Tallying the Election Results in Thunder Bay

 

The people have spoken and Thunder Bay – along with all the other municipalities in Ontario – has a new mayor and council.  Congratulations to the incoming Mayor and City Council members as well as to all the candidates who put their names forward and ran.  Running for office and serving as the public in an elected role is a challenging and important task and vital to the functioning of our system of government.  

 

 It was certainly an interesting evening last night not the least because of the exasperating nature of the election results.  Despite our “state of the art” modern election system in Thunder Bay that combines online, phone, in-person, and drive through voting and with over one fifth of eligible ballots cast in advance, it took several hours before any meaningful results were delivered.  One hopes that this process will be thoroughly reviewed because in order for the public to have confidence in their voting system, the smooth running and operation of the system sends an important signal and that was certainly lacking last evening.

 

As for the results, Figure 1 presents the winners as well as their percent share of votes cast.  With about 35,421 votes cast (at my last tally) Ken Boshcoff emerged the winner as Mayor with 38.2 percent of the ballots cast with Gary Mack in second place with 34.3 percent of the ballots cast.  The At-Large winners (with over 140,000 votes given every elector can vote for up to 5) were Mark Bentz (11%), Shelby Ch’ng (9.4%), Trevor Giertuga (8.6%), Rajni Agarwal (7.6%) and Kasey Etreni (7.2%).  In terms of the Ward races, Michael Zussino took Red River with 33.4% of the vote, Albert Aiello retook McIntyre with 63.3% of the vote, Kristen Oliver held Westfort with 45.9% of the vote, Dominic Pasqualino won in Northwood with 41.6% of the vote, Brian Hamilton kept McKellar at 53.5% of the vote, Andrew Foulds kept Current River with 74.9% (a ringing endorsement one might add) and Greg Johnsen won Neebing with 36.1 percent of the vote.  

 

 

 

Was this a change council? Not really.  If you want to see the results of a "change" election you should check out Hamilton's results where three incumbents actually lost their seats and there are ten new faces on their City Council which consists of a Mayor and 15 ward councillors. In Thunder Bay with a council of twelve plus a mayor, seven of the elected councilors are incumbents (Bentz, Ch-ng, Giertuga, Aiello, Oliver, Hamilton and Foulds). If one counts Peng You as an incumbent then there was an incumbent not returned. As for the Mayor, well he has been Mayor before and a familiar face and is effectively an honorary incumbent making for eight incumbents on council.  Are the other five a vote for change?  At best managed change given that they probably only won because a number of incumbents chose not to run thereby making room for a few new faces.  Name recognition is important in politics and in Thunder Bay given its closeted nature even more so, which is why constant calls for people to run because there is a “candidate shortage” was so amusing to observe this summer.  Ward contests with more than three candidates essentially guarantee a win for incumbents and At-Large slates with upwards of 25 to 30 candidates for five positions pretty much do the same for those races.  Sometimes, quality of candidate should be a more important consideration than quantity.

 

Will it be smooth sailing for this council?  There are a lot of issues coming down the pipeline – not least of which will be policing - and one expects the honeymoon period will be short-lived especially with an anticipated major hike in property taxes being rumoured.  The other interesting issue is whether or not we should reform City Council and go to a fully At-Large system of between 8 and 12 councillors plus a mayor.  I would say the answer is a definite no.   If one looks at the results in Figure 1, the five At-Large winners have each won with barely 10 percent of the votes cast in their favour in the At-Large competition. They can claim to “represent” the interests of the entire city, but it remains that they do not have an overwhelming mandate aside from the fact they got the biggest numbers in a ranking.  The mayor’s position did somewhat better at nearly 40 percent.  It is the wards where the strongest mandates have emerged.  In three of the seven wards, the winners actually got a majority of the votes case, while in an additional two they were over 40 percent.  I would say there if you truly wanted democracy, there is probably a better case for an all-ward system than a fully At-Large system.

 

One other point.  Take a look at figures 2 and 3.  These are the “projected” winners based on the TBNewswatch online polls that took place the weeks of August 20 to 27 and October 7 to 17.  They are a mix of highly accurate projections and wildly off the mark results.  In the case of the mayor’s race, the McIntyre, and Current River Wards they were consistent with the actual election results though the percentages vary quite a bit.  For the At-Large race, they consistently showed Bentz as a winner but there was quite a bit of variation in the others over time.  Pretty similar conclusion from the remaining ward competitions which saw quite a few flip-flops though in the case of some wards like Westfort they probably reflect the closer nature of the race.  In the case of McKellar or Neebing it was either a really volatile race or well…something else perhaps given the nature of online polling.

