Scott Stinson: Ontario Liberal resurgence comes to abrupt halt with byelection losses

Three candidates listen to a question from the audience during the Ontario Liberal Party leadership race event in Orleans on Aug. 25, 2026. Photo by HYUNGCHEOL PARK/Postmedia

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Ontario Liberals could be forgiven for feeling their oats a little in recent times.

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They have consistently polled ahead of the Official Opposition NDP in province-wide surveys, and in some cases nudged ahead of the governing Progressive Conservatives, despite not having a permanent leader at the head of the party since Bonnie Crombie resigned in January.

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The race to select that leader is in full swing, which tends to energize a party as the candidates sign up new members and paint visions of a province once again governed by the red inevitable machine.

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But all of that was replaced by a cold bucket of water to the face on Thursday night, when the Liberals failed to win any of three provincial byelections, all in the greater Toronto area. Doug Ford’s Tories held on to Hamilton East-Stoney Creek and York-Simcoe, while the NDP maintained their seat in Scarborough Southwest.

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As is always the case with byelections, there are caveats: Voter turnout was low, as were the stakes, with the Progressive Conservatives holding a comfortable majority at Queen’s Park. The winning PC candidates were local councillors who had built-in name recognition. Active provincial Liberals have also been busy with leadership campaigns, drawing time and resources away from those ridings that were up for grabs.

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But it is also true that, had the Liberals managed a couple of wins on Thursday night, we would be awash in media coverage about their surge in fortunes, despite those same caveats about turnout and stakes. There would be stories about Ford’s ominous setback and the NDP’s forever struggles in the province.

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That the Liberals didn’t win anything, and didn’t come particularly close to doing so, is instead evidence that whoever wins a leadership race that will not end until Nov. 21 will have a lot of work to do in improving the party’s electoral prospects. Any hope that the next leader will take over a government-in-waiting was quite undone by the evidence of this week.

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Consider that all three by-elections took place in parts of the province where the Liberals will have to be competitive in the next election if they hope to form government, given their long-standing problems in rural Ontario. York-Simcoe, though a Tory stronghold under former cabinet minister Caroline Mulroney, is in an area north of Toronto that can swing to the Liberals federally or provincially depending on the prevailing mood.

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Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, meanwhile, was held federally by the Liberals for a decade before the Conservatives took it by a narrow margin last year, and in Thursday’s byelection the Liberals fell from second to third compared with the 2025 general election. It is not what you would call positive momentum.