Ontario Election 2022

[adma]

And there's an additional Ontario constituency that doesn't neatly fall into the UK dynamic, i.e. that which Del Duca once represented and may well bid for again--the "York Region ethnoburb", the kind that in UK terms would be too aspirational for Labour, too polyglot for the Tories, and too un-Brahmin for the Lib Dems, and whose present park within the PC camp still feels more conditional than permanent-condition...

True, but Ford's Ontario is a different context. UK Tories are more nativist than Canadian (especially Ontarian) Tories, so the "too polyglot for the Tories" isn't as big a factor. In 2018, York was the quintessential Ford Nation region. Some of their strongest numbers were in York Region, Tory support in York RM was comparable to rural counties like Dufferin and Huron.

And it's that "quintessential Ford Nation" quality that underpins how it all still feels more conditional than permanent-condition--even if, unlike Ford's Etobicoke North, it's still likely to be *viable* in Ford's absence.

[King of Kensington]

Vaughan is also the "bank" of Ford Nation.

[King of Kensington]

Michael Ford is running for the PCs in York South-Weston.  Doug Ford made it a three-way race last time.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8732227/toronto-michael-ford-election-york-south-weston/

[toaster]

Michael Ford is running for the PCs in York South-Weston.  Doug Ford made it a three-way race last time.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8732227/toronto-michael-ford-election-york-south-weston/

Bad news for the ONDP here.  No way they will keep it with Ford running, although this is not the area he represents on Toronto council. Wonder if Frances Nunziata will endorse.

[adma]

He *might* have family E of the Humber--in Ward 17 (the N part of Davenport, adjacent to YSW), one Ben Stirpe (NB "Stirpe" is Michael Ford's actual surname of birth) ran for Council and finished 4th w/5%, and he openly boasted of his endorsing Rob Ford for Mayor on his signs.

There's something about this move that really feels like a throwback to "Doug Ford the electoral dirtbag"--it's just hard to tell how much weight it carries, in a provincial riding like this, in a second-term Premier Ford era.  (Like, it feels very "2010's" a move at this point)

[lilTommy]

What I'm seeing for the ONDP in the open seats, none nominated yet:

Beaches-East York: Dr. Kate Dupuis, a "Innovation Leader" at Sheridan College's Centre for Elder Research. In short, another academia-type. She did speak at the larger rally in Toronto over the wknd though.

Hamilton East-Stoney Creek: Zaigham Butt, an Accountant and Director of the Hamilton Pakistan Business Association. A young BIPOC candidate as far as I could dig up.

ALSO
Toronto Centre ONDP MPP Suze Morrison is not running again due to her ongoing fight with endometriosis which she was diagnosed with in 2019. What might just be a coincidence, if you believe in that, City Councilor Kristyn Wong-Tam (who also represents the TO Centre ward) spoke at the same rally over the wknd. So that's out there.

[Benjamin Frank]

Kevin Yarde lost renomination.

[lilTommy]

What I'm seeing for the ONDP in the open seats, none nominated yet:

Beaches-East York: Dr. Kate Dupuis, a "Innovation Leader" at Sheridan College's Centre for Elder Research. In short, another academia-type. She did speak at the larger rally in Toronto over the wknd though.

Hamilton East-Stoney Creek: Zaigham Butt, an Accountant and Director of the Hamilton Pakistan Business Association. A young BIPOC candidate as far as I could dig up.

ALSO
Toronto Centre ONDP MPP Suze Morrison is not running again due to her ongoing fight with endometriosis which she was diagnosed with in 2019. What might just be a coincidence, if you believe in that, City Councilor Kristyn Wong-Tam (who also represents the TO Centre ward) spoke at the same rally over the wknd. So that's out there.

It's official, Kristyn Wong-Tam is running for the ONDP in Toronto Centre
https://www.kristynwongtam.ca/personalannouncement?fbclid=IwAR2WBop0llAvwqVFD2uXRw3trpUlRGE4jHLcy8IKFI4-w3UGcmLRcqGIVik

This is a huge win for the ONDP; Wong-Tam has been one of THE faces of Progressive Toronto, she was the downtown, along with Mike Layton and Joe Cressy, all high profile councilors. But unlike Layton or Cressy, I believe she has endorsed (if not outright then "supported") both the NDP and Liberals at different levels, so this is a much bigger win for the party in trying to retain progressive anti-Ford votes. She has years of elected experience and there were rumor's of a mayoral run. Definitely a front bench MPP.

