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Environment Voters

1999 Ontario Election Campaign

Final Report and Analysis

October 1999

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

The Brief

Background

The Environment Voters 1999 Ontario Election Campaign

Overview: the 1999 Environment Voters Election Campaign

Campaign Strategy and Tactics

Campaign Management

Impact of the Environment Voters Campaign on Voting Behavior

Effectiveness of the Environment Voters Campaign

Lessons Learned

Recommendations and Conclusions

Executive Summary

This report was requested by the EV Steering Committee in order to provide a comprehensive overview of the EV 1999 Ontario election campaign. Its intent is to provide details about the campaign that might be of interest to future EV campaign managers, potential EV donors and supporters, and the environmental community in general.

It is also to be made available to elected officials and other political individuals and entities which influence public policy to give them a better understanding of the relevance the average voter places on environmental protection.

EV was founded in 1998 in order to increase the political relevance of environmental issues by providing a political benefit to politicians and political parties who implement good environmental protection policies and by exacting a political price for those who don’t in the form of votes and seats won or lost. EV is not aligned with any political party.

The 1999 Ontario provincial election was EV's first election campaign. The decision to enter the contest was based primarily on the Progressive Conservative (PC) government's extremely poor environmental policy. The EV budget was $150,000 in cash and in-kind donations provided by Animal Alliance of Canada, International Wildlife Coalition (Canada), Greenpeace (Canada), Toronto Environmental Alliance, Niagara Brock Action for Animals, London Animal Alliance, Centre for Compassionate Living, and Mrs. Susan Bloom.

Based on previous electoral experience, the assumption was made that an EV campaign could shift about 4% of the vote in any electoral district.

The campaign was highly targeted and had the sole objective of shifting votes from Progressive Conservative incumbents to other candidates. Voting history analyses, survey and polling data, and interviews in various electoral districts determined the type of campaign that would be run and where in each electoral district efforts would be concentrated.

Seven electoral districts where chosen: Don Valley East, Kitchener Centre, London North Centre, Niagara Falls, Prince Edward Hastings, St. Paul's, and Toronto Centre Rosedale. The voting history analysis suggested that each of these electoral districts was likely to be decided by 4% or less of the vote.

The campaign was managed entirely in-house including all polling and survey work, video production, voting history analyses, etc.

The sole medium of communication was video. Electoral district specific videos were distributed to designated areas in each electoral district that the voting history analyses suggested were the most volatile or where the EV endorsed candidate might have the most difficulty.

The videos highlighted the PC's poor environmental record and urged voters to send a message to the PCs by not voting for the PC candidate, who was named in the video, and to vote for a candidate endorsed by EV, who was also named.

Of the seven electoral districts in which EV campaigned, the PCs were only able to retain 3.

To better measure the actual effects of the EV campaign, 1995 and 1999 election data were used with the 1995 election serving as a baseline. A comparison was then made for each electoral district between "EV polls," where EV distributed videos, and "non-EV polls," where videos were not distributed. Results from each of the targeted electoral districts vary widely and are included later in this report; the average vote shift for each of the major political parties was as follows:

EV's campaign objectives in the 1999 Ontario election were not only achieved but bettered. What remains to be seen is the actual effect on the Ontario government's environmental policy: a policy which will form the basis of EV's next Ontario election campaign. Early indications are that the PCs have made the decision to substantially improve their environmental record.

Much was learned in this campaign. The overall concept of EV has been proven: a significant minority of voters -- if given the opportunity -- will use their votes to help protect the environment and can affect the outcome of elections. The EV campaign was deficient in many areas all of which can be readily corrected in future campaigns.

The Brief

As a consequence of Environment Voters' (EV) involvement in the 1999 Ontario election, the EV Steering Committee requested a comprehensive analysis of the EV campaign. The brief given broadly included:

1. Provide a general description of the EV electoral campaign, including strategy, tactics, and management.
2. Determine the vote shift, if any, achieved by the EV campaign in each of the seven targeted electoral districts.
3. Evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign tactics used and enumerate the campaign lessons learned from the campaign.
4. Make and gather recommendations that could either be implemented in future campaigns or provide insights into determining the effectiveness and future potential, if any, of the general EV strategy.

As well, permeating the Steering Committee's request for a report was the desire that the Environment Voters 1999 Ontario election campaign might serve as a case study for other environmental groups working in Canada and elsewhere who might be considering political involvement.

Background

Environment Voters was founded in 1998 to address the fact that the Canadian environmental and wildlife protection community, for the most part, had effectively lost its capacity to convince federal and provincial governments to implement the necessary public policy changes needed to preserve, protect, and enhance the environment. Notwithstanding some small and even some notable achievements, environmental degradation throughout Canada is accelerating and plants and animals are generally becoming less well protected every year. Moreover, this trend has influenced Canada's policy at the international level, where Canada, the provinces, and the territories generally work to weaken global environmental and wildlife protection efforts.

