NDP will surprise on election night, Hampton vows

The provincial election is in full swing now as campaigning enters its third week.
Although polls have the Liberals with nearly half of the support of decided voters, NDP leader and local MPP Howard Hampton isn’t worried that his party will be a flop on election night.
“I know we’re going to surprise an awful lot of people in this election campaign,” Hampton told supporters last weekend in Fort Frances.
In answering if he’d be willing to “get into bed” with one of the other parties in a minority government situation, he replied, “After election day, it may be which is willing to join an NDP minority government.”
An Ipsos Reid poll released Monday showed the Liberals with 49 percent of the decided vote. The PCs had 35 percent while the NDP trailed with just 12 percent.
That’s a long way from a minority government.
“Polls don’t mean anything,” Hampton quipped when asked about his party trailing in the polls. “Most people are just getting back from the end of summer vacation and getting their kids back into school.”
Hampton said there have been some people who were unaware an election was even called.
“I think the majority of people are [just] starting to make decisions,” he continued. “I think our message is getting out across the province. We’ve been sticking to the issues.”
Hampton has publicly denounced the personal attack tactics being used by the other two party leaders during the first half of the campaign.
“I don’t think the majority of people in Ontario are interested in seeing Mr. McGuinty attack Mr. Eves, or Mr. Eves attack Mr. McGuinty,” Hampton remarked.
“They’re not interested in the name calling. There’s enough real issues people want to see raised.”
Hampton has stuck to the issues he believes “touch people’s lives.”
“People only get a say into what happens to our health care, hydro, and education systems every three or four years,” he told supporters. “Only at election time. This is your chance to have a say.
“Here’s your chance to vote for what you believe in.”
Hampton has campaigned heavily against privatization of hydro, health care, education, and meat inspection, and on creating a public auto insurance system.
He believes these are things people care about.
Hampton spends most of his week travelling the province campaigning for the party provincially, but he makes it back to the Kenora-Rainy River riding as much as he can because the importance of the people here isn’t lost on him.
“The only place we didn’t win [in the last election in this riding] was Kenora,” he said, adding he won overwhelmingly here in Fort Frances. “I’ve done the work, I’ve raised the issues. That’s what matters.”
However, both his opponents truly believe they can beat Hampton at his own game—and he knows it.
“You never take anything as a slam dunk,” Hampton replied when asked if he was worried about losing the seat he’s held for 16 years.
PC candidate Cathe Hoszowski and Liberal Geoff McClain hope to put the election ball through the hoop in an effort to win the riding themselves. Hoszowski has been working on her own plan for Northwestern Ontario.
“This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart,” she said during the all-candidates’ debate here Friday, referring to the north.
Her plan for Northern Ontario includes initiatives to market the north, launch a northern Red Tape Commission, establish a northern Youth Advisory Council, develop a long-term strategy to expand all-weather roads to northern aboriginal communities, and establish a premier’s council on renewing the northern economy.
She also calls for developing revenue-sharing initiatives for natural resource extraction, establishing a Northwestern Ontario energy strategy, and building on the tax incentive zone that was announced by the premier.
“If we let that one go, we’ll kick ourselves forever,” Hoszowski said of the tax incentive zone.
She repeatedly has campaigned on the belief that more could be done for the northwest if the sitting MPP was a member of the government.
“We have a systematic problem in the north,” she explained. “We have sent opposition members to Queen’s Park.”
She feels that if an MPP was sent as part of the government, more could be done for the north.
Hampton disagrees. He doesn’t think adding one more Conservative MPP to the fold—going from 59 to 60—would make any difference.
“Conservative members that are there now will say they have no role in government,” Hampton noted. “They’re simply told when to sit, when to stand, and when to shut up.
“Adding another member isn’t the solution,” he argued. “What Ontario needs is a change of government.”
This is something that rings true for McClain, too. The Liberal slogan is “Choose Change.” And if one were to look at the polls today, that seems to be what the people of Ontario are doing.
“We’ve tried to get our points across,” he said. “That there’s a couple of governments that didn’t get it right for the people of Ontario.
“The Liberals will ensure that our public health care and our public education are well-funded,” he pledged.
McClain has campaigned heavily on health care and education as well as the fact the Liberals’ fiscal plan has been endorsed by independent economists and accountants.
Another campaign issue that isn’t getting a lot of attention is the Liberal party’s attack on tobacco.
They will generate some cash by increasing the tobacco tax, bringing it closer to the national average and generating an additional $700 million.
“We will pass legislation that will ban smoking in public work places in three years,” McClain explained, adding that in the northwest, he would push to have it implemented even sooner.
“It’s very strong. We’ll take the onus off the municipalities,” he stressed.
McClain said the Liberals are the only party going this tough on smoking, and that the money generated with the tax increase would go toward funding programs to help people stop smoking and help tobacco growers make a transition to other sources of revenue.
“Smoking kills 12,000 Ontarians every year,” he said. “It’s the single most important preventable cause of death.”
The NDP and the Liberals both have an increase in the minimum wage from $6.85 an hour to $8 in their platforms, though the NDP will implement it immediately while the Liberals will do it over four years.
Both parties also are in favour of expanding and using the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund for more job creation initiatives rather than a “slush fund,” as they describe the current government’s use of it.