Very interesting with Kevin Yarde losing renomination. He did not have a very high profile at Queens Park, perhaps locally he did, but obviously not enough to counter a nomination contest. I haven't heard much of a push to have him replaced though, not like you had with Paul Miller (obviously a different issue) but there was little to no chatter about Yarde in any arenas I follow within the NDP so this must have been a hyper-local issue.

[Hatman 🍁]

Not sure why Yarde lost, but I was surprised the party didn't chose a Sikh candidate last time in the first place. I guess Sandeep Singh was able to get a lot of the Sikh community to sign party memberships to win.

Great news about Wong-Tam. Every time we get a by-election in Toronto Centre, I always float her name as the only person who could win the seat for the NDP. Let's see if that can ring true (though, in a wave general election, her personal popularity might not be enough)

[DL]

I was a bit surprised that Yarde lost renomination...I know that he did not live in the riding and did not seem to have a huge profile, but its very very rare for NDP incumbents to be challenged let alone lose renomination (though it did happen to a few "accidental" MPs and MLAs who won unexpectedly in wave election like NDP Quebec 2011 and NDP Alberta 2015 and who were clearly never cut out for the job). My impression is that the staff at party HQ usually find ways to disqualify any nuisance candidates wanting to run against an incumbent unless the incumbent is really mediocre and/or the challenger is a great catch! Not sure if that is the case here. 

[adma]

Not sure why Yarde lost, but I was surprised the party didn't chose a Sikh candidate last time in the first place. I guess Sandeep Singh was able to get a lot of the Sikh community to sign party memberships to win.

Yeah, given the nature of the riding, it sounds like ethno-politics more than anything.

Great news about Wong-Tam. Every time we get a by-election in Toronto Centre, I always float her name as the only person who could win the seat for the NDP. Let's see if that can ring true (though, in a wave general election, her personal popularity might not be enough)

Actually, re "only person", I've been of the thought that Suze Morrison could have won again even if the NDP were once again relegated to firm third-party status--and in an odd way, *her* record in office serves as a good foundation for KWT; that is, she gave the brand a longer-term credibility in a riding where they've been historically federally and provincially marginalized by the Libs.  (Yes, the last redistribution helped; but Morrison's proved to be the perfect rep for said redistributed entity)

[Benjamin Frank]

Not sure why Yarde lost, but I was surprised the party didn't chose a Sikh candidate last time in the first place. I guess Sandeep Singh was able to get a lot of the Sikh community to sign party memberships to win.

Great news about Wong-Tam. Every time we get a by-election in Toronto Centre, I always float her name as the only person who could win the seat for the NDP. Let's see if that can ring true (though, in a wave general election, her personal popularity might not be enough)

Not enough Yarde signs.

[toaster]

I did not know Yarde doesn't live in the riding.  Where does he live, weird that he would have contested the riding in the first place, no?  Brampton North is a little less demographically "South Asian" than Brampton East, so I don't think there is as big of a need for a South Asian candidate as there would be in Brampton East. I find the optics don't look great, even if it may help the ONDP maintain the riding. For the rest of us looking in, a competent Black man was essentially "booted" from the party, and Andrea felt no need to intervene.  Not great optics.

[adma]

I did not know Yarde doesn't live in the riding.  Where does he live, weird that he would have contested the riding in the first place, no?  Brampton North is a little less demographically "South Asian" than Brampton East, so I don't think there is as big of a need for a South Asian candidate as there would be in Brampton East. I find the optics don't look great, even if it may help the ONDP maintain the riding. For the rest of us looking in, a competent Black man was essentially "booted" from the party, and Andrea felt no need to intervene.  Not great optics.

It may be a little less *demographically* South Asian; but it's within that community that, overwhelmingly, the riding's NDP "machine" lies.  Everything else is kind of along for the ride.  (For proof, look at the 2014 surprise-2nd figures in Brampton-Springdale--the NDP did *overwhemingly* well in the Springdale part.)

