Justin Trudeau’s F-bombs — as in Ford — exploded Andrew Scheer’s path to power as Ontario voters bought the Liberal line that the Conservative leader was the second coming of an unpopular Tory premier.Trudeau’s Liberals were leading or had held 78 of the province’s 121 seats as of 11:30 p.m. Monday as Ontarians rejected Scheer over fears he would impose similar cuts to Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives.The Tories had won or were leading in just 37 — a pick up of only four seats from the 2015 election — while the NDP had six ridings at that time.Conservative strategist Kory Teneycke, one of the architects of Ford’s June 2018 majority victory, said on CBC that Scheer made a mistake distancing himself from a premier he insisted is “more popular in Ontario” than the Tory leader.Former NDP premier Bob Rae agreed with Teneycke that the federal Tories erred in banishing Ford, whose party won 76 of Ontario’s 124 provincial seats 16 months ago.But Steven Del Duca, the front-runner for the Ontario Liberal leadership, said Monday night he was not surprised the federal Grits held their own.“The federal election result in Ontario is a clear and stunning rejection of Conservatives and Doug Ford’s reckless and incompetent government,” said Del Duca, who canvassed for 73 Liberal candidates across Ontario this campaign.“Voters made it clear that they want continued progress to fight climate change, expand and support the middle class, and help our kids achieve success — not more Conservative cuts,” he said.“Ontarians refused to be fooled by Ford’s decision to go into hiding.”While Ford delayed the return of the Ontario legislature from Sept. 9 until next Monday as a favour to Scheer and stayed out of the limelight for the entire campaign, he loomed large.Trudeau repeatedly invoked his name on the campaign trail — as many as 14 time ...
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