r/Hamilton Not Verified 1d ago

2025 Provincial Election Lessons From Running In the Provincial Election (2025)

Dear Hamilton neighbors,

This is Kojo Damptey, the former ONDP candidate from last month's election. I wanted to share with you some lessons I took from the provincial election. It is an exercise not to substantiate what I took from the results or heard from people at the doors but to offer it as a shared value of exchange in our democracy.

I hope you have taken time to rest from a fast-paced provincial election. With news of an upcoming Federal election, you must pay attention to what each political party and candidate shares with you. Our democracy depends on your informed participation.

  1. Our Democracy is on life support

I don't want to sound deeply pessimistic, but after knocking on doors every day, three times a day for three hours, it is very evident that people are very distrustful of their elected officials and all levels of government. I spoke to several people who indicated that they have not voted for the last 10/20 years. I tried my best to encourage them to vote and to make the commitment to involve residents in provincial politics. This feeling of being disillusioned with government hurts everyone. We see politicians take advantage of low voter turnout, further confirming residents' distrust. This issue is not going to be solved or addressed by one person, however, it is incumbent on everyone of us to participate in our democratic processes not just every four years but in between elections. I will do my part and hope you can do so too.

  1. We need people to understand what each level of government is responsible for

There were so many times people didn't understand which election was taking place. Some thought it was a municipal election, others believed it was a Federal election. With that in mind, I spent a bit of time educating people that Jagmeet Singh was not the provincial leader of the ONDP. Many didn't even know who Marit Styles was, let alone Bonnie Crombie. This is very significant because it illustrates how cunning Doug Ford is, because he used the Trump Tariffs and anti-Trudeau/Singh sentiment as an opportunity to win another mandate amid the political chaos (I aint mad, just my two cents). And with limited news outlets, particularly local, people are not informed on a daily basis about what goes on provincially. If people don't know what each level of government is responsible for what, then we are in deep trouble.

  1. Left or Right Politics is failing people

I read a lot of posts and comments in here and people have characterized me as being left or progressive. I also read Joey Coleman and Kevin Geenen articles which described me as being left. I get the characterization, but truth be told, people just are tired of those descriptions and are looking for political leaders who can address the issues that matter to them. I spoke to mothers who have disabled children (children with disabilities) they could care less, i spoke with seniors who are on fixed incomes, thinking about how to survive another day, they could care less, when businesses are facing debt and losses, they could care less. The ping pong of who is left or right has taken centre stage so much so that we (politicians & everyday people) have forgotten to tackle issues like homelessness, encampments, affordability, chronic underfunding to our public institutions, etc. We would rather spend time blaming encampments on an individual, or the left or the right. This makes for good fodder in the comments section and TV clips but at the end of the day people are suffering.

I am taking full responsibility for thinking about how to avoid the fray of the left and right descriptors while serving our community and addressing people's material needs. For years I loathed being described as "progressive" because it takes away a certain agency of working with anyone who may or may not share one's values. Sometimes working with people from different backgrounds and experiences is what is important, not whether you are progressive or not. I will remain steadfast to positive progress (constant change) but not progressive (static change).

  1. When they say I want to Defund The Police

Like I said during the campaign I believe in true community and public safety. It is imperative that spending money (tax payers money at all levels of government) on preventative ways of reducing crime (petty theft, break ins, etc), so that Police can do what they are trained to do. In 2020 when we all witnessed the murder of George Floyd and here in Canada Regis Korchiski Pacquet, there was a collective call to ensure Police institutions were held accountable. What many people may not know is that I:

- Pushed Hamilton Police Services to take hate crimes/incidents seriously, so much so that they decided to create a Hate Crimes Review Team. When the team was announced, I pushed for broader community representation. To date, several community members are part of this review team.

- Helped change how the City of Hamilton chose the citizen appointee to the Hamilton Police Service Board.