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Can someone explain the core of Ford Nation to me? Who composes Ford Nation, and why are they members? Where did Ford Nation come from?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Whatever the cause of the weird situation in Brampton North, it may not matter much in the end. It's far too early to be making predictions, but if current poll numbers hold, it's hard to see the NDP holding Brampton North. I imagine both the Liberals and Tories are targeting it.

[King of Kensington]

Some palpable anger in the Black community over Yarde's ouster:

https://twitter.com/LauraMaeLindo/status/1512803181885014017

https://twitter.com/blackvotecanada/status/1512256582410805249

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Can someone explain the core of Ford Nation to me? Who composes Ford Nation, and why are they members? Where did Ford Nation come from?

So I'm not sure "Ford Nation" really exists anymore in the way it did in the early 2010s, as it was more of a municipal phenomenon. But what you have to understand about Toronto is that it used to be a two-tier municipality until 1998, with "Metropolitan Toronto" essentially acting as a county, and six cities within that county. This arrangement was abolished in 1998, and all six cities were amalgamated into a single-tier municipality, now the City of Toronto. Invariably, this led to tensions between the more suburban and urban parts, which had evolved differently and had different priorities, and now had to learn to share a City Council.

Essentially, Rob and Doug Ford made their names in Toronto City Council as right-wing populists from suburban Toronto, fiercely opposed to the "urban elites" from central Toronto, who they accused of wasting taxpayer money on frivolous projects and ignoring the suburbs in favour of the core. The base of this coalition was not a typically conservative one - they had a lot of support among ethnic communities, especially South Asian, black, and Italian communities, all three of whom are traditionally understood to be loyal Liberal constituencies. But municipal politics in Ontario are non-partisan, and Ford Nation wasn't necessarily about conservatism vs liberalism in the traditional sense. They represented the suburbs, who felt alienated from the urban-dominated politics of Toronto.

As we all know, Rob Ford's tenure as mayor ended in shame and ridicule, with the whole world unanimously seeing him as a fool...well, not quite. Within Toronto, there's nothing unanimous about Rob's legacy. Some remember him as a reprehensible right-wing demagogue who was just as corrupt and unethical as the "gravy train" he claimed to oppose. Others remember him as an honest man who stood up for the "little guy" and cared about the people he represented, alcoholism and crack smoking be damned. If you ask an average upper-middle class white Torontonian who lives near downtown, you'll get an eye roll. If you ask an average lower-middle class South Asian Torontonian who lives in the suburbs, you're more likely to get praise. Essentially, Ford Nation is the latter.

Provincial politics are a little different, because the core base of any Conservative leader will always be rural and small-town Southern Ontario. The conventional wisdom of Ontario politics is that rural Ontario will always vote Tory, and urban Ontario will always vote Liberal and/or NDP. But the belt of suburbs around Toronto, colloquially known as the "905", tends to swing, and it swings elections. Ford Nation in the provincial context refers to how the Ford brand's popularity with traditionally Liberal-voting demographics in the outskirts of Toronto has translated to Conservative votes.

Look at Etobicoke North, the seat Doug himself represents. This is the heart of Ford Nation. It is low-income, mostly non-white, and almost always votes Liberal...except when Ford ran in 2018, he absolutely cleaned up there. PC support in Etobicoke North went from 23% to 52%, a much greater swing than the provincial average. Or the aforementioned York South-Weston, a riding that gave the Tories a paltry 11% of its vote in 2014, and 33% in 2018 with Ford as the Tory leader. Or in the far-east of Toronto in Scarborough-Rouge Park, where the federal Tories can hardly cross 20% support, yet the provincial Tories got nearly 40% support.

[DL]

Some palpable anger in the Black community over Yarde's ouster:

https://twitter.com/LauraMaeLindo/status/1512803181885014017

https://twitter.com/blackvotecanada/status/1512256582410805249

This seems a bit silly. There is a democratic process whereby nomination contests are held and the leader does not have the power to wave a magic wand and say "I arbitrarily refuse to allow anyone to challenge Kevin Yarde". If Horwath had tried to do that, she would have been accused of anti-South Asian racism by the supporters of the guy who won the nomination.