 

So, to repeat, congratulations to the new mayor and council.  And of course, once again the drama begins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Next Council: The Challenges for Thunder Bay

 

Shortly, there will be a municipal election in Thunder Bay with a new council selected.  It is likely there will be a major change in composition with quite a few new faces and this will usher in a period of change though perhaps not as much change as one might expect.  In the end, The City of Thunder Bay is a corporation and what an election does is essentially select its board of directors who serve as an executive laying out direction with execution and implementation being the responsibility of the City Administration. Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

The City Manager reports to City Council and is responsible for putting into effect the directives of council within the framework of what is allowed by the Province of Ontario. More importantly, the City Manager and Administration possess the information set from which the councillors then make their decision.  As well, given their role as full time employees rather than part-time representatives,  they have the time to deal with the detail of issues.  Inevitably, some councillors will find the level of information and detail overwhelming.  The overwhelming  complexity of issues in the past has often resulted in meetings where councillors on the advice of administration quickly make decisions on millions of dollars of spending and complicated bylaws with long-term impact while then spending hours debating relatively minor matters involving a few thousand dollars.

 

There are some departing members of the outgoing council that it will be sad to see go given that among them are the remnants of what passes for a fiscal conservative in Thunder Bay political life these days.  Based on a perusal of the candidate slate currently up for election, this is likely to be one of the more activist councils that Thunder Bay has seen in some time and their first test will be the 2023 budget.  A relatively new council will be heavily dependent on the advice of administration and also eager to deliver on whatever promises they have made and agendas they campaigned on, and the result will likely be a heftier tax increase than has occurred over the last few years. 

 

The Mayor’s position is essentially one of first among equals despite whatever strong mayor powers are eventually afforded by the provincial government to Thunder Bay.  The outgoing Mayor was good for Thunder Bay given he was articulate, well informed and lent a certain dignity and gravitas to the position – though some times while in the midst of yet another marathon Zoom meeting he seemed increasingly exasperated and resembled an artist being forced to work on a much smaller canvas.  Such a sentiment is understandable, but the Mayor might have been happier by drawing inspiration from others in Thunder Bay and northern Ontario in a range of positions and occupations who have made a career of working on a smaller canvas.

 

In the end, the challenges for the next council are many.  There is a housing and homelessness crisis in Thunder Bay that parallels that in other cities given the climb in rents and home prices during the course of the pandemic.  There is crime – with 12 murders already in 2022, Thunder Bay is well on the road to regaining its title as Canada’s murder city in per capita terms. And of course who can forget infrastructure whether it is roads and sewers or recreational infrastructure given that the Turf facility has reared its head as an issue in the election with some candidates expressing support for the concept but not at the original high cost. 

 

Surprisingly, little mention has been made of the other chaotic infrastructure problem Thunder Bay faced during the pandemic which was the plague of leaky pipes in homes throughout the city  in the wake of the sodium hydroxide water supply lead mitigation experiment.  Needless to say, the public silence from the outgoing Mayor and council on this issue - no doubt on the legal advice from City Administration and its lawyers given potential costs and legal liabilities - has left a bitter taste for many.  So much for a friendly community oriented city with your elected representatives always ready to lend an ear.

 

And the biggest issue?  Well elections are in the end obviously no place for serious long term policy discussions but the fact remains that Thunder Bay’s regional role as a centre for a growing and under counted Indigenous population is the big one.  Increasingly Thunder Bay and its municipal ratepayers are paying for regional services on a city tax base.  The latest example here is in the case of the Thunder Bay Police Service and the recommended changes that among other things ultimately mean the Police Service has to take a regional lens to its operations.

 

A move to a more regional approach in policing in the end is a continuation of a trend over the last twenty-five years that can be best described as informal and piecemeal northwestern Ontario regional government by default - a regional hospital service, a district social services board, a district emergency service organization, and regional public utilities such as Synergy North and TBayTel. Indigenous organizations have also established presence in Thunder Bay and Sioux lookout providing regional services to their members.  Yet, there was never really any type of democratic regional mandate for this evolution.  True, one can always blame the province or Ottawa given that much of this is under provincial or federal jurisdiction but our local municipal leaders to date have ignored the long term picture painted by this evolution.  After all, it is a complicated and overwhelming set of circumstances.

 

Of course the trend to more regional services is also a function of the claim that Thunder Bay has under counted its population and more services need to be provided to service this under counted population.  But how can you provide more services if you do not know how many people there are? After all, on the one hand there are claims made by some municipal candidates we are losing people “daily” to other cities but at the same time there are apparently tens of thousands more people here who need services.  Which is it?  Unfortunately, social surveys based on self-reporting and life stories however compelling and reflective of reality do not a rigorous estimate make.   

 

At minimum you would think we could put an estimate together ourselves based on local and regional electricity use from Synergy,  cell phone and phone subscriptions from TBayTel, patient counts (given they have addresses or OHIP cards) from medical facilities in the region, and school enrollments from all the public boards.  These should be correlated with population growth and enable an estimate with upper and lower bounds keyed to census benchmarks.  In the absence of this, one ultimately has to accept the Census results which do say that according to the 2021 census, the number of Indigenous residents of the Thunder Bay Census Metropolitan Area grew by about 12 per cent between 2016 and 2021, to a total of 17,000 people.

