Ontario Liberals met last weekend to
elect delegates who will be sent to Toronto on the weekend of January
25-27 to elect the next Premier of Ontario. Current Premier and
Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty announced last October that he would
be resigning as Premier following a vote to elect the next leader of
the party.
As a rule, I have been avoiding making
maps of provincial party leadership races, but I have decided to
change that and begin to cover at least the races of provincial
governing parties. As the Liberals are currently in power in Ontario,
I have decided to map the leadership race.
Liberal Party members got together in
all 107 ridings last weekend, and in various campus clubs and women's
organizations to elect a slate of delegates to attend the leadership
race. Most elected delegates have committed to vote for a particular
candidate, but 67 of the 1875 elected delegates are uncommitted.
Former Windsor West MPP and Education Minister Sandra Pupatello won
the most delegates (510). Don Valley West MPP and another former
Education Minister Kathleen Wynne won the second most amount of
delegates at 468. The race is widely expected to be between those
two, meaning that Ontario will likely see its first female Premier in
its history. To boot, if Wynne wins, she will become the first
openly gay (the late former Premier of New Brunswick Richard Hatfield was gay, but in the closet) person to lead a province in Canadian history. In third place is
former Parkdale—High Park MP and MPP, and yet another former
Minister of Education, Gerard Kennedy. He won 259 delegates. In
fourth is Mississauga—Erindale MPP and former Transportation
Minister Harinder Takhar. He was the biggest surprise finisher in the
delegate fight, picking up 244 delegates, despite few endorsements
from current or former caucus members. Close behind him in 5th
is another Mississauga MPP (Mississauga South) and former Labour
Minister Charles Sousa. He secured 204 delegates. And finally in last
place is St. Paul's MPP and former Citizenship and Immigration
Minister Eric Hoskins. He won just 105 delegates.
Each of Ontario's 107 ridings will be
sending a slate of 16 delegates to the Toronto convention. In
addition, a number of Liberal clubs in universities across the
province elected delegates, as did a number of Liberal women's clubs.
All 6 candidates won at least a plurality of delegates in at least
one riding. In fact, last place candidate Hoskins won 2 ridings.
Uncommitted delegates won a plurality in two ridings as well (Vaughan
and Scarborough—Rouge River). I'm not sure why that happened.
The support that each candidate
received across the regions of the province can be attributed to a
number of factors. Tribal politics appear to be alive and well in the
Liberal Party, as certain ethnic groups have clearly put their
support behind certain candidates. Also, it appears that endorsements
truly do matter in many cases. Here is an analysis of the support for
all six candidates.
Hoskins
Hoskins won just
two ridings, and perhaps surprisingly, neither of them is the riding
he currently holds in the Ontario Legislature. He lost St. Paul's by
just one delegate to Wynne (6-5). He did win an overwhelming majority
of delegates in the riding of Haldimand—Norfolk where he ran
federally in the 2008 election. He also won the riding of
Scarborough—Guildwood where he won the endorsement of its MPP,
Magarett Best.
Sousa
Sousa's support
was concentrated in the GTA where he won 9 ridings and tied in 4
others. His best riding was his own, Mississauga South where he won
14 of the 16 delegates. He also did well in Davenport, a riding with
a high Portuguese population. He also won York South—Weston,
another riding with a high Portuguese population. Sousa himself is
Portuguese. Outside of his own riding however, he won no other seats
in the Peel Region. He did tie with Takhar in Mississauga
East—Cooksville, however. Sousa did fairly well in Scarborough
(thanks to endorsements by two local MPPs) where he won three seats
and in a handful of exurban ridings.
