Northern blues: Progressive Conservatives confident of northern Ontario breakthrough this spring

It is less than a month before the Ontario election campaign kicks off and less than two months before voters mark their ballots.

After years running as the third party in most northern ridings, the ruling Progressive Conservatives are confident they will win more votes, and seats, in northern Ontario.

One of the big signs of a co-ordinated effort to increase their presence is the PCs have a full roster of candidates across the north. Most of them have been in place for months, instead of the usual last-minute scrambling to get names on the ballots. 

"It's no secret that sometimes in the past we've had trouble finding good candidates," said Fred Slade, riding association president for Sudbury and Nickel Belt, and the treasurer on the provincial party executive.  

"They've been out there, getting their names known and raising money. So we're in good shape and we expect to do well."

This time it's the Liberals playing catch-up, still needing four candidates in the northeast, with the nomination deadline less than a month away. 

Slade said there's "absolutely no question" that his party is paying more attention to the north than in years past and he expects to turn at least one more riding blue. 

"Obviously there's some uphill battles to climb in some of those ridings," he said. 

"The winds are changing and we consider all those ridings to be in play."

The New Democrats won many of those ridings by huge margins in 2018, including Algoma-Manitoulin, where the Conservative candidate was 10,000 votes behind incumbent MPP Michael Mantha. 

But the 2022 PC standard bearer, Hornepayne Mayor Cheryl Fort, is feeling good about her chances.

"Investment and building Ontario and getting it done. I want to see us be part of that. I think it's beneficial for the north," said Fort, who was inspired by Ford's leadership to join the party four years ago. 

"We need to ensure that our voices are being heard."

During the Bill Davis PC governments of the 1970s and '80s, there were a lot of northern voices in the Conservative party.

But longtime party volunteer Kelly Mitchell says when the northern economy sagged in the '80s, voters turned to the NDP and Liberals.

Mitchell, a professional forester who served as chief of staff to the ministers of natural resources and northern development and mines in the 1990s, says it's tough to keep up local party infrastructure without election wins. 

He said loyal volunteers were also "deflated" by party decisions to turn away from the north, such as when leader Tim Hudak skipped the northern leader's debate in 2014. 

"If you had an incumbent seat you could at least have some mechanism to keep some of those volunteers working and supported," Mitchell said. 

"I think we had an erosion and I think Premier Ford when he came in in 2018 has been able to stop that erosion."

Still, Eric Grenier, a poll analyst who writes about politics at thewrit.ca, says it's unlikely the north will be painted blue in this election.

"If you think that 2018 was a bit of a high watermark for the PCs and when you look at polls it seems to be the case, it's hard to imagine that this is an election where they're trying to make gains," Grenier said.

"It is about trying to win whatever they can, make sure they get over 63 seats so they can have a majority. So, if they look at the seats they have in northern Ontario, they might be concerned that they can just hold on to them."

One of those seats is Sault Ste. Marie, which the Progressive Conservatives captured in 2017 after 30 years of Liberal and NDP members.

Ross Romano won that byelection by 2,000 votes, but then a year later in the 2018 election, beat out NDP challenger Michele McCleave-Kennedy by just 400 votes. 

Trevor Tchir, a political science professor at Algoma University, believe the government's handling of the pandemic will "overshadow" all other issues in this campaign, but in a race as close as the Sault, many other things could be the deciding factor.

"Locally, look the race was so close last time, 1 per cent, that some funding announcement... it doesn't take a lot to change that result," he said. 

Premier Doug Ford is expected to be in Sault Ste. Marie on Friday to make a funding announcement at the Algoma steel mill.