NDP candidates eye Ottawa Centre

By Patrick Barrios

Candidates for the provincial NDP’s Ottawa Centre riding are facing an uphill battle against the high-profile incumbent: Liberal MPP and Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi.

But according to Jonathan Malloy, a Carleton University political scientist, if the NDP has a chance in any Eastern Ontario riding when Ontarians go to the polls in June, it’s in Ottawa Centre.

Although the riding’s gone Liberal every time since 2003, its constituents have previously elected NDP candidates seven times.

That makes the Ottawa Centre battle crucial in the next election.

Each of the four candidates vying to be the NDP standard-bearer next spring has solid qualifications: Erica Braunovan is a local school board trustee and owner of Brown Van Brewery. Joel Harden is an education researcher and community organizer. Shawn Barber is a diplomat and former high commissioner to Mozambique. Angella MacEwen is a senior economist with the Canadian Labour Congress.

Despite their varied backgrounds, all of them agree on at least one point — Ottawa Centre deserves better representation at Queen’s Park.

“We tend to elect a lot of lawyers to represent communities at all levels of government, and I think it’s important to diversify that,” said Braunovan.

Regardless of their strength as individual candidates, they face a difficult challenge against Naqvi, an accomplished MPP and tireless campaigner who is omnipresent at community events in the riding.

In the last provincial election in 2014 — which saw Naqvi’s third consecutive victory — he earned more votes than all his opponents combined. That’s never happened in Ottawa Centre before.

Naqvi’s victory was highlighted by an almost 17,000-vote edge over NDP candidate and then-Ottawa school trustee Jennifer McKenzie, now leader of New Brunswick’s provincial NDP.

But Barber said Ontario constituents are tiring of Naqvi and the Kathleen Wynne-helmed Liberals, citing a number of scandals.

“Are you going to stick with the old ways of the Liberal Party of Ontario, which has brought you cash-for-access scandals, violated international human rights terms in our jails, and failed to adequately respond to the rising opioid crisis?” asked Barber.

Braunovan takes a similar tack.

“Naqvi and the Liberals privatized hydro. There’s been scandal after scandal, and they’re currently fighting court cases,” she said. “How much attention is being taken away from our constituents as these battles go on?” asked Braunovan.

Malloy agreed that the Ontario Liberals risk becoming stale to some voters after 14 straight years in power, though he predicts Naqvi will remain a formidable opponent.

“Over time, governments tend to fade,” he said. “People tend to become disillusioned, because governments start to rack-up mixed records. They invariably experience scandals.”

What’s more, the NDP is generating substantial media buzz with the nomination of the party’s new federal leader, Jagmeet Singh. A revival of interest in the national NDP could be especially strong in Ottawa Centre. At the federal level, the riding was held by New Democrats from 2004 to 2015, electing former national leader Ed Broadbent and Paul Dewar as MPs.

But political commentator and former NDP press secretary Ian Capstick said he’d be shocked if positive federal leadership had any helpful effect in the Ontario vote.

“Jagmeet Singh is a great leader and a great choice,” said Capstick. “But when voters provincially go to the polls in Ottawa Centre, they’re most certainly not thinking about who is running and leading the federal New Democrats – unless that person is doing a horrible job.”

Regardless, Harden said the NDP has to improve itself and rebuild lost connections to grassroots members. From the hundreds of NDP members he’s spoken to throughout his campaign, he said, several noted that the party only ever contacts them to ask for money or to put up lawn signs.

“Ottawa Centre is a highly-educated, highly-engaged community,” Harden says. “We have so much talent on a grassroots level of people who don’t seek the limelight, but do great work and volunteering day-in and day-out. If we’re able to convince these people to get behind a grassroots campaign of bold ideas and local organizing, we will give Mr. Naqvi a run for his money.”

Though polls show public opinion towards provincial Liberal leader Wynne is largely negative, budgetary policy analyst Geneviève Tellier said the policies her government has pursued appeal to a good portion of Ontario’s population.

She added, however, that many of the new Liberal policies were previously NDP ideas, which might blur the line between the two parties in the eyes of voters.

“Each time the Liberals have tabled their budgets, we have seen items which, in the past, would have belonged to the NDP,” said Tellier. “Free health care, free medication for youth, the new minimum wage, lower tuition fees for university students, and so on. The Liberals are borrowing ideas from the NDP.”

“The Liberal party’s goal is to own the political left spectrum, to take it away from the New Democrats,” echoed Malloy. “And that is the New Democrats’ greatest fear.”

Nonetheless, Harden said there will be a clear differentiating factor between his campaign and the Liberals’ bid for re-election: taking the step from talk to action.

“We’re going to go beyond rhetoric,” said Harden. “We’re going to move into action, and we’re going to try to earn the respect of the people who work every day for justice.”

As the aspiring MPP for Ottawa Centre, Harden said he hopes to create an action plan for long-term care for elders, address student debt for all post-secondary students, and tackle the climate crisis. He said he’ll work especially hard to help local initiatives such as Overdose Prevention Ottawa, and to oppose racial profiling by police forces.

Barber said his priorities include dealing with the opioid crisis, expanding public transit, building safer streets, and reducing poverty. He said his campaign would focus on collaborative efforts to achieve communal goals.

“Politicians these days are too often keen to divide and label,” he said. “That’s not my style. That’s not what I’ve been trained to do professionally in my 25 years as a diplomat. I’m about bringing people together to solve real problems.”

Braunovan said she hopes to address the community’s housing crisis, and help small businesses turn a profit while paying their employees a decent living wage.

MacEwen said she is focusing her campaign on affordable housing, dropping tuition fees, job stability for young workers and affordable childcare.

“Affordable housing is really critical in Ottawa Centre – about half the riding are renters, and half are owners. For both groups of people, housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable,” she said.

MacEwen said her experience as an economist makes her an invaluable asset to the NDP.

“Traditionally, a weakness of the NDP is that we’re told we don’t have the economic credibility to make some of the arguments that we make. But that’s my job,” says MacEwen. “I provide the economic rationale for the things we want to do. At elections, I can say ‘Here’s what we want to do. It makes sense. Here are the ways it’ll make our economy stronger.’ ”

MacEwen also spent 14 years with the Royal Canadian Navy Reserves, including six as an officer, which she said helped her grow to be a better, stronger leader.

NDP members in Ottawa Centre can cast their votes on Sunday, Oct. 29 at 440 Albert St., the former Ottawa Technical High School. Registration starts at 1 p.m. and the nomination meeting begins an hour later.

This story was produced in collaboration with iPolitics.

The story was updated on Oct. 12.