Fifty years ago, the Ontario Liberals took a big step toward winning again

There was a time, back in the day, when being a member of the Ontario Liberal party meant perpetual opposition with little to no hope of victory. If you think things are tough for the party these days, let’s remember that they were actually in power for 15 straight years (2003 to 2018) before giving way to Doug Ford’s PC party.

No, I’m talking about the days when the Liberals spent 42 straight years in opposition, between 1943 and 1985. And despite having some fine men as leader, the party, for a bunch of reasons, could just never get within a sniff of the finish line.

That’s why the events of 50 years ago yesterday were so important to the eventual success the Liberals would enjoy, eventually putting David Peterson, Dalton McGuinty, and Kathleen Wynne in the premier’s office.

On January 25, 1976, Liberals gathered in downtown Toronto and selected a Jewish psychiatrist from Montreal named Stuart Smith as their new leader. He never did become premier. But he began a transformation of the Ontario Liberals that would prove[…] This is an excerpt. Read the full article at TVO.