This failure on the part of the environmental and wildlife protection community does not stem from lack of public interest, funds, environmental expertise, or dedication. It is a failure of strategy. It is an axiom that elected politicians decide public policy and that their decisions are significantly influenced by the anticipated and real electoral effects of those policies. The environmental community in Canada has not only failed to take this public policy axiom into consideration, but has also actively rejected it, deliberately avoiding effective political involvement. As a consequence, in Canada today, all politicians and political parties understand that there is no political benefit to be had for a good environmental record and no cost to be paid for a poor one. The worst that a government with a poor environmental record can suffer is a failing grade on the annual report cards issued by the World Wildlife Fund and the Sierra Club of Canada, while the best that a government with a good environmental record can hope for is nothing. The public policy effects of this situation are directly evident in the degradation of the air we breath, the water we drink, and the eco-systems that we depend upon to sustain our lives, our health, and our economies.

Further confounding environmental protection efforts today was the experience of the federal Progressive Conservative Party under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney during the 1980s. Prime Minister Mulroney and his various Ministers of the Environment had one of the best records on environmental protection and certainly far better than the subsequent Liberal government, which has dismantled most of Mulroney's environmental protection accomplishments. The Mulroney Conservatives even went so far as to bring environmentalists into the government to help set policy. Despite these efforts and achievements, the Mulroney government was not able to depend on the environmental community for any help whatsoever when it came to getting re-elected or even for justifiable praise of their environmental protection efforts. On the contrary, for its efforts the Mulroney government suffered nothing but harsh criticism, open contempt, and even outright betrayal from prominent environmentalists. From this example, lessons were well learned by subsequent governments and their elected members, manifested most significantly in the current Liberal government in Ottawa and the Progressive Conservative government in Ontario: there is no political value in environmental issues and the environmental community cannot be trusted, unlike many other organized interests, to provide necessary political support even when a government does the right thing.

In the Prime Minister's and the Premiers' offices and at the cabinet table where public policy is negotiated this political situation poses real problems for even the most dedicated Minister of the Environment. Unlike most other ministers who represent constituencies with demonstrable electoral relevance, environment ministers are for the most part, thanks to the environmental community, bereft of political significance or support, leaving them with little if any influence over public policy. There are no cabinet positions in Canada more lonely, more thankless, or more dead-end than that of Minister of the Environment.

To help improve environmental public policy, one goal of EV is to help end this poisonous and unproductive political environment in Canada by organizing a viable environmental voting constituency that can provide a real political benefit for a good environmental record and, conversely, a real political cost for a poor one in the tangible form of votes and seats won or lost.

The first practical test of this new strategy took place in the 1999 Ontario election.

The Environment Voters 1999 Ontario Election Campaign

The decision to become involved in the Ontario 1999 election was a difficult one for Environment Voters. EV was a very new organization when it became obvious that Premier Harris was planning to call a spring election, barely four years into his first mandate.

Arguing against involvement in the election were the facts that the pressures and demands of starting up and developing fund raising and membership programs left few resources to wage an effective campaign. It would not bode well for EV's future if a campaign was launched and failed to meet its objectives or be properly implemented. Furthermore, the election was shaping up to be a very crowded affair, with many groups including powerful and well-funded unions, teachers' organizations, and nurses' associations involved. The concern was how would EV be able to differentiate the effects of its campaign from the effects of the others?

The case for involvement was more compelling, however. The most important reason was that the Ontario government, under the Progressive Conservatives (PC), has one of the worst environmental records in North America and, in the absence of any political consequence for such a record, things could only be expected to get worse. Secondly, the electoral districts in which EV would be campaigning presented few logistical problems. Thirdly, a budget of about $150,000 in cash and in-kind contributions was immediately available, along with a corps of good volunteers. And, the last very compelling argument in favor of becoming involved was the need for a practical demonstration for current and future supporters of EV and ordinary voters concerned about the environment -- the real "environment voters" -- that the electoral arena was not only an important one in which to fight for better environmental protection, but also one in which EV, in particular, had the experience and expertise to operate effectively.

Overview: the 1999 Environment Voters Election Campaign

From the very earliest stages of the Environment Voters campaign every effort was made to keep it as simple and as efficient as possible and to be very clear about what the goal was.

The goal was not to "educate" Ontario voters in general about the Progressive Conservative Party's poor environmental or animal and wildlife protection records in hopes they might vote the "right way." It was not to get rid of Mike Harris and PCs which the stated goal of many other groups involved in the election; EV's interest is policy not party.

In this election, the EV goal was simple: to exact a meaningful, demonstrable, and measurable political price from the Progressive Conservative Party as a consequence of their very poor environmental protection record.

In order to avoid any misunderstanding, it is worth restating here that EV is not aligned with any political party: the goal of EV is to make every government's environmental record matter politically, particularly during elections. It is not to favor one political party over another.

