This provincial riding in Ontario became vacant due to resignation of the former NDP MPP Laura Mae Lindo, who accepted a position at the University of Waterloo’s Philosophy Department

The riding provincially has historically been competitive with all three parties at various times throughout its history as Waterloo North, Kitchener, and Kitchener Centre.  During the long post-war PC tenure on power, Kitchener was part of a block of more rural, southwestern Ontario ridings that supported the provincial Liberals, and became more of a bellwether after 1990, with all three main parties winning the riding at various times. 

Notably, the long-time Liberal MPP during the PC tenure, Jim Breithaupt, was once seen as a potential Liberal leader who ended up losing the 1982 leadership race to David Peterson, who went on to break the PC’s then (nearly 42 years!) tenure in power shortly thereafter in 1985.  Before Breithaupt’s representation, Liberal MPP John Wintermeyer held the Waterloo North riding from 1955 – 63 and contested the 1959 and 1963 elections as Liberal leader (losing his seat to PC Keith Butler in 1963).

Federally the riding is held by Green MP Mike Morrice, who won the riding after the previous Liberal MP, Raj Saini, was accused of sexual harassment but remained on the ballot after a deadline had passed to withdraw his candidacy.  Historically the riding federally has been a bellwether since the Pierre Trudeau years.

The election is taking place against the backdrop of a sometimes controversial and unpopular PC incumbent government (some polling has showing a rebound in their support) and a divided opposition, mainly between the Official Opposition NDP and the third-party Liberals, with housing affordability, the Greenbelt controversy, health care and education being the primary issues.

Ultimately my rationale in support of a Green victory today is that the tactical Liberals (as opposed to the hard-core Liberals) are ‘free agents’ amidst the progressive/left-of-centre vote, their candidate, yet without a permanent leader (2 days early!) is widely recognized as not having the same ground game as the Greens and the NDP.  In that case, what message would they want to send?  My best guess is to back a candidate opposed to the current PC government, but a candidate who would not in the long-run stymie their chances of forming government themselves, which means Green (as indeed happened federally 2+ years ago in the same federal riding).

That said, the chances of the NDP keeping the riding remain decent, I would say 40% chance of a Green win, 30% of an NDP hold, and the remaining 30% divided between a Liberal pickup, such as what happened in Kanata-Carleton earlier this year (with a former MP carrying the banner) – here I would rate it at between 15 – 20%, and the PC managing to benefit from a vote split between the progressive forces, which I would put at no more than 10%.  I’ll give Mr. John Turmel the remaining odds, simply because he is Canada’s record-holding Perennial Candidate.

In reverse order of likelihood, then, here is a brief assessment of the odds.

John C. Turmel and the remaining 13 fringe candidates.  According to his Wikipedia biography, this marks election #109 contested by Mr. Turmel, who has run in various races nation-wide since 1979 (without winning any and holding a Guiness Book of World Records in so doing).  On to #110 .. 

The other minor party candidates include New Blue and Libertarian, the former of which ran in the riding in the last general election.  Minor party candidacies can sometimes cause vote splits with major party candidacies, in this instance however it is unlikely to move the needle significantly.

The Progressive Conservatives, candidate Rob Elliot.  Overall, the provincial PCs have around a core vote of 25% of the electorate, with a ceiling of around 38% in the last 20 years.  Despite the PC sweeps of 2018 and 2022, their share of the vote did not exceed 28% in either election.  A quarter of the vote is not likely to win this by-election.  In the last 20 years, the right-of-centre vote (PCs, New Blue, Libertarian, etc.) has usually been at one-third or less in the riding, and with the exception of 2003 and 2011, has not come close to 40% at any other time.  The candidate himself does not reside in the riding (he lives near Lake Simcoe) and did not participate in the local candidates’ debate held recently.  While he emphasizes local ties, a number of media accounts have raised the point of his outside residence and lack of participation in the debate as practical considerations why he is unlikely to prevail today.  (Odds 10%)

The only candidate to have run in the previous general election in the riding is Liberal Kelly Steiss, a long-time civil servant.  The main concern for the Liberals stems from the overall sense that the NDP and Greens are more energized, while local Liberals are also tuned into their leadership race.  While the Liberals did pickup the Kanata seat (barely) with a former MP during the unfolding of the Greenbelt scandal, and while a win here today would likely cement their status as the Official Opposition-in-waiting, progressive voters in Ontario are still far from decided which partisan vehicle they will collectively chose to challenge the governing PCs.  Recent polling, despite the relative popularity of Ontario Liberal Party front runner (Mississauga Mayor) Bonnie Crombie, puts the Liberals in a statistical tie with the NDP in province-wide support.  Recent polling also puts the NDP out in front regionally in southwestern Ontario. Crombie has moreover pledged to run from the centre-right, not the left, (which likely boosts the Liberals with 905 swing voters, but might hurt them more in areas like Kitchener where some progressives might view the Liberals as a more ‘establishment’ with their own track record baggage.)

Core Liberal support since the riding’s creation did not significantly fall below 40% until their 2018 election route, bottoming out at just under 15% in the last election.  It is possible that Steiss can improve on this showing, but equally, if not more likely that the difference of likely tactical Liberals (the 5% of the voters who backed the previous Liberal MPP, Dalene Vernile, in her 2018 defeat but went elsewhere in 2022) will continue to look for who they believe will be the most viable alternative in sending a message to the Ford PCs at Queen’s Park.

