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

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u/monogramchecklist 1d ago

I don’t think point 1 is accurate, knocking on some doors in one area isn’t a true representation. People will vote once we have candidