1995 Ontario general election

Acts were passed in 1991 and 1993, providing for the following name changes to ridings:

• Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry to S-D-G & East Grenville.^[3]
• Grey to Grey—Owen Sound.^[4]
• York North to York—Mackenzie.^[5]

The Liberal Party under Lyn McLeod had been leading in the polls for most of the period from 1992 to 1995, and were generally favoured to benefit from the swing in support away from the NDP. However, the party hurt its credibility through a series of high-profile policy reversals in the period leading up to the election. The most notable of these occurred when McLeod withdrew Liberal support from the Equality Rights Statute Amendment Act (Bill 167) introduced by the NDP government in 1994, which would have provided same-sex couples with rights and obligations mostly equal to those of opposite-sex common law couples and introduced a form of civil unions. Her decision was seen as cynical and opportunistic in light of the Liberals' earlier rural by-election loss in the socially conservative riding of Victoria—Haliburton. This gave the McLeod Liberals a reputation for "flip-flopping" and inconsistency while offending its socially progressive supporters.

The Progressive Conservative Party, led by Mike Harris, found success with its Common Sense Revolution campaign to cut personal income taxes, social assistance (welfare) rates, and government spending dramatically. Roughly half of his party's seats came from the more affluent regions of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), especially the suburban belt surrounding Metro Toronto, often called the '905' for its telephone area code.

In addition, by presenting himself as a populist, representing "ordinary Ontarians" over "special interests", Harris was able to build Tory support among working-class voters. Although there were regional variations, many working-class voters shifted directly from the NDP to the Tories during the election, enabling the latter to win formerly NDP ridings such as Cambridge and Oshawa.

The televised party leaders' debate is often regarded as the turning point of the campaign. During the event, McLeod further alienated many voters with an overly aggressive performance. Harris used his time to speak directly to the camera to convey his party's Common Sense Revolution platform, virtually ignoring all questions asked of him by Rae and McLeod and avoiding getting caught up in their debate. Since Liberal support was regarded by many political insiders as soft and unsteady, many voters who were previously leaning to the Liberals shifted to the Progressive Conservatives after the debate.

 

The Progressive Conservatives won a majority while the Liberals finished with less support than they had in the 1990 election. The NDP, despite improving their standing in some Northern Ontario ridings, were heavily defeated, falling to 17 seats and third party status. The New Democrats would remain the third party until 2018 when they returned to Official Opposition status. McLeod and Rae resigned their party leadership posts not long after the campaign. It was also the worst result for an incumbent Ontario governing party up to that time and would remain so until 2018 when the NDP finally surpassed the then-governing Liberals.

One independent candidate was elected: Peter North in the riding of Elgin. North had been elected in 1990 as a New Democrat, but left the NDP and declared his intention to run as a Progressive Conservative. The PC Party did not accept him as a candidate, however.

At least five unregistered parties fielded candidates in this election, appearing on the ballot as independents:

• The Reform Association of Ontario ran fifteen candidates. Their leader was Kimble Ainslie. An article of The Globe and Mail for August 19, 1995 indicates that the party won 6,400 votes.
• John Steele campaigned as a candidate of the Communist League.
• The Ontario Renewal Party ran a number of candidates under the leadership of Diane Johnston. This was the Marxist–Leninist party under a different name.
• Amani Oakley and Joe Flexer ran as "Independent Labour" candidates in Toronto with the support of dissident or former members of the Ontario New Democratic Party and with the support of OPSEU in the case of Oakley and the Canadian Auto Workers in the case of Flexer [1].
• John Turmel's Abolitionist Party ran at least two candidates.

Elections to the 36th Parliament of Ontario (1995)^[1]

Political party		Party leader	MPPs				Votes
			Candidates	1990	1995	±	#	±	%	± (pp)
	Progressive Conservative	Mike Harris	130	20	82	62	1,870,110	925,546	44.97%	21.46
	Liberal	Lyn McLeod	130	36	30	6	1,291,326	10,808	31.05%	1.35
	New Democratic	Bob Rae	130	74	17	57	854,163	655,343	20.54%	17.03
	Independent		60	–	1	1	33,077	19,770	0.80%	0.46
	Family Coalition	Donald Pennell	55	–	–	–	61,657	49,174	1.48%	1.28
	Natural Law	Ron Parker	68	–	–	–	18,326	18,326	0.44%	New
	Green	Frank de Jong	37	–	–	–	14,108	15,989	0.34%	0.41
	Libertarian	John Shadbolt	18	–	–	–	6,085	(18,528	0.15%	0.47
	Freedom	Jack Plant	12	–	–	–	4,532	1,483	0.11%	0.04
	Confederation of Regions		6	–	–	–	3,971	71,902	0.10%	1.79
	Communist	Darrell Rankin	5	–	–	–	1,015	124	0.02%	–
Total			651	130	130		4,158,370		100.00%
Rejected ballots							42,152	10,423
Voter turnout							4,200,522	129,868	63.00	1.45
Registered electors							6,667,798	351,849

  = open seat

  = turnout is above provincial average

  = winning candidate was in previous Legislature

  = not incumbent; was previously elected to the Legislature

  = incumbent had switched allegiance

  = incumbency arose from byelection gain

  = previously incumbent in another riding

  = other incumbents renominated

  = previously an MP in the House of Commons of Canada

  = multiple candidates

Party designations are as follows:

Due to resignations, five by-elections were held between the 1995 and 1999 elections.

• Politics of Ontario
• List of Ontario political parties
• Premier of Ontario
• Leader of the Opposition (Ontario)