According to the Toronto Star article the challenger took 88% of the vote in the Brampton North nomination vote - no word on how many votes were cast. My first reaction is that Yarde obviously didn't do a very good job of building up his own riding association

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

To yesterday's discussion about Ford Nation as a manifestation of suburban Ontario populism - I think we're seeing a version of this emerging in the lead-up to the 2022 election. At the start of Ford's term, the PCs ran a much more orthodox conservative government (orthodox in their policies, not communications strategy lol). The 2019 budget was especially austere.

COVID kind of hit the "pause" button on politics as usual, and Ford's handling of COVID continues to be a hotly debated matter. I'd say in general, Ford tried to stay in the middle of public opinion. He always hesitated to heighten measures, but he often did, staying away from both the Covid-zero crowd and the anti-mask/vax/whatever crowd. I think it's pretty widely recognized from all sides that his moderate hero act led to a lot of confusing and erratic policy decisions by the Ontario government.

His support of the Emergencies Act in particular really pissed off many in the Tory base. But I think perhaps this shows that the base Ford cares most about isn't your traditional small-town "true blue" conservatives, but swingy suburbanites. The natural base of Doug Ford isn't the same as the natural base of the Conservative brand.

The PC re-election campaign only strengthens this premise. Long gone is the Doug Ford of small government who wants to stop the so-called gravy train. He finally signed a child-care deal with Ottawa, and I believe this was his intent all along, he just wanted to do it at an opportune moment. He's announcing hospitals, highways, and random populist policies like removing sticker fees on license plates. It's almost harkening back to a long-gone era of Ontario politics, where parties won through brokerage, not ideology. And it's fitting for Doug Ford. Unlike someone like Stephen Harper or Pierre Poilievre, Ford's ideological grounding has always been pretty thin. He's a retail politician, first and last, and history suggests that this might actually be a pretty smart way to go about a re-election campaign.

[adma]

Whatever the cause of the weird situation in Brampton North, it may not matter much in the end. It's far too early to be making predictions, but if current poll numbers hold, it's hard to see the NDP holding Brampton North. I imagine both the Liberals and Tories are targeting it.

One might as well write off Brampton Centre as well in the process, maybe even Brampton East.  Though it depends, of course, on *which* current poll numbers (i.e. some are more palpably NDP-3rd than others) or what the state of the campaign-mode Libs will be (although as far as "targeting" goes, they *are* running their former office-holder in Brampton North, which may be a virtue even if she finished a distant 3rd in '18).

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Whatever the cause of the weird situation in Brampton North, it may not matter much in the end. It's far too early to be making predictions, but if current poll numbers hold, it's hard to see the NDP holding Brampton North. I imagine both the Liberals and Tories are targeting it.

One might as well write off Brampton Centre as well in the process, maybe even Brampton East.  Though it depends, of course, on *which* current poll numbers (i.e. some are more palpably NDP-3rd than others) or what the state of the campaign-mode Libs will be (although as far as "targeting" goes, they *are* running their former office-holder in Brampton North, which may be a virtue even if she finished a distant 3rd in '18).

I think Brampton East is likely to stay NDP regardless. It's the most left-wing and NDP-friendly of the Brampton ridings, and Gurratan Singh is well-known - not to mention, his brother used to represent this neck of the woods back when the NDP were third-place. There will be Liberals "returning home" from the NDP all over Ontario, but probably not as much in Brampton East where, for the majority of centre-left voters, NDP has been home for over a decade.

As for Brampton Centre, yeah. I'm not sure how popular Sara Singh is locally, but she didn't win by a huge margin in 2018, and there's a more firm Tory base in Brampton Centre than the other Brampton ridings (as can be seen in federal elections).

[adma]

Whatever the cause of the weird situation in Brampton North, it may not matter much in the end. It's far too early to be making predictions, but if current poll numbers hold, it's hard to see the NDP holding Brampton North. I imagine both the Liberals and Tories are targeting it.

One might as well write off Brampton Centre as well in the process, maybe even Brampton East.  Though it depends, of course, on *which* current poll numbers (i.e. some are more palpably NDP-3rd than others) or what the state of the campaign-mode Libs will be (although as far as "targeting" goes, they *are* running their former office-holder in Brampton North, which may be a virtue even if she finished a distant 3rd in '18).

I think Brampton East is likely to stay NDP regardless. It's the most left-wing and NDP-friendly of the Brampton ridings, and Gurratan Singh is well-known - not to mention, his brother used to represent this neck of the woods back when the NDP were third-place. There will be Liberals "returning home" from the NDP all over Ontario, but probably not as much in Brampton East where, for the majority of centre-left voters, NDP has been home for over a decade.

I still think of it as a be-forewarned asterisk case due to the special nature of Ford Nation--which is why, plus the fact that Gurratan is not Jagmeet, the NDP in '18 notionally fell 6 points and the PCs gained something like 20 points from '14.  And the "growth areas" are the ones where Tories have done most "promisingly".  So if we're facing a generic NDP-leakage circumstance and, who knows, the Ford Tories building upon '18, this could fall victim to, yes, the unfortunate vote-split if Libs are bottom-feeding and repatriating their vote *everywhere*, indiscriminately.

And as for Brampton North, there's actually not *that* much of a gap btw/it and Brampton East when it comes to NDP viability, and that's because the Springdale (aka "Singhdale") part is really part of the Brampton East S Asian continuum.  And it's why the NDP was *already* 32% and only 8 points behind the Libs in the former Brampton-Springdale in '14 (the "old normal" was in '11, when they were a distant 3rd at 15%).

As for Brampton Centre, yeah. I'm not sure how popular Sara Singh is locally, but she didn't win by a huge margin in 2018, and there's a more firm Tory base in Brampton Centre than the other Brampton ridings (as can be seen in federal elections).

Actually, the firmest Tory base is in Brampton South, which contains the heart of old-stock Old Brampton, home of the late Premier Davis--it's the only one of the Brampton ridings which, notionally, would have been 2nd place PC in '14.

When it comes to impressions of a "Tory base": keep in mind that the deceptively named Brampton Centre is mainly the heart of Bramalea, which once might have had "New Town Labour" as a natural condition (suppressed due to traditional NDP weakness in the suburban GTA; but in the '90 Bob Rae election, voters in Bramalea opted for NDP, except that Bramalea was split into 2 ridings that marginally opted for the Libs instead).  And when it comes to federal elections in the 90s, Bramalea-Gore-Malton's election of Liberal Gurbax Malhi as the first turbanned Sikh MP '93 *really* skews the picture--it led still-predominantly-WWC Bramalea to vote Reform or PC in abnormally high numbers out of racialized reaction.  It was a different Bramalea, a different time, when Sikhs-in-turbans were more like electoral kryptonite among "a certain bunch".  Perhaps out of a certain inertia, or out of the fact that the way Bramalea demographically "evolved" was more polyglot a la central Mississauga than Sikh/S Asian-driven a la Malton or Springdale, something of that rightish tendency endured into the c21--only now, it was "racialized" less out of reaction than out of Ford/Kenney big-tent embrace.  But it's still scarcely the sort of base that can be called "firm"--Bramalea remained Jagmeet's weakest part (and the PCs' strongest part) when his provincial riding included Bramalea, but that's more because of the nature of everything else within the riding than because of the nature of Bramalea...

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Most recent Mainstreet Poll: https://www.ipolitics.ca/dashboards/ontario

PC: 39.2
OLP: 25.8
NDP: 24.1
OTH: 7.5
GPO: 3.4

Seat projections:
PC: 76
NDP: 24
OLP: 9
GPO: 1
Toss-up: 14

I think the projections are a little too harsh on the Liberals, because as I've said before, 2018 isn't a good baseline year to project numbers from. But yeah, if the PCs are able to keep this much daylight between themselves and their opponents, a majority won't be a huge challenge.

[King of Kensington]

In the 2011 federal election, the NDP and Liberals were basically tied in the popular vote in Ontario (25-26% each) but the NDP ended up with twice as many seats.