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Oct. 19 - Oct. 26, 2003 |
Liberal landslide as predicted by polls
Dalton McGuinty becomes Ontario's 24th premier
By Angelo Persichilli
Originally Published: 2003-10-05
Dalton McGuinty is the 24th premier of Ontario. On October 2, Ontario residents cast their ballots and confirmed what polls had been foretelling for several weeks.
Commenting the victory in Ottawa, McGuinty declared: "This is a victory of the will to change, a victory of the message of hope over the message of fear."
The Liberal majority is overwhelming: the party led by McGuinty secured 72 seats, while the Tories held 24 and NDP only 7.
The loss of the PC party is very heavy even in the Italian-Canadian community, where four of the five Tory incumbents have been defeated. The only one to return to Queen's Park is Joe Tascona, while Gary Guzzo, Frank Mazzilli, Joe Spina, and minister Tina Molinari have lost. The seat previously held by Molinari remained in Italian-Canadian hands, thanks to Mario Racco's victory. Racco, with Lou Rinaldi and Lorenzo Berardinetti, brings the total of Italian-Canadian Liberal MPs to 12. Rosario Marchese, NDP, also won his re-election.
Clearly, all the Liberal incumbents were confirmed, and many of them will most likely be included in the new Ontario cabinet.
PC leader and former premiere Ernie Eves appeared on TV as early as 9:15pm and conceded defeat. Smiling but tense, accompanied by his partner, Isabel Basset, Eves congratulated McGuinty for his victory, but at the same time he insisted his programme was good and the Tory campaign had been well fought. "You can be proud," he said, "of what you've done, and proud of what our party has done for this province in the past eight years." In his speech Eves gave no hint as to his political future or eventual resignation from the PC leadership.
On election night, several people already began to say that the rebuilding of the PC Party would start from Eves' resignation.
NDP leader Howard Hampton gave a balanced speech, conceding defeat and acknowledging the fact that the NDP will not be able to field enough MPs to be considered a parliamentary group in Queen's Park.
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