Why Andrea Horwath Needs To Go

I was never really one for baseball. Swings without connection and half-hearted throws to first never captured my soul, although I suppose not much does. However, I thank it for a decidedly simple idea it expresses so beautifully: three strikes and you’re out. Granted, there is the occasional walk, but more or less, you make solid contact and get on base or you return to the dugout, humbled. There’s no subsequent chances, you’re gone, largely forgotten, and then it’s onto the next. For its own sake, I very much hope the Ontario NDP has a plethora of avid baseball fans in its ranks. I say this because ultimately, it needs to accept that a solid batter has gone 0-3 for them.

When Andrea Horwath took over as leader, the NDP was in a dismal, if somewhat improved position. After almost 15 years in power, and an ill-fated strikeout by Howard Hampton (who even let him run three times?), the NDP needed someone to help them make gains again. And gain they did, under Horwath. The well-spoken Horwath led the NDP in 2011 to their best result since Bob Rae’s election more than 20 years earlier. She made more subtle gains (both in seat count and popular vote) in 2014. Then came 2018. With Premier Kathleen Wynne steering a fledgling, doomed Liberal ship, it seemed as though the stars could have been aligning for Horwath’s NDP.



It was a peaceful thursday afternoon in June. I remember what I did on that afternoon, not that I would ever really inject myself into a story (why anyone would strive to be the center of the story they’re telling when there’s such beauty and intrigue to be found otherwise baffles me, but that’s all for another time and rant). I reckon many sat awaiting election results that night, albeit perhaps not as intently as Andrea Horwath. Eventually, results became final, and despite roughly two thirds of the population having been unwilling to even consider voting Liberal, the NDP’s chief rival for votes, Horwath’s party managed to gain barely a third of those seats the Liberals lost, losing the election handily to the Progressive Conservative party of Doug Ford. That night, Andrea Horwath had her last chance to get on base. Andrea Horwath is a solid leader, an adequate debater, and was a gigantic part of the Ontario NDP’s revitalization. Furthermore, voters are fluid and things can change quickly between elections. However, for the most respected and approved of party leader in Ontario to win in 2022 having lost an election with an almost irrelevant Liberal party, and to now be trailing in third place in the polls, while the leaderless Liberals take the lead, one must expect some sort of otherworldly fluidity that cannot and will not present itself. There is a good chance that the Ontario NDP will do worse in the next election if they do indeed turn to another leader. However, it may be less risky in fact than guaranteeing themselves another four years on the sidelines. No matter what anyone thinks of Horwath, if you are unable to form government in your third attempt, despite facing the most unpopular Liberal premier ever, the time is nigh for that essential return to the dugout.

This is all important because of the Ontario Liberal leadership race. Steven Del Duca, a cabinet minister who lost by almost 8,000 votes in Vaughan, is the clear frontrunner, with his first-class delegate-getting and his more than competent campaign team. So why is this so important? With Del Duca as leader, the NDP can win the next election. Del Duca is a centrist candidate who will be called out by the left flank of the Ontario Liberal Party, and who could alienate progressives. Many of the current lean OLP-voters could be brought back to the NDP in such a case. Recent precedent would suggest that it’s possible for two left wing parties to poll decently high at the same time (see Ontario 2011 and 2014, and those were with Hudak, who still couldn’t top Doug Ford’s unpopularity), even if historically, Ontario tends to side with one. Regardless, the NDP has come to a critical point. It’s a new game, and they must look themselves in the foggy mirror and ask, “Do we want to lose again?” This question will be all-determining, because, ultimately, if they don’t send a new batter to the plate, they will lose by default, in failing to change their ways:

We will fail to be new

And then – we will crush,

And be crushed,

Into a forever with no end.

The Ontario NDP cannot accept being crushed into a forever in opposition, simply because they like their leader, who guided them to a result better than almost all in the past. Voters vote for something new, and if parties fail to adapt and be new (as the CPC is beginning to learn), they will face that dark forever, and it will indeed have no end.