Vote splitting a concern in election as Green candidates endorse NDP

Two Green party candidates shocked voters and their opponents earlier this week after they endorsed two NDP candidates in the region.

The incidents came on Monday, as Green Candidate Shefaza Esmail in Waterloo, endorsed Catherine Fife of the NDP, who said it was unexpected.

“I was quite surprised, I have to say,” Fife told The Mike Farwell show. “Shefaza and I had been at the CBC earlier in the morning, we’ve done a debate and you know there was no indication that this was going to come.”

The incumbent candidate said she believes Esmail did this because “she’s demonstrating how she does care about the community.”

Fife said that vote-splitting, which is when voters are split between two parties evenly that it gives the third party the edge, is a problem this election.

“I’m not saying that this green vote is going to make a huge difference for me in this election but I think that Shefaza’s goal was to highlight the fact that vote splitting is really a concern,” she said.

Fife mentioned that depending on the results of this election, hard conversations around vote splitting are likely to come.

“I think we have to look at electoral reform and if that does not go forward, then I think that it is time for us to have a really courageous conversation about political parties in Ontario,” she said.

The Kitchener—Conestoga green candidate, Brayden Wagenaar, threw his support behind his NDP opponent Jodi Szimanski at the beginning of the local debate on Monday.

“Truth of the matter is, we need a candidate that cares,” said Wagenaar. “And the only way that is going to happen in our current, not-great, democratic voting system is to create a candidate we can all get behind.”

Leader of the Ontario Greens, Mike Schreiner told CityNews that the calls the candidates made were their own.

“One of the things I tell our candidates and our MPPs is that I’m not your boss,” he said. “The people of your riding are your boss…If these two candidates have made a decision based on what their constituents have told them in their ridings, those are riding specific decisions that I’ll respect.”

Schreiner said that he’s focused on election more green MPPs.

“I think one of the challenges we face in politics right now is too much power is centred in the prime minister’s office or the premier’s office or the leader’s office, and we need to elect more local champions who will be the voice of the people,” he said.