Ontario Election 2022

[brucejoel99]

For having worked on that campaign, it's not Mulcair who blew it, but the paid campaign strategists and party employees.

The buck stops at the top.

Which is nonsense, as he is not the one who hired them and he couldn't fire them even if he wanted too, because labour law.

Surely he could legally overrule any stupidity on their part, though, as the head of the entity that they were employees of?

[MaxQue]

Yes but keep in mind that it was Layton who led the NDP to OO status and the Mulcair who blew it. In contrast it was Horwath who let the NDP to a great result in 2018

For having worked on that campaign, it's not Mulcair who blew it, but the paid campaign strategists and party employees.

Can you elaborate on this at all?

The usual control mania, with party staffers offering no support at all, but kept lecturing local organisations and candidates for not talking enough about the policy of the day (even if we know it's a vote-loser locally) and too much about local issues, them taking control of local campaigns, but doing nothing and offering no leadership, except to complain when the people took the ''wrong'' decisions... They were in general, very unlikeable people who were more preoccupied with looking good with the provincial organiser than doing a good job or even respecting MP or the local members.

My riding was thankfully spared from them, because my (then high profile) MP said that if they did that to his campaign, he would retire right away.

This convinced me that parties should have the least amount of paid staff and any staff should be contracted for fixed lenght contracts, not hired.

For brucejoel, the leader of the party isn't the head of the entity, that would be whomever manages the party day to day (and unions, who would defend any incompetent employee, because it's their ''job'').

[brucejoel99]

For brucejoel, the leader of the party isn't the head of the entity, that would be whomever manages the party day to day (and unions, who would defend any incompetent employee, because it's their ''job'').

Fair, but was Mulcair, as leader of the NDP, really so powerless in his position as to be unable to prevent the party from abiding by the tactics of stupid-but-unfireable strategists & staffers? If so, then I don't see how the buck still doesn't stop with him, just due to his political weakness instead of poor strategizing. If not, then he actively enabled, if not partook in that stupidity, & so the buck definitely still stops with him.

[adma]

adma, I'm done with being dragged around in circles on this topic after this post, & no offense, but most of what you have to say seems meaningless. The point of all of this is that Horwath & her ONDP, after nearly a decade with her at their helm & regardless of external factors, have proven incapable of presenting themselves as the obvious government of Ontario-in-waiting.

Then under the circumstance, name who else could have done what Andrea couldn't.  You present it as if somebody else could have; I'm answering in terms of "it's complicated" due to political cultures both internal and external--in a way, the whole *nature* of the NDP, with rare exceptions (mostly in the Western provinces), is of a sort that's forever in a state of existential dilemma, to the point where once it tastes power real or imminent, the internal psychodrama kicks in.  And I'd suggest that's a *bit* the case w/the ONDP post-2018; which is why they couldn't consolidate on their OO status the way they could have.

And you know something?  "Obvious government in waiting" or no, that's what makes the NDP an eternally *interesting* presence in Ontario and Canadian politics, in a standing-on-the-verge-of-getting-it-on manner.  Win or lose, it's like their peculiar eternality lends and reinforces a certain subtle poetry to Canadian psephology--and if it's "meaningless" to you, then maybe you're just too limited and uninspired in your grasp of electoral politics to channel that poetry.

But that said, they seem to be in an inching-down-a-point-at-a-time phase according to Mainstreet, so maybe going below that 20% Frontier Of Doom come e-day isn't implausible for them...

[brucejoel99]

adma, I'm done with being dragged around in circles on this topic after this post, & no offense, but most of what you have to say seems meaningless. The point of all of this is that Horwath & her ONDP, after nearly a decade with her at their helm & regardless of external factors, have proven incapable of presenting themselves as the obvious government of Ontario-in-waiting.

Then under the circumstance, name who else could have done what Andrea couldn't.  You present it as if somebody else could have; I'm answering in terms of "it's complicated" due to political cultures both internal and external--in a way, the whole *nature* of the NDP, with rare exceptions (mostly in the Western provinces), is of a sort that's forever in a state of existential dilemma, to the point where once it tastes power real or imminent, the internal psychodrama kicks in.  And I'd suggest that's a *bit* the case w/the ONDP post-2018; which is why they couldn't consolidate on their OO status the way they could have.

