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What happened between her decision to stay on — despite lukewarm 57 per cent support in a leadership review vote — and her abrupt resignation was a cascading acknowledgment of damaging factors, party insiders told the Star on Monday. 

“She was never going to get past that 57 per cent,” said a senior Liberal with long-standing ties in the party who spoke privately to discuss internal deliberations.

“You’ve got to read the room.”

Crombie came to that conclusion over the course of Sunday afternoon after the low vote result led to an audible gasp from hundreds of Liberals gathered in the basement ballroom of a downtown º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøhotel for their largest convention in two decades.

When she took the stage to admit the support was lower than expected but vowed to soldier on, Crombie was flanked by members of her family but not her party’s 14 members of the Ontario legislature, in a symbolic absence that foreshadowed her difficult decision.     

“It takes time to discern what you need to do,” said Liberal MPP John Fraser (Ottawa South), noting Crombie was talking to her caucus, newly elected party executive, advisers and relatives before and after the disappointing result was made public.   

“She was processing a lot of information, a lot of advice and a lot of voices. I know it wasn’t easy.”

Crombie’s office said she was not available for comment Monday as Liberals ponder their path forward with a leadership convention not expected until spring at the earliest. 

In interviews with the Star, several well-connected Liberals who attended the party’s annual general meeting said Crombie’s fate was sealed by much more than her failure to win a seat in the Feb. 27 general election that gave Ford a rare third consecutive majority government.

However, there was widespread agreement a victory in her chosen battleground riding of Mississauga East—Cooksville would have saved Crombie, who won the leadership in December 2023 largely on the strength of her decade as mayor of Mississauga.

“With a seat, we would not be having this discussion,” said veteran Liberal strategist Marcel Wieder of Aurora Strategy Global, a consulting company.

“But it’s three strikes and you’re out,” he added, referring to the fact Crombie could not lead her MPPs from within the legislature, did not become premier and failed to overtake the New Democrats under Marit Stiles as the Official Opposition. 

“When she was running for leader, the expectation was she could become premier or Official Opposition leader.”

Others pointed to Crombie’s insistence a week ago that support of 50 per cent plus one in the review vote would be enough to hang on to her job, fuelling a backlash from critics who insisted 66 per cent should be the threshold, protestations that the party was not ready for Ford’s early election call that had been repeatedly signalled for nine months, slim prospects for a byelection that could get her into the legislature, and delays in reaching out to some defeated Liberal candidates.

Decisions for which she was criticized included not registering as a candidate and campaigning in the Mississauga riding as soon as she became leader (instead waiting until days before Ford called the election), and giving her keynote convention speech on Saturday after leadership review voting ended — missing one last chance to sway delegates.

“She was poorly served by the people she surrounded herself with,” said a long-time Liberal activist, also speaking privately to discuss internal deliberations. 

While Crombie portrayed a surge in the party’s popular vote to second behind Ford’s Tories in the February election as a feather in her cap — and boasted Liberals had become “the peoples’ opposition” — it was actually a damning number, another party member maintained.   

“The biggest killer was that she got us almost 30 per cent but only won 14 seats,” said the senior Liberal, suggesting a long-awaited breakthrough was within reach if more staff, volunteers and advertising had been concentrated in close races. 

“That shows a misallocation of resources.”

The Liberal caucus, which enjoys about $3.8 million in annual funding now that it is above the threshold of 12 MPPs needed for official party status in the legislature, issued a statement Monday crediting Crombie for “all she did to bring the Ontario Liberal Party to where it is today.”

A group called New Leaf Liberals, which had been critical of Crombie and argued for a 66 per cent approval vote for her to stay on, said her pending departure presents opportunity to get things right with more than three years until the next scheduled provincial election.

“We are obviously pleased with this weekend’s outcome, and excited about the future,” the New Leaf Liberals said in a statement Monday.

Crombie has pledged to stay on until a new leader is chosen, but some in the caucus and in the party said that without a seat there is little reason to do so and predicted she may leave earlier. Crombie is being paid $185,000 a year by the party.

New Democrats view the Liberal leadership turmoil as an opportunity to boost their political fortunes and highlight Stiles, who is heading into a party convention in Niagara Falls this weekend where members will vote on whether to hold a leadership review.

“While the Liberals are focused on themselves, this is the time for the NDP to get really loud and tell people who we’re working for, which is working people,” said Erin Morrison, a vice-president at Texture, a communications consulting firm and a former senior New Democrat staffer at Queen’s Park.