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Consistent with Environment Voters' policy of measuring the effectiveness of its campaigns, the purpose of this analysis is to ascertain the actual effect of the Environment Voters (EV) campaign in the 20 September 2001 Beaches-East York Ontario By-election on the number of votes cast.

When EV campaigns it works to realize two measurable effects. The first is a shift in votes as a consequence of the EV campaign. The second is changes for the better in environmental and animal welfare government policy, legislation, and enforcement. This analysis deals with the former.

In the Beaches-East York by-election, EV campaigned in favor of the Liberal candidate, Bob Hunter. The rationale for this choice is discussed in the article, "The By-election." See Appendix 3.

The Beaches-East York electoral district is in Toronto, just east of the downtown area. See the Beaches-East York Electoral District Map.

The analysis shows that Environment Voters met all its campaign objectives and was able to increase the vote for Bob Hunter by 4.76% in the polls targeted.

For a more entertaining account of the campaign than this analysis can provide, see Appendix 3, "The By-election."

Environment Voters had three campaign objectives in the 20 September 2001 Beaches-East York Ontario By-election:

To develop the campaign strategy that would realize the above objectives, Environment Voters relied on a detailed voting history of the Beaches-East York electoral district (see Appendix 2) and telephone polling. The voting history showed where the various parties enjoyed their support. The polling helped identify the issues and message that Environment Voters should include in its campaign material to achieve the most effect.

It was clear from both the voting history and the polling that, despite the presence of a strong, charismatic Liberal candidate, like Bob Hunter, winning in Beaches-East York would be unlikely. At the beginning of the campaign, the polling showed that few people were concerned about the by-election. Vacation and returning to work and school were dominating voters' concerns. Indeed, few people were even aware an election was underway; even fewer knew or were concerned about the candidates.

Taking into account all of the known variables affecting the Environment Voters campaign -- campaign objectives; financial, human and in-kind resources; polling results and the electoral district's voting history -- it was decided to campaign in those areas of maximum NDP support. The campaign was targeted in the area south of Kingston Road, with a particular emphasis on the area south of Queen Street. See attached electoral district map.

An EV survey suggested that although this area has always gone very strongly to the NDP, it is not so much an NDP area per se, but rather a social democratic area. It was fairly clear from the EV surveys that the voters might lean more to a strong social democratic candidate rather than the NDP candidate.

Based on the survey results, EV structured its campaign around Bob Hunters social democratic bona fides.

The tactics used to realize the strategy included:

The election results on 20 September were naturally disappointing. All of us hoped that Bob Hunter would win. Notwithstanding the disappointment, the outcome was not surprising and was predicted in the EV survey.

The final results were as follows:

Voter turnout was 37% in the by-election. In the 1999 General Election the turnout was 53.6%, less than the provincial average of 58.3%.

The raw analysis used to determine the effects on the voting patterns of the Environment Voters campaign can be found in Appendix 1. The full spreadsheet analysis is available on request.

To determine the effect of the EV campaign on votes cast, a comparison was made between polls where EV campaigned and polls where EV did not campaign that are directly comparable and adjacent to the EV campaign target polls. What is compared is the percentage of votes cast for the major parties in the 3 June 1999 Ontario General Election and the 20 September 2001 Beaches-East York Ontario By-election. The difference in votes cast between the two elections is the vote shift. For analysis purposes, it is assumed -- as the EV campaign and non-EV campaign polls are demonstrably similar -- that any difference in the average vote shift between the EV campaign polls and the non-EV campaign polls can be attributed to a large extent to the EV campaign.

The analysis suggests the Environment Voters campaign shifted the votes toward the Liberal candidate by a further 4.76% than was realized in the areas where EV did not campaign. The effect on the NDP was even more dramatic. The EV campaign suppressed the NDP's vote by a further 7.74% than they experienced in non-EV campaign polls.

As for the PCs, they did a little better where EV campaigned, than were EV did not. This was expected. Looking at the voting history chart (Appendix 2) it can be seen that the PCs enjoy their greatest support in the polls where EV campaigned. Since 1999, that support has increased slightly.

*Polls 177-0A, B & C, where EV also campaigned,
changed so significantly between 1999 and 2000,
they cannot be used in the calculations.

Sex!

Betrayal!

Slander!

Law suits!

Fallen heroes!

Best selling authors!

Revenge!

A new soap opera? A pot boiler novel, perhaps? No, an Ontario provincial by-election. The Environment Voters plan seemed simple enough: campaign in the September 20^th by-election in Beaches-East York to demonstrate to Ontario Premier Mike Harris and his Progressive Conservative government how Environment Voters would make the PC's poor environmental and animal welfare policies cost them votes in the next general election. That was accomplished, but a by-election that started in dull routine became a cauldron of all that's bad and all that's good about politics and politicians.

It started with the resignation of Beaches-East York Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Frances Lankin, a former NDP cabinet minister and one of the most respected MPPs in the Ontario legislature. Beaches-East York is considered a safe NDP electoral district. The NDP nominated Michael Prue, a Toronto councilor and the former mayor of East York.

