By Suman Bhattacharyya
Last summer’s provincial election campaign could be described as dull and uneventful. It did, however, produce an interesting consequence.
For one, it confirmed that Ontario is in for four more years of the same political agenda, which will likely mean four more years of sit-ins, protests, frustration and cutbacks. It also means four more years of Tory policies will almost certainly affect Centretown.
But voters in Centretown definitely didn’t ask for it. The Ottawa Centre anti-Conservative vote amounted to more than double that of the Conservatives. In Centretown itself, Tory support amounted to less than half the popular vote. Still, those results surprised some political obserers.
“What happened was more dramatic than what people thought,” says Caroline Andrew, a political science professor at the University of Ottawa.
In an area that consistently shunned the Tories, political newcomer Ray Kostuch finished a surprising second in Ottawa Centre, within 2,000 votes of current Liberal MPP Richard Patten. NDP candidate Elisabeth Arnold finished well behind the Tories despite her impressive profile in the community as a city councillor. Even more surprising, Kostuch made headway in Centretown, capturing 30 per cent of voter support.
The situation couldn’t be worse for the NDP. With just nine seats at Queen’s Park and without official party status, its voice is less potent than ever. However, writing off the NDP altogether may be short-sighted.
“I would say the results in Ottawa Centre do not reflect Ottawa Centre’s feelings for the NDP,” says Jamey Heath, who worked on NDP candidate Elisabeth Arnold’s campaign.
Considering the obstacles the party faced, its performance is not surprising. A voter turnout of 53 per cent and poor public perceptions of the NDP contributed to a weaker showing this election. Some commentators say the party may still be coping with a stigma that resulted from its devastating defeat in 1995.
“The NDP may have been carrying the mantle of its past defeat,” says Katherine Graham, a public administration professor at Carleton University.
The impact of what is known as “strategic voting” is difficult to assess. Arnold was generally viewed as a strong candidate, with a solid record as city councillor for Somerset ward for the past five years. However, she did not perform as well as hoped. She says she received calls from people who said they would support her in city elections, but voted Liberal just to defeat Harris.
“This election polarized people who were for and against Harris,” says Arnold. “A lot of people voted Liberal because they thought it would be the best way to defeat Harris.”
However, other reasons may have contributed to the unusual results. Though the constituency of Ottawa Centre was created in 1966, the riding boundaries were changed before this election. While it used to be primarily a downtown riding that ran north the Ottawa River, south to the Rideau Canal and west to Island Park Drive, Ottawa Centre now includes areas of the former Ottawa-Rideau, Ottawa South and Ottawa West ridings.
Andrew says the new areas are suburban and small-c conservative. The addition of the new areas may have helped increase the support for the Conservatives, she adds.
“They’re more concerned with maintaining their own residential character,” she says noting that their issues and concerns differ from those of Centretown residents.
Heath agrees, and says some of the new areas were not as affected by the cutbacks in social services and education.
Despite that, a significant proportion of the riding still voted Tory.
“My surprise frankly is the size of the Tory vote in places like Hintonburg and Centretown,” says Graham.
“Those areas may be a microcosm of the underside of Ontario.”
Furthermore, the consequences of the Tory message should not be underestimated.
The average household income in Ottawa Centre is $49,000, the lowest in the region. Some of its residents, many of whom are tenants, are likely to be affected by cutbacks to social
services and legislative changes like the end of rent controls.
However, Premier Mike Harris’s successful campaign may have played a role in swaying soft NDP backers to the Conservatives, says pollster Conrad Winn, president of COMPAS Research and a political scientist at Carleton University.
“The union vote may have begun to see their fate tied to the employer rather than the survival of the welfare state,” he says, noting why centrist voters may have been attracted by Harris’s pro-business agenda.
Despite the apparent change in certain segments of the population, the NDP still showed significant support throughout the riding, capturing 25 per cent of the vote. This tradition of strong NDP support makes the riding unlike most others. In fact, they won it in seven of the last nine elections. Tory policies in areas such as municipal restructuring, schools and health care are still likely to be imposed on a significant portion of people opposed to them.
The NDP still clings to life in Centretown and can still play a viable role in representing the diverse interests that exist in the riding.
While Arnold says she is optimistic the party can win back the seat, this election has shown that the party’s future depends on its ability to retain its core supporters while also attracting others.
Heath says one of the party’s goals should be to spread the message that cutbacks hurt.
“We have to start to make the linkages from the cutbacks at the provincial level to municipal government,” he says.
Clearly some residents are feeling the effects of such realities as schools closures and skyrocketing rents. The NDP’s challenge now lies in its ability to convince others that these issues matter. It now has the opportunity to make its mark on communities outside of its traditional sphere of support in order to win back this former stronghold in the next election.