Ontario provincial by-elections, 2016

Debater wrote:

Yes, Cho is an unusual candidate.

He's also 80 years old now, which is an unusual age to run for Parliament for the first time!

An unusual age to be sure, but Cho is certainly not running for the first time. He ran twice federally and this is his second time provincially. Fourth time lucky. 

sherpa-finn wrote:

Any idea why the NDP seems to have been unable to pull a bigger proportion of its core vote there? August by-elections are won or lost with organization.

The upshot is that the NDP didn't finish that far behind the Liberals. Perhaps they can learn lessons and push Wynne into third place in a couple of years.

ctrl190 wrote:

Better showing for Shan than I expected. And a much needed boost for Patrick Brown. 

Better showing that you expected?  Kathleen Wynne is at the lowest approval numbers she's been at, the hydro prices crisis are causing people to be upset with the liberal party.  Yet the NDP can't finish above third in a riding they were competitie in the last election (and have won federally in the past), even given this perfect situation.  If they can't win now, I have a hard time believing they will do any better provincially in the next election.

U of O law dean seeks provincial Liberal nomination in Ottawa-Vanier

September 9, 2016

The provincial Liberals have snagged high-profile lawyer Nathalie Des Rosiers to run for them in Ottawa-Vanier, the seat vacated by Madeleine Meilleur at the beginning of the summer.

Des Rosiers is the dean of common law at the University of Ottawa, formerly the dean of the university’s civil-law section, and in between was general counsel at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association — where attacking government policy, including in Ontario, was a specialty.

It was Des Rosiers who noticed the provincial government, then headed by Dalton McGuinty, had invoked an archaic legal provision to keep protesters at a G20 leaders’ summit in Toronto away from a kilometres-long protective fence ringing a big section of downtown. That was a massive violation of civil rights, the provincial ombudsman later found.

Des Rosiers also fought the government on carding, the police practice of stopping people in high-crime areas to ask for their papers and recording their whereabouts in a database for later perusal. The minister then in charge of policing, Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi, was dragged reluctantly into banning the tactic.

-

Full article:

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/u-of-o-law-dean-seeks-provincia...

swallow wrote:

Wow, Raymond Cho. Quite something to see him elected at last. A future federal Conservative leader? 

And then...prime minister-for-life?

In a surprise upset, Ontario PC's have nominated 19-year old university student Sam Oosterhoff over PC Party President Rick Dykstra, in Niagara West-Glanbrook:

http://www.hamiltonnews.com/news-story/6925491-niagara-west-glanbrook-to...

http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/news/national_news/article_bd61c54f-26...

From the first article:

Kevin Werner wrote:

In a surprise win, 19-year-old Brock University student Sam Oosterhoff defeated veteran politicians former St. Catharines Tory MP Rick Dykstra, Grimsby Regional Councillor Tony Quirk, and Mike Williscraft to become the Progressive Conservative candidate for the Nov. 17 byelection.

For Dykstra, this was his second loss in about a year after losing to Liberal Greg Bittle for the St. Catharines MP race.

“Wow,” said Oosterhoff after being introduced as the candidate in front of a gathering of about 70 Tories at the Grimsby Town Hall Oct. 22.

“It was a surprise,” said Oosterhoff in an interview.  “I was up against some heavy hitters and you can’t be certain where it goes in a ranked ballot. But I went into (the campaign) to win.”

Oosterhoff will now face Liberal candidate Vicky Ringuette and Green Party candidate Donna Cridland. The NDP candidate will be nominated Oct. 23.

If the Vineland resident wins the byelection, he could become the youngest MPP in the Ontario Legislature.

“It’s something I look forward to,” said Oosterhoff, who had his family in attendance during his acceptance speech.

Only 70 people voting doesn't say much for the organizing abilities of Dykstra and the other contenders. In my opinion, if you can't get 100 supporters out to a nomination meeting, you shouldn't even think of running. Oosterhoff's family may have been all the votes he needed to win.

Debater wrote:

I think more than 70 PC's voted.

I think the article is referring to the 70 Tories in the audience of Oosterhoff's victory party.

You could be right, but when I read "“Wow,” said Oosterhoff after being introduced as the candidate in front of a gathering of about 70 Tories at the Grimsby Town Hall Oct. 22." it sure sounds to me that right after the counting, he was introduced to the waiting crowd as the winner. Also, the Town Hall sounds more like a venue for a nomination meeting than a victory party, which would probably be at a nearby watering hole. We'll never know unless a more detailed account is published.

robbie_dee wrote:

Playing somewhat against type, the NDP just [url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/former-hamilton-police-union-head... the former Hamilton Police union head[/url] in the same riding. Grimsby is practically Horwath's back yard. Could an upset be in the works?

Remember that as per the name, the present provincial seat (though not the redistributed current federal seat) also contains a good deal of Hamiltonian territory: namely, Glanbrook and Saltfleet/Upper Stoney Creek.  And despite the fact that much of it is rural/exurban, it's where the growth is, and it's where the real-or-latent left/NDP strength is...

We shall see tonight! I predict PC wins in both ridings but a strong second for Mike Thomas in Niagara West-Glanbrook. Hudak only took about 42% in 2014 we'll see if Oosterhoff can match that.

Elections Ontario results page:

https://www3.elections.on.ca/RealTimeResults/ElectoralDistrict/en

OTTAWA-VANIER

4 polls reporting out of 265 polls

LIB 63%

PC 20%

NDP 9%

NIAGARA WEST--GLANBROOK

42 polls reporting out of 236 polls

PC - 54%

NDP - 25%

LIB - 16%

NIAGARA WEST--GLANBROOK

65 polls reporting out of 236 polls

PC - 51%

NDP -28%

LIB - 16%

NIAGARA WEST--GLANBROOK

94 polls reporting out of 236 polls

PC - 51%

NDP -28%

LIB - 16%

Canadian Press declares PC Sam Oosterhoff the winner of the Niagara West-Glanbrook byelection.

Excellent. Ontario voters reject cops. The ONDP needs to invest in a mirror.

jjuares wrote:

The Liberals won in a riding? How venal and incompetent do the Liberals have to be before they lose?

They have to be worse than the ONDP. That's a tough threshold.

Debater wrote:

Canadian Press declares PC Sam Oosterhoff the winner of the Niagara West-Glanbrook byelection.

So Lil' Jesus Boy won.

Clearly, it's time for Andrea Horwath to stand down as leader.  These results show she will never be an effective or popular leader.  Any possibility of the ONDP ever gaining ground while she stays on is gone.

There's no reason for her to even try to hang on.

I agree with Ken that Horwath is toast - not because of the byelections, which were unwinnable - but because she's done her job.  She rebuilt the party, nearly doubled its representation in the legislature, and put the first true squeeze from the left on the Liberals since 1985.  She's been an effective NDP leader, and history will view her positively (tho not without critique), but at this moment she has nowhere to do but down.  But unless Singh is going to take her place, there really is no one else in that caucus (or outside politics, waiting in the wings) ready to take her place and actually achieve better results.  I suspect this will be her last election, with Singh the next leader unless he bolts to the feds. I'm interested in whether she stuck on because she wanted to, or whether the party wanted to take advantage of the fact that the Conservatives were leaderless for the first two years of the Wynne government.  And can Singh hang on through another election?  His margins are tight.