At first, Environment Voters planned to campaign for Prue for obvious reasons. He has a good environmental record and, at the municipal level, has been a strong advocate for sound environmental and animal welfare policies. As for the Liberals, they had yet to nominate a candidate, had never placed better than third in the electoral district, and usually ran a token candidate. Prue was our man. Our plan had two objectives: campaign to get Prue elected, which wouldn't be too difficult, and suppress the PC vote into the ignominy of single digits -- a humiliating defeat which would be triggered by the PCs poor environmental and animal welfare policies.

And then along came Bob, and "dull routine" became high drama.

Bob Hunter announced his intention to seek the nomination for the Liberal Party in Beaches-East York. Who is Bob Hunter? Bob Hunter is a co-founder of Greenpeace, a Governor-General Award winning author, the ecology reporter for City-TV in Toronto, and a person who Time Magazine named one of the "Heroes of the Century." This is a man who has sailed a small boat into a nuclear testing zone, stood on the ice blocking the passage of massive sealing ships, and waged war on whalers.

As much as the Bob Hunter candidacy to seek the Liberal nomination in Beaches-East York was good news to Environment Voters, it was devastating news to Premier Harris and the PCs. For the PCs, an NDP win in Beaches-East York presented no political problem. Beaches-East York is a safe NDP seat, so the expected PC loss would reflect nothing on Harris and his party. But conversely, a Liberal winning the seat would be credited to a decline in Harris and PC fortunes. It would also add to the Liberals' string of by-election victories and political momentum going into the general election expected in two years. In politics, the last thing you want is to have the media describing you as a loser. So, as strange as it seems, Harris and the PCs wanted the NDP to win in Beaches-East York.

While no unknown Liberal candidate could beat Michael Prue, Bob Hunter, it was feared, just might. So to derail the Hunter candidacy, Premier Harris called the by-election just one day after Hunter announced his intention to seek the Liberal nomination. Harris's hope was that with just a 28 day campaign and the NDP already campaigning, Hunter and the Liberals would be unable to quickly nominate Hunter and organize an effective campaign. So panicked was Harris to stop Hunter and the Liberals, the PCs hadn't even nominated their own candidate when he called the by-election.

The campaign was on. All the competing Liberal candidates in Beaches-East York withdrew from the race and Bob Hunter was acclaimed as the candidate. With Hunter now an official Liberal candidate, Environment Voters altered its plans and threw its support behind him. For Environment Voters, the decision to shift its support was easy. All of Environment Voters' research showed that Michael Prue would likely win the seat. So even if Hunter lost, there would be a strong advocate for the environment in the Ontario legislature. Environment Voters, the environment, and wildlife protection had nothing to lose by campaigning for Hunter. But if Hunter won, there would not only be a stronger environmental and wildlife protection advocate in the legislature, but also he might one day be part of the government and able influence public policy. Something that Prue as an NDP MPP would never be able to do. The fact is that the chances of the NDP ever forming a government again in Ontario is many, many years and many, many elections away.

Environment Voters campaigned hard for Hunter. Extensive survey work was done to identify the polling areas in the electoral district where Environment Voters could have the most significant effect on Hunter's campaign. Thirty second radio spots were prepared and aired during the last week of the campaign on CFRB. The area of highest NDP support was targeted for a door-to-door canvas and literature drop by Environment Voters volunteers. An Ottawa firm, Keys Direct, was recruited for a telephone canvas of the targeted areas.

As the campaign moved into the last few days, there was a sense that the impossible might happen and Hunter would win. Panic infected the NDP and PC campaigns. Then, driven by fear and desperation, the NDP showed its true colors. It abandoned all its pretence of principal and sunk to a level of shame never before seen in Canadian politics. A plain brown envelope containing excerpts from a book written by Bob Hunter in the late 80s was distributed to the press. The book, On the Sky, a fictional work, parodied Jack Kerouac's On the Road. On the Sky is a story of two 40-something men seeking the meaning to their lives. In the book, a scene with two teen-age Bangkok prostitutes is described. Although she denies distributing the mysterious brown package, the remarkably well-informed NDP MPP Marilyn Churley and supposed friend of Bob Hunter, immediately took up the cause with a frightening vengeance laced with a viciousness and denounced Hunter's moral character and fitness for office. Based on nothing more than a work of fiction, Churley's vitriolic remarks left no doubt in the mind of any reasonable person that Hunter was a pedophile, a charge that has sent innocent people to jail.

Hunter and his family -- his wife, his children and grandchildren -- were devastated at the NDP and Churley's malice. Not only had a person who Bob once counted among his friends plunged a knife deep into his back with no compunction or compassion, but also he was being portrayed as -- to use Hunter's words -- "a pervert" in the public eye.

Churley's actions warrant the strongest possible condemnation. She has shown she lacks the moral character to serve in public office. There is no charge more damning than that which she falsely leveled at her friend, Bob Hunter. What's worse, she made the charge so willfully and with such casual disregard for the truth that she diminished the enormity of real crimes against children: a fight in which Churley claims to be a champion. What kind of "champion" would undermine her own credibility in such a serious cause in order to serve her party's base political ambitions?