Campaign Strategy and Tactics

The Environment Voters' campaign strategy and tactics were developed after a careful analysis of the political environment in which the EV campaign would be waged and an estimate of what influence an EV campaign might have on election results.

Included in the strategy development matrix were:

1. The estimate gained from experience in campaigns in the United Kingdom and Europe that an EV campaign could shift about 4% of the vote in any electoral district.
2. The preparation of a short list of marginal electoral districts that, from a voting history analysis, might be expected to be won or lost by less than 4% of the vote.
3. A further electoral district selection process that took into account ease of campaigning, whether or not the incumbent was a cabinet minister, availability of a local volunteer base, and budget constraints.
4. An analysis of the voting histories over the last three Ontario elections of the selected electoral districts that indicated where the "swing" vote was located or where the most votes might be taken from the incumbent.
5. A series of EV in-house surveys and polls that indicated that most voters do not attach much importance to their single vote, that few voters are definite about their preferred voting choice, that when given a list of issues the environment and wildlife protection was in the top third of concerns, and that a significant minority indicated that, if asked, they would use their vote in a way that might help the environment.
6. The understanding that the press does little during an election except "follow the leader," cover staged political events, publish polls, and has little or no time for independent or local campaigns.
7. The experience from past elections that the major political parties, particularly the Progressive Conservatives, would be determining the themes of the election and that, given the PC's record, the environment would not be one of them.
8. The realization that EV could not compete head-to-head with the paid advertising of the major political parties or the large unions and professional associations involved in the campaign.
9. The fact that the majority of voters get most of their information from television and disregard printed material distributed by campaigns.

From the above, an overall EV campaign strategy emerged.

The campaign would be conducted in 7 electoral districts:

1. Don Valley East,
2. Kitchener Centre,
3. London North Centre,
4. Niagara Falls,
5. Prince Edward Hastings,
6. St. Paul's
7. Toronto Centre Rosedale

Because of budget limitations demanding "the most bang for the buck," the campaign targeted the areas in the electoral districts that the voting history analysis suggested would be the marginal or "swing" areas.

The campaign message -- based on the facts of the issues and the EV surveys -- was, as stated in the final scene of the EV campaign video,

"On behalf of all of us in Ontario ... please use your vote ... to protect our environment."

And, because EV was only interested in targeting very specific areas in just a few electoral districts, campaign videos delivered directly to households was chosen as the medium of communication. No other media were used. An electoral district specific video was produced for each electoral district.

Campaign Management

The management of the Environment Voters campaign was handled entirely in-house by EV's Steering Committee and a corps of volunteers. No outside agencies or consultants were employed, although a number of former aides and people involved in the political process who had an environmental interest were available for ad hoc advice. Where a lack of expertise was identified -- for example, in the development of telephone survey questionnaires -- efforts were made to learn the necessary skills. Before deciding most campaign matters -- such as the decision to use videos -- research was undertaken of successful campaigns in Canada, the United States, and the European Community.

The voting history analysis used data from the last 3 Ontario elections, in which the Liberals (1987), the New Democratic Party (1990) and the Progressive Conservatives (1995) formed the government of the day. Given the results of these elections, it was relatively easy to estimate each party's core vote and identify "swing" areas in the targeted electoral districts.

Producing the final voting history analysis as it might apply to the 1999 election was made somewhat difficult by the reduction in electoral districts and the change in electoral district boundaries. The changes also made analyzing the final voting results more difficult as even the polling areas within each electoral district changed. Nevertheless, a methodology was developed and applied to solve these problems.

The in-house polling and survey work undertaken by EV was crude at best, using very small samples. But, as the results were consistent with those published by the polling firms Pollara, Angus Reid, Compas, and Environics, EV was able to use its own numbers and information with some confidence, particularly as EV was not interested in accurately tracking trends over the course of the campaign.

The decision to use video as the primary medium of the campaign was arrived at fairly easily. It was known at the outset that EV's campaign would be based on some form of door-to-door canvassing. There was no way that EV could compete against all the other players in the campaign with paid or earned media. This suggested three options: pamphlet armed door-to-door volunteer canvassers, telephone volunteer canvassers, and video -- or a combination of all three.

A major stumbling block that EV's surveys revealed was that most voters are politically disinterested. They do not believe that politicians, political parties, or politics influence much anymore. They believe that elections rarely affect their own day-to-day lives. This opinion is as pervasive as it is false. Indeed, even within the environmental community there is a general belief that involvement in politics at any level -- with the exception of providing advice or criticizing and protesting the Minister of the Environment or the government of the day -- is useless at best and counter-productive at worst. As a result, the message EV needed to get across to voters was not only that the PC's environmental record was very poor and harming them, but also why their vote would matter to future policy decisions and how that might directly affect their own lives. Providing the political education to a corps of volunteer door-to-door and telephone canvassers necessary to make such a case was beyond the resources of EV. And, as valuable as they are, volunteers are often unreliable. By relying solely on volunteers, EV could not be sure of covering the necessary households with a high quality and accurate message to make a measurable difference in the election.

Video became the medium of choice. With video, EV could control the message precisely. And more importantly, using public domain tapes from the Provincial Parliament, allow Premier Harris and then Minister of the Environment Norm Sterling to demonstrate through their own words that they were not committed to a clean and healthy environment. In Premier Harris's case, a video could show that he had broken a 1995 campaign promise about not cutting "one cent from the environment." It was hoped that by proving that the PC's campaign mantra, "Promises made, promises kept," was false, the credibility of PC candidates could be diminished.

The EV surveys also showed that people did not want to just be told that the environment was in a poor state or simply not to vote for the PC candidate. They wanted to be told who to vote for as well. The EV videos endorsed either a Liberal or NDP candidate in each of the targeted electoral districts.

Also driving the choice of video was data from various sources, government and commercial, suggesting extremely high rates -- on the order of 80%-90% -- of people viewing distributed videos, rates much higher than that enjoyed by printed media.

And lastly, video is much better at delivering an emotionally compelling message than either print media or canvassers. The emotional element is crucial. As one of the most respected and prominent US political consultants, Joe Napolitan, points out in his book The Election Game and How to Win It,

"Television can be the most emotional of our media, and I see nothing wrong with using emotions. More people vote with their hearts than with their heads anyway. Elections are won and lost on emotion, not on logic. I'm not saying this is good or bad, that I'm for it or against it, just that it is a fact. And I'll be damned if I'll try to answer my opponent's emotional appeals with logical dissertations. I've tried this a couple of times, now I know how it feels to lose. It doesn't feel good."

All aspects of the production of the videos was handled entirely in-house, facilities and production personnel being provided by one of EV's founding organizations.

The distribution of the videos was handled by EV volunteers, volunteers from Niagara Brock Action for Animals, London Animal Alliance, and the Centre for Compassionate Living, and paid canvassers contributed by the Toronto Environmental Alliance. Generally, videos were distributed to every second house in the targeted electoral districts and homes with campaign signs for any party were omitted as were all apartment buildings. The theory behind this was that the videos asked people to share their video with a neighbor, homes with signs likely indicated committed voters who were unlikely to change their vote, and apartment dwellers were not only less likely to vote PC because of the PC's landlord and tenant policies, but also they tend to vote at a lower rate than homeowners.

Although, as in all campaigns, many things could have been done much better (see "Lessons Learned" and "Recommendations" below), overall the EV campaign bettered its stated goals and came in on budget.

Impact of the Environment Voters Campaign on Voting Behavior

Environment Voters campaigned in 7 electoral districts. In each campaign voters were urged not to vote for the PC candidate and to vote for a specifically named Liberal or NDP candidate. Out of the 7 electoral districts, 4 PCs were defeated.

From the earliest days of EV, it has been recognized that producing measurable results in elections would be critical. There's little value in running generic "Save the Environment" campaigns if their efficacy is lost to everyone concerned. As the goal of EV is to make environmental issues politically relevant, it is important to be able to demonstrate to politicians, political parties, and governments the actual degree of relevance the environment might have.

It is difficult analyzing the effects of a campaign or political strategy. Measurements are problematic. Allowing for the influence of outside factors is imprecise at best. Experimental controls are not available. And, in reports like this, the bias of those doing the analysis is evident. The best that can be done is to assemble as much evidence as possible and offer conclusions based on the weight of evidence.

The methodology chosen by EV to analyze the effectiveness of its campaign was based on using the 1995 election, which the PCs won, as a form of control or baseline. As EV did not campaign in every poll in every electoral district, a comparison could be made between "EV polls" and "non-EV polls" from 1995 to 1999. The mathematical assumption was made that any percentage change in votes between the 1995 and 1999 elections for the PC candidate should be generally uniform across an electoral district and any differences between "EV polls" and "non-EV polls" would be as a result of the EV campaign.

It is well understood by EV that the problems with this methodology are manifold. However, because all the variables that influence an election result cannot be known let alone measured no matter how mathematically sophisticated a methodology might be, the best that can be hoped for -- no matter what methodology might be used -- is the clear identification of a trend, rather than an accurate measurement of campaign effectiveness. Arguably, the methodology chosen by EV should be able to identify any trend its campaign produced. As EV campaigned in areas that were more favorable to PCs, any bias that might occur would underestimate EV's electoral effect, making whatever conclusions that can be drawn more conservative than exaggerated.

The data used by EV for its analysis of campaign effectiveness is incomplete. The electoral district boundary and poll changes in 1999 made a direct comparison of all polls impossible. While the new Ontario electoral district boundaries closely follow the federal boundaries, the polls do not. The data used therefore is, in fact, a very large sample of polls: those polls that could be reliably compared with the 1995 polls. Polls for which a reliable comparison could not be made between 1995 and 1999 were disregarded. Nevertheless, the analysis does give a reliable indication of the percentage effects of the EV campaign.