Takhar
Takhar's campaign
focused heavily on the South Asian community in Ontario. While he
finished fourth in delegates, he finished a strong third in total
number of ridings won. This indicates that he support was
concentrated heavily in the ridings he did well in. Takhar did the
best in his home region of Peel, where he won or tied in all but two
ridings. He also did well in the northwest corner of Toronto, which
is home to a high immigrant population. What's most surprising about
his strength was the wins in suburban Ottawa (Nepean—Carleton and
Carleton—Mississippi Mills), Niagara West—Glanbrook,
Hamilton—Stoney Creek and in the Grand River Valley region (Guelph,
Brant, Kitchener-Waterloo, etc). I have no idea why he did so well
there.
Kennedy
Kennedy's strength
was a mile wide and an inch deep it seems. While he finished third in
delegates, he finished fifth in terms of seats won- just eight, and
tied in two others. His support was not really concentrated in any
particular region of the province. His best riding was of course,
Parkdale—High Park which he represented both federally and
provincially in the past. He won 10 delegates there. Some of his
other wins can be attributed to high profile endorsements, like the
ones in Niagara Falls and Brampton West. The other ridings he won are
quite random: Sarnia—Lambton, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, Oxford,
Peterborough and Timiskaming—Cochane (plus his two ties, Barrie and
Scarborough Centre). Not sure why he won in those seats in
particular.
Wynne
Wynne did strongly
in two very different areas of the province, Central Toronto and
Central Ontario. The former is a very left wing part of the province,
perhaps the most left wing part, while the latter is quite the
opposite. While it's easy to explain why left leaning Liberals in
Toronto would support Wynne, an open lesbian who happens to hail from
the region, but it's harder to explain why she won ridings in the
bluest part of the province- Central and Central Eastern Ontario.
Wynne's home riding of Don Valley West tied for her best riding, with
13 delegates. Interestingly, and oddly- the other riding to give her
13 delegates was Nipissing. She did receive the endorsement of
Nipissing's former MPP, Monique Smith. But, I can't quite explain why
Wynne won in conservative leaning ridings like
Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Leeds—Grenville,
Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington or Haliburton—Kawartha
Lakes—Brock. Especially considering the fact that Wynne is widely
seen as the “left” candidate- at least compared to Pupatello. My
only explanation comes down to religion. This region of the province
is highly Protestant, and while I'm not sure what relgion (if any)
Wynne is, it's clear that with a name like Pupatello, she certainly
is not.
Pupatello
Pupatello has
built her delegate lead on a coalition of a number of regions across
the province. Namely these are the urban north, Ottawa and the far
east, and her home region of Southwestern Ontario. Usually this
wouldn't be enough to lead any race, but in this fractured election,
it's just enough, if you couple it with a spattering of random
ridings in the middle of the province. From the looks of it,
Pupatello's Italian heritage seems to have helped her win ridings
with high Italian populations. One big exception is Ontario's most
Italian riding, Vaughan which saw half its delegates go uncommitted
and only two for Pupatello. Pupatello also did well in highly
Catholic, and highly Francophone ridings like Ottawa—Vanier,
Glengarry—Prescott—Russell and Timmins—James Bay. I'm not sure
if Pupatello is even bilingual, so perhaps this support also comes
down to religion. Interestingly, Pupatello's best riding was Thunder
Bay—Superior North where she won 14 delegates. She was endorsed by
both of Thunder Bay's MPPs. She also did well in the other Thunder
Bay riding, Thunder Bay-Atikokan, where she won 12 delegates. Her
next best ridings were highly Francophone Glengarry—Prescott—Russell
and Essex where she won 13 delegates each. Essex is right next door
to her former home riding of Windsor West, where she happened to win
12 delegates.
The Ontario
Liberal delegate map raises a lot of questions about how leadership
contests work, and how people vote. It really is quite fascinating.
Does it raise questions about tribal politics? Does it mean
endorsements work? For the most part though, many of the things going
on in this map are unexplainable by me. Perhaps I just need to know
more about the Liberal Party? Anyways, their leadership contest is a
week and a half away; and because it is a delegated convention, there
will be no way to map the different rounds, so this will have to
suffice for now. For more details about the delegate breakdown, click here.
