A provincial general election has been called for February 27, 2025. Throughout the month, we’ll refresh this post with any news, information or resources that may be of interest. Check back often!

It is probably clear to most Ontario electors that Premier Doug Ford called the election now, rather than waiting until 2026, primarily because the timing is better for him and his Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.

According to Joshua Freedman at CP24, the leading reasons for an early election in Ontario include strong polling for the PCs, threats of punitive tariffs by the current President of the United States of America, and Ontario’s frequent tendency to elect provincial liberals when a federal conservative government is in power (and vice versa). These reasons all seem correctly assumed.

Polling the electorate is valued by the media and political parties in our first past the post system. It isn’t necessary in Canadian politics to be more popular than the other candidate(s). As a candidate, it’s great if you and your party happen to be more popular, but it isn’t really the bottom line. Consider the 2022 Ontario election results:

If you weren’t already familiar with our system, you’d wonder how a party with 40.8 percent of the vote was able to achieve a majority government. You’d be baffled to see that 40.8 can get you a 66.9 percent majority of seats.

That is indeed what you can get when every riding is its own horse-race. It takes a lot for Canadians to send a political party packing. Premier Ford does not want to wait until the Ontario electorate is completely sick of hearing his name. In Canadian politics, our tendency is not to vote FOR a government, but to vote to GET RID of a government.

This informs Ontario’s tendency to have a red party in power provincially when a blue party is in power federally (and vice versa). Once we’ve gotten sick of seeing red….we’re sick of it regardless of whether they’re sitting in Ottawa or Toronto. Is it more complicated than that? Probably…or maybe. But it’s not a popular myth for no reason.

Did you know that there are 25 registered political parties in Ontario? We checked the Elections Ontario website today to get an idea of who’s who. That’s a lot of parties to try to explore and we’ll do our best to run through the lot (probably in a separate post). For now…starting at the top the alphabetically sorted list, the Canadians’ Choice Party website states that their mandate is to, “help Independent Candidates across Ontario to better represent their ridings and to bring a fair measure of direct democracy to all Ontarians and Canadians.” and that they have four “pillars” grouped under the somewhat uncomfortable acronym FIST: Fiscal responsibility and respect for taxpayers, Individual freedom and the right to free speech, Sovereignty and protection of common-law rights, Transparency and accountability in government. Apparently these folks have been around since 2011 with “A bottom-up approach to engage citizens.” We’ll let you work out the pun(s) that inevitably (and perhaps, deservedly) comes to mind. The initiative seems to be earnestly motivated, but doesn’t really present a credible, self-consistent philosophy.

Meanwhile, perhaps the biggest motivation for the election that’s been posited so far is the threat of tariffs and/or financial hard times. Some pundits will suggest that non-blue candidates will be wise to stay away from the issue. For those who oppose the ongoing financial and human rights embarrassment of funding religious schools…this is an opportunity.

Our reasoning goes like this: Given the RISKS associated with unreliable global trading partners, supply chain business practices that destroy Ontario-based value-added business and the ever-increasing probability of continued financial hard-times….can Ontario really afford the anachronistic, misguided, wasteful and discriminatory practice of funding the Catholic school system with public money any longer?

There has never been a more pressing time to push Ontario’s conservative politicians to set aside their puppy-eyed adoration of Bill Davis, admit that discriminatory funding of one religious group’s schools is a bad and wasteful idea and rip the band-aid off.

As a very modest side note (and speaking of puppy-eyed adoration), Ontario humanists may do well to spend some time with Steve Paikin’s biography of Bill Davis titled, Bill Davis: Nation Builder, and Not So Bland After All. If you read the book and between the lines, you may come away with important insight into why Ontario perpetuates this recognized human rights violation and what it may take to finally get the province back on track for a single school system.

Lest we be accused of being a one-trick-pony kind of place, we asked an AI to generate a list of issues in the current provincial election. The response we got back was:

• Jobs and the economy, with a focus on creating new opportunities and supporting workers
• Healthcare, including the need for more family doctors and improved access to healthcare services
• Affordability, with parties proposing various solutions to address the rising cost of living in Ontario
• Gridlock and transportation, with discussions on highway expansion, public transit, and the removal of tolls on Highway 407
• Education, with the NDP proposing to invest an additional $830 million a year to clear the repair backlog in schools and create a universal School Food Program
• Housing, with the NDP proposing to create 60,000 new supportive housing units and establish Homes Ontario to build permanently affordable housing
• Energy and the environment, with the PC party proposing to permanently cut the provincial tax on gas and diesel5
• Indigenous issues, with a focus on reconciliation and supporting Indigenous communities
• Long-term care, with a need for improved services and support for seniors
• Infrastructure, with the PC party proposing to invest up to $15 billion more over three years to speed up key capital projects
• Social assistance, with the NDP and Liberal parties proposing to double ODSP
• Tariff response, with the PC party proposing $10 billion in cash-flow support for Ontario employ

When we asked, what issues should be of importance to humanists in this coming election, we were advised that, “As a humanist, you may be particularly interested in issues that promote the well-being, dignity, and flourishing of all individuals in Ontario,” and the following list of priorities was presented:

• Education: Investing in public education, promoting critical thinking, and ensuring that all students have access to quality education, regardless of their background or socioeconomic status.
• Healthcare: Ensuring that all Ontarians have access to quality, publicly-funded healthcare, including mental health services, reproductive health, and palliative care.
• Social Justice: Addressing issues of poverty, inequality, and systemic racism, including promoting affordable housing, increasing the minimum wage, and supporting marginalized communities.
• Environmental Protection: Taking action to address climate change, promoting renewable energy, and protecting Ontario’s natural resources for future generations.
• Human Rights: Ensuring that all Ontarians are treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their identity, including promoting LGBTQ2+ rights, Indigenous reconciliation, and anti-racism initiatives.
• Access to Justice: Ensuring that all Ontarians have access to justice, including affordable legal services, mental health support, and community resources.
• Science and Critical Thinking: Promoting the use of evidence-based decision-making, critical thinking, and scientific literacy in policy-making.

Up For Discussion

If you’re interested in analyzing and discussing this issue, there are actions you can take. First, here at Humanist Heritage Canada (Humanist Freedoms), we are open to receiving your well-written articles.

Second, we encourage you to visit the New Enlightenment Project’s (NEP) Facebook page and discussion group.

Citations, References And Other Reading

1. Featured Photo Courtesy of : https://results.elections.on.ca/en/results-overview
2. https://www.ontario.ca/page/premier
3. https://ontariopc.ca/
4. https://www.cp24.com/news/2025/01/29/why-doug-ford-called-an-early-ontario-election-and-everything-else-you-need-to-know-as-the-campaign-begins/
5. https://www.fairvote.ca/04/06/2022/pcs-form-majority-government-with-40-83-of-the-vote-ontario-voters-cheated-by-first-past-the-post/
6. https://finances.elections.on.ca/en/registered-parties

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