 

And so, what next?  Well, one suspects that after a honey moon period of sunny optimism,   it will be business as usual for the next council accompanied with a fairly hefty tax increase.  All the candidates acknowledge a lot of issues ranging from roads to crime to  homelessness to mental health to opioid addiction.  They don’t agree with increasing what taxpayers pay when it comes to revisiting the Turf facility and want to explore alternatives  like donations and fundraising but in the end they will solve problems by “taking action” and “working tirelessly” which usually means a tax increase as a starting point under the banner of investing in ourselves and then avoiding constituents when they complain too much. 

 

Nevertheless, hope springs eternal.  Maybe this council will be different.

 

 

Your Next Thunder Bay City Council …According to TBNewswatch Polling

 

With the candidacy window closed as of August 19^th, the race for the October 24^th municipal election is now on and there is no shortage of candidates in Thunder Bay.  Every Ward has a race and the At-Large race has the usual bounty of candidates.  There are five candidates for Mayor, 24 for the At-Large race, three in Current River, two in McIntyre, four in McKellar, six in Neebing, five in Northwood, six in Red River and four in Westfort – a total of 59 candidates.  That pretty much matches the last time despite the lamentations of woe early on that there were no candidates.

 

The more interesting question in light of such a magnificent display of civic interest and spirit is who is going to win in each of the races.  TBNewswatch provides a valuable public service with its polls on various issues and it has over the period August 20 to 27 run polls for each of the races. Of course, this is not an unbiased random sampling procedure and one suspects the technologically savvy can affect the results but if these polls are accurate, this is what your next council may look like (percentage of votes cast in brackets)

 

Mayor                                      Ken Boschoff  (51.90 %)

At-Large Councillors                Mark Bentz (15.96%)

                                                Shane Judge (13.22%)

                                                Stephen Margarit (11.64%)

                                                Shelby Ch’ng (11.06%)

                                                Kasey Etreni (8.86%)

Red River                                 Martin Rukavina (28.83%)

McIntyre                                  Albert Aiello (50.16%)

Westfort                                 Kristen Oliver (49.27%)

Northwood                             Dominic Pasqualino (50.16%)

McKellar                                  Brian Hamilton (43.42%)

Current River                          Andrew Foulds (60.61%)

Neebing                                  Shaun Kennedy (39.22%)

 

Some of these wards appear to have closer races based on the TBNewswatch poll – namely Red River where Jason Veltri (24.45%)  is a close second, McIntyre where Brent Boyko is a very close (49.84%) second and McKellar where Lori Paras is close (39.95%).   This is not a scientific poll and even if it was, the only poll that counts is of course the one on election day.  Still, if these trends are on the mark, there may be substantial turnover on city council.  Change and new viewpoints can be very positive and many of these front runners are relatively known quantities while others are relative unknowns depending on what social circles you move in.

 

 It is worth googling these candidates and checking out their self-provided bios which provide an eclectic mix of entertaining and informative reading.  Some are quite informative and impressive, listing a series of career and community accomplishments. Some mention family relationships or their deep community connections to Thunder Bay. Some mention what they want to accomplish with an explicitness that may lose them as many votes as they may win, and some are vague to the point of not really saying anything at all by providing an endless string of platitudes.  The other thing worth noting is if one were to plot the candidates who seem to be leading the “poll” on a left/right or progressivist/passivist continuum, Thunder Bay is probably about to elect a council that is even less concerned about taxpayers and tax rates than the previous one. On the other hand, they may surprise us all with their fiscal astuteness.  Still, on voting day, choices must be made and if they turn out to be good ones, so much the better.

 

The next council inherits a lot of issues: crime and policing, social issues and homelessness and addiction, crumbling infrastructure, expensive lawsuits mainly linked to water and of course the still flat economy which has been masked by the generous amounts of government money that has flowed into Thunder Bay on both a private and public level.  New councillors will come in with pet projects and agendas but will quickly find that they must deal with resource constraints, a bureaucracy which generally has more information than they do and their own vested interests, and issues that will pop in from out of the blue.  New councillors will need to be quick learners, multi-talented, adaptable, patient and open to criticism both warranted and unwarranted and take it all in with a smile.  However, they will probably be spared from feeling like having to do windows on a skyscraper while perched on a precarious and narrow wooden seat. 

 

Is There Really a Municipal Candidate Shortage in Thunder Bay?

 

Outgoing councillor Rebecca Johnson has joined city administrators in raising the alarm over what appears to be the low number of confirmed candidates for this fall’s municipal election.  In 2018 there were apparently twice as many registered candidates at this point.  On the one hand, this is probably not a surprise given the last few years have been exhausting because of the pandemic not to mention the worst winter in two decades has left people scrambling to repair damage to homes and basements.  People are preoccupied on numerous fronts now and running for council is probably not at the top of their list.  Moreover, there is still almost two months to go until the August 19^th deadline and if the past is any indication, there will be plenty of candidates springing from under the woodwork any day soon.

