A breakthrough opportunity
Ex-school board vice-chair Bronwyn Funiciello gives the New Democrats a strong candidate in a Liberal stronghold, writes MATTHEW PEARSON.
The supper hour is approaching as Bronwyn Funiciello and a posse of volunteers arrive on Wingate Drive, a leafy street in Elmvale Acres.
The New Democrat candidate climbs a few stairs to greet a man with a goatee who is standing on his home’s side porch.
“Making the big jump, are you?” he asks, admitting later he remains undecided about which candidate he’ll support in the Aug. 1 provincial byelection in Ottawa South.
Even still, his observation about Funiciello’s ambition is spot on.
After serving for a decade as a trustee on the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, Funiciello now wants a job at Queen’s Park.
From classroom volunteer to parent activist to trustee and vice-chair of the city’s largest school board, such a move would be in keeping with the natural projection of her political career thus far, she says.
“I felt there really was a need here and there’s definitely an appetite for change.”
Her school board zone, RideauRockcliffe/Alta Vista, overlaps part of the Ottawa South provincial riding, but she doesn’t live in the riding.
But, as the candidate is quick to note, she works here, shops here, and sends her children to school here.
At the doorstep, Funiciello is polite and persistent, patiently explaining the process if a voter isn’t aware that a byelection has been called and shrugging it off when they say they’re not interested.
Her experience in three previous election campaigns has given her confidence as a canvasser, which she says is the best way to get a feel for what people are thinking.
“Each door has the potential to be a different experience. You get a sense of the engagement and where people are at,” she says.
“There are definitely people caught off guard by this byelection and aren’t used to people campaigning in the middle of July.”
Health care and seniors issues come up most often, she says. But some voters also mention the scandals that have plagued the minority Liberals in recent months, which include the costly fallout from the cancellation of two Toronto-area gas-fired power plants that, in part, led to former premier Dalton McGuinty’s resignation (which created the vacancy in Ottawa South).
In person and in her campaign literature, Funiciello also notes what the New Democrats secured in the recent provincial budget, including a wait-time guarantee for accessing home care, a reduction in auto insurance rates and more jobs for young people.
She also relates to some voters by mentioning her four children or her disability (she has been visually impaired since a young age).
But Funiciello, 45, says being legally blind hasn’t stopped her from running a half marathon, competing in dragon boat races and working for the federal government.
In fact, her inability to rely on speaking notes means that, whenever she gives a presentation or makes a speech, she has to rely on what’s in her head.
Funiciello is well aware the Liberals have held the riding for a long time, and the Progressive Conservatives before them.
But this time it feels much more like a three-horse race, she says, and she’s galloping toward the finish line.
“The voters,” she says, “will decide much more than polls or past results.”
Note to readers: The Citizen is joining Ottawa South candidates as they hit the hustings during the byelection campaign. Look for profiles of Liberal John Fraser and Green Party candidate Taylor Howarth in the coming days.