There's an alternate universe out there where she resigned in 2014 after Wynne won a majority (lol), Singh is acclaimed leader of the ONDP, he wins in 2018, & Premier Singh presides over provincial affairs for the duration of the pandemic, but no, she ran a centrist campaign that managed to win only 5 seats, failing to gain any ground in an election which they triggered, & then got 77% in her leadership review, which is honestly insane when Singh was right there. Instead of being enticed to seek the federal leadership in 2017, the ONDP leadership frankly should've already been vacant by then; he was a well-performing MPP & the ONDP leadership wouldn't have been quite the leap that attempting to lead the federal NDP from outside of Parliament initially proved to be. And yeah, I do think that he would've stood a better chance of winning in 2018 compared to Horwath; that's speculation, & maybe it wouldn't have been a majority, but at least a Singh-led ONDP may have been able to overcome the plateau that the Horwath-led ONDP saw in the latter half of the 2018 election campaign: the ONDP surged in the polls, & then... plateaued, after which they didn't make it across the finish line, & I don't think anybody disputes that Singh could've picked up ridings that the ONDP wasn't previously competitive in. Ultimately, the ONDP chose to stick with Horwath at their helm not just in 2018, but for this year as well. Although I believe that I've already adequately expressed my disappointment in her inability to paint herself as the Ford government's legitimate opposition to date, I hope that she can somehow manage to pull it off nonetheless, but I sincerely doubt it.

And you know something?  "Obvious government in waiting" or no, that's what makes the NDP an eternally *interesting* presence in Ontario and Canadian politics, in a standing-on-the-verge-of-getting-it-on manner.  Win or lose, it's like their peculiar eternality lends and reinforces a certain subtle poetry to Canadian psephology--and if it's "meaningless" to you, then maybe you're just too limited and uninspired in your grasp of electoral politics to channel that poetry.

Who gives a sh*t about electoral poetry when healthcare, education, childcare, transport, & housing are all on the line!?

But that said, they seem to be in an inching-down-a-point-at-a-time phase according to Mainstreet, so maybe going below that 20% Frontier Of Doom come e-day isn't implausible for them...

The ONDP ending on sub-20 will be entirely dependent on how many ONDP->OLP strategic vote there are to be squeezed.

[adma]

And you know something?  "Obvious government in waiting" or no, that's what makes the NDP an eternally *interesting* presence in Ontario and Canadian politics, in a standing-on-the-verge-of-getting-it-on manner.  Win or lose, it's like their peculiar eternality lends and reinforces a certain subtle poetry to Canadian psephology--and if it's "meaningless" to you, then maybe you're just too limited and uninspired in your grasp of electoral politics to channel that poetry.

Who gives a sh*t about electoral poetry when healthcare, education, childcare, transport, & housing are all on the line!?

Hey, I do;  it's the difference btw/the 2018 polling map (with its dumbed-down "megapolls") and the denser web of its its pre-2018 counterparts.

http://www.election-atlas.ca/ont/

[DL]

FYI, if Horwath had quit after the 2014 election the heir apparent would have been Catherine Fife of Waterloo.

If Horwath is so unpopular how is it that she took over the NDP when it had lost official party status in three straight elections and had just 9 seats and she took the party from 9 seats to 17 in 2011 to 20 in 2014 and then to 40 in 2018}

[Benjamin Frank]

FYI, if Horwath had quit after the 2014 election the heir apparent would have been Catherine Fife of Waterloo.

If Horwath is so unpopular how is it that she took over the NDP when it had lost official party status in three straight elections and had just 9 seats and she took the party from 9 seats to 17 in 2011 to 20 in 2014 and then to 40 in 2018}

I don't disagree with you and I know you are being rhetorical, but the answer to your question (which you might already know the answer to) is that she built the NDP in a more populist left wing direction that was apparently not all the popular with former NDP types in Toronto (even though they voted NDP in 2018) but was more popular in the 'secondary cities' of Ontario, building, I think, on the NDP popularity in the North, and the already existing popularity in some of these cities, especially Hamilton and Windsor.  So, she helped add more in the cities of London, Kitchener and the Niagara Region.

The NDP after the 2018 election was the leading party in Midwestern and Southwestern Ontario.  

Of course, the NDP also had breakthroughs in Brampton, but that may be more attributable to Jagmeet Singh, though I could be totally wrong about that.

