A Libertarian Comments on Ontario Votes 2022

The Elections Ontario web site is the source of my data from the June 2 election.

As a Libertarian candidate in every general election since 2011, I offer the following observations and comments.

The Oligopoly of Political Power is unassailable.

Comprised of the Progressive Conservative, NDP, Liberal and Green parties, they dominated the polls with the aid of government subsidies https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/ontario%E2%80%99s-political-parties-take-a-big-payday-advance, biased mainstream media support, and regulatory advantages under Elections Ontario administration. The other 19 registered parties had no chance.

The NDP and Liberals essentially tied at ~ 1.1 million each.

However, the NDP elected  31 MPPs and the Liberals only 8. A Proportional Representation system would have given both parties the same number of seats - 27; it took 37,314 votes on average to win each seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario (LAO).

Two new parties the political ‘right’

The Ontario Party (OP)and New Blue Party (NBP) both failed to elect any of their candidates including their leaders. Even if they had merged into one party, their combined efforts would not have made a dent in the armour of the Oligarchy of Political Power. The 125,980 NBP votes + 83,718 OP votes = 209,158 votes out of the 4,630,000 cast across the province. Under a Proportional Representation system, their combined votes would have elected 5 (5.7) MPPs. In any case, there appears to be little appetite for additional Conservative ballot options in Ontario. The other explanation for their weak performance is that traditional PC voters feared splitting the ‘right’ vote and risking losing ground to the Liberals and NDP.

Is the Social Justice movement fading?

The pro-labour NDP had seen a doubling in popularity in the past decade until this vote. Voting history of NDP: 1,098,646 (2022);  1,929,966 (2018);  1,144,822 (2014);  976,249 (2011). Likewise the socialist Liberals have fallen far in the past 10 years and show no sign of recovery. Voting history of Liberals:   1,100,339 (2022);  1,124,346 (2018); 1,863,974 (2014);  1,625,102 (2011). Can we conclude that the “social justice” election platforms of these two parties are fading? Has their Critical Race Theory agenda, especially in public Education, gone too far?

Staying on the Proportional Representation theme …

The Progressive Conservatives (PC) would have won just 50 out of the potential 124 seats - a far cry from a majority government with 83 seats. The Greens would have 7 seats. The newly-elected government would be very different in makeup and power balance. The political left would have 7+27+27 = 61 seats; the political ‘right’ with just 5+50 = 55 seats. The total does not add up to 124 because the additional 17 parties failed to reach the 37,315 threshold needed to elect a single MPP but their collective tally would have accumulated sufficient votes to represent the lost 8 seats. In future elections, this would likely encourage some of the like-minded “fringe” parties to join together in their efforts to gain at least 1 seat in the LAO.

Libertarians had the worst showing in decades.

There are many reasons for the poor Ontario Libertarian Party (OLP) showing but no acceptable excuses. As the only Party that has promoted Less Government and the best way to unburden our citizens, businesses and freedoms from excessive government, the OLP platform is more relevant today than at any time since its founding in 1975. It’s future as a political party  may be uncertain but as a champion of sound principles for a prosperous and civil society, they have never been better.