the Liberal MPs and MPPs that got elected in SW ON were essentially the blue-dog Democrats of Canada. As recently as the Chretien/Martin years, the Liberals had a group of MPs dubbed the "God Squad", who were quite socially conservative and often offside with the leadership. If ancestral Liberalism wasn't a thing, I bet many of them would have run as Conservatives.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Fascinating--thanks! Tbh it seems like the Liberals in SW Ontario today are stronger where there are middle-class suburbs and/or universities.

Oh for sure, "professional class" presence gives the Liberals an immediate boost. Pretty much any riding in Ontario with this university/middle class combination is automatically more Liberal-friendly than its surroundings or non university/middle class counterparts.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Essex will be a weird one. PCs seem to have the advantage because Natyshak is leaving, it voted CPC federally twice, and the margin was small in 2018. But this is a fringe-right-friendly kind of place, so a lot of it will depend on whether they primarily split the right (thus helping the NDP), or primarily split the populist bloc (thus helping the PCs, who have governed in basically a mainstream Conservative way despite Ford's early reputation). My hunch is that, in a place like Essex, this might benefit the NDP more. Unlike C-K-L where the NDP still saw an increase in 2018 at the Liberals' expense, in Essex, the NDP lost quite a bit of support to the PCs. This seems to suggest that there is a larger constituency of these "Horwath 2014-Ford 2018" voters who go for the most populist option, and saw Ford as that guy. Ford has largely been a disappointment to these voters, having governed in a more "GTA Conservative" manner, which is more true to the PC Party's constituency and ideology than the rhetorical populism of 2018. So I think Essex might stay NDP if they can get past or near 30% - if the NDP finishes in the mid-20s or below, they're not winning here.

"Mid-20s or below" would be sinking to Howard Hampton-era levels--under the present leadership circumstance, even 30% would count as sore underperformance.

Mid-20s or below would not be "Howard Hampton levels", that's essentially how Horwath did in 2011 and 2014, and Hampton never crossed 20%. Based on the current polls at least, the NDP is averaging in the mid-20s, and 30% would not be an underperformance - according to every pollster other than Angus Reid, it would actually be an overperformance. Now I think we both subscribe to the theory that the NDP will end up outperforming current polls once the campaign kicks off, because the Ontario Liberals are much weaker than the Liberal brand, but that's just speculation, we don't really know.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Essex will be a weird one. PCs seem to have the advantage because Natyshak is leaving, it voted CPC federally twice, and the margin was small in 2018. But this is a fringe-right-friendly kind of place, so a lot of it will depend on whether they primarily split the right (thus helping the NDP), or primarily split the populist bloc (thus helping the PCs, who have governed in basically a mainstream Conservative way despite Ford's early reputation). My hunch is that, in a place like Essex, this might benefit the NDP more. Unlike C-K-L where the NDP still saw an increase in 2018 at the Liberals' expense, in Essex, the NDP lost quite a bit of support to the PCs. This seems to suggest that there is a larger constituency of these "Horwath 2014-Ford 2018" voters who go for the most populist option, and saw Ford as that guy. Ford has largely been a disappointment to these voters, having governed in a more "GTA Conservative" manner, which is more true to the PC Party's constituency and ideology than the rhetorical populism of 2018. So I think Essex might stay NDP if they can get past or near 30% - if the NDP finishes in the mid-20s or below, they're not winning here.

"Mid-20s or below" would be sinking to Howard Hampton-era levels--under the present leadership circumstance, even 30% would count as sore underperformance.

Mid-20s or below would not be "Howard Hampton levels", that's essentially how Horwath did in 2011 and 2014, and Hampton never crossed 20%. Based on the current polls at least, the NDP is averaging in the mid-20s, and 30% would not be an underperformance - according to every pollster other than Angus Reid, it would actually be an overperformance. Now I think we both subscribe to the theory that the NDP will end up outperforming current polls once the campaign kicks off, because the Ontario Liberals are much weaker than the Liberal brand, but that's just speculation, we don't really know.

