And last but definitely not least, The
Heartland Province. Thanks to
@Turquoise Blue for her input with the party leaders.
Credit to DrRandomFactor of Wikipedia for the election base map.
Ontario, officially the
Royal Province of Ontario, and historically known as
Upper Canada, is one of the 11 provinces and territories of the Dominion of Canada located in the eastern region of the country, bordered to the west by the Great Lakes and the Ohioan states of Detroit and Anishinaabe, to the north by the province of Hudson, to the east by the province of Quebec, and to the south by Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and the Columbian provinces of Adirondack and Genesee Iroquoia. Ontario is Canada's eight-largest administrative division by area and the largest by population, with an estimated 12.5 million people living in the province at the 2011 census. The province is home to both the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and most populous city, Toronto.
What is now Ontario was first claimed by the French in the 17th century as part of their colony of New France, prior to which the area had been inhabited by Algonquian, Iroquois and Wyandot peoples. After Samuel de Champlain reached Lake Huron in 1615, French missionaries and settlers began to establish themselves in the region, although they were hampered by hostilities with the English-aligned Iroquois nations. The native Huron people were devastated by European diseases to which they had no immunity, while the Iroquois withdrew from their territory north of Lake Ontario. What is now Ontario remained less populated than Quebec to the east, and after the Seven Years' War the entire colony of French Canada came under British control, with the 1763 Royal Proclamation creating the province of Quebec which included territories that are now the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and the territory of Labrador.
British settlers first began to move into what is now Ontario in the 1770s, mainly loyalists concerned with the growing unrest in the United Colonies and frontiersmen dissatisfied by the limitations on settlement east of the Appalachians. The English-speaking population largely settled south of the Ottawa River, and ongoing disputes between the Francophone east and Anglophone west of the province of Quebec led to the British partitioning the territory into two colonial provinces; Lower Canada, which became Quebec, and Upper Canada, which became modern Ontario. Despite some suggestions of the establishment of a hereditary palatinate in Ontario, mirroring the development of that of Quebec, no viable candidate emerged and the colony opted to remain under direct rule of the Crown as a royal province, a style it retains to the present day. Ontario would experience relative peace throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, with the exception of a brief uprising in 1848 during the early months of the Republican Rebellion, and in 1867 joined with Quebec to form the self-governing federal Dominion of Canada, becoming one of the country's first two provinces. Historically, Ontario claimed much of the territory that is now the provinces of Manitoba and Hudson, but in 1874 and 1889 the province lost its western and northern claims and territory to the creation of the province of Hudson, the only major border change to Ontario since 1791.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Ontario experienced massive population growth through immigration, leading to the province becoming culturally very diverse. The economy remains dominated by the industrial and manufacturing sectors, with the abundant natural resources and agricultural industries also being of significant importance. The rise of nationalism in neighbouring Quebec led many businesses to relocate to Toronto, which is now the largest city and leading economic centre of the country. As the most-populous province, Ontario dominates Canada politically, cultural and demographically, and there is a growing sense of alienation among Western provinces with the centralising of economic and political power in Ontario.
The
2018 Ontario legislative election was held on 7 June 2018 to elect, under the mixed member proportional system, the 178 members of the House of Assembly. 118 seats are elected under the first past the post system in single member ridings, with an additional 60 seats allocated to parties in accordance with their share of the province-wide popular vote, to give a proportional number of seats in the legislature.
The opposition broad tent conservative
Ontarian People's Party, under Christine Elliott, defeated the incumbent centre-left
Democratic government, under Premier Peggy Nash. The OPP secured a plurality in the legislature but fell 13 seats short of a working majority, which had been the case since the adoption of MMP in 2007, but secured a confidence and supply agreement with centre-right liberal conservative
Moderates, under Vic Fedeli. The Moderate Party, which had been formed when progressive conservatives broke from the newly formed OPP in 2001, increased their share of the vote to secure an additional 6 seats. The left-wing environmentalist
Greens, held steady under the continued leadership of David Chernushenko. The left-wing
Socialist Labour movement, under long time leader Kevin Clarke, held his seat which they had won at the 2007 election, whilst the right-wing populist
Trillium party won the single seat of leader, and OPP defector, Jack MacLaren.
After the election, Elliott was appointed by the governor as the next premier of Ontario.