[Benjamin Frank]

If the Mainstreet Polls are correct it looks like the P.Cs are peaking at the right time. Other than there are 6 less seats, I think the riding results could be pretty much the same as in the 1987 election (switching over the P.C/Liberals) when the results were 95 Liberals, 19 New Democrats and 16 P.Cs

Although the P.Cs will win nowhere near the same share of the vote as the Liberals did in 1987 (47.3%),  the battle for second place looks very similar. In 1987, the NDP received 25.7% of the vote and the P.Cs 24.7%

[adma]

FYI, if Horwath had quit after the 2014 election the heir apparent would have been Catherine Fife of Waterloo.

If Horwath is so unpopular how is it that she took over the NDP when it had lost official party status in three straight elections and had just 9 seats and she took the party from 9 seats to 17 in 2011 to 20 in 2014 and then to 40 in 2018}

I don't disagree with you and I know you are being rhetorical, but the answer to your question (which you might already know the answer to) is that she built the NDP in a more populist left wing direction that was apparently not all the popular with former NDP types in Toronto (even though they voted NDP in 2018) but was more popular in the 'secondary cities' of Ontario, building, I think, on the NDP popularity in the North, and the already existing popularity in some of these cities, especially Hamilton and Windsor.  So, she helped add more in the cities of London, Kitchener and the Niagara Region.

The NDP after the 2018 election was the leading party in Midwestern and Southwestern Ontario.  

Of course, the NDP also had breakthroughs in Brampton, but that may be more attributable to Jagmeet Singh, though I could be totally wrong about that.

Yeah, I think the whole spin here is "Jagmeet as ONDP leader could have done better".  (And for all one knows, Jagmeet's charisma could have swept aside heir-presumptive Fife in much the same manner that he swept aside Charlie Angus federally).

And yes, those Brampton breakthroughs in '18 were totally due to the "Jagmeet effect" (and the ghost thereof was already present in '14).  That said, I still think it's highly hypothetical/speculative to assume that a Jagmeet leadership would have "broken the plateau" in '18 in a way that Andrea Horwath couldn't--he probably would have swept the Brampton seats rather than just getting half of them, but beyond that he'd be running against *Doug Ford's* own populist strengths (to say nothing of the unfortunate ammunition that could be deployed against the glib-guy-with-a-turban).  And on top of that, had Premier Jagmeet somehow succeeded in '18, his party's stumblebum-in-power rep could well have re-asserted itself by '22 and they might have come out of this election with virtually the same seat totals Andrea's likely to get (shades of Bob Rae, or Darrell Dexter).

I'm not saying *any* of that as an absolute likelihood.  However, it's yet another one of those reasons why it's best to take a fine-grained "it's complicated" approach to *any* winning-or-losing NDP (or just plain "progressive") electoral prospects, rather than put too many eggs in the election-winning basket--particularly as a lot of what cannot be achieved through actual ballot-box victory can be induced extra-electorally through deal-making and coalition-building and lobbying.

So re "who gives a sh*t about electoral poetry when healthcare, education, childcare, transport, & housing are all on the line!": that's where psephology, rather than simple "politics", kicks in.  The study of fine-grained electoral results can mitigate many a so-called "disappointing" result, highlight subtleties, and serve as guidelines for the future as well as coordinates for electorally "knowing about a place"--the way I see it, even pin-prick opposition results in ridings like Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke are "meaningful", better than just treating it as a monolithic abandon-hope Conservative vote sink.

Otherwise, you might as well be saying, in a case like this, "who gives a sh*t about architectural importance when it's a dysfunctional eyesore".  (Almost as if architectural historians and Brutalist buffs were "vested interests" much like pro-413 developer lobbyists)

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/03/14/cumbernauld-brutalist-town-centre-demolition-outrage/

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The problem is that Ontario is not the natural home for conservative politics, Doug Ford was a weak candidate in 2018 and the liberal self-destruction speaks for itself, Yet horwath has not been able to win that election and even winning oppostion status is looking like it'll fade away despite another poor liberal leader. Many other provincal NDP parites have managed to form governments or even displace the liberals as a major provincial party, but despite cirumstances being perfect horwath has not been able to do it.

[DL]

FWIW Mainstreet today has a bit of a reversion to the mean with the NDP bouncing back from 20.8% yesterday to 23.4 today and that puts them more firmly in second place in seats. So when Marit Stiles gets acclaimed at the successor to Horwath sometime in the coming year she will be leader of the opposition and likely to be far more effective than Horwath was. The NDP should hope that Del Duca wins his seat that way the Liberals are stuck with him for another election!

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The idea that Jagmeet Singh was destined to become premier had he stayed in Ontario politics doesn't stand up to a basic examination of his record in federal politics.