 

Of course, given the record low turnout in the recent provincial election, it is a reasonable question to ask if there is a lack of engagement with this year’s coming municipal election.  Political life has never been more challenging given the presence of social media which makes election campaigns often more akin to a process of ritualistic character assassination than a debate of ideas.  There is probably also a sense of fatigue in Thunder Bay over constant issues that never seem to be resolved and in recent years appear to have only grown whether it is crime or deteriorating infrastructure.  One expects this year’s issues will be quite similar to those of 2018 and one senses this endless wheel of time litany is discouraging to many.

 

And then there is the process of running for municipal office which is not just about signing up to appear on a ballot, but which over time has involved like everything else into a more involved bureaucratic process.  Nomination papers must be filed by appointment only.  You need the endorsement of at least 25 people if you wish to run for Mayor or councillor – a spur of the moment decision it is not.  There is a filing fee, a declaration of qualifications and a consent to release personal information.  While one might want to discourage frivolous candidacies, at the same time, one may need to review the process to see if it can be made more candidate friendly.

 

Yet, it remains that there is probably not going to be a shortage of candidates.  This type of hand wringing has happened before and will happen again.  During the 2018 municipal election campaign in Thunder Bay, there were similar concerns being expressed by early July as with the exception of the Mayor’s position, there was a drop in the number of candidates seeking municipal office in most of the wards.  It turns out after the story went out, a slew of candidates came forth and the total number of candidates running for municipal office in Thunder Bay rivalled that of much larger cities. There were 101 candidates vying for office of 2018 with 26 going after an at-large position which pretty much guaranteed victory for incumbents.

 

In the end, the chief beneficiary of a plethora of candidates is incumbents who already have deep rooted name recognition.  More candidates split and fracture any opposition vote whereas fewer candidates running allows dissenting or dissatisfied voters an opportunity to coalesce around an opponent and bring incumbents down. It is noteworthy that many incumbents have not declared yet either – including the current Mayor.  Incumbents announcing too early potentially scares off candidates and reduces the candidate pool, so the trick is to lay low and wait for the competition to reveal itself in sufficiently large numbers and then emerge.  One suspects the same is going to happen yet again and by August we will be lamenting that there are too many candidates, and the same faces will be getting in again.  Thunder Bay’s wheel of time continues.

 

 

Is Thunder Bay About to Reverse its Conservative Drought?

 

The Ontario provincial election is now well underway and the poll tracking results to date suggest that the Conservatives under Doug Ford are poised to win another majority government.  The Liberals are projected to increase their seat count but largely at the expense of the NDP.  The Conservatives have adopted policies and platforms that are appealing to a largely centrist voter profile and there are substantial infrastructure spending announcements sprinkled across the province designed to consolidate their support.   In some respects, all three parties are making spending announcements like it the 1960s- money seems to be no object. While still early days, the opposition parties have yet to really come across as a credible alternative but who knows. 

 

Here in Thunder Bay, the question is whether the provincial Conservatives can reverse what has been a historic pattern of Liberal representation punctuated with bouts of NDP as a palate cleanser.  Last time around, the NDP took Thunder Bay Atikokan from the Liberals narrowly edging out the Liberals with the Conservatives a distant third though they did increase their support by about 10 percent and did better than the Conservative on the north side.  This time around, the incumbent is NDP, and the two opponents have somewhat lower profiles in the riding than what one might expect.  Still, the NDP incumbent won by a rather small margin and depending on how the campaign shapes up, there is always the possibility of change.  The south side Conservative candidate does have a background in municipal politics.

 

On the north side, things are more interesting.  With the incumbent not running due to health concerns, there is more of a race in progress.  The liberal incumbent won but by a relatively small margin and the runner up last time – NDP Lise Vaugeois – is running again.  The Liberals have current south side Northwood municipal Councillor Shelby Ch’ng running while the Conservatives have recruited municipal Councillor Peng You.  This is a riding that historically is even less fertile ground for the Conservatives than the south side of Thunder Bay. And yet, the conservatives probably have their best shot here at reversing their Lakehead drought.

 

Councillor Peng You is personally very popular with an extensive network of friends, acquaintances and supporters acquired via his years as a Tai Chi master.  His victory as an At-Large Councillor in the last municipal election saw him top the candidate totals with the largest tally of votes.  He has facilitated a lot of international exchanges and is well liked by those who know him.  While his performance as a municipal councillor has occasionally been erratic, that can be attributed to the previous lack of political experiences and a business background not schooled in the byzantine bureaucracy of municipal affairs.  He has also been engaged in extensive door knocking across the city.  And the provincial government has announced several high-profile infrastructure projects in the region to boot.

