[LINK] Two notes on the leaderships of the Ontario PC and NDP after the election

[rfmcdonald]

Adrian Lee at MacLean's notes the despair among Progressive Conservative voters in Ontario following the defeat of the Progressive Conservatives (a fall int he share of the popular vote, ten seats lost, the leader Tim Hudak resigning). Ontario's rural-urban split comes into play in the discussion.

Shellie Correia lives in West Lincoln, Ont., and volunteered for Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak’s campaign in Niagara West-Glanbrook, saying only he listened to her complaints about wind turbines that affected her son. She says she’s grown to know Hudak and his family, and says that when Hudak tells her a story, she gets the sense that “it’s not just because it’s what you want to hear. He means it.”

But as PC riding after PC riding in Ontario fell on Thursday night, and hope after hope faded, even she was unwilling to make a prediction on the leader’s future with the party.

“I have no idea,” she said, after a long pause, tears staining her face. “We need him to be leading this province and he should. And I have no idea.”

[. . .]

As for the whys and wherefores? Immediately, in Grimsby, the response was a rural-urban divide.

“There are two Ontarios,” said [Mike Sansano, a Grimsby resident]. “They control the GTA, and the rural voice isn’t heard.”

CBC Hamilton's Samantha Craggs, meanwhile, notes that many in the Ontario NDP are questioning the leadership of Andrea Horwath.

Andrea Horwath is ready to keep fighting for her party's priorities — but is her party prepared to keep her as leader?

Despite increasing the party's popular vote, there are questions about her future as leader of the New Democratic Party after triggering an election that handed Kathleen Wynne's Liberals a majority government.

Despite the NDP gains, Horwath will have less influence in the next session of provincial parliament than she did during the Liberals' two-and-a-half-year minority mandate, during which the Hamilton Centre MPP and her party held the balance of power.

And she has bridges to repair with unions and a group of influential NDP supporters who were critical of her election call and didn't offer their support during the campaign.

None of that came up during Horwath's speech to supporters Thursday, where her focus was carrying on.