[adma]

The problem is that Ontario is not the natural home for conservative politics, Doug Ford was a weak candidate in 2018 and the liberal self-destruction speaks for itself, Yet horwath has not been able to win that election and even winning oppostion status is looking like it'll fade away despite another poor liberal leader. Many other provincal NDP parites have managed to form governments or even displace the liberals as a major provincial party, but despite cirumstances being perfect horwath has not been able to do it.

If Ontario's not "the natural home for conservative politics", then how come the Big Blue Machine ruled from 1943 to 1985?  And yeah, I know the argument that it wasn't the same as *today's* Conservatives; but maybe also, as it turns out, Doug Ford isn't the "weak candidate" you presume--or at least, he's "strong where it counts" (thus the special nature of Ford Nation populism)--and even if he were so weak, he had and has a strong party machine behind him.  (Also, one might argue that thanks to changes in media consumption and political engagement over the decades, Ontario, like so many other places, has a bit of a "weak electorate" problem--that is, one that's incapable of clueing into how a Doug Ford might seem so much more of a leadership cartoon than Robarts or Davis were.)

And the "many other NDP parties" are all in Western Canada, where the political culture's different and historically far more favourable to NDP default-left populism.  Sadly, Ontario's too "Central Canadian" for that to be such an easy task; the entrenched Laurentian consensus puts the thumb upon the Lib/Con binary scale, albeit not to the same degree as in the Atlantic Provinces.

Whether one likes it or not, when it comes to "blowing it", Horwath vs Doug Ford provincially in '18 is *not* in the same brain-stem-disconnected category as Smitherman vs Rob Ford mayorally in '10.  And ultimately, rather than grousing over Doug Ford's so-called weaknesses, maybe it's worth engaging to his *strengths*--even if they're not precisely the kind of "strengths" that are your or my own cup of tea.  "Seeking to understand" is not always a matter of caving to the so-called "deplorables"...

[Benjamin Frank]

FYI, if Horwath had quit after the 2014 election the heir apparent would have been Catherine Fife of Waterloo.

If Horwath is so unpopular how is it that she took over the NDP when it had lost official party status in three straight elections and had just 9 seats and she took the party from 9 seats to 17 in 2011 to 20 in 2014 and then to 40 in 2018}

I don't disagree with you and I know you are being rhetorical, but the answer to your question (which you might already know the answer to) is that she built the NDP in a more populist left wing direction that was apparently not all the popular with former NDP types in Toronto (even though they voted NDP in 2018) but was more popular in the 'secondary cities' of Ontario, building, I think, on the NDP popularity in the North, and the already existing popularity in some of these cities, especially Hamilton and Windsor.  So, she helped add more in the cities of London, Kitchener and the Niagara Region.

The NDP after the 2018 election was the leading party in Midwestern and Southwestern Ontario.  

Of course, the NDP also had breakthroughs in Brampton, but that may be more attributable to Jagmeet Singh, though I could be totally wrong about that.

Yeah, I think the whole spin here is "Jagmeet as ONDP leader could have done better".  (And for all one knows, Jagmeet's charisma could have swept aside heir-presumptive Fife in much the same manner that he swept aside Charlie Angus federally).

And yes, those Brampton breakthroughs in '18 were totally due to the "Jagmeet effect" (and the ghost thereof was already present in '14).  That said, I still think it's highly hypothetical/speculative to assume that a Jagmeet leadership would have "broken the plateau" in '18 in a way that Andrea Horwath couldn't--he probably would have swept the Brampton seats rather than just getting half of them, but beyond that he'd be running against *Doug Ford's* own populist strengths (to say nothing of the unfortunate ammunition that could be deployed against the glib-guy-with-a-turban).  And on top of that, had Premier Jagmeet somehow succeeded in '18, his party's stumblebum-in-power rep could well have re-asserted itself by '22 and they might have come out of this election with virtually the same seat totals Andrea's likely to get (shades of Bob Rae, or Darrell Dexter).

I'm not saying *any* of that as an absolute likelihood.  However, it's yet another one of those reasons why it's best to take a fine-grained "it's complicated" approach to *any* winning-or-losing NDP (or just plain "progressive") electoral prospects, rather than put too many eggs in the election-winning basket--particularly as a lot of what cannot be achieved through actual ballot-box victory can be induced extra-electorally through deal-making and coalition-building and lobbying.