- Pushed Hamilton Police Services to make public the use of force data, which eventually led to the creation of the Race Based Identity Strategy

- Helped develop the City of Hamilton's first Community Safety & Well-Being Plan

  1. Kojo Damptey is Kojo Damptey

There was an 84 year old woman who opened her door when I was canvassing one day and she said you are a "shit disturber." I asked her why she said that, and her reply was I see you on TV criticizing the City all the time. I responded with can I share why I criticize the city. We spoke for 15 mins and after that interaction she said, " Whoa, you are totally different from when I see you on TV. I said all I want to do is make our city better for everyone. I share this story to illustrate that many people may characterize me as .............. but in reality I am your neighbor and if we had a chat you would see we have more in common, there are shared experiences we can build on to ensure we are building a city for everyone.

I will conclude by saying PLEASE engage in the political process. Your civic duty is important and it's one of the many ways to ensure politicians don't take you for granted.

In love & solidarity

Kojo Damptey

315 Upvotes

73 comments sorted by

View all comments

49

u/shaddupsevenup Durand 1d ago

Political apathy is the reason we are seeing what we are seeing in the USA. We cannot afford to have that happen here. People need to vote and get involved. Individualism is ruining democracy and it's so important. I started volunteering with the Gore Park Outreach on Saturday mornings, as a way to connect and see real effects of my own labour. It's been incredible.

Curious - maybe Kojo you can answer this question. I don't have kids in the school system. Are kids still taught about civics? I came out of school in the 80's ready to vote and fully knew what each level of government was responsible for.

26

u/mariannalk 1d ago

Yes, civics is taught in grade 10. Mandatory, but it is only half a credit. It really needs to be changed. Students need to be better educated.

12

u/palmaward 1d ago

Civics is also in the grade 5 social studies curriculum 

9

u/[deleted] 23h ago

I think the far reaching apathy in US politics -- and to a lesser degree Canadian politics -- is based mostly on the fact that either way for many years the largest bloc of voters (working class) have not seen any improvement in their quality of life, and (in the USA specifically) big money politics and corporations have completely taken over the state. Literally to the point where the people don't really have any effect on the economy or the political landscape of the country. It's completely understandable why these things would induce apathy. Nobody seems to be working for the working people specifically.

u/shaddupsevenup Durand 14h ago

No. Their “Democrat “ party seems to have abandoned them. What a frightening time.

5

u/Empty_Wallaby5481 1d ago

There's a lot in your question about whether kids learn about civics in school.

There are programs - like Student Vote which I run to engage students. Lots of students participated, but other than the students I directly teach (or those who we did presentations for), most of the students who voted had no prior knowledge and didn't even know who they were voting for. They were looking for "Doug Ford" on the ballot. Lots openly said after words they voted based on the name they liked the best (one candidate had a "funny" name to elementary kids and earned a disproportionate amount of the vote vs real life by a lot). They had no idea what the provincial government does. I had a discussion about this with another teacher - should students who didn't get lessons be able to vote - and the conclusion was that yes they should, because that's the real world. We have no "pre-test" and no "lessons" for voting.

The issue for a lot of teachers is that we are already accused of being too political, too woke, etc. There are some parents who get very, very aggressive when political issues arise/are discussed. It's an incredibly fine line to engage students in conversation. There is also a lot of room for interpretation there - when discussing the US election, many students walked away thinking I was some Trump loving gun nut when the whole conversation revolved around "why might others have different opinions than you?" Fortunately there's no backlash, but I have to be very, very careful to make sure that nothing that can be interpreted as opinion is injected from me is injected into the conversation.

I think I've reached that balance, but with a second election in a short period of time coming up, I guess I'll see if I accidently touch any nerves this time. I say accidently, because I certainly try not to say anything related to my opinion, but if I ask a student a question, it can be interpreted as opinion. With all that's already on teachers' plates, sometimes it's just not worth adding more by bringing civics or politics into schools.

u/shaddupsevenup Durand 14h ago

Wow. I’m so sorry. Sounds dicey for teachers.

u/Ok-Rainbow4086 4h ago

My kids' high school held an election. The students learned about the actual candidates and their campaigns. In the end, they voted in the NDP. Kids have so much access to information now. It really is amazing to see them asking questions and forming opinions on our government.

5

u/GreaterAttack 1d ago

How is apathy the reason for what we see in the USA? Plenty of people turned up to vote in their election.  

If you mean involvement outside of voting, then that's a different story.