 

Will all this be enough to get a Conservative victory?  Who knows?  However, the recruitment of Peng You is the most serious attempt by the Conservatives to attract a high profile Thunder Bay candidate to run in years.  The possibility to have someone on the government benches is probably not lost on some of the locals especially given that the prospects of a majority government look high.  It will be an interesting merry month of May. 

 

 

A Liberal Hiatus in Thunder Bay?

Long-time standing MPP Michael Gravelle has announced that he is not seeking re-election in the riding of Thunder Bay-Superior North because of his ongoing health issues.  Mr. Gravelle has held the riding since 1995 and the popular Mr. Gravelle has seen his victories be by large margins.  One wishes him well with hopes for a speedy recovery.  At the same time, his departure leaves a gap for the provincial Liberals locally as well as provincially given the rather small contingent of provincial liberals elected the last time around. 

 

Thunder Bay voters historically at both the federal and provincial levels tend to elect Liberals and when they seek to punish them opt for an NDP candidate instead.  Oddly enough, Thunder Bay voters are indeed very conservative voters in the sense they have been doing the same thing for a long time. Federally, the last elected Conservative was Robert J. Manion in Fort William though MP Joe Commuzzi went over to the Conservatives in 2008 after being elected as a Liberal.  Provincially, the last Conservative elected in Thunder Bay appears to be Mickey Hennessy in the 1970s/early 1980s again on the Fort William side.  At present, Liberals hold both ridings federally (now known as Thunder Bay-Atikokan and Thunder Bay Superior-North) and the NDP holds the former Fort William riding with Mr. Gravelle on the north side.

 

Provincially, polling suggests that the Conservatives under Doug Ford are poised to do quite well with the opposition parties not able to gain a lot of traction with their opposition to a government that has become both centrist and populist. The Liberals in Thunder Bay have yet to name a candidate on the south side with the expected candidate, the ever astute  Bill Mauro deciding he would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven by taking his chances as Mayor.   Now, there may be another vacuum on the north side.  If candidates are not named soon, the provincial Liberals may be handing the ridings over to an NDP-Conservative race.

 

The provincial Conservatives appear to be paying the two ridings a fair amount of attention and there have been quite a few announcements which amount to substantial provincial dollars flowing into the region.  They also have their candidates lined up.  They already have Mayor of Conmee Kevin Holland running on the south side against NDP incumbent Judith-Monteith Farrell and Thunder Bay City Councillor Peng You on the north side.  Councillor You is considered a high profile catch for the Conservatives given his high vote count as an at-large councilor nearly four years ago.  At the same time, there has been some rumblings of dissatisfaction expressed about his performance on Thunder Bay City Council in terms of accomplishments to date.

 

So, what will happen?  Given the tea leaves as to what may happen province-wide, there may not be a lot of local Liberals willing to put up with the public social abuse that passes for an election campaign these days.  Even with what have traditionally been strong local organizations at the federal and provincial levels, they may not field candidates at all.  This would leave the race to essentially the other two parties and the interesting question will be if Thunder Bay Liberal voters simply embrace the NDP candidates or if the higher profile Conservative candidates this time have more of a chance. 

 

 

A Spring Election Is Coming to Ontario…Money is Flowing Like Spring Melt

 

The Northwest of Ontario is still gripped in throes of winter relative to southern Ontario, but spring is inevitably on its way along with a Spring Budget at Queen’s Park (April 28^th) to be followed by a spring election in early June.  The Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA) will hold its annual conference and general meeting April 27-29 in Fort Frances and the meetings will overlap the budget date.   There will undoubtedly be the traditional lament over the region’s needs especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, but the truth of the matter is that municipalities - even in Ontario's north - have generally done quite well financially during the pandemic as has the provincial government for that matter. 

 

Municipalities generally run surpluses (or in the language of municipalities, positive variances) and the pandemic does not seem to have changed that.  And, because of federal transfer supports and growing own source revenues, Ontario has seen provincial total revenues rise since 2017-18.  Based on the Fiscal Reference Tables and the Ontario 2021 Fall Economic Statement, total revenues were $150.594 billion in 2017-18 and reached $164.893 billion in 2020-21.  Fiscal year 2021-22 is forecast at $168.617 billion while by 2023-24 the forecast is for revenues of $178 billion. 

 

If anything, the numbers will likely be revised again in the April 28^th budget to show higher revenues than anticipated and a smaller projected deficit as even the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario (FAO) has already noted.  For 2021-22, the FAO expects a $16.0 billion budget deficit, lower than the government outlook for a $20.5 billion deficit. By 2023-24, the FAO projects the deficit will decline to $2.8 billion, compared to the government outlook of $11.4 billion.

