NDP releases scathing report on failed election

The New Democrats concede their lacklustre losing campaign against Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives contributed to the record low voter turnout last spring. In a stinging post-mortem of the June 2022 election, the NDP pulled few punches.

“Our campaign simply failed to connect with voters or engage their interest,” said the 15-page report released this week.

“Many of our voters stayed home. The remarkable 13 (percentage point) drop in turnout across the province came mostly at our expense,” said the review, co-chaired by party president Janelle Brady and veteran operative Dennis Young. That’s a reference to the 43.5 per cent of eligible voters who cast ballots last year compared with 56.7 per cent in 2018.

“When the votes were counted, we dropped to 31 seats from 40 and lost 813,000 votes, or 42 per cent from our vote in 2018 — more than the drop for any other party,” noted the review, the result of “more than 400 conversations that have taken place over the past six months.”

“Although we had retained our position as the official opposition and the only party other than the government recognized at Queen’s Park, some felt this had as much to do with a weak Liberal campaign as it did with our actions.”

Indeed, the Liberals, who won eight seats in the 124-member legislature, actually received more votes than the New Democrats — 23.9 per cent of the popular vote to 23.7 per cent for the NDP.

A similar post-election autopsy by the Grits in January bemoaned an unfocused campaign platform, inadequate voter-identification data and poor candidate vetting.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic was a factor in then-NDP leader Andrea Horwath’s disappointing result, the New Democrats admit they had many challenges.

“The waves of COVID following March 2020 had given Doug Ford a bully pulpit and made it difficult or impossible for Andrea to stay in the news,” the review said. As well, the 2019 and 2021 federal elections “twice interrupted preparations for our provincial campaign.”

“First-term governments, especially during an emergency like COVID, are almost impossible to defeat,” it added.

But the review stressed the party’s problems were “deeper” than that.

“Name recognition, strong local campaigns and a weak Liberal provincial campaign saved most of the NDP incumbents, but five of our MPPs standing for re-election lost, and only three new MPPs were added to the caucus,” it said.

That’s a tacit acknowledgment of Ford’s successful labelling of the NDP as “the party of no” that helped his Tories win 83 seats with 40.8 per cent of the popular vote.

The review recommends that for the 2026 campaign, the New Democrats must “start everything sooner,” including candidate recruitment, policy development, polling, and assigning staff.

It also urges decentralized decision-making, improved outreach to “ethnocultural communities,” better efforts to “be inclusive and to reject any form of racism or discrimination,” and boosting volunteers’ training.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles, who took the helm last month, said she was “really happy with the report that they provided” and it will inform the party’s preparations for the next election.

“That campaign starts now.” While Ford’s “Big Blue Collar Machine” push to appeal to privatesector union members helped the Tories win NDP strongholds in Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, and Timmins, Stiles believes she can take them back.

“The NDP is a party that was built by the coming together of social movements and labour and farmers. That’s our history, that’s our roots … because we are the party of working people.”