We share the anger, fear, and disappointment that many are feeling today on both sides of the border.

All people have equal worth and equal rights. We all deserve a life of dignity with access to essential services, and that includes bodily autonomy and the right to comprehensive public health care - including abortion.

The Broadbent Institute will always fight alongside women, trans and non-binary people for these rights.

We encourage Canadians to be vigilant and wish our American friends every success in their fight to restore abortion rights in the United States.

On paper, one could argue there were winning odds stacked for the progressive electoral left in Ontario ahead of the 2022 provincial election. Doug Ford as Premier of Ontario mishandled each wave of the pandemic, helping privatized long-term care providers profit after suffering no consequences from their catastrophic failures to keep people safe, holding back on billions in federal cash meant to protect families from COVID-19, and shortchanging public schools on funding while sending 54% of provincially acquired COVID rapid tests to private schools.

Instead of public outrage fermented over two years being channeled into political action, Ford won another majority government and increased his seat count. Voters didn’t even bother showing up to polls to show their disapproval of the Ford government, with the lowest voter turnout ever experienced in an Ontario provincial election. Given social media engagement with Ontario election news stories in 2022 compared to 2018, it’s as if voters couldn’t even feel interested at all in the campaign.

That’s not to say that progressives did not have a real alternative to offer in contrast to Doug Ford. According to some observers, they saw a policy platform that was “certainly more left wing and social democratic than any platform they’ve had in years.” The progressive platform prioritized “care over cars” more in its spending proposals compared to the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives. These progressive platform planks on their own were favoured a lot more by Ontario voters according to polling, when no party label was attached to it.

The conversations I had knocking on doors and speaking on the phone about this policy set looked at these policies favourably too. Though anecdotal, what I noticed in working-class, racially diverse, and lower-income neighbourhoods in ridings in Scarborough was a generally positive reception when we would start talking about cutting corporate profiteering from the price of gas. People that wanted to learn more on their doorsteps thought positively of expanding OHIP to mental healthcare and dentalcare, and of taxing the rich to cover the cost. What was also noticeable in these same conversations, however, was a lack of trust that this was all going to be done.

Trust in institutions, or rather the lack of trust, is found to be correlated with electoral participation. Social democratic institutions that tend to deliver universal, equalizing social programs can be found to generate higher levels of social trust and therefore an increased participation in voter turnout. When people clearly see that institutions can bring about equalizing outcomes, there is a tendency for higher participation in political processes that influence them. Where more social democratic political outcomes are found, higher voter turnout rates can be expected. The 1919 Ontario Election where record turnout can be observed to elect the United Farmers and Labour coalition government may not be such an outlier when considering that Ontarians were voting for more redistributive outcomes against more than 14 years of Conservative governments.

The political apathy experienced this past campaign can be indicative of the lack of trust that people’s lives will get better if they participate in the political process. It tracks with the deterioration of economic and social democracy that these electoral outcomes would occur. Progressives of course did not win this election, but distrust leading to apathy may also help to explain how progressives did not win even among their base supporters: unionized workers.

For those that voted among unionized workers in all sectors, Doug Ford won against the left. Despite his government’s attacks on skilled trades unions, the Ontario PC’s still received the endorsements of major buildings trades unions. These leadership endorsements of course did not necessarily reflect the opinions of rank-and-file members, but the coordination and breadth of endorsements from these unions did not go unnoticed. Why couldn’t progressives win these voters?

Unionized workers turn out to vote at higher rates, and despite labour’s historic relationship with progressive parties, they turned out for Doug Ford. He has made public appearances at union shops, and could not be spotted this campaign without a hardhat and safety vest when making announcements. As small as these gestures may seem, it's clear who won the support of unionized workers, and this may indicate a weakening of the relationship between electoral social democrats and the labour movement.

How do we fix this dual problem of voter apathy while hemorrhaging base supporters to anti-worker Conservatives? While the pandemic’s mismanagement under Ford should have been a moment to seize, progressives could not effectively show that the policies they proposed were going to lead to better outcomes for Ontarians. Strategic voting against the PCs clearly did not work, and instead had Liberals and the NDP fighting each other for seats while handing Doug’s nephew Mikey a seat at Queen’s Park. Electoral reform is again in the conversation, but the political path towards this real democratic change has been walked before with similarly apathetic results.

A change of strategy is certainly needed, one that makes clear that a progressive policy set based on universality and equalizing outcomes can make life better. It needs to include an increasingly racialized working-class precariat. Lastly, a new strategy needs to reconnect with social movements that are certainly growing amid multiple global crises but are now growing at an increasing distance from the electoral left. Amid the Liberal's and Ontario NDP’s ongoing leadership transitions, the parties ought to give serious thought on changing how the electoral left builds from here.

Our political climate is getting more and more polarized, but despite this Canadians’ opinions continue trending progressive. Voters across the political spectrum have come to a consensus on the need to tax the rich and for a fair recovery from the pandemic. Similarly, the urgent need for climate action is now a given and no longer debated. 

It might feel like this was a spontaneous response to the pandemic, but this kind of shift does not happen by accident. It’s the result of months and often years of dedicated effort. Organizing is what produces these kinds of shifts in collective opinion.

After all, the twin contagions of right-wing ideology (including nationalist populism) and white supremacy are simultaneously making an advance. Having connected government lockdowns and the simple public health message of wearing a mask with a cluster of ideas including racist xenophobia, male chauvinism, and distrust of democratic institutions, the right is successfully spreading its message through ever-multiplying digital media channels. 

The inequality crisis is the backdrop

Workers and communities in Canada continually face worsening conditions. Workers balance two or three jobs and barely meet the essentials of life while the gig economy and app-based employment grows. The housing crisis displaces people increasingly onto the street in every community. On top of people’s pandemic experience, the rich got richer and meaningful constraints to corporate profiteering and unfettered wealth accumulation have yet to materialize. 

These conditions erode social solidarity. What, then, should the responses be to the urgency for building resistance to the right? How are we to build a broad base of support for worker and community power to pursue a fair, equitable and sustainable future? 

Solidarity starts with talking about power.

Focus on power

Power matters because it determines our ability to shape the future. Inequality, discrimination, even the climate crisis - these are the results of unequal power relations in society. But people and communities have the ability to change those conditions, because power is within all of us, and we can flex it like a muscle. When communities come together to define the problems we face and the solutions we want, we can build our people-power through collective action.

While every situation, place, and group of people have unique histories, an important step is asking ourselves who we are and what we want when our goal is to make people-powered change. As workers and communities we need power to get what we need, and yet it’s a resource that exists within all of us - when to tap into collective action, which is enabled by organizing.

The essence of organizing is in people learning how to help ourselves, knowing and asserting our rights. Organizing, as opposed to mobilization or advocacy, relies on local leadership that grows from within the community, building trust and moves people to action. It is the real-life stories told by people affected that show the urgent need for change and become a valuable organizing resource.

Once demands are determined by the people most affected by policy, funding and other decisions, organizing efforts turn to developing strategy. This includes mapping and connecting with decision-makers and those who influence them. Mobilizing in numbers to demonstrate your power in numbers is the leverage to meet goals for change. Building on small wins, we collectively increase our capacity and our ability to build the future we want for ourselves and our communities. 

Learn more about power and how you can build it within your own community through our new training module, What is Power?.