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The Ontario election is less than 100 days away and housing could be the dominant issue

Analysis

With fewer than 100 days until the Ontario election, voters are starting to get a sense of which issues will dominate the campaign.

A new memo from Darrell Bricker, the CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, shows that the pandemic is still top of mind for people in Ontario, although it may not stay that way once the election campaign gets underway.

According to an online poll of 800 Ontarians conducted in December, the pandemic is an important issue for 41 percent of respondents. Housing and health care closely follow with 33 and 30 percent of voters describing it as an important issue in the upcoming campaign.

In each wave of the pandemic, concerns about the virus have crowded out other issues, but Ontario could see a repeat of the federal election where the pandemic faded in the minds of voters as the candidates hit the campaign trail.

“Concerns about the pandemic declined during the election which allowed other issues to move up as priorities for voters,” wrote Bricker. Rounding out the top five issues for Ontario voters are the economy and the environment, at 23 percent and 21 percent respectively.

With the election approaching, the major parties are already jockeying for position on these issues.

On Tuesday, NDP leader Andrea Horwath drew attention to the surgical backlog in the province and urged the government to hire more nurses. Liberal leader Steven Del Duca also targeted the “health-care staffing crisis” on Monday and castigated Ontario Premier Doug Ford for not yet signing a child care agreement with the federal government, framing it as a “pocketbook issue” for Ontarians.

Ford’s government is putting considerable effort into framing the ballot question of the upcoming campaign and, in his memo, Bricker argues there are two ways for a party to do this.

“The first is to seize an issue the electorate already has as a top concern and to present your party’s solution as the most viable option,” wrote Bricker.

With housing weighing on the minds of the electorate, the Ford government struck a task force on housing affordability, which submitted a report earlier this month.

Some of the recommendations, like encouraging more development and ending exclusionary municipal rules, will be more palatable to Ford’s party than his progressive opponents, if the federal election is a guide.

Bricker said housing is a complicated and volatile issue because “it is about more than just the cost of a home.”

“It is ultimately about how difficult it is for people to afford to live in Ontario today, especially in the cities and suburbs,” wrote Bricker. “The party that connects with the emotional content of this issue… will be in a strong position to own it for the election.”

Ford’s government also announced this week that it would scrap license plate renewal fees, saving Ontario residents about $120 annually, for each car they own. The government will also be refunding any fees paid in the last two years by mailing out cheques to vehicle owners.

This may be evidence of Bricker’s second approach to owning the ballot question, in which a party is clearly identified as a leader on a certain issue and succeeds in making that issue more important to voters during a campaign.

Ford’s 2018 victory centred around reducing “the cost and effect of government policies,” wrote Bricker. Although the pandemic seems to have downgraded those concerns in the minds of voters, Ford’s team could attempt to make them salient on the campaign trail.

It also shows the challenge ahead for the opposition parties, who don’t have the levers of government at their disposal.

Stuart Thomson

Stuart is The Hub's editor-in-chief.

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