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That’s how our system works, of course — for now — and the Conservatives have the same right to govern as every previous “majority” government elected with a minority of the vote. But we needn’t dress it up as more than what it was.

Mandate? Forty per cent of the vote went to the Conservatives, and whatever it was they were running on: the party did not release anything resembling a platform until the last days of the campaign, which left the closest readers puzzled as to just how much the party would spend, or tax, or borrow, and where if at all it would find the “efficiencies” the leader promised. But fine: let’s say those 40 per cent supported the Conservative “agenda.”

There wasn’t any great wave of enthusiasm for the Conservatives, still less their leader; they won in spite of, not because of him. What there was, among a significant part of the population, was a determination to be rid of the Grits, after 15 long years of sleaze, waste and nanny-statism.

Meanwhile, roughly 60 per cent supported the parties to their left, andtheir agenda of pricing carbon, “borrowing billions from future generations” and all the rest of the things Ontarians were supposed to have rejected (much of which Ford also promised). Again, the Tories have the right to govern, and the power to implement whatever it turns out they believe in. But let us not have too much loose talk of a mandate. Mostly, they have a mandate to not be the Liberals.

That is what really happened in this election. There wasn’t any great wave of enthusiasm for the Conservatives, still less their leader; they won in spite of, not because of him. What there was, among a significant part of the population, was a determination to be rid of the Grits, after 15 long years of sleaze, waste and nanny-statism.