Aislinn Clancy has a somewhat unconventional greeting for potential voters when they open their doors to her.
“Are you sick of us yet?” the Kitchener city councillor and Green candidate in the upcoming Kitchener Centre byelection asked this past Wednesday. Clancy and her campaign staff have been on this street before (her campaign signs are already visible on several lawns) and may even have spoken to this voter already, but they’re not leaving anything to chance.
The Greens are — once again — feeling tantalizing hope that they could win a second seat at the legislature, adding to the one currently held by leader Mike Schreiner. If the sign war on the ground in Kitchener Centre is any indication, Clancy will easily be either the winner or the runner-up when votes are counted next Thursday.
Of course, the Greens also had high hopes for the riding of Parry Sound–Muskoka in the 2022 general election. While Matt Richter scored an impressive 40 per cent of the vote, he ended up losing to then-mayor of Bracebridge Graydon Smith (who’s now an MPP and minister of natural resources and forestry).
Clancy tells TVO Today that the Greens are offering an alternative to Tories upset by the year-long Greenbelt fiasco, as well as traditional Liberals disenchanted with the party federally.
“People are feeling that stress, and I feel like they’ve lost some of their faith in politicians,” Clancy says. “I think they’re looking for alternatives, and we’re there at the doors.”
Clancy has something else going for her: Kitchener Centre voters have already sent one Green to a different legislature — MP Mike Morrice is half of the federal Green caucus.
The byelection does offer voters in Kitchener Centre the perfect opportunity to vote for a Green MPP if they so choose: with a substantial Progressive Conservative majority at Queen’s Park, the only thing at stake in the byelection is filling the vacancy left by Laura Mae Lindo. First elected in the 2018 wave, the New Democrat told the #onpoli podcast last year she could no longer balance the work of being an MPP with her obligations as a single mother.
But it’s been a tumultuous few months for New Democrats, with the expulsion of Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama from the caucus and the fallout from that choice, made by the party’s leader, Marit Stiles. Lindo tweeted her support for Jama after her expulsion, and the Kitchener Centre riding association called for Stiles’s resignation.
NDP candidate Debbie Chapman acknowledges that she’s hearing about the drama from some people while door-knocking, but she says it doesn’t seem to be a dominant theme in the byelection.
“I don’t hear it much. I know it’s out there, and I also know it’s been very divisive in many different ways,” Chapman says while taking a break from canvassing. “I think what’s most important right now is we come together as a society, because this is very divisive — not just what’s happened with Sarah Jama, but generally.”
Chapman adds that her experience in municipal politics — where all councillors are independents — makes the prospect of joining a team of legislators at Queen’s Park attractive.
“I see the limitations of being an independent or of not having party status,” Chapman says. Neither the Liberals nor the Greens at Queen’s Park have recognized status, meaning they’re denied substantial funding and certain rights in debate.
The outcome of the race won’t change the status of the Greens or Liberals, but that isn’t to say it wouldn’t still be a kind of milestone for both parties. If Liberal Kelly Steiss were to win, she’d be the party’s 10th MPP at the legislature, and, for the first time since 2018, the Liberal caucus would crack double digits. Her run for Kitchener Centre coincides with the final days of the party’s own leadership race, with voting set to take place on November 25 and 26.
Steiss, who was the party’s candidate in the 2022 general election as well, tells TVO Today that running for a party without a permanent leader has its quirks.
“We tried [in 2022], as a party, to put out the best we had, but obviously it wasn’t where people wanted us to be,” she says. “It’s difficult without a leader because people are saying ‘I’m not sure what the future holds.’”
(Municipal policy is well-represented in this race: Clancy and Chapman are both city councillors, and Steiss is a civil servant at the City of Kitchener.)
Rob Elliott is the Progressive Conservative candidate in the riding. The PC party did not respond to TVO Today’s requests for comment by publication time. It did, however, confirm to the Waterloo Record earlier this month that Elliott and his family live in Keswick, approximately 150 kilometres from Kitchener. Elliott, like many PC candidates in the 2022 election, has declined to attend the major all-candidates debates hosted by Rogers Television and the CBC — a point that at least one resident noted with disdain within earshot of this reporter.
Even though the result in Kitchener Centre won’t upset the balance of power at Queen’s Park, the race at least provides an opportunity to shine a provincial spotlight on what’s on voters’ minds. Unsurprisingly, the NDP, Liberal, and Green candidates say affordability and, in particular, the cost of housing are the issues they’re hearing about most.
Steiss emphasizes the importance of making sure health-care infrastructure keeps up with the rapid population growth in Waterloo Region, which Kitchener is part of.
“It’s common for lots of municipalities, but it’s also unique and local to us. We’ve got some opportunities coming forward,” she says. “We need to invest in innovative solutions, but we also need to grow our hard infrastructure. We need more hospital beds; we haven’t seen hospital capacity grow in line with our population growth.”
Clancy and Chapman both emphasize the need for more aggressive action to end the housing crisis.
“There are over 8,000 households on our affordable-housing wait-list. There are also 1,200 chronically homeless people,” Chapman says. “We’ve never had a situation like this before… [Waterloo Region] doesn’t have the resources to keep up with demand.”
Clancy highlights the Green party’s housing platform, now two years old. As yet, there’s little indication the current government is planning to implement its major elements.
“Kitchener just passed a fourplex bylaw. I think our town really appreciates reducing the barriers to missing-middle housing,” Clancy says. “We’re all trying to get out of this housing crisis.”
Voting day is November 30.
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