www.theglobeandmail.com/s...ional/home
NDP defeats Liberals in Ontario by-election
KAREN HOWLETT
Canadian Press
TORONTO — Voters in west Toronto cast their ballots Thursday in a key by-election that experts said would set the tone for next year's provincewide vote.
And when the votes were in Cheri DiNovo, a 56-year-old United Church minister and community activist, defeated Toronto city councillor Sylvia Watson, who ran for the Liberals. The loss of the seat marks a stunning defeat for the Liberals. The party won just under 58 per cent of the votes in the 2003 election. The NDP and Progressive Conservatives each won about 16 per cent.
Partial results from Elections Ontario last night, with 214 of 220 polls reporting, gave the NDP 41 per cent of the vote against 33 per cent for the Liberals, 17 per cent for the Tories and 6 per cent for the Green Party.
The vote follows one of the province's nastiest elections in recent memory.
Related to this article
Articles
By-election race that started out sweetly finishes on a sour note
Liberals step up attack in messy by-election
Brand new slime, same old smell
Mud flies in west-end by-election
Latest Comments
Start a conversation on this story
The by-election to replace former education minister Gerard Kennedy, turned nasty in its final days with accusations Ms. Watson was running a smear campaign against Ms. DiNovo by using parts of her sermons as a United Church minister to say she likened Karla Homolka to Christ.
As voters in the riding headed to the polls, Premier Dalton McGuinty defended the tactics as part of a tough race and said Ms. Watson ran a good campaign based on the government's record.
“All parties have worked very hard to make their respective cases, now it's in the hands of the people, and we will respect their wisdom, whatever that might be,†Mr. McGuinty said at a morning announcement.
The by-election was hard-fought by all parties, especially the Liberals who had no less than a dozen cabinet ministers in the riding in the last week, since many believe it would colour the result of the general election next October.
Although the Liberals won the riding by one of the highest margins in the province in 2003, some experts have said the seat could be taken by the NDP.
Privately, the Liberals had been trying to lower expectations by calling it a traditional NDP stronghold and saying Kennedy held the seat on the strength of his personal popularity rather than his party banner.
NDP candidate Peggy Nash won the seat in last January's federal election, but provincially the party hasn't won the riding since 1990.
NDP Leader Howard Hampton said Thursday he thought that was about to change. A win would set the party up well for the provincial election campaign which has already begun, Hampton added.
“We will be a significant factor in the outcome of that election,†he said. “There are no safe seats for the Mr. McGuinty government. People see us as a viable option.â€
Although few political observers believed Conservative candidate David Hutcheon had a real shot at winning the riding, Leader John Tory said anything that builds on the party's result in 2003 would be an achievement.
“We only had one way to go which was up in terms of the percentage of the vote we took,†he said. “I think we're on the march to steady progress across the province, day by day, riding by riding.â€
Some political analysts say the dynamics of a by-election gives the opposition candidates an edge. Nelson Wiseman, political science professor at the University of Toronto, said fewer people tend to vote in byelections and those who do, usually want to send the government a message.
“The government supporters know this isn't going to mean the defeat of the government,†he said.
Whoever wins the riding is set up nicely heading into next year's provincewide election, Wiseman added.
“It would put some wind in their sails,†he said.
Graham Murray, a political analyst who publishes a weekly newsletter on goings on at the Ontario legislature, said the Liberals had the most to lose. The tactics the party used during the campaign suggested the Liberals felt threatened by the New Democrats, he said.
The Liberals released selected portions of Ms. DiNovo's past sermons to claim she was sympathetic to Karla Homolka and supported the ordination of pedophiles and axe-murderers. Another Liberal release from Ms. Watson's campaign urged Ms. DiNovo to “come clean†about remarks she made in the past, including one where she admitted to smuggling LSD from California in hollowed-out Bibles.
“They've engaged in activities that have raised eyebrows,†Mr. Murray said.
The west-Toronto vote has implications across the province, he said, because it comes one year before the first fixed election day in Ontario's history — Oct. 4, 2007 — and contending with a strong NDP may cause trouble for the governing party.
“This could be seen as a real turning point,†Mr. Murray said.
The Liberals entered the by-election with 70 seats in the legislature, while the Conservatives had 24 and the NDP eight.
The by-election is the fourth in Ontario this year.
