The too-close-to-call 40-candidate Mississauga-Lakeshore byelection on Monday (Dec. 12) will test the organizational prowess of Katie Telford’s Liberal election machine that has won three consecutive contests and the more recent “kick-ass” campaign spearheaded by Jenni Byrne to crown Pierre Poilievre the latest Conservative leader.
This is the scene set by at least two pollsters.
“This is really a test of how good is Katie’s on-the-ground organization, compared to how good is this new Poilievre organization,” said Greg Lyle, president of Innovative Research.
Poilievre’s campaign was “really kick-ass” in its ability to use social media to target people in particular seats, Lyle told the Hill Times newspaper, given the point system used in the federal Conservative leadership race.
“So the question is: can they take what was clearly a first-class campaign at a leadership level, and then take those tools to become similarly strong in a real campaign where it’s the general public, and a lot more voters? So, really the question is: Who’s better at this thing? Jenni or Katie?”
First, they have to manoeuvre through the largest candidate total for a single riding in Canadian history, including 33 independents and the leader of the Rhinoceros Party Sébastien Corriveau.
Also running, not unexpectedly, is John Turmel, who holds the Guinness World Record for running in most elections — 105 so far at all three levels of government, all of them defeats.
If only one thing is to be said about Turmel, he’s persistent.
Corriveau, a Quebec musician who has led the Rhinoceros for the last eight years, told The Hill Times that his party has partly helped co-ordinate the effort to run 33 independents to draw public attention to the Liberal and Conservative parties for failing to reform the Canadian electoral system.
He said the Liberals got elected in 2015 on a platform where electoral reform was a signature campaign promise but abandoned it after winning the election.
The Liberal candidate in the riding is former Ontario Liberal finance minister Charles Sousa, who has represented this riding provincially in the past. The Conservative candidate is Ron Chhinzer, a Peel Region police officer. The NDP candidate is Julia Kole, and Mary Kidnew will carry the Green Party’s banner.
This election pitting two heavyweights against each other — Telford and Byrne — is reminiscent to those of a certain age of the legendary pre-social media campaign gurus, Keith Davey of the Liberals and Norm Atkins of the Tories.
A polling model from Nanos Research combining historic data and recent polls suggested at the end of November the Toronto-area Mississauga-Lakeshore byelection was “too close to call.”
Nik Nanos, chief data scientist for Nanos, described the byelection as the “highest-stakes byelection that we’ve seen in a very long time,” adding both parties have an equally good opportunity to win this contest.
He said the Liberals have the advantage as incumbents, even as they falter, and the Conservatives could go after the Liberals on the cost-of-living and affordability issues that are presently top of mind for voters.
In recent history, the Liberals have carried Mississauga-Lakeshore for 25 of the last 29 years, but by relatively close margins.
During this time, the Conservatives won this riding only once—in 2011—when Stella Ambler ousted then-six term Liberal MP Paul Szabo, who had held the seat since 1993. In 2011, the Liberals placed third under Michael Ignatieff’s leadership—a very poor showing and the first in the party’s riding history.
Former Progressive Conservative MP Don Blenkarn served as an MP for the riding from 1979 until the 1993 federal election, when the since-defunct Progressive Conservatives then led by PM Kim Campbell were left with only two seats nationally, and the Jean Chrétien Liberals won the election with a landslide majority.