The results in each of the targeted electoral districts follow:

Don Valley East

Don Valley East was won by the Liberal, David Caplan, with a plurality of about 3,000 votes or about 7.2% of votes cast over the PC incumbent, Dave Johnson. Environment Voters endorsed David Caplan.

It seems that the EV campaign had a meaningful impact on the defeat of Dave Johnson, the PC, and the election of David Caplan, the Liberal. In the absence of an EV campaign, the data suggest that the race would have been much closer. It can be argued with confidence that if EV had not campaigned in Don Valley East Dave Johnson would have retained his seat.

Don Valley East was one of the most hotly contested seats during the 1999 Ontario election. Most of the groups which had declared their opposition to the PCs campaigned here and supported the Liberal candidate, David Caplan. In choosing to campaign in Don Valley East, EV was concerned that its efforts would be nullified by the other very well funded independent campaigns. But, the analysis suggests that that was not to be the case.

None of the independent campaigns conducted by the teachers, unions, or social justice groups were targeted. These campaigns were either province-wide and generic, directed at their own memberships, or covered an entire electoral district. The nurses' campaign was more focussed being directed at specific areas in marginal electoral districts but failed to direct voters about how to vote. These data suggest that these campaigns in aggregate were able to depress the PC vote by 2.25% in Don Valley East and the EV campaign was able to depress the PC vote by a further 4.73% in the areas in which it campaigned. What is more remarkable is that the areas in which EV campaigned were those that the voting history analysis suggested that the Liberal candidate would have the most difficulty, areas that favored the PC candidate.

Kitchener Centre

Kitchener Centre was won by the incumbent PC candidate, Wayne Wettlaufer, with a plurality of about 4,600 votes or about 10% of votes cast over the Liberal Berry Vrbanovic. Environment Voters endorsed Berry Vrbanovic.

Clearly, EV's campaign had no aggregate effect in Kitchener Centre. The Progressive Conservative's improved their vote throughout the electoral district. It appears that whatever gains the Liberals might have made by the decline of the NDP were offset by the movement of soft Liberal voters to the PCs. And whatever effect the EV campaign may have had was more than offset by larger factors.

An interview was conducted with the Liberal candidate, Berry Vrbanovic, after the election that proved very helpful. According to Vrbanovic, due to rapid development in the area the demographics in Kitchener Centre had been changing over the last few years. The trend has been toward younger families. Vrbanovic was able to take many of the polls in the established urban areas of the electoral district but lost overwhelmingly in the suburban areas. It was in the suburban areas where EV campaigned.

Important lessons were learned in this electoral district. Due to time and funding limitations, EV was not able to do any polling or survey work in the areas identified as marginal by the voting histories. In the absence of local data, it seems clear that EV's message was not targeted or relevant enough to local concerns either about the environment or other issues which might resonate with voters. It was also evident from speaking with Vrbanovic that had EV used its research material to include an attack on Wettlaufer in its videos it is likely that the race would have been much closer, perhaps even giving Vrbanovic the necessary margin to win.

London North Centre

London North Centre was won by the incumbent PC candidate and cabinet minister Diane Cunningham with a plurality of about 1,700 votes or about 3.7% of votes cast over the NDP candidate, incumbent Marion Boyd. Environment Voters endorsed Marion Boyd.

Diane Cunningham's win can, in a large part, be attributed to the crude "strategic voting" initiative being put forward by many union leaders. Rightly or wrongly, the message they were putting out was heard by many voters as "Vote Liberal to defeat Harris." Clearly, the NDP candidate, Marion Boyd, suffered from this in London North Centre.

Marion Boyd was one of the few NDP candidates to increase their share of the vote over 1995. In the absence of the unions' strategic voting initiative, London North Centre should have been a two way race between two popular and effective incumbents. As it turned out, the Liberal candidate who took 20% of the vote became a spoiler for Boyd and the king maker for Cunningham.

Clearly EV's campaign was very poorly conceived in London North Centre. Either the message in the video did not resonate with voters or the wrong polls were chosen for targeting. This electoral district was clearly winnable by Marion Boyd and a better conceived EV campaign may have made that possible. A further analysis of what happened in London North Centre is needed to determine why EV failed here.

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls was won by the incumbent Bart Maves with a plurality of about 1,400 votes or about 3.5% of the vote over Selina Volpatti, the Liberal candidate. Environment Voters endorsed Selina Volpatti.

The major factor in the PC win in Niagara Falls was the strength of the PC core vote. There was very little change between 1995 and 1999. What made the vote close was the dramatic decline in the NDP's share of the vote. The EV campaign had very little impact on the outcome. It is worth noting, however, that EV distributed very few videos in Niagara Falls, only about 2,400, and still managed to produce a 2% greater vote shift than was apparent in the polls where EV did not campaign. Nonetheless, given the strength of the PC core vote and the almost total collapse of the NDP, it appears that there simply may not have been enough non-PC votes to be had in this election to put the Liberal candidate over the top. Perhaps, if EV had had the budget to distribute a video to every residence in Niagara Falls the outcome might have been different.