 

So, one can expect that with robust provincial revenue growth and an election in the wind, there will be plenty of spending or “investments” in projects and programs across the province as the province fans out its ministers and spending announcements as a sort of missionaria protectiva to secure as many seats as possible.  Indeed, the spending has been underway since March and currently totals nearly 11 billion dollars.  Some of these announcements are really tax expenditure or foregone revenue in the case of the refund and cancellation of vehicle registration fees (approximately $2.2 billion) as well as the gasoline and fuel tax cut to take effect this summer ($645 billion).  Some are substantial infrastructure projects with billions of dollars for hospital and long-term care construction as well as highway projects. 

 

In terms of specifics for northern Ontario municipalities to date, there are four announcements of note: 1) The industrial electricity subsidy for northern Ontario ($176 million), the refurbishing of GO Transit train coaches’ contract for Ontario northland North Bay ($109 million) and the contract to widen the Thunder-Bay to Nipigon highway ($107) and 4) Rural Broadband internet ($900 million) which one would expect a reasonable share should flow to the north.  These are not inconsequential amounts or projects from a regional perspective and come on top of other announcements such $75 million for resumption of Ontario Northlander train service from Timmins to Toronto.  Throw in money for more medical doctor training with the expansion of NOSM and you can see a deliberate effort to woo northern voters.  Watching the opposition parties use the northern neglect line will be interesting given that many of the northern ridings are indeed held by the opposition and not the current government.

 

Of course, the budget next week will probably unveil even more spending initiatives given that revenues are likely higher than expected which means the government will be able to spend more and lower the deficit.  As for the province’s $400 billion dollar debt and high net debt to GDP ratio?  An election is coming, and an election is too important a time to worry about public finances as politicians have demonstrated since time immemorial. And besides, what politician would not want a future without challenges for their grandchildren especially when there is an election to win?

 

 

Sorting Out the Day After

 Well, the results are in and little has changed at the federal level at least on the surface.  What was viewed as an unnecessary election has yielded the anticipated result - a minority Liberal government with little to show for the effort aside from the expenditure of over $600 million dollars to run a pandemic election. The distribution of seats has changed little.  It may be tempting to conclude that little has changed and it is business as usual but the election does have a number of longer-term implications.  

First, it has introduced Canadians to Erin O'Toole in a major way.  He is now a more visible leader and does position him well for a second run.  He did not do better partly because of the upsurge in support for the People's Party, partly because in the GTA voters decided the Liberal child care plan was more to their liking and partly because the Ontario conservative political machine essentially stepped back.  He now has the opportunity to work at remedying that state of affairs.

Second, all of the three major parties have essentially been weakened and being weak creates insecurity and the prospect of a more fractious and unstable parliament at a time when the pandemic is still on.  The Liberals may indeed argue that we now need to work together to finish off the pandemic but the counter will be that despite a pandemic we had an election anyway so the prospects of being punished for a pandemic election grow weaker as a threat.  Pulling the trigger will be easier the next time for both the liberals as well as whatever party is propping up the government.

The Liberals wanted a majority and did not get one and the acrimony of the campaign means a less civil climate for working together with the other parties.  While the NDP party will still support them, the price for their support will inevitably move upwards but at the same time, given that they did no better than last time, the NDP will not have as much leverage as they might imagine.  And the Conservatives will have a lot of regrouping and thinking to do given their platform in the end did not make the inroads into the urban areas that they would have wanted.

Interestingly enough, in the dying days of the campaign, the Prime minister noted he was willing to consider electoral reform - again.  Of course, why he would now want to abandon a first past the post system that allows him to form a government with barely one third the popular vote is something that remains to be seen.

So, that is where we are at for the time being.

 

Do the Liberals Deserve a Majority?

 

This election is only about whether the current governing party deserves a majority.  It is not about who is the best steward of the economy, who has the best housing plan, who can manage the pandemic best or even issues like what should Canada’s foreign policy or trade policy be in the currently fractured world.  It should be about all these things, but these things are only a veil for what is the real issue.  Given a minority government that appeared to be working, was an election during a pandemic for the sake of trying to get a majority something the current governing party should be rewarded for?

 

That is a good question.  The answer really depends on what happens after this election.  If the Liberals get their majority – a prospect which currently appears problematic– then the federal business of government will continue pretty much as it has whether you like it or not. The rolling of the dice will have been rewarded with the anticipated prize and the universe will unfold as Liberal strategists desired. 

 

If there is a Liberal minority, then all was for naught, and we are back to a minority government that requires the support of at least one of the other parties - but the mandate of the Liberal minority will be weaker.  While they are still the government, they did not get their majority and the prospect for good relations with other parties after the rancor and rhetoric of an unnecessary election will shorten the life of the next parliament considerably.  It is a recipe for more unstable government, but with some continuity in dealing with the resurgent fourth COVID wave given the Liberals will still be in charge at least for a short time.

 

Suppose there is a Conservative or for the sake of argument an NDP minority government.  Then once again we have a prospect for unstable and short shelf-life government and probably a fair amount of chaos during the transition.  As the fourth wave grows, we will be busy watching to see who the new cabinet will be and what the policies transpire and who is going to be supporting the government and who is not.  Will the Liberals swallow their pride and support a conservative or NDP government?  Or will they simply retreat into sniping mode and leave the heavy lifting to the Bloc?  It is not a good prospect.

 

There is of course the possibility of a Conservative majority which solves the problem of the instability of a minority government.  However, there is still the prospect of transition. Ministers will be learning their portfolios and there is always the risk that if you change horses mid-stream, Canadians will simply fall into the creek.  In the end, one might argue it does not matter what happens.  After all, Canada’s political parties are really all middle of the road or centrist parties and all of them in the end will do pretty much the same thing but with differences in speed and intensity.  The NDP are simply Liberals in a hurry and the Conservatives are slower Liberals and Liberals are whatever they think Canadians want them to be. 

 

Moreover, politicians are merely actors on a stage and the real decision making and business of state is done by the civil servants, and they are not going anywhere. Still, in the end, political leadership matters.  Vision and inspiration matter.  Prime Ministers matter because even if scripted some deliver their lines better than others while others interpret the role in unique and uplifting ways. Or at least they should.

 

I guess, the real question is should you reward the Liberals for going to the polls during a pandemic and risking the aftermath of chaotic instability of government and transition during a rising fourth pandemic wave?  Should they be rewarded for opening such a can of worms? The answer to that is invariably complicated and can best be summarized as simultaneously both Yes and No.   Think of it as an election variant of Schrodinger's cat.

 

 

 

 

International Relations & Trade Discussion Missing in Current Federal Election Campaign

Monday's Federal Leader's debate made nary a mention of international trade, our current dispute with China or even what is going on with the USMCA ratification in the United States.  With exports accounting for about 30% of our GDP, it is astounding that such an important issue is being ignored.  It is therefore worth re-posting the piece I had published early this week on the Fraser Institute Blog.

Canada needs more major trading partners beyond China and the U.S.

First Appeared in Fraser Blog , October 7^th, 2019

On the campaign trail, there’s little talk about Canadian trade policy and the repercussions of our current poor political relationship with China. The need to continue diversifying our trade is the elephant in the room this federal election.

In what seems to be explicit retaliation over the Meng Wanzhou Affair, China has detained Canadian citizens—putting a chill on business travel there—and essentially halted our exports of meat and canola. Any memories of Norman Bethune appear to have faded as China reveals its view of us as a small, inconsequential and puny power that should do as told. As a result, an important trade strategy—to diversify our trade away from dependence on what has also become a more capricious United States—lies in tatters.

The U.S. takes nearly 75 per cent of our exports, and despite recent bumps, has been by international trade standards a dream trade partner. It’s a large, rich, populous market literally on our doorstep where we share a close political and social culture, common language and history. It’s a market economy like ours with a strong rule of law. Subsequently, Canadians have not had to work very hard when it comes to exports given that the access to such a profitable market has historically been easy. A one stop export market for 75 per cent of your exports has become the gold standard of Canadian trade policy.

But Canadian business has been seduced by the prospects of China’s growing economy and the vision of a rich market of 1.4 billion people as a sort of future U.S.-like trade relationship. China has rapidly industrialized and is developing a large, dense and wealthy market. At first, it even seemed to be moving towards a more liberal market order in its economy.

Yet despite early promise, it would appear China is only playing lip service to liberal economic values and seems set on explicitly using trade relationships as part of its diplomatic and political arsenal, given that it views government policy and trade relationships as one dominion. Its recent behaviour raises an important question: Do we really want to ever be in a situation where 75 per cent of our exports are dependent on China’s market? Do we really want to give the Chinese government a quasi-monopoly over both our trade and political affairs?

It really would be the road to serfdom.

Despite the large dollar value of our trade relationship with China, it currently still only represents five per cent of our exports. Trade is about free exchange and mutually beneficial gains. If China wants our trade goods, we should certainly sell them as part of a free and open bargaining process. However, if it wants to use its economic relationships as a tool to get its way when dealing with countries on other issues, then we must protect ourselves. We are a small open economy dependent on trade and we must diversify our trade. Our recent efforts in negotiating agreements with the EU and the Trans-Pacific are only a start. We need many countries to compete for our business, but to do so we also need to show interest and compete for theirs. Part of this also involves reducing our own protectionism (agricultural supply management would be a good place to start).

If the Asia-Pacific is the future of trade, then look for opportunities in other wealthy Asian countries. Japan, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are all important economies that can serve as markets for Canadian products.

Moreover, instead of waiting for government-led initiatives, Canadian businesses should start the process themselves. Rather than placing all your eggs in a one-shot market-access strategy in the hopes that China can one day replicate our success in the U.S., shift your markets to other partners. Make sure there are a lot of them so no one country can ever hold our economy hostage. This should become the new gold standard for Canadian trade policy.