So re "who gives a sh*t about electoral poetry when healthcare, education, childcare, transport, & housing are all on the line!": that's where psephology, rather than simple "politics", kicks in.  The study of fine-grained electoral results can mitigate many a so-called "disappointing" result, highlight subtleties, and serve as guidelines for the future as well as coordinates for electorally "knowing about a place"--the way I see it, even pin-prick opposition results in ridings like Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke are "meaningful", better than just treating it as a monolithic abandon-hope Conservative vote sink.

Otherwise, you might as well be saying, in a case like this, "who gives a sh*t about architectural importance when it's a dysfunctional eyesore".  (Almost as if architectural historians and Brutalist buffs were "vested interests" much like pro-413 developer lobbyists)

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/03/14/cumbernauld-brutalist-town-centre-demolition-outrage/

I was just trying to rationalize why the NDP gained in the Toronto suburb of Brampton in addition to the 'secondary cities' of Kitchener, Windsor, Hamilton, London and the Niagara Region.

If you remember the 2014 election where the NDP ended up with the same number of seats that they had going in (a gain from the 2011 election because they won 3 ridings in byelections) but they lost seats in Toronto while gaining seats in these 'secondary cities.'

Other than Hamilton and Windsor these areas have not particularly been NDP areas historically (the riding of Welland-Thorold in the Niagara region had been NDP historically as had the Waterloo region federally with Max Saltzman) and Andrea Horwath has clearly had success in her three elections as leader building the NDP up in these areas.

However, I was wrong when I said the NDP was the leading party in these areas though, the P.Cs won slightly more ridings in 2018 in Midwestern and Southwestern Ontrario in 2018.  I forgot that the Liberals won zero seats in those regions in 2018.

*The point about the NDP losing seats in Toronto in 2014 under Andrea Horwath is that the NDP Toronto elite felt that the election was a major loss even though they ended up with the same total number of ridings simply because they lost seats in Toronto.

So, my point was simply that depending on what happens in this election that Andrea Horwath has remade the Ontario NDP 'in her image' as a left wing populist party that doesn't appeal to as many people in Toronto as the NDP had previously, but appeals more in these 'secondary cities.'

I felt I had to rationalize Brampton in 2018 because pointing all that out left open the response of "that can't really be correct because it doesn't explain how the NDP won those ridings in Brampton, which is a suburban city and not a 'secondary city.'

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

FWIW Mainstreet today has a bit of a reversion to the mean with the NDP bouncing back from 20.8% yesterday to 23.4 today and that puts them more firmly in second place in seats. So when Marit Stiles gets acclaimed at the successor to Horwath sometime in the coming year she will be leader of the opposition and likely to be far more effective than Horwath was. The NDP should hope that Del Duca wins his seat that way the Liberals are stuck with him for another election!

Why the confidence that Marit Stiles will be the next leader? Davenport seems to me to be a seat full of exactly the sort of easily-led, sorry, promiscuous progressives who will flock to an OLP they've been told is the real opposition again.

[Benjamin Frank]

The problem is that Ontario is not the natural home for conservative politics, Doug Ford was a weak candidate in 2018 and the liberal self-destruction speaks for itself, Yet horwath has not been able to win that election and even winning oppostion status is looking like it'll fade away despite another poor liberal leader. Many other provincal NDP parites have managed to form governments or even displace the liberals as a major provincial party, but despite cirumstances being perfect horwath has not been able to do it.

If Ontario's not "the natural home for conservative politics", then how come the Big Blue Machine ruled from 1943 to 1985?  And yeah, I know the argument that it wasn't the same as *today's* Conservatives; but maybe also, as it turns out, Doug Ford isn't the "weak candidate" you presume--or at least, he's "strong where it counts" (thus the special nature of Ford Nation populism)--and even if he were so weak, he had and has a strong party machine behind him.  (Also, one might argue that thanks to changes in media consumption and political engagement over the decades, Ontario, like so many other places, has a bit of a "weak electorate" problem--that is, one that's incapable of clueing into how a Doug Ford might seem so much more of a leadership cartoon than Robarts or Davis were.)

And the "many other NDP parties" are all in Western Canada, where the political culture's different and historically far more favourable to NDP default-left populism.  Sadly, Ontario's too "Central Canadian" for that to be such an easy task; the entrenched Laurentian consensus puts the thumb upon the Lib/Con binary scale, albeit not to the same degree as in the Atlantic Provinces.