Which brings us to the two presumed front-runners, the Greens and the NDP.

City Councilor Debbie Chapman is running for the NDP.  The core NDP vote prior to 2018 generally ranged within 15-20% of the overall vote, although during the lean post-Bob Rae years, it went as low as 7% in 1999.  The NDP with the prior MPP, Laura Mae Lindo, won both times with over 40% of the vote.  Lindo, for her part, has endorsed Chapman, but has been somewhat critical of the NDP leadership overall, particularly with respect to the expulsion of Hamilton East MPP Sara Jama over comments she made in relation to the Hamas-Israel war.  The local NDP riding association added to some of the turmoil when a letter was posed to their social media website calling for the NDP leader, Marit Stiles to resign over the Jama expulsion controversy, although a number of other local NDP officials maintain this was not representative of the entire local party, who remain committed to helping Chapman win.  One positive omen for Chapman, possibly, is that the provincial PCs have targeted Chapman’s own record as councilor on housing, referring to her as the “Queen of NIMBY”.

The fact remains, though, that in a likely low-turnout rate byelection, recent controversies can not help the NDP in terms of bringing out all core supporters to the polls.  The election results over the past 20 years suggest that of the 40%+ vote share Lindo received, less than half was from core NDP support, while up to two thirds were migrating centrist and left-of-centre voters, such as previous Liberal voters, looking to tactically vote to stop a local PC win.  Thus, it is very possible for Chapman to bleed some of that vote share to the Greens.

The Greens themselves might not seem to be the front runners given their fourth place status in opinion polls, but with visits from nearby Green MPP and party leader Mike Schreiner (Guelph) as well as federal leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault, they are showing that they are very invested in a win by candidate Aislinn Clancy.  A City Councilor and a social worker, Aislin would become the first provincial counterpart in Ontario to a federal Green MP from the same riding, Mike Morrice, who has also been very visible on the campaign trail for Clancy.  To further show confidence in her candidacy, the provincial Greens designated her as Deputy Leader of the party. 

The Greens have largely maintained overall provincial vote share in recent polling.  Despite, (or perhaps partly because of), an open flirtation in running for the provincial Liberal leadership (before deciding against it), Schreiner remains very respected as a public figure, even if it does not currently translate to more than his seat in the legislature.  The Toronto Star recently referred to his housing policy as a ‘master class’ in overall strategy to secure more affordable homes (at least when compared, in the Star’s opinion, to the governing PCs).

In Kitchener Centre the Greens have run candidates since the riding’s inaugural election back in 1999, although vote share has remained under 10% until the last election, where it almost reached 15%.  While swings pushing Greens into the winner’s circle are still very rare, something comparable happened in Guelph where Schreiner previously received a fifth of the vote in 2014, only to more than double that in 2018 with a win and then a modest gain to over 50% of the vote overall in 2022.  So mathematically at least, the Greens can, based on historical swings elsewhere, at least catch up to the NDP and surpass them.  The situation federally in Kitchener Centre was much the same, in that Morrice won just over a quarter of the vote for the Greens in 2019 but added 9% to that in 2021 for an overall win.

So based on analysis of prior vote shares, a likely scenario might be the NDP falling by around 10 points, given overall controversies, with the Greens picking up potentially 15 points, from left-of-centre voters (some previously Liberal, some NDP), to make this a narrow win for the Greens, although the overall Green/NDP margins will likely be tight enough, and turnout low enough, that the margin might be just as close the other way with the NDP holding the riding.

As far as future portents go, by-elections have been a mixed bag in Canada.  One of the examples I look at is with the NDP and Quebec by-elections.  In 1990, Phil Edmonston decisively won Chambly for the NDP in what many saw at the time as a major breakthrough for a party without prior representation there.  But by the time 1993 rolled around, the NDP caucus was almost wiped off the map.  It took almost another 20 years for the NDP, with Tom Mulcair, to pick up Outremont in a 2007 by-election and then four years after that for Jack Layton’s unprecedented Quebec breakthrough.  In most other provinces, such as New Brunswick and British Columbia, Green Party officials establish a foothold but then largely have maintained a beach head without growing much further.  One exception to this was in Prince Edward Island, where the 2017 Charlottetown-Parkdale by-election saw Green Hannah Bell join then-current MLA and party leader Peter Bevan-Barker in the Legislative Assembly, with the Greens forming Official Opposition two years later with an unprecedented 8 MLAs.

So, in sum, an Orange vs. Green contest today, with almost equal chances of winning, the Greens with a slight edge due to tactical Liberals hedging on a protest vote without helping the NDP (a repeat of 2021 Kitchener Centre federally).  Most likely in 2026 the Greens would fight hard to hang on, with the broader picture showing a Liberal/PC contest in the 905 to see who will hold the reins of power. 

The real portent, however, might be in the efficiency of tactical voting.  To the extent that progressive forces can effectively line up behind one candidate, that changes the whole ballgame not just at the provincial level, but potentially in the upcoming federal election as well.