A letter to ClimateFast members from Lyn Adamson, for the ClimateFast team and the Cooperate for Canada campaign.
Dear ClimateFast members,
I am writing to thank everyone who helped during this election. Several ClimateFast members helped campaigns recommended by the Not One Seat strategic voting campaign.
It is natural to feel very frustrated with the outcome. The parties chose to gamble with our future, and we all lost as a result. But I also feel heartened - very grateful for the volunteer time and energy so many of us put in to try to make a difference. And we did make a difference, so do read on.
Overall, little has changed at Queen’s Park. The parties ran in competition to each other as they have always done - and in terms of the power balance at Queen’s Park the results are very much the same. All of the power is being held by a party that was voted for by 20% of eligible voters. In many ridings across the province the conservatives won with a minority of votes because the opposition was split. (Seat counts changed somewhat, please scroll down for visuals, but power in the hands of the ruling Tories stays the same)
Clearly vast numbers of voters across the province were willing to vote conservative despite the disastrous governance record by Doug Ford over the last seven years. But the percent vote support was still a minority - 43%.
Our message of the need for electoral cooperation was resonating with the public - with 3 in 10 of voters saying they were casting a strategic vote. Some estimates of the number voting strategically is even higher - as much as 65%.
Despite the vote split in many ridings there were some ridings where the message of electoral cooperation made the difference. Etobicoke-Lakeshore was one of those ridings. An influx of donor dollars (lots of $200 cheques) and new volunteers propelled Liberal Lee Fairclough to victory over the incumbent conservative Christine Hogarth. The NDP vote was cut in half from 15% in 2022 to 7% this time with this shift in voting giving Fairclough a solid win. There were also wins in Humber River-Black Creek and Don Valley North that were supported by Not One Seat. And in Ajax, and elsewhere around the province, there were wins supported by Cooperate for Canada.
Faisal Hassan in York S. Weston was not one of the wins. He came up short this time despite the efforts of a hardy band of ClimateFast volunteers supplementing the local team of canvassers.
An example of the cruel irony of the compete-at-all-costs approach of the parties was in Parry-Sound Muskoka where Matt Richter of the Greens came within 2400 votes of beating the incumbent conservative. A parachuted-in Liberal candidate took 2800 votes and the NDP took 1300 votes. Both these candidates were sure to lose - they had NO chance to win - yet their parties insisted on running campaigns there knowing that to do so would very likely return the conservative to power. And they did.
In Eglinton-Lawrence the NDP candidate withdrew taking her name off the ballot when she realized she had no chance to win, and could spoil the Liberal candidate’s chance to win. Unfortunately the Green candidate stepped up her campaign, including putting advertisements in the Toronto Star. Her 1390 votes were many times the number that would have made the difference. The Liberal Vince Gasparro just needed 180 additional votes to win. Instead, the Conservative won that riding.
One thing is for sure, this election like so many others shows how important your vote is. It may just seem like one vote - but the results may be very very close indeed. The NDP won in Mushkegowuk-James Bay by just 4 votes. And in Humber River Black Creek the NDP won by 198 votes (after a night where the lead see-sawed back and forth). So our votes and our volunteer contributions matter, and would matter even more if we could get the party leaders to consider supporting a win-win-win approach, rather than the current lose-lose-lose.
The NDP celebrated retaining official opposition status but this is a hollow victory when all the power rests with the Ford conservatives who are doing so much damage to the province, and so little to address the urgent needs of our communities now and for the future.
A heartbreaking disappointment for me was Liberal Chris Ballard's loss in Newmarket-Aurora. You could not have a greener candidate than Chris Ballard, head of Passive House Canada, former env't minister in the Ont gov't under Kathleen Wynne, and head of the buildings group within the City of Toronto Climate Advisory Group that I co-chair. Ballard had 18,000 votes to the 20,000 plus votes of the conservatives. He lost by 2400 votes. The NDP had 2750 votes, and the Greens had nearly 1000. There is so much common ground between all three parties on the environment and social concerns and Chris Ballard would have been an excellent advocate.
This is a prime example of lose-lose-lose for when we are talking to Mike Schreiner and other Greens, Liberals and NDP.
If they (Greens and NDP) could have traded this one off for keeping the Libs out of Parry-Sound Muskoka, and Greens out of another close riding for the NDP, this would have been a super win for all three parties.
Not One Seat has a sign on letter to the party leaders - please consider adding your voice.
Cooperate for Canada is starting our federal election campaign. There are many options from just signing up to getting involved to help. Please sign up here
Desmond Cole on how the Conservatives ran a campaign appealing to the public, despite all the bad governance decisions made in the last 7 years - you can view it here:
https://x.com/DesmondCole/status/1894386581286302195
Sonal Champsee of Not One Seat was included in a TVO Agenda debrief panel on the election where she was able to introduce the strategic voting initiative both NOS and Cooperate for Canada are involved in. You can watch it here:
https://x.com/TheAgenda/status/1896768814634741911
Thanks so much!
Lyn Adamson, for the ClimateFast team and the Cooperate for Canada campaign.