Whether one likes it or not, when it comes to "blowing it", Horwath vs Doug Ford provincially in '18 is *not* in the same brain-stem-disconnected category as Smitherman vs Rob Ford mayorally in '10.  And ultimately, rather than grousing over Doug Ford's so-called weaknesses, maybe it's worth engaging to his *strengths*--even if they're not precisely the kind of "strengths" that are your or my own cup of tea.  "Seeking to understand" is not always a matter of caving to the so-called "deplorables"...

I disagree with that in regards to the NDP in the West.  There is no major provincial Liberal Party in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba (and the B.C Liberal party isn't 'liberal'.)  It has been said by many that John Horgan was the 'best Liberal premier in British Columbia' 'Rachel Notley was the best Liberal premier' in Alberta, Roy Romanow was the 'best Liberal premier' in Saskatchewan and that Gary Doer was the 'best Liberal premier' in Manitoba.

Where the Liberal Party is strong, historically the NDP in Newfoundland and Labrador, presently in Nova Scotia, from 1995-2011 or so in Ontario and presently in Saskatchewan (even though there is no real Liberal Party in Saskatchewan) the NDP electorate is basically a coalition of isolated industrial/indigenous Northerners (industrial Cape Breton being the equivalent in Nova Scotia) and central areas of the big city/cities or, essentially, the disaffected left.

[DL]

The federal NDP came within 65 votes of winning Davenport when the federal Liberals took 37% across the province and the NDP took just 17%. I don’t think Stiles had much to worry about when the provincewide gap is 3 or 4 points and not 20! But that’s beside the point, the NDP will hopefully choose the most capable person as their next leader based on their skills as a communicator and as a leader I don’t see how the riding the next leader represents is of much relevance. Was the federal ndp wrong to have picked Jack Layton as leader Because his riding was Toronto Danforth?

[brucejoel99]

The idea that Jagmeet Singh was destined to become premier had he stayed in Ontario politics doesn't stand up to a basic examination of his record in federal politics.

Well, it's good that nobody suggested ITT that Singh was destined to be Premier had he stayed in Ontario politics, then

FWIW Mainstreet today has a bit of a reversion to the mean with the NDP bouncing back from 20.8% yesterday to 23.4 today and that puts them more firmly in second place in seats. So when Marit Stiles gets acclaimed at the successor to Horwath sometime in the coming year she will be leader of the opposition and likely to be far more effective than Horwath was. The NDP should hope that Del Duca wins his seat that way the Liberals are stuck with him for another election!

Why the confidence that Marit Stiles will be the next leader? Davenport seems to me to be a seat full of exactly the sort of easily-led, sorry, promiscuous progressives who will flock to an OLP they've been told is the real opposition again.

The federal NDP came within 65 votes of winning Davenport when the federal Liberals took 37% across the province and the NDP took just 17%. I don’t think Stiles had much to worry about when the provincewide gap is 3 or 4 points and not 20! But that’s beside the point, the NDP will hopefully choose the most capable person as their next leader based on their skills as a communicator and as a leader I don’t see how the riding the next leader represents is of much relevance. Was the federal ndp wrong to have picked Jack Layton as leader Because his riding was Toronto Danforth?

Yeah, I was gonna say, federal & provincial settings obviously aren't exactly comparable, but when the riding was very close in the last federal election & only just barely managed to stay Liberal, it'd seem that Stiles's chances, as a high-profile MPP in her own right already, are in a good state of affairs, not least given the the sheer scale of her 2018 victory. I mean, Jerry Levitan can certainly expect to improve on the OLP's rock-bottom 2018 result, sure, but you'd expect it to have been treated as something of more of an actual high-profile race than it's been thus far if they thought that he was actually gonna be able to win. Hell, she's the Ford's government's critic on the issue that they've arguably f**ked up the most; if the OLP wants to prove that it's the real opposition, then it should show that an O.O. frontbencher like Stiles isn't.

[Benjamin Frank]

The idea that Jagmeet Singh was destined to become premier had he stayed in Ontario politics doesn't stand up to a basic examination of his record in federal politics.

Well, it's good that nobody suggested ITT that Singh was destined to be Premier had he stayed in Ontario politics, then

FWIW Mainstreet today has a bit of a reversion to the mean with the NDP bouncing back from 20.8% yesterday to 23.4 today and that puts them more firmly in second place in seats. So when Marit Stiles gets acclaimed at the successor to Horwath sometime in the coming year she will be leader of the opposition and likely to be far more effective than Horwath was. The NDP should hope that Del Duca wins his seat that way the Liberals are stuck with him for another election!

