Put to the test, many Ottawans can’t recall many candidates’ or leaders’ names, but they know the significance of their votes.
More than four in 10 Ottawans cannot name a single candidate running for one of the four main parties in their ridings in today’s provincial election.
Further, only one-quarter of survey respondents can successfully name two of their riding’s candidates, while none got three or more.
These unreliable — some would say spurious — results followed a day I spent this week in Orléans, Kanata and the ByWard Market, asking Ottawans how many of the four main party candidates in their riding they could identify, as well as any of those parties’ leaders. I agreed not to identify the people I surveyed so they could be frank about it.
Clearly, I wasn’t conducting a scientific poll. Still, 32 people agreed to speak with me, which, as someone who has done more “streeters” than I care to count, is an incredibly high tally (though it still leaves room to comfortably drive a tank through any notions of rigour or acceptable margin of error).
I was generous in interpreting people’s responses. I accepted, for example, ID’ing local candidates by first name only as positive answers, as well as very nearly getting one candidate’s surname correct, and not knowing another’s name, but knowing she was an adviser to the premier’s office.
I did not, however, give points for identifying one candidate only by her short hair, or describing another simply as “appealing.” I also removed from the plus column such responses as “Oh, I can see her!”, “Wait, I’ve seen lawn signs with his name on them,” and “Oh, you know … what’s-her-name … I got a pamphlet from her.”
Needing a hopeful sign for the future, I did, however, count one savvy 11-year-old girl’s responses as part of her mother’s otherwise unimpressive answers.
Well over half of the respondents knew the name of their riding’s Liberal aspirant (57.6 per cent), while Tory locals were named by 18.7 per cent, and NDP and Green ones by just 3.1 per cent each. This inequity may merit an asterisk on my survey: the three locations at which I chose to canvass owing to the high foot traffic at each — the Market, Place d’Orléans and Kanata Centrum — are all in ridings that were represented by Liberals when the election was called. It stands to reason that those names are more often remembered.
Evening Update
I also asked people if they could name the four party leaders running to be premier. Ottawans fared better at this level, with 87.5 per cent able to name the Progressive Conservative leader and 46.9 per cent correctly identifying the Liberal leader (37.5 per cent if you discount those who recalled only her first name, but why judge so harshly?) The NDP leader was known by name by just 12.5 per cent of Ottawans — 15.6 per cent if a mispronunciation is forgiven — while no one could name the Green Party leader.
It’s about more than names
But what’s in a name? Not everything, it turns out. One of the more promising aspects of my outing was discovering that, while voters’ name recollection may be poor, many people were not actually uninformed. One respondent, a computer programmer who could only recall one of the leaders’ names and none of his local candidates’, said he spent hours online the night before, first researching party platforms and then checking the local candidates’ alignment with those policies. He narrowed his choice down to two parties, he said, and then finally chose the one he would vote for based on the other party’s stand on the use of artificial intelligence in health care.
Another, a 33-year-old nurse who could similarly name just one party leader and no locals, said she watched some of the leaders’ debate and was basing her vote on how what each said and promised would affect her work. “Their decisions are so important to what I do,” she said.
“I will be informed,” promised another. “I’m a thoughtful voter.”
Almost everyone I spoke with indicated that they planned on voting today or, in the case of six early birds, already had. Only four said they definitely weren’t voting: one because he had no address; another who, despite living in Canada for 24 years, eight of them in Ottawa, never registered; one because he feels this election doesn’t matter and that nothing will change as a result; and one who says she’s never voted provincially because she’s never felt well-informed enough.
It was heartening to hear the enthusiasm from so many of these people. Only 44 per cent of eligible voters in the province cast their Xs in the 2022 general election, and Ottawans, while generally more politically active, weren’t exactly knocking down polling stations’ doors. Only three area ridings saw more than half of eligible voters exercise that right last time: Kanata-Carleton (51.4 per cent), Ottawa Centre (50.7) and Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston (just a handful of ballots over 50 per cent) — while two — Ottawa South (42.5) and Ottawa-Vanier (39.4) — fell below the provincial average.
Still, I was buoyed by the people who explained why they felt it was important to vote: the computer programmer and the nurse, for example. Or the Alberta expat and father who told his two voting-age children that they HAD to vote, regardless of how. The 56-year-old Elmvale Acres resident who said she was voting for the first time in her life — at any level — because of the U.S. tariffs. The 34-year air force veteran who was brought up believing that voting was important, and whose vote this year, he said, will be a somewhat a reluctant one, but important, he believes, for stability. The Orléans resident who rated his enthusiasm for the election at 0, but nonetheless had already voted because “that’s our voice in the system.” The one who already voted because “democracy is on the downslope,” and another who described voting as “the cornerstone of democracy.”
My hope is that, if you’ve read this far, you’ll find your reason to vote today. It matters. It’s your voice in the system. And I promise not to quiz you about anyone’s names.
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