Next election will shake up regional politics
Experts agree: candidates running for regional chair will need a sizable war chest
There is sea change coming to Niagara politics.
About a year from now, on Oct. 18, Niagara voters will mark ballots to elect a regional chairman for the first time.
Queen’s Park has mandated the final three holdouts in Ontario — Peel, York and Niagara regions — allow voters to select the chair.
Since the province formed Niagara Region in 1970, its councillors have voted amongst themselves for a chair.
Getting the job won’t be easy. The successful candidate will have to run a campaign across 12 widely divergent municipalities.
Even experienced political insiders aren’t sure how this will all play out.
“It will be the wild west,” said Peter Opdam, who ran successful Liberal campaigns for Chris Bittle in St. Catharines and Vance Badawey in Niagara Centre in 2014.
“It will be the first of its kind in Niagara. No one has done this be- fore. There will be new rules for anyone running. The more I think about it, the more complicated it becomes.”
Rick Dykstra served as MP for St. Catharines from 2006 to 2015. He is gearing up for the next provincial election as president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. He said it will be interesting to watch how the regional chair’s race unfolds.
“If someone came to me for advice, one of the first questions I would ask is how do they intend to raise the necessary campaign funds,” he said. “I can see this costing upwards of $250,000 or $300,000.
“If the maximum donation an individual can make is $750, there will be a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to financing a campaign. It costs in the neighbourhood of $100,000 to run for a seat as an MP or MPP in Niagara. A campaign encompassing the whole region will dwarf that, and they won’t have a party apparatus to call on.”
The campaign period will officially open May 1.
Regional staff are in the process of preparing a comprehensive report for council’s corporate services committee that will outline rules and regulations for the race.
Brian McMullan is the former mayor of St. Catharines who also served as a city councillor and a regional councillor. He believes regional chair candidates will have their work cut out for them.
“It’s a huge area to cover,” McMullan said. “It is the equivalent of four provincial or federal ridings, and I think a lot of the focus, by necessity, will end up on the urban centres — St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland.
“In St. Catharines, when I ran for mayor, there were about 56,000 doorsteps to visit. I couldn’t get to every one, and I am a strong proponent of door-knocking or what you could call old-school
politics.”
Dykstra said the creation of a voter database will be critical. Opdam agreed.
“Whoever is running will end up spending an absurd about of money on direct mailing,” Opdam said. “There will be no way around it.
“Social media can help. Face- book has turned out to be an efficient and cost-effective way of targeting voters.”
Opdam said in the last federal campaign, his candidates, Bittle and Badawey, each spent about $14,000 on advertising.
“You are going to need $60,000 or $70,000 alone for an advertising budget,” he said. “You are also going to need a staff. That will add to the cost.”
Dykstra, Opdam and McMullan all believe a successful candidates will already have a strong regional profile. A neophyte will face almost impossible odds.
Voters will also give an elected regional chair a real mandate.
That will change the dynamic on regional council, Dykstra said.
At federal and provincial levels, individual MPs and MPPs have little choice but to toe the party line or face consequences.
The regional chair will navigate a way forward without that hammer and that will likely increase tensions and deepen the divisions already present, Dykstra said.
“Some people have said there are teams, or factions, that vote together on issues at regional council,” he said. “The election of a regional chair is only going to reinforce that. The chair will need help implementing a platform.
“He will have to ask for support on specific issues. Councillors, in turn, will want the chair’s support on issues in their municipality. There will be even more bartering behind the scenes.
“Some people at council really pushed for this, but there will likely be some surprises along the way.
“You have to be careful what you wish for sometimes.”