Alison Jones, Canadian Press Published Tuesday, April 26, 2022, 5:44 AM EDT Last Updated: Tuesday, April 26, 2022, 5:44 AM EDT
TORONTO – The new Democrats in Ontario are heading for the upcoming election in their strongest position in decades and are now striving to achieve what they failed to do last time – to make voters see them as a government waiting.
On paper, the deck is lined up in their favor – they are the official opposition, they are well funded and have dozens of actors scattered throughout the province. But the challenge is to turn these positive electoral factors into real votes and real seats, including in areas that have not won for a long time.
With a Progressive Conservative poll of about 35 percent, the NDP takes advantage of this to say that a majority of Ontarians do not want Doug Ford to continue as prime minister and are trying to get anti-Ford votes to unite around them.
This is also the liberal approach, and two recent studies show that they are ahead of the NDP. But the new Democrats believe they will be able to attract votes outside the PC on election day, June 2nd.
“For us, to finally be able to talk to these people from a reasonable position of power about having 40 seats, having a well-funded party, having an experienced leader compared to where the Liberals are today, is dramatic. difference from 2018, “said NDP campaign director Michael Balagus in a recent interview.
The Liberals were cut in 2018 by a government with a majority to just seven seats, not enough for official party status. This is not the party that will succeed in overthrowing Ford, the NDP will tell voters.
“As a province, we cannot afford to wait four years in the hope that perhaps the Liberal Party will be strong enough again to get rid of it,” Balagus said.
“If you want to go this way (the message) is that you have to stand behind us. We need to unite and do it. “
But where some see an experienced leader in Andrea Horvat, others see someone making a fourth kick on the box that may have already grown the party as much as it can.
“This will be something of a key issue: it still has the capacity to continue to move the party forward,” said Christine de Clercy, a professor of political science at Western University.
For a period during the 2018 campaign, it seemed that the NDP could win. Then their lead quickly dissipated, and the Tories eventually won a large majority.
In this election, the new Democrats must not only win more seats, but stick to all their existing ones, retaining the liberal voters they took last time, de Clairce said, and that may be easier said than done. done with the liberals in the midst of recovery efforts.
“In 2018 (Croatia) was fighting a wounded and dying liberal party, so it was a different kind of political competition,” she said.
Chris Loreto, managing director of public relations firm StrategyCorp and a progressive conservative in the party’s executive branch, said the right combination of factors to win the NDP includes voters being angry at the Tories for not being attracted to what the leader offers. of the Liberals Stephen Del Duca and is actually open to the NDP, leading the province.
“When it looked like they were going to get a little nervous in the last election, people started pushing the brakes a little bit,” he said. “They were not ready then. The question is, are they ready now for a potential NDP government?
Widespread support for the NDP – with locations in the north, south and southwest, east and the Greater Toronto region – is a challenge for campaign communications, Loreto said. They will fight the Liberals for seats in Toronto, while they will fight the Tories in places like Windsor, especially for the voices of the blue-collar workers.
“They have a difficult task trying to differentiate against different oppositions in different geographical areas,” Loreto said.
Balagus said southwestern Ontario was the region where support collapsed in 2018, costing the government. This time will be a key area to focus on, he said, along with riding in the Toronto area of Mississauga, Scarborough, Brampton and the Durham region.
In terms of communications, the NDP will focus on what needs to be fixed and how it is committed to tackling these issues, but it will also remind voters of the party’s strong position as a rival to Ford, in terms of liberals, and will highlight parts of the liberal record that are not yet popular with voters.
They will also compare Croatia and Del Duca, Balagus said.
“This is perhaps our greatest strength in dealing with Liberal-NDP voters under cross-pressure,” he said.
“I mean, there’s a reason we Conservatives have to spend money to get Stephen Del Duca in front of the electorate. That’s because we know what happens when he does, “Balagus said, referring to the anti-Del Duca ads the two sides released late last year.
Alex Callahan, director of public relations for Strategies 360 and a former NDP official, said advertising would be important and the party could do more than it traditionally does because fundraising has gone so well. The party raised $ 1.72 million in the first quarter of this year alone, the statement said.
“You can have more visibility to the countryside,” Callahan said. “Obviously you can focus it on certain areas, but you will have the capacity to have it in more regions, which you need if you want to grow from 40 places.”
Callahan said he believed the federal treaty on the trust and supply of the NDP-Liberals would help the provincial new Democrats in the campaign. The agreement binds the NDP in support of the Liberal Minority Government until 2025, and in return the Liberals support a number of NDP priorities, including affordable dental care and medicines.
“I think that sends a message that these priorities are a real priority,” Callahan said.
The NDP platform, released on Monday, includes promises to speed up pharmaceutical and dental care without waiting for the federal plan to begin.
I think one of the challenges is often that people haven’t elected an ODP government in Ontario since 1990. And that’s not always considered plausible, but the fact that these are NDP priorities that are being implemented (federally) is good. “
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