Why the confidence that Marit Stiles will be the next leader? Davenport seems to me to be a seat full of exactly the sort of easily-led, sorry, promiscuous progressives who will flock to an OLP they've been told is the real opposition again.

The federal NDP came within 65 votes of winning Davenport when the federal Liberals took 37% across the province and the NDP took just 17%. I don’t think Stiles had much to worry about when the provincewide gap is 3 or 4 points and not 20! But that’s beside the point, the NDP will hopefully choose the most capable person as their next leader based on their skills as a communicator and as a leader I don’t see how the riding the next leader represents is of much relevance. Was the federal ndp wrong to have picked Jack Layton as leader Because his riding was Toronto Danforth?

Yeah, I was gonna say, federal & provincial settings obviously aren't exactly comparable, but when the riding was very close in the last federal election & only just barely managed to stay Liberal, it'd seem that Stiles's chances, as a high-profile MPP in her own right already, are in a good state of affairs, not least given the the sheer scale of her 2018 victory. I mean, Jerry Levitan can certainly expect to improve on the OLP's rock-bottom 2018 result, sure, but you'd expect it to have been treated as something of more of an actual high-profile race than it's been thus far if they thought that he was actually gonna be able to win. Hell, she's the Ford's government's critic on the issue that they've arguably f**ked up the most; if the OLP wants to prove that it's the real opposition, then it should show that an O.O. frontbencher like Stiles isn't.

Marit Stiles defacto opposes marijuana retail outlets in Toronto.

https://www.maritstiles.ca/bill225

Seriously if consumers want more marijuana retail outlets in a city, who is Marit Stiles to tell people what shops should and shouldn't operate?

Nobody who is this ditzy about free market principles that shouldn't even be a matter of disagreement should ever become leader of a major political party.

(Water isn't wet! There are too many profitable marijuana retail outlets! the people don't want that many stores, that's why they're all profitable!)

[adma]

So, my point was simply that depending on what happens in this election that Andrea Horwath has remade the Ontario NDP 'in her image' as a left wing populist party that doesn't appeal to as many people in Toronto as the NDP had previously, but appeals more in these 'secondary cities.'

I felt I had to rationalize Brampton in 2018 because pointing all that out left open the response of "that can't really be correct because it doesn't explain how the NDP won those ridings in Brampton, which is a suburban city and not a 'secondary city.'

Actually, this is where "2014 Andrea" seems to have coloured a lot of impressions of her; because if anything, her '18 campaign marked an urban/Toronto-friendly "correction" from that misstep.  And indeed, if she ironically *lost* steam anywhere in 2018, it was with that erstwhile Andrea '14 populist-heartland "labour vote", whose hoped-for target drifted to Ford Nation instead--in the process of plugging one hole in their '14 strategy, they opened up another hole.  (Remember all that '14-based talk about places like Sarnia and Chatham-Kent being low-hanging Dipper fruit?)  Meanwhile, a lot of those so-called "secondary city" gains were actually more urban/cosmopolitan than "heartland" in nature--places with a modern campus/tech/service-economy element.  As far as other seats go, she gained *share* off the entrails of the Libs; but the Tories gained more and sealed victory.  And when it comes to Brampton: what was plain and clear in '18 was already evident in utero in '14--not just w/Jagmeet, but w/an unforeseen strong 2nd in Brampton-Springdale and a near-2nd in Brampton West.  All because of the viral, localized "Jagmeet effect".

[DL]

The Ontario Liberals and the NDP have taken positions on giving municipalities more power to limit the concentration of cannabis stores. It’s a very popular position to take. My friends and neighbours all buy cannabis from time to time and they all complain that there are way too many cannabis shops and that they are killing the street life in the neighborhood

[adma]

The problem is that Ontario is not the natural home for conservative politics, Doug Ford was a weak candidate in 2018 and the liberal self-destruction speaks for itself, Yet horwath has not been able to win that election and even winning oppostion status is looking like it'll fade away despite another poor liberal leader. Many other provincal NDP parites have managed to form governments or even displace the liberals as a major provincial party, but despite cirumstances being perfect horwath has not been able to do it.

If Ontario's not "the natural home for conservative politics", then how come the Big Blue Machine ruled from 1943 to 1985?  And yeah, I know the argument that it wasn't the same as *today's* Conservatives; but maybe also, as it turns out, Doug Ford isn't the "weak candidate" you presume--or at least, he's "strong where it counts" (thus the special nature of Ford Nation populism)--and even if he were so weak, he had and has a strong party machine behind him.  (Also, one might argue that thanks to changes in media consumption and political engagement over the decades, Ontario, like so many other places, has a bit of a "weak electorate" problem--that is, one that's incapable of clueing into how a Doug Ford might seem so much more of a leadership cartoon than Robarts or Davis were.)