I was referriing to mid-20s and below in *Essex*, not province-wide, i.e. I misconstrued your point (though yes, the idea of winning w/only 30% of the vote *is* a bit out-in-left-field, even w/all the opposition splits on the right imaginable)

Ah yeah that makes sense. For sure, in Essex, there's just no way the NDP will drop below 30%, even with weird splits.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

The urban/professional vote has mostly gone ONDP since 2018 (think places like KW, Kingston, London along with Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor. The last two are union cities that have always favoured the ONDP, but are more and more professional cities now. Ottawa is the only hold out where the OLP are still a strong force in the urban ridings. Chalk this to what, federal Liberals/civil service voting? Francophone voting history? The ONDP has maybe 1 or 2 potential gains here, maybe)  

I mean, when you say the "urban/professional vote has mostly gone ONDP since 2018", you're really only talking about one election, and a historically bad one for the Liberals at that. I think the urban left goes to whichever party has a better chance of beating the Tories, but not all of these ridings are the same. Like, Toronto-St Paul's and Spadina-Fort York are more "naturally Liberal" than Toronto-Danforth or Parkdale-High Park.

You're spot-on about Ottawa. Lots of Francophones, highly educated and white-collar, dominated by the civil service and the tech sector, and I'd add my anecdotal evidence from living there that Ottawa has a distinctly big-L Liberal "vibe" that other cities in Ontario don't have as much of. The ONDP can pick up Ottawa West-Nepean if the Liberals struggle, but that's about it. Carleton, Kanata-Carleton, Nepean and Orleans are too suburban and well-off to vote NDP, and Ottawa South and Vanier were literally the most Liberal seats in 2018, with the OLP winning both by 10pt+ margins in their worst ever election. I don't think they can blow these.

I do think right now there is a huge parked vote with the OLP, it's always been a safe spot for voters to park and there is a lot of Federal Liberal sentiment, especially in ON where the two parties are the most similar.

Yeah this is probably the reason the OLP is outpolling the ONDP. Ontarians tend to default to federal brands in the off-season, but when the writ drops, they can distinguish between them. Case in point - the OLP was outpolling the ONDP as late as April 2018, before collapsing during the writ

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Today's Leger poll basically represents the best-case scenario for the Tories. 37% support isn't hugely impressive, but the opposition is split almost evenly. Although, the Liberals' 31% and 33% support in the 416 and 905 respectively is pretty good for them, even if they don't rebound elsewhere in the province, just having a decent showing in the GTA could prevent a PC majority and put the Liberals in the driver's seat of an anti-Tory alliance.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Youth turnout (or lack thereof) could be decisive, however. Unlike in the federal election where the Liberals were pretty strong with older voters, most polls including the most recent Leger show the 50+ crowd solidly in the PCPO column. Young voters are strongly opposed to Ford, but older voters are pretty consistently polling in the high-40s for the Tories.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

While the post-industrial centres of southwest Ontario are a much better fit for the NDP than the Liberals for class reasons.

Not just the blue collar cities.  The ONDP was making inroads among the white collar/middle class vote in SW Ontario before the 2018 Liberal collapse - think of by-election wins in Waterloo and London West.

This is a good point, I think we're seeing a broader split among progressive voters, where the Liberals remain the preferred centre-left provincial party in Toronto/GTA (except for the most left-wing parts of Toronto + Singh coattails in Brampton) and Ottawa, while the ONDP is taking over that vote in the rest of the province, both the blue-collar/working class vote (Windsor, Hamilton etc) and the more white collar/uni-educated areas (Waterloo, London North-Centre and West, etc).

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Randy Hillier calling it quits

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/controversial-ontario-mpp-randy-hillier-announces-he-will-not-run-for-re-election-1.5805114

Good flippin' riddance.

Another retirement rumoured, though not yet announced: Christine Elliott. Pretty big loss, but a predictable one given her age and seniority.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Rima Berns-McGown was never deputy leader, never had much of a profile and would have been totally unknown to about 99% of the population.