Prince Edward Hastings

Prince Edward Hastings was won by Ernie Parsons, the Liberal, with a plurality of about 50 votes or .14% of the vote over the PC incumbent Gary Fox. Environment Voters endorsed Ernie Parsons. It is highly unlikely that the Liberal, Ernie Parsons, would have taken the Prince Edward Hastings seat in the absence of the EV campaign. It is worth noting that no other independent campaigns were run in Prince Edward Hastings.

The decision to run in Prince Edward Hastings was not entirely based on the criteria set out above in Campaign Strategy and Tactics . The analysis suggested that the PC incumbent should win the electoral district fairly easily. However, at the very strong urgings of a group of local activists it was decided to enter the Prince Edward Hastings race. The rural areas of the electoral district were very stable in their voting patterns and the campaign logistics would prove very difficult. Belleville seemed to have a very stable voting pattern as well. But, a closer look at the voting history analysis suggested that for any EV involvement to have a meaningful effect, campaigning in the towns of Frankford and Picton was the best that could be done. Unlike in other electoral districts where the video distribution was to every second house, in Frankford and Picton every home received a video. The results seem to argue that these were the right choices.

Discussions with Liberal campaign workers after the election was enlightening. They offered that the only reason they won was because they took areas that had never gone Liberal before: the towns of Frankford and Picton.

St. Paul's

St. Paul's was won by Michael Bryant, the Liberal, with a plurality of about 4,800 votes or 10% of the votes cast over the PC incumbent and cabinet minister, Isabel Bassett. Environment Voters endorsed Michael Bryant.

The data suggest that the EV campaign in St. Paul's had little impact on the final outcome. There was a definite vote shift. Indeed, in the EV polls the PC vote went down while in the non-EV polls it marginally increased. Nonetheless, other political factors and influences overwhelmed whatever effect the EV campaign might have had. Even if EV had not campaigned in St. Paul's Michael Bryant, the Liberal, would have won or, a more accurate explanation might be, the PC candidate, Isabel Bassett was doomed to lose.

The voting history of St. Paul's, due to the boundary changes of the electoral district, suggested that this electoral district should be won by the Liberals. Indeed, so strong was the evidence that it was difficult for the EV campaign team to see any way, barring some general Liberal meltdown as happened in 1995, for the incumbent Isabel Bassett to win. As well, due to the change in electoral districts, St. Paul's has a very heavy concentration of tenants and the PC's policies on landlord and tenant issues severely eroded tenants' rights, causing and creating fears of much financial hardship and dislocation. The decision to campaign in St. Paul's was driven in a large part by the facts that the incumbent PC was a cabinet minister and very vulnerable.

Toronto Centre Rosedale

Toronto Centre Rosedale was won by the Liberal, George Smitherman, with a plurality of about 4,000 votes or about 8.8% of the votes cast over the PC candidate Durhane Wong-Rieger. Environment Voters endorsed George Smitherman.

It seems from the data that the EV campaign had a significant effect on the defeat of the PC in Toronto Centre Rosedale and the election of the Liberal, George Smitherman.

Toronto Centre Rosedale was a difficult electoral district in which to campaign. The PCs ran a strong candidate with very good credentials, but she was burdened with the taint of the incumbent Al Leach who, because of PC policies that adversely affected most sectors in the electoral district, was unelectable and chose not to run. The Liberal candidate was experienced and, as an openly gay candidate, was expected to appeal to the large gay and lesbian community in Toronto Centre Rosedale. A very strong independent candidate, John Sewell, a former Toronto mayor, was also running. Sewell's campaign organization was based on the Citizens for Local Democracy group he founded to combat Toronto's amalgamation. Sewell was expected by some pundits to win the seat, despite the fact that independent candidates have never faired well in Ontario.

The problem for EV in Toronto Centre Rosedale was not only diminishing the PC vote, but campaigning in areas where Sewell might be expected to split the vote thereby allowing the PC candidate to win the seat as Al Leach, the PC, had done in 1995. EV campaigned in areas of high PC and NDP concentration.

After the election, George Smitherman, M.P.P. for Toronto Center Rosedale was kind enough to provide his opinions about the EV campaign in his electoral district. In his opinion, the EV campaign played a significant role in his election. During the last days of the campaign, many people told him they had received the video and viewed it. He explained that during the campaign his opponent, independent candidate John Sewell, was positioning himself as the only candidate who could beat the PC candidate in the riding. Smitherman believes that the EV video helped to counter that message and encouraged voters to see him as the candidate to pick to beat the PCs, rather than Sewell.