And the "many other NDP parties" are all in Western Canada, where the political culture's different and historically far more favourable to NDP default-left populism.  Sadly, Ontario's too "Central Canadian" for that to be such an easy task; the entrenched Laurentian consensus puts the thumb upon the Lib/Con binary scale, albeit not to the same degree as in the Atlantic Provinces.

Whether one likes it or not, when it comes to "blowing it", Horwath vs Doug Ford provincially in '18 is *not* in the same brain-stem-disconnected category as Smitherman vs Rob Ford mayorally in '10.  And ultimately, rather than grousing over Doug Ford's so-called weaknesses, maybe it's worth engaging to his *strengths*--even if they're not precisely the kind of "strengths" that are your or my own cup of tea.  "Seeking to understand" is not always a matter of caving to the so-called "deplorables"...

I disagree with that in regards to the NDP in the West.  There is no major provincial Liberal Party in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba (and the B.C Liberal party isn't 'liberal'.)  It has been said by many that John Horgan was the 'best Liberal premier in British Columbia' 'Rachel Notley was the best Liberal premier' in Alberta, Roy Romanow was the 'best Liberal premier' in Saskatchewan and that Gary Doer was the 'best Liberal premier' in Manitoba.

Where the Liberal Party is strong, historically the NDP in Newfoundland and Labrador, presently in Nova Scotia, from 1995-2011 or so in Ontario and presently in Saskatchewan (even though there is no real Liberal Party in Saskatchewan) the NDP electorate is basically a coalition of isolated industrial/indigenous Northerners (industrial Cape Breton being the equivalent in Nova Scotia) and central areas of the big city/cities or, essentially, the disaffected left.

You're saying you're disagreeing re the NDP in the West, yet you're actually agreeing with and affirming my point re the political culture being "different out there".

And as far as Ontario goes; I think that, really, the moments when the CCF/NDP lineage has been more than such marginalia have been blips in the bigger picture--Joliffe in the 40s, Lewis in the 70s, the Rae government of course, and presumably Horwath in '18.  The NDP's clout is like a grunge record:  soft, then LOUD, then soft, then LOUD...

[adma]

The Ontario Liberals and the NDP have taken positions on giving municipalities more power to limit the concentration of cannabis stores. It’s a very popular position to take. My friends and neighbours all buy cannabis from time to time and they all complain that there are way too many cannabis shops and that they are killing the street life in the neighborhood

Kind of like the dudebro version of the streetlife-killer role Jane Jacobs ascribed to branch banks.  (413 kills the countryside; 420 kills urbanity?)

[Benjamin Frank]

So, my point was simply that depending on what happens in this election that Andrea Horwath has remade the Ontario NDP 'in her image' as a left wing populist party that doesn't appeal to as many people in Toronto as the NDP had previously, but appeals more in these 'secondary cities.'

I felt I had to rationalize Brampton in 2018 because pointing all that out left open the response of "that can't really be correct because it doesn't explain how the NDP won those ridings in Brampton, which is a suburban city and not a 'secondary city.'

Actually, this is where "2014 Andrea" seems to have coloured a lot of impressions of her; because if anything, her '18 campaign marked an urban/Toronto-friendly "correction" from that misstep.  And indeed, if she ironically *lost* steam anywhere in 2018, it was with that erstwhile Andrea '14 populist-heartland "labour vote", whose hoped-for target drifted to Ford Nation instead--in the process of plugging one hole in their '14 strategy, they opened up another hole.  (Remember all that '14-based talk about places like Sarnia and Chatham-Kent being low-hanging Dipper fruit?)  Meanwhile, a lot of those so-called "secondary city" gains were actually more urban/cosmopolitan than "heartland" in nature--places with a modern campus/tech/service-economy element.  As far as other seats go, she gained *share* off the entrails of the Libs; but the Tories gained more and sealed victory.  And when it comes to Brampton: what was plain and clear in '18 was already evident in utero in '14--not just w/Jagmeet, but w/an unforeseen strong 2nd in Brampton-Springdale and a near-2nd in Brampton West.  All because of the viral, localized "Jagmeet effect".

Well, some. Kitchener (as opposed to Waterloo) isn't all that wealthy and nor is London.