Sorry, you are correct.  I mixed her up with Sara Singh who still is Deputy Leader but who was the seemingly high profile Attorney General critic in 2018/2019 but was then demoted.

Whether RMMcG or SS, the public wouldn't have noticed, because Doug Ford's genetically Reagan-style "there you go again" re left-opposition.  And face it; the NDP's generic reputation precedes it.  It's *expected* to be a "woke-type" party, and lives or dies on that particular battlefield.

Like I said, I'm from a distance from Ontario and don't see a lot, but I did see opinion polls in Ontario around 2019 that showed the NDP as the official NDP even more unpopular than the government and I saw news stories and tweets quoting people saying the NDP was obsessed with SJW type stuff, and I believe the name most often mentioned with that was Sara Singh who was then the Attorney General critic.  She was then removed from that role and support for the NDP seemed to steadily rise after that.

I certainly acknowledge I could be wrong about this and obviously memory is a strange thing.

I hardly think that most Ontario residents primary (or even close to fifth place) priority in deciding upon who to support in the upcoming provincial election is related to any "woke-type" issues.

To non-Ontarians, there seems to be an unawareness that the significant majority of Ontario voters think that federal leaders lead every political party until a provinical campaign in "underway in earnest".  If a simple question were asked in an Ontario opinion poll at present of "In the next provincial election who will be leading the [insert name] party?", I fully expect that more Ontario voters would respond Justin Trudeau than Steven Del Duca.

In the 2018 provincial election, despite Kathleen Wynne registering in every opinion poll at the time as the least popular provincial premier across Canada, it was not until the first leadership debate was held that Ontario Liberal Party support in provincial polls declined significantly and IMHO average Ontario voters were "put on notice" of who was actually leading the three largest parties in the actual provincial election underway.  It sounds odd to non-Ontarians, but the voters surveyed in one opinion poll could respond that they did not like Wynne once her name was put into the question, while voters in a generic opinion poll about political party preferences would have been thinking about Justin Trudeau when answering a generic question of "Which party will you support in the next Ontario election?"

Just cuz it happened last time does not mean it must happen again this time.  But, Del Duca has made so little impression on Ontario voters that I think his appearance in the first Ontario leaders' debate this time will also harm Liberal levels of support, just by reminding Ontario voters that Justin Trudeau is not actually the Liberal party leader for the upcoming provincial election.

Anything can happen, but Andrea Horwath is a seasoned debater and has a "net positive" in the role of party leader in opinion polls, while Del Duca is unknown and bland, at best.  I am not willing to mortgage my home on it, but I would bet that there will be a significant decline in Liberal Party support after the first provincial Leaders' debate (unless there is some other significant event that calls to the attention of "average voters" [yunno, the kind who do not post on boards like this one] who is actually leading the Ontario parties) in the 2022 Ontario election, similar to the decline that occurred in the 2018 election.  Del Duca does not have the intense levels of dislike that Wynne had developed by early 2018, but having no impression of the Liberal Party Leader among Ontario voters should be close enough to the conditions that existed in 2018 to scare Ontario Liberal party "election planners", when there is every reason to believe that Horwath will make a similar good impression on Ontario voters to what she did in 2018 once Ontario voters are reminded who leads each provincial party.

If PC support is pushing 40%, as suggested by the most recent Leger, this ultimately won't matter beyond continuing the malaise of Ontario Liberals. A 40-30-20-10 (10 for Greens+others) breakdown, or something similar to that, would just result in a PC majority.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

More than 95% of the time, governing parties see their polling numbers go down once an election is called.

I'm not sure this is true. I can think of at least the 2011, 2015 and 2019 federal elections where the governing party - Tories in the first two cases, Liberals in the third - remained very steady in the polls throughout the writ period, in three very different elections. Same goes for the 2014 Ontario election where the Wynne Liberals actually improved over the writ period. It's not such an iron-clad rule.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

More than 95% of the time, governing parties see their polling numbers go down once an election is called.

