In an Ontario election ultimately fought over the Progressive Conservatives’ plan to cut 100,000 public sector jobs, the Liberals may have won by showing that they weren’t afraid to spend money to try to grow the province’s battered economy.
This is especially true where infrastructure and the environment are concerned.
“People want their government to invest in those types of services and I think they’ve spoken today,” said Liberal incumbent Yasir Naqvi on Thursday night, minutes after winning re-election in Ottawa Centre.
A key element in Naqvi’s platform — and in Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne’s strategy to hold the party’s five Ottawa-area seats — was promising provincial support in completing the city’s light-rail transit project. They also pledged support for a proposed footbridge crossing the Rideau Canal at Fifth Avenue, and extending the O-Train. All of these projects are designed to get Ottawa residents out of their cars and making greener transportation choices.
Speaking to reporters Thursday night, Naqvi also confirmed his support of a $65-million project to divert sewage from the Ottawa River, calling it his “job number one.”
Looking at these plans, it’s apparent that during the election Liberals targeted a voter base interested in protecting the environment. However, according to University of Ottawa political studies professor Matthew Paterson, what also helped them were the less popular energy strategies proposed by the PC and NDP leaders.
Both opposition parties criticized the Liberals’ green energy bill, arguing that they could scrap Wynne’s expensive subsidies to promote alternative power sources and use that money to lower Ontario’s energy bills. This alienated many of the NDP’s environmentalist supporters and, according to Paterson, who specializes in environmental and climate change politics, the PCs lost many rural votes among farmers who have built solar panels and who benefit from the subsidies.
Since 2009, he says, one in seven rural farmers have begun using solar power.
“I think they shot themselves in the foot with that,” he says of both parties. “They might re-think (their environmental) strategy in the future.”
Paterson sees going green as an effective choice for parties, especially in the upcoming federal election. The Ontario Green Party’s rise in popularity has shown that supporting the environment can pay off in votes. In the 2011 provincial election the Greens earned 2.9 per cent of Ontario’s votes; in Thursday’s election the party’s numbers rose almost two percentage points to 4.8. In Ottawa Centre that number was even higher, with Green candidate Kevin O’Donnell taking 7.7 per cent of the ballots cast, or 4,135 votes.
To put that number into perspective, the NDP beat the Conservatives in Ottawa Centre in the 2011 provincial election by just over 1,200 votes.
“If I’m a Liberal I have two strategies,” says Paterson, looking towards the expected 2015 federal election. “I can take away the Tory votes or take away votes from the other parties.”
Paterson says that the rise in Liberal numbers shows the party is cutting into at least some of the Green Party’s support. The fact that green votes are still increasing despite that loss shows environmental projects might be an even better electoral investment in the future.
During the provincial election, NDP and PC support for environmental and transit projects was lukewarm, especially in Ottawa. NDP leader Andrea Horwath declined to give a solid yes or no for funding the LRT, while Tim Hudak was firmly against it before making a 180-degree turn last week to pledge support for the system’s expansion.
“The other parties were really cynical,” says Catherine McKenna, the Liberals’ newly nominated federal candidate for Ottawa Centre.
“I think it’s a real opportunity for the Liberals federally,” she says. “You look in a riding like Ottawa Centre, we do need spending on infrastructure. We need public transit. We need the Ottawa River.”
McKenna says she’ll take what she’s learned from Naqvi and Wynne into next year’s election. According to her, “you have to spend money to improve people’s lives and I think people are ready to do that.”
Ottawa’s transit upgrades aren’t just aimed at improving the environment. The LRT and O-Train expansions are meant to reduce heavy traffic downtown.
“It will have a beneficial effect on environmental performance,” Paterson says, “but that’s not necessarily why people will vote for it.”
“Anybody who’s spent any time in Toronto knows you can’t build your way out of that by making more space for cars,” he says. “The only way really is to build on the success of the GO Train and the subway.”