The nuances around Ford Nation territory
FEDERAL CANDIDATES BATTLE IN PREMIER’S BACKYARD
At the first house that Liberal candidate Yvan Baker approached on a Wednesday afternoon canvass, the woman who answered the door told him she would be supporting him.
This wasn’t surprising, as Liberal signs were sprinkled among quite a few lawns on the street. But the woman told him she didn’t want to put up a sign on her own lawn.
“My neighbours are big Ford people,” she explained, looking apologetic. She preferred not to stoke political divisions. Baker, happy to have the vote, assured her it was no problem.
“Well, there was an interesting first interaction for you,” he said to the National Post reporter as they walked away afterward.
At a house a few doors down, the younger man who answered the door politely told Baker he wouldn’t be voting for him. But he said he did like Baker’s regular appearances on local talk radio. “I’m more of a conservative guy,” he said. “My wife might vote for you though.”
This is Ford Nation territory — or at least close to it. Baker was canvassing in a neighbourhood in the inner Toronto suburb of Etobicoke, up near the intersection of Dixon Road and Royal York Road. When Rob Ford was a city councillor, his ward included these houses. Baker figured it would be an interesting area to canvass with a reporter along for the walk.
The Ford name has been inescapable in Ontario during this campaign so far, despite the fact Premier Doug Ford has put the legislature on an extended break and kept a low profile. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau brings up Ford constantly when he’s campaigning in the province. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is very noticeably not hosting Ford at campaign events — even when they’re in the very Etobicoke neighbourhood Ford lives in, as was the case last week.
The result is a steady media drumbeat on how the Ford government’s combative style and numerous controversies (autism programs, city council wards, patronage appointments, classroom sizes) since taking power last year may hurt the federal Conservatives’ ability to turn out votes here.
On the ground in the riding, however, the conversation around Ford is more nuanced. It cuts both ways. Yes, on one hand, Ford’s government has had a rocky start — though things have settled down now that Ford has replaced his pugnacious chief of staff Dean French. On the other hand, these are also the same Ontario voters who just decimated the provincial Liberal caucus, reducing it to seven seats (now shrivelled to five).
Many of those same Ontario Liberals are now working federally. In the case of Baker, it’s a direct connection: Baker was the Ontario Liberal MPP for the Etobicoke Centre riding from 2014 to 2018. But he points out he still got nearly 20,000 votes provincially last year despite the crushing blue wave — not too far off from the 24,000 votes he won in 2014.
Baker says he’s frequently having conversations with voters about Ford. “I don’t go out of my way to talk about Doug Ford,” he said. “But people raise it with me.” He said many voters have “buyer’s remorse” on Ford’s government, which he’s well positioned to talk about. Having been an MPP, Baker can easily navigate any discussion about more local issues. But as some of his stops showed, there are still plenty of Ford supporters around here too.
Adding further nuance is the fact that the riding next door, Etobicoke North, is much more solidly in Ford Nation territory — Doug Ford represents it provincially, Michael Ford represents it municipally — and yet it’s gone Liberal in every federal election since 1988. Votes do not transfer predictably from one political level to another.
The overall Liberal polling lead in Ontario, if it holds, will make it tough for the Conservatives to win Etobicoke’s three seats. But Scheer visited Etobicoke twice in the first week of the campaign, a sure sign the party is targeting these seats.
Etobicoke Centre, where Baker is running, is a riding where the local candidate’s ability very much matters. The margin of victory here in 2011 was an unbelievable 26 votes for the Conservative candidate, and was narrowed even further after the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the result.
That Conservative candidate was Ted Opitz. In 2015, he lost to Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, who has since retired. This year Opitz is running again, now against Baker. It means both candidates know what it’s like to win and lose in this riding, and both have formidable ground organizations.
Opitz knows he’ll face many questions about the “Ford factor.” He’s prepared for it, but puts his messaging focus elsewhere.
“I don’t fight the Ontario government’s fight,” he said in an interview at a Java Joe’s coffee shop. “He inherited a very tough road, huge debt, huge taxes, hydro rates high ... and by the way, these are the same people, formerly with the Wynne government, that have migrated over to Ottawa and are now working with Justin Trudeau.”
It is other issues that are top of mind for Opitz as he campaigns. At a Wednesday morning gathering at the coffee shop with some of his supporters, Opitz spent much of his time talking about the tax credits — for public transit, for sports activities for children — that the Conservatives have promised to bring back after the Liberals scrapped them.
“People do want to get ahead,” Opitz said, on brand with the Conservative campaign slogan. “And they do want to save. Those (tax credits) are very important. I do get it from single moms at the door that they’ve missed that tax credit.”
There is also frequent discussion of gun crime in this riding. At the coffee shop, it was a young Somali woman who raised it, and Opitz immediately turned the discussion to the problem of guns being smuggled over the U.S. border. “We have to get a handle on it,” he said. A former police officer then said longer sentences are needed for gun crimes; Opitz agreed. These are core elements of the Conservatives’ gun policies announced last year.
The Liberals have also targeted this issue. Trudeau was on Danforth Avenue in Toronto on Friday — the site of a mass shooting last year — to unveil his own campaign promises on gun policies. The centrepiece was a ban on more assault-style rifles and a move to allow cities to ban handguns.
When Baker was out canvassing, one woman watering her garden had a message for him: “The biggest issue in this election is gun control,” she told him.
This would seem to be a win for the Liberals, but the more she talked, the more complex it became. She wanted a full ban on handguns — that lines up with the Liberals. But she also wanted much harsher sentences for those caught with illegal guns — that lines up with the Conservatives. If this is truly the ballot issue for her, this is a voter that both Baker and Opitz have a chance of winning over.
It’s a reminder that with firearms, as with Ford, the calculations voters will be making in this election are always more complicated that the media narrative will make it seem.