I'm not sure this is true. I can think of at least the 2011, 2015 and 2019 federal elections where the governing party - Tories in the first two cases, Liberals in the third - remained very steady in the polls throughout the writ period, in three very different elections. Same goes for the 2014 Ontario election where the Wynne Liberals actually improved over the writ period. It's not such an iron-clad rule.

According to the Wikipedia record of opinion polls for Canadian elections, the 10 last opinion polls prior to the 2018 election being called had the Liberals averaging 34.6% support.  On that Election Day, the Liberals got 33.1% of the popular vote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_Canadian_federal_election

You're correct in that 95% was too much of a rhetorical statement on my part -- but I still maintain it happens more often than not.  With the 2015 election being the marathon that it was, it had a pattern unlike any other Canadian national election by virtue of being twice as long a campaign period as any other recent federal election.  

The 1988 campaign was very different as well, as that was a relatively rare "clearly dominant issue" campaign.  In 1988, the "ballot question" was "Should the Free Trade Agreement with the US be approved?", and no other issue came close (as much as the NDP tried to try to change it to health care in that campaign).  The Tories got a minority of votes on Election Day 1988 but got more than either the Liberals or NDP got individually and more than the PCs were polling at prior to the election being called.  Most elections are about "a little but of everything", IMHO making 1988 an exception on that basis.

The 2018 Ontario election is the classic eample of a governing party dropping from their pre-election level of support to a lower level of Election Day.  But that drop was so extensive that it is not a good indication of the drops that typically occur for governing parties.

I don't mean to suggest that governing parties drop precipitously after the election is called.  But I do think that a look over time shows a small drop for the governing party level of support more often than an increase in their levels of support.

Your points are fair, but using 2019 federal as an example (which is probably the closest proxy to this Ontario election - first-term majority government, controversial PM/premier with mid-30s approval, but not a particularly impressive opposition), we're really only talking about a marginal drop between the pre-writ polls and the final result.

Another thing to consider is the NDP's tendency to underperform polls. Even in elections where they're clearly the stronger ABC party (Layton 2011, Horwath 2018), they basically always do a bit worse on election day than what the polls suggest. In a predominantly Lib vs Con race, this probably helps the Liberals shore up support in key areas, but in a predominantly NDP vs PC race, as we both suspect is likely, NDP underperformance = Tory overperformance, as was the case in the 2018 Ontario election.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Your points are fair, but using 2019 federal as an example (which is probably the closest proxy to this Ontario election - first-term majority government, controversial PM/premier with mid-30s approval, but not a particularly impressive opposition), we're really only talking about a marginal drop between the pre-writ polls and the final result.

Another thing to consider is the NDP's tendency to underperform polls. Even in elections where they're clearly the stronger ABC party (Layton 2011, Horwath 2018), they basically always do a bit worse on election day than what the polls suggest. In a predominantly Lib vs Con race, this probably helps the Liberals shore up support in key areas, but in a predominantly NDP vs PC race, as we both suspect is likely, NDP underperformance = Tory overperformance, as was the case in the 2018 Ontario election.

One exception to this was the 2014 Ontario election. The final polls mostly (especially IVR polls) had the NDP at around 20% and likely to lose seats and they ended up with 24% and stayed even.

Interesting, I wasn't actually aware of that - though to be fair, 2014 Ontario polls were famously garbage.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Paul Miller will run as an independent in Hamilton East - Stoney Creek, wonder if this will split the vote at all.

Would be very surprising if he polled well enough for it to matter afaict.

The riding voted NDP by a 22 point margin over the Tories in 2018. It's a competitive riding on the federal level, but the provincial NDP is more popular generally across Ontario and especially in Hamilton. Even if Miller gets 10% of the vote (and not all of these would have otherwise voted NDP), it's still a major uphill battle for anyone to flip.

Put it this way: if the NDP's numbers in HE-SC are low enough for an independent vote splitter to make a difference, they're absolutely screwed.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

NDP really screwed up in Ajax, arguably the most winnable non-Brampton/Oshawa 905 suburb.

What happened in Ajax?