Apathy and Loathing on Ontario’s Campaign Trail
Ontario, Canada’s most populous province has always represented the Canadian mainstream, far away from the foreignness of Quebec or the rural conservatism of Alberta. Its elections have often been harbingers of things to come on the federal stage, with both the service-slashing Mike Harris and the patrician liberal McGuinty government later echoed by the Prime Ministerial reigns of Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau respectively. It is, then, an election with much at stake. And yet the parties all seem desperate, as if they had been caught unawares and would really like another couple of years to prepare. Both public sentiment and the media look towards the election with the sigh of a man picking his poison.
Kathleen Wynne, the beleaguered Premier, presides over a mixed legacy. Wynne has at times embraced quite progressive policy, as with her approval of a $15 minimum wage or the pilot program for a “basic income” that would essentially be a super-sized version of the current (deeply inadequate) welfare system. At the same time, she has been a friend of private industry, reducing corporate tax rates and selling off provincially-owned utilities. Wynne’s government, like that of Trudeau, finds itself caught in an attempt to be all things to all people, to build social programs without antagonizing the business class.
On the campaign trail, Wynne has the air of a figure resigned to her fate. With poll numbers in the low twenties, only a historic upset could restore the Liberals to power. In the final debate, Wynne petulantly remarked “I’m sorry that more people don’t like me.” Like Hillary Clinton in 2016, she finds herself forced to talk about how great things are to disbelieving stares. In the end, it was probably not the Wynne government’s lukewarm policies that lead to its deep unpopularity, but rather the miasma of corruption and complacency that accompanies a party who has been in power for fifteen years (ten with McGuinty as Premier and five as Wynne.) But the party’s lack of a compelling ideological vision likely made its supporters more comfortable jumping ship.
Given Wynne’s unpopularity, most observers expected the Conservatives to win the 2018 election under Patrick Brown, the latest in a long line of their heap-of-oatmeal bland provincial leaders. But Brown was unseated earlier this year after sexual harassment accusations against him emerged (followed by Brown briefly re-entering the leadership race and then announcing that he would write a book about his alleged martyrdom.) This lead to Doug Ford, the brother of infamous late Toronto mayor Rob Ford, unexpectedly winning the party’s endorsement. The nomination of Ford caused some speculation that it may lead to a collapse in Conservative popularity, but it seems as if even the spectre of a crack-smoking mayor is not enough to convince voters to give Wynne a second chance.
Like his brother, Ford is not particularly charismatic, from his chubby frame to the strange discomfort and incoherence with which he talks. He is quite obviously clueless on the nuts and bolts of policy, instead articulating a kind of vague populism in favour of “the little guy.” Ford is a public supporter of Donald Trump, and he has the same electoral appeal as the American president: the thrill of transgression against social decency, and the naked appeal to self-interest that has galvanized the Fords’ base in suburban Toronto. In both his dips into bigotry and his neglect to even pretending to care about social programs, Ford speaks what many wealthy Ontarians wish they could say aloud.
Should Ford prove triumphant, it may act as proof of concept for right-populism in Canada. Thus far, attempts to import Trumpism north of the border have failed. Both the xenophobic Kellie Leitch and Trump’s fellow businessman-turned-TV-host-turned-politician Kevin O’Leary lost the federal Conservative nomination badly to Andrew Scheer, another one of those oatmeal-men. But the success of Rob Ford half a decade ago demonstrates that Canadians, even cosmopolitan Torontonians, are not immune to faux-rebellious reactionaries, and a Ford victory could open the floodgates for more open hatred and prejudice in Canadian politics at all levels.
Standing against both Ford and Wynne is the New Democratic Party, lead by Andrea Horwath. From a left-wing perspective, the NDP remains the most acceptable of the major parties, its power rooted in labour unions instead of corporate donors. Horwath’s platform, including the much-needed expansion of the province’s public healthcare to include dental and drug care, would provide real benefits to the people of Ontario. And, perhaps due to disgust with Wynne and Ford, Horwath finds herself in an unusually competitive position for a NDP leader. She is close to Ford in popularity polls, although the first-past-the-post election system favours the Conservatives.
Despite this, one struggles to be compelled by Horwath or the NDP at large. The provincial party, perhaps believing that the public is simply to its right, has in the past decade campaigned on generalities and banal issues like ATM fees. That kind of meekness can be found in the campaign’s bland slogan “Change for the Better” and its compulsive reference to social-democratic cliches about “working families.” In the debates, Horwath mostly seemed to be convince voters of the idea of voting for someone other than the Conservatives or the Liberals. Even the party’s commitment to labour was couched in terms of its utility for keeping the economy running.
If there is any issue at the root of this uninspiring election, it is the fate of the Canadian welfare state. Canada’s universal healthcare is a point of national pride, and to a lesser extent so is the rest of its (relative to the United States) generous social services. But these programs have no constituency, no social force that drives the parties’ hands in the same way that the labour unions pressured Wynne to raise the minimum wage. Ford may want to slash the welfare state, Wynne fiddle with it, and Horwath expand it, but all of them see these policies as something to be imposed from above by the ruling class.
A NDP victory would undeniably be better for the left than the horrifying prospect of a Ford premiership. But the very uncertainty of the result, and its likely basis in public disgust and the tawdriness of political scandal, suggests the importance of organizing outside the party system. If Canadians want the welfare state to survive, it must be able to speak for itself, regardless of who holds the reigns of power.