Churley has also done an unconscionable disservice to the people of Ontario, and her own constituents. The quality of government in Ontario demands that good people run for office. It's the kind of personal, false, cruel, malicious tactics exercised by Marilyn Churley, and endorsed by other NDP members including leader Howard Hampton, that keeps good men and women from seeking office and contributing to the public good.

What shocked Hunter most was that the NDP -- the party of the Reverend Tommy Dougles, a party he always believed had a foundation of fundamental decency and integrity -- was so comfortable wielding the most vicious of innuendo based on nothing but a literary work of fiction, and with easy malice was prepared to destroy anyone no matter how much good they might have done in order to retain their finger grip on power.

Not even Michael Prue who takes pride in his integrity was prepared to denounce the tactics. For his part Prue, simply denied any involvement with the affair, but refused to censure the tactic. When his integrity was truly challenged, Prue chose the coward's way. Reports from the field said that Prue's canvassers were more than willing to spread the false charges. Moreover, prior to the campaign beginning, the NDP along with the other parties agreed to keep the campaign focussed on the issues and not employ personal attacks. Hunter and all the others were good to their word, but Prue and the NDP broke theirs and betrayed a friend as soon as it served their political interests.

It's worth mentioning here that contrary to the popular public impression, politicians tend to be an honorable lot. If a politicians gives his or her word it can generally be trusted. The reason is that making public policy is a matter of deals and compromise and often decisions must be made quickly. So a hand shake becomes a bond. If you can't trust a person's word, few deals would be struck and little progress made. Unlike most politicians and parties, we now know that Michael Prue's word and the NDP's principals mean nothing.

Notwithstanding the NDP's broken trust, the Hunter campaign did not collapse. After the initial shock, they struck back and they struck back hard -- a good political decision. A press conference was called. The Liberals announced that an action for defamation had been commenced and that Marilyn Churley and others were being named. Also attending the conference was Barbara Gowdy, the international best selling author of The White Bone. Gowdy severely condemned the NDP for using a work of fiction to demonize an author. Authors, she argued, are not their characters. Gowdy's The White Bone is about elephants. Do the NDP think she is an elephant, she wondered aloud? One can only speculate if the NDP, Marilyn Churley and Michael Prue believe that Charles Dickens is a child abuser because Fagan appears in Oliver Twist. Or that Michael Ondaatje is a traitor because the title character in The English Patient betrays his country to indulge an adulterous love affair. The question to put to the NDP is if Bob Hunter is unfit in their eyes to serve office because of subjects he explored in a work of fiction to illustrate moral degradation are Barbara Gowdy, Charles Dickens, and Michael Ondaatje also unfit to serve in office?

For its part, even before the Hunter campaign press conference, Environment Voters issued a press release reiterating its support of Bob Hunter and calling on Howard Hampton, the leader of the NDP, Marilyn Churley and Michael Prue to formally apologize to Bob Hunter.

The following day calls began to come into the Hunter campaign office condemning the NDP. Some NDP voters said that because of the NDP smear they would never vote NDP again. The Environment Voters telephone canvasser were getting a similar message. Yet some people were deeply troubled by the linking of the words "Bob Hunter" and "pedophile" and would not vote for Hunter. For others the NDP tactic was so offensive and so dangerous for what it could portend for other innocent people that any thought of ever supporting the NDP was quashed.

On election day, the NDP won. Bob Hunter placed a healthy second. And the PC candidate was a distant third. Environment Voters was able to help get the PC candidate into single digits; 9.9%, the worst showing of a PC candidate in any electoral district in Ontario.

As for Bob Hunter, he told the thousand people at the election night wrap party that he would be back. More importantly, his family wants him to run again. Hunter's son, Will, is a member of the Young Liberals. Hunter has spent 30 years protesting environmental destruction and wildlife abuses. He has written a dozen books, many that document the environmental problems we face. Hunter has decided that it is time to stop protesting and preaching. It's time to act, to make governments pass strong environmental and wildlife protection laws. What Hunter has also learned, he told Environment Voters after his defeat and his experience with his NDP "friends," is that in politics you learn who your real friends are.

As for Environment Voters, we achieved our goals. Bob Hunter did very well in the polls where Environment Voters campaigned and shifted the vote in his favor by 4.76%. We showed all the political parties, once again, that we can move votes, that an Environment Voters campaign matters. Michael Prue is in the Ontario legislature where, despite winning his seat with shame, he will speak out on environmental issues. The PCs suffered their worst defeat ever. And, Bob Hunter has a better understanding about politics and will be back in the general election. He's not sure if he'll run again in Beaches-East York, mentioning that he wouldn't mind taking on Marilyn Churley. Revenge? At any rate, wherever Bob Hunter decides to run, Environment Voters will be there to help.

Beaches-East York Electoral District Map
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