TORONTO - The Opposition needs to sharpen its message on how it plans to fix the perceived wrongs of the Liberal government if it hopes to fare better in the 2011 provincial election than it did in Thursday's byelection, a political expert said Friday.
The Progressive Conservatives slipped to 15.4 per cent of the vote in Toronto Centre, down from 20 per cent in the 2007 general election. That put them behind the New Democrats -- who nearly doubled their tally from the 2007 to 33 per cent -- and the Liberals, who held the riding with 47 per cent of the vote.
The Liberal win came despite what the Tories had dubbed the "summer of scandal" after a spending debacle at eHealth as well as what they consider a "radioactive" issue -- the harmonized sales tax.
Part of the problem is that new Conservative Leader Tim Hudak has yet to provide any clear policies to show how he would right what he considers so many Liberal wrongs, said Henry Jacek, a politics professor at McMaster University.
"In a three-party system you simply can't be negative, you have to offer an alternative, because you may simply just help people go vote for the third party," Jacek said.
"(Hudak) has to have a vision for the Ontario cities, and I don't think people see that."
Hudak remained upbeat despite Thursday's loss -- the second Toronto byelection lost since he became leader -- saying his party was garnering good support.
"We'll still continue to build the riding associations," Hudak said. "We're crunching our numbers and working with our campaign team to see how we can build for 2011."
Toronto Centre is known to be the safest Liberal seat in all of Ontario, Hudak said. The byelection may have turned out very differently if the Liberals hadn't poured $15 million into the struggling Grace Hospital just hours before the polls opened, he added.
"The $15 million of taxpayer money that basically went to support the Liberal campaign does have an influence," Hudak said.
But as Jacek notes, the Tories were pretty much absent from the debate over the possible closure of the Grace Hospital -- which became a key issue in the riding for the last few days of the campaign.
"The two parties that are going to win here are the Liberals who gave the money, and NDP who claim they forced the Liberals to give the money," he said. "Once again the Conservatives are out in the cold."
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Friday she felt "heartened" by the byelection results.
"We are showing the people of Toronto Centre particularly that we are a viable place to put their votes if they're unhappy with the current government," she said.
Both Horwath and Hudak accused the Liberal government of buying votes by investing in Grace, with Horwath calling it a "completely cynical move."
Premier Dalton McGuinty rejected those accusations, saying his government has increased funding in Ontario hospitals by more than 40 per cent over the last six years.
"We have been investing dramatically in all our hospitals right across the province," he said.
Thursday's win marks the third byelection win in a row for the Liberals in the past year.
Liberal Glen Murray, 52, inherited the well-organized riding association from former deputy premier George Smitherman, who stepped down to run for mayor of Toronto.