Municipal Election Analysis 2018: Thunder Bay Mayoral Race

The results are in and former provincial Liberal Cabinet Minister Bill Mauro will be the next Mayor of Thunder Bay.  Congratulations to Mayor Mauro as well as all the hard-working candidates who chose to run for office.  Thanks also to outgoing council members who have seen years of public service.  Public service is never easy and putting your name forth as a candidate and serving as an elected official is an important act of participation in our democracy.

The new Mayor-Designate took 34 percent of the 41,108 votes cast for mayor edging out soon to be former City Councillor Frank Pullia who took 32 percent of the vote.  The choice of mayor was in many respects part of a general desire for change at the municipal level given that both of the higher profile council incumbent candidates for mayor went down to defeat.  Indeed, the new council represents a significant but not overwhelming amount of change with a number of new faces as well as new but familiar faces – as in the example of the new mayor.

Yet, the aspect of this race I found the most interesting was the collapse of the protest vote which saw Shane Judge garner only 5,155 votes (13 percent of the total) compared to his 2014 total of 9,531 which was a 26 percent share of the total.  Even more interesting was the collapse of support for Iain Angus who as a Councillor at Large in 2014 won with 15,861 votes and who as a candidate for mayor in 2018 was only able to manage about a third of that at 5,816. 

One wonders if this signals a general rightward shift in the Thunder Bay electorate given at least my perception of the generally left of center positions of Iain Angus.  Indeed, this may reflect a weakening of the labour vote in general given that Angus was endorsed by the Thunder Bay District Labour Council for Mayor and none of the five at large candidates endorsed by the Labour council won either.   Only three of the Labour Council ward endorsements won (Foulds, Ch’ng and Oliver). Or it may reflect a shift in voter priorities towards lower property taxes given that taxation was continually brought up as an issue during this campaign.The new mayor and several of the winning candidates have emphasized that taxation rates were an issue.

Figure 1 presents the ranked votes by mayoral candidates and most starkly illustrates how despite there being four high profile candidates, it was essentially a two-person race.  Indeed, one wonders what results would have been like if the provincial liberals had won the spring election and Bill Mauro had not entered the municipal race.  It is possible that in the absence of Bill Mauro’s entry, Frank Pullia might very well be the mayor today.  
 

Much is being made of the success of the new online/telephone voting system so a breakdown by type of ballot is interesting.  While voter participation is up above 50 percent this election and voter totals are up I would not venture to say that more convenient online voting options have resulted in a dramatic surge in participation.  Those who want to vote will vote no matter what the system is and the chief advantage of the new system is that it is more convenient for many people. While 41,108 ballots were cast for mayor this election, last time it was 37,123.  The result was an additional 3985 ballots cast – an increase of 13.4 percent.  This is actually a respectable increase but whether it was due to an appetite for change or the convenience of online voting will take a few more elections to see if the increase is sustained.

Of the 41,108 ballots cast for mayor, 15,249 - 37 percent- were paper ballots while 25,775 – 63 percent – were online/telephone ballots.  The preference does appear to be for the convenience of online/phone voting.  Figure 2 shows the distributions of the paper mayoral ballots. 
 

Figure 3 shows the distribution of the online/telephone ballots and Figure 4 the total distribution.  The results for the paper and the online/telephone ballots generally parallel each other but a closer examination shows that among the paper ballots, Frank Pullia had 33 percent of the vote and Bill Mauro 32 percent while in the online/telephone results it was 35 percent for Bill Mauro and 31 percent for Frank Pullia.  Overall, Bill Mauro became Mayor with 34 percent of the total vote and Frank Pullia was second with about 32 percent.

 

 

This is quite an interesting result because it raises the question as to whether the outcome might have been different if only paper ballots (which incidentally are also tabulated electronically) had been used.  It does appear that Frank Pullia had an edge with more traditional medium voters while Bill Mauro’s edge was with online voters.  This is also interesting given that the Pullia campaign was very social media intensive meaning it was fully engaged with the new technology.

This is also an interesting result because given the overall turnout – about 51 percent – and the number of candidates splitting the votes resulting in the winner only holding 34 percent of the total vote.  It means the mayor in the end was elected by about 17 percent of eligible voters.  This is not Bill Mauro’s fault by any stretch of the imagination.  People who are unhappy with small pools of voters rather than a majority deciding their leaders should make sure they get out and vote. On the other hand, perhaps recognition of this low effective support is why the incoming mayor seems relatively low key and unambitious given that his goal is to focus on one or two soft infrastructure projects - like an indoor tennis facility - rather than roads and bridges. I suspect many voters will be surprised to find out a tennis facility is going to be one of the new mayor's priorities.

In any event, these results should provide food for thought for many analyses to come. Next time, I will take a look at the At-Large results.