By Barry Ellsworth
TRENTON, Canada (AA) - On the eve of the Canadian province of Ontario’s election Thursday, Conservative Premier Doug Ford said he wants to hold the job in perpetuity, while the leaders of rival parties are calling for change.
Poll results say that Ford is comfortably ahead to form a third majority and while on the campaign trail, he has stressed that he is the best one to take on the mercurial US President Donald Trump.
"I just want to win," Ford said, reported CBC News. "I want to win a majority, a large majority. “(It would) send a message down to Donald Trump that we're a force to be reckoned with.”
Trump has said that on March 4 -- the date changes day to day -- he will impose 25% tariffs on goods imported from Canada, including steel and manufactured goods.
Ontario is Canada’s most populated province and is expected to grow to 21.7 million this year, more than half Canada’s total. It is also Canada’s industrial heartland, and US tariffs could devastate the economy.
But a defiant Ford spoke wearing a Canada hockey jersey with the number 51 on the back and a nameplate that read "NEVER" — a jibe at Trump's "51st state" remarks about annexing Canada.
While Trump’s tariffs have been Ford’s rallying cry, it is a different story for Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie and the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) Marit Stiles.
They have focused on change and that Ontarians are not better off after seven years of Ford and his Conservatives, who were first elected in 2018. They point to issues like the dearth of family doctors for many families, the high cost of groceries, steep increases in rent, and the lack of affordable housing.
Crombie took an unusual step, asking those who were going to vote NDP to instead vote Liberal as the best way to defeat the Conservatives.
"You may have supported another party in another time in another election, but tomorrow we're asking for your support so that we can bring change and we can change this government," she said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Stiles insisted that the NDP was the only party that would enact real change.
"You have the power through your vote to fight rising costs with a grocery rebate program, with real rent control and to put food on the table of so many Ontarians," she said.