A Quick Note on the Kitchener Centre Provincial By-Election

Kitchener Ward 9 City Councillor Debbie Chapman declares for the Ontario NDP nomination

Yesterday we had the first announcement of a candidate for the Kitchener Centre Ontario NDP nomination, current Kitchener Ward 9 councilor, Debbie Chapman. This is exciting! My hope is that that the riding association will have a contested nomination, and that the central party will allow time for new membership signups before announcing the nomination meeting date.

Having been a federal candidate in Kitchener Centre (2011), I do want to caution local NDP partisans not to assume that this will be a shoo-in to Queen's Park. Even with some advantageous riding boundary changes, the riding is not natural NDP territory. Laura Mae Lindo, the outgoing MPP, benefited from some advantages in the general elections that won't be there during a by-election.

In particular, the Liberals, while still a rump of a party, will throw all their money here - Kitchener Centre has a long history of Liberal representation and they need an electoral win badly. They are also in the middle of another leadership contest - look for them to nominate a candidate that might be leadership material. This would allow for a dual campaign – “elect me to Queen’s Park, then elect me your leader,” which would also serve to build the party’s need for more media oxygen.

I should note that I haven’t been involved in the riding association’s operations in about 8 years now, so I have no idea what kind of preparations have are being made behind the scenes; I have no inside information. That said, I am hopeful that the Ontario NDP will be able to hold the Kitchener Centre riding in the upcoming by-election, but my sense is that they will have to work very hard to make it happen, not taking a single vote for granted. If they’re not already knocking on doors and lining up sign locations, they should probably get on that.

---

If you want to see more original, short-form content like this, please let me know by commenting here or by sending me a note at peter (at) peterthurley.ca