Understanding that TV is the most powerful medium for delivering political messages, Smitherman said it was helpful for his campaign to be seen on television rather than just in the printed matter that his campaign was distributing. Further, the PC candidate, Durhane Wong-Reiger was also distributing videos which contained a message from Premier Harris endorsing her. Smitherman believes that it helped him enormously to have Wong-Reiger's message countered using the same medium, something Smitherman would have been unable to do himself.

Effectiveness of the Environment Voters Campaign

There are a number of ways to measure the effectiveness of the Environment Voters campaign. The first is to determine if the campaign moved votes as intended. For the most part, the EV campaign succeeded in this area. Even in electoral districts where the PC candidates retained their seats, the plurality by which they won was greatly reduced since the last election, suggesting that if EV had had the budget to drop videos in every household the PC candidates would have likely lost.

The second, and most important, means to judge the success of the EV campaign is the effect it has on the Ontario government's environmental policies. While it would be presumptuous to declare "success" this early in the government's new mandate, it does seem, however, that there has been a dramatic policy in shift in Ontario. EV representatives met with the new Minister of the Environment, the Honourable Tony Clement, in September. There is little doubt that Mr. Clement is personally committed to improving Ontario's environmental policies. Within a few days of our meeting, for example, he plugged serious loop holes in Ontario's environmental laws that permitted toxic waste form the US being dumped in Ontario landfill sites. Mr. Clement has publicly admitted that Ontario's environmental protection laws are some of the worst in North America and has pledged to make Ontario one of the best jurisdictions. This is in marked contrast to the political attitude of the Progressive Conservative party before the campaign when environmentalists were considered nothing but "special interests" destroying the economic competitiveness of Ontario businesses and everything possible was being done to dismantle environmental protection laws or make them voluntary.

Only time will tell if EV's Ontario election campaign produces the desired policy changes. Suffice it to say, the environmental protection policies that the current government chooses to pursue will form the basis of EV's campaign in the next Ontario election. And it is genuinely hoped that the government's policies are such that EV will be able to campaign in favor of PC candidates in the next election, not against them.

And lastly, the managers and strategists behind the EV campaign were recently recognized by their peers -- a welcome recognition. Each year the political consulting industry's trade magazine, Campaigns & Elections, holds a number of seminars. This year it was held in Toronto, Ontario. EV was invited to make a presentation at the seminar. EV's approach to campaigning and politics is somewhat unique, in particular the idea of trying to measure campaign effectiveness and the use of targeted videos. The seminar is attended by politicians, political party organizers, pollsters, fund raisers, government bureaucrats, non-governmental organizations, etc. After the seminar, the attendees were asked to rank the various presentations made over the three day event; EV's presentation was in the highest rated panel.

Lessons Learned

A number of lessons were learned during the course of the Environment Voters campaign, both from the EV campaign in particular and from the other independent campaigns. This is an interim report and it is likely that this list will be expanded in the final report. Presented in no particular order:

1. Courting the media during an election is generally not worth the time or expense for independent campaigns. Notwithstanding item 6 in Campaign Strategy and Tactics above, an attempt was made to solicit press interest in the EV campaign, in hopes that some press coverage might augment the effects of the video. However, despite contacting every media outlet covering every electoral district in which EV campaigned and distributing campaign materials and releases, EV's campaign was only mentioned in two small newspaper stories that appeared in London and Kitchener. Television and radio, despite receiving dubs of the appropriate videos, were utterly disinterested. Upon receiving the EV press material, a Trenton area radio station did call trying to sell ad time.
2. It appears that many, perhaps most, voters give very little weight to their vote; they vote more out of a sense of civic duty rather than any conviction that it matters. Because of this, many voters are quite prepared to shift their vote if given any reasonable reason to do so. The environment, it seems, in some areas is one of those reasons.
3. The environment is of more concern to people than the popular press or the political community generally believes. When pollsters, at the service of clients with various biases, ask what issues concern people, the survey contacts tend to repeat the issues that the popular press, particularly television news, has chosen to report on: the deficit, political scandal, homelessness, crime, drugs, etc. The press then reports these survey findings, which it has inadvertently created, as news. The process becomes recursive and self-fulfilling. In this way, public opinion is manufactured, not measured. If the popular media, in its collectivity, has decided that the environment is a story "that's already been done" and stops reporting on it, the issue fails to show up on public opinion surveys. And, as surely night follows day, the press and politicians believe the environment no longer matters to people. However, some deep concerns have become intrinsic. The environment is one of them. And, these concerns can be readily tapped in an independent political campaign to good effect.
4. Using paid services, rather than volunteers, to distribute videos should be considered. The cost of such services are very reasonable. While the volunteers who distributed the EV videos did a fine job and were crucial to this campaign none of them were logistically equipped to deal easily with thousands of videos. So much is at stake in getting the videos delivered to the right places on time, that the expense of using professional distributors is justified. Local organizers can be used to ground check the work of the distributors.
5. A number of electoral district choices were based not entirely on the political analyses but took into account other non-political factors, particularly whether or not volunteers were available to help with distribution. The choices of London North Centre, Kitchener Centre, and Niagara Falls, the three losing EV campaigns, were all heavily influenced by this factor. As noted in 4 above, the use of commercial distribution services would permit this factor to be disregarded and allow the electoral district choices to be made as much as possible on the basis of political factors, surveys, and research.
6. The success in Prince Edward Hastings suggests that many rural electoral districts that initial research does not suggest are marginal may, in fact, be areas where EV can campaign successfully. The reasons for this are not yet clear, but the fact that these areas do not have the same concentration of media as larger urban areas may be a factor. These rural areas tend not receive as much attention from the leaders' campaigns as more urban areas close to media centers. As local candidates tend to run very simple even crude campaigns, perhaps the introduction of a video may have a greater effect than might be normally expected.
7. Television is television. With only few exceptions, it matters little if the program that a voter sees is a broadcast ad, a television news item of a staged political event, a paid political infomercial, or a video dropped on a door step. What is important is that the message is delivered via the television in the home. People are so conditioned to getting their information and entertainment through visual media that other media have lost much of their impact.
8. Environmental protection-based independent election campaigns have an enormous advantage over the campaigns of political parties and those of many other interest groups. Voters do not generally believe that politicians and political parties are working for the public good, but rather for powerful commercial interests and their own personal benefit. The same can be said for groups like the nurses, teachers, and various unions. The perception is that although the nurses may be campaigning for better health care and the teachers for better education, at the heart of their concerns is higher pay and shorter work weeks, in other words, personal gain. Environmentalists, however, are not painted with the same brush. Most people do not believe that environmentalists are campaigning for benefits that will only accrue to them, but rather for benefits that everyone will not only enjoy but also need. This imbues an environmental based campaign with inherent credibility.
9. Non-targeted, generic, province wide campaigns such as those run in the 1999 election by various educational and health groups and some unions have little effect on voters. Union "strategic voting" initiatives, while possibly playing a role in decimating the NDP, had little effect on the outcome of the election and will likely have little effect on policy. Also campaigns based on the idea of getting rid of a particular leader are not particularly effective, it would seem. Most of these campaigns had at their core a deep antipathy towards Premier Harris and the PCs, rather than the goal of producing good public policy. This does not appear to be a good position from which to develop a political strategy, particularly when most voters do not feel as strongly about these matters.
10. After finishing a campaign based exclusively on "getting out the message" by distributing videos, it is difficult to see how other media, particularly print, might be used effectively in future campaigns. For targeted independent campaigns, the advantages of video seem to outweigh all other media at this time. It is possible to envision future campaigns that are primarily video based but augmented by some form of canvassing in particular areas.

Recommendations and Conclusions

The results of Environment Voters 1999 Ontario election campaign argue strongly for involvement in future elections certainly at both the federal and provincial levels and, perhaps, the municipal level as well. It is evident that even in electoral districts like Don Valley East, thought to be dominated by interests and groups ostensibly more powerful and certainly better funded than EV, EV was more successful at shifting votes. This probably says as much or more about the importance of environmental issues as it does about EV's campaigning expertise.

If there were doubts about the ability of EV and environmental issues to influence the outcome of an electoral contest, they can be set aside. However, a caveat is necessary: elections are dynamic activities and there will often be times when even the most well managed and properly funded EV campaign will be overwhelmed by more compelling political factors. An important macro factor, for example would be the failure of a major party or local candidate to run a competent campaign.

It is as true for independent campaigns as it is for candidates: Jesse Helms had it right when he said, "Money is a politician's best friend." Without question the most debilitating restraint on the Environment Voters 1999 Ontario election campaign was money. The short time between the founding of EV and the Ontario election meant EV could not raise the funds necessary to run the best campaign possible. It is vital to EV's objectives that fund raising for any particular election begin a year or two prior to the election being called. This recommendation is particularly cogent given that a federal election can be expected in about two years and the federal Liberal government's environmental record is no better than that of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives. More than any other factor, fund raising will determine EV's future influence on environmental policy.

The polling and survey work done for the 1999 Ontario campaign was not adequate to develop the most effective videos possible for each of the targeted electoral districts. This deficiency may have contributed to the losses in Niagara Falls, Kitchener Centre, and London North Centre. As producing highly targeted electoral district specific videos is technically and economically feasible, future campaign budgets, where possible, should include adequate funding for polling and surveys for each electoral district.

For every PC candidate except Wong-Rieger, EV had video or other items such as newspaper clippings that, if used, would have undermined the credibility of local PC candidates. The decision not to use this material -- not to go "negative" -- should be reviewed. In at least two campaigns, London North Centre and Niagara Falls, the use of this material might well have reduced the support of the PC candidate enough to change the outcome of the contest.

In the wake of the Ontario election, the question remaining, one only time can answer, is what impact will EV's campaigns have on environmental policy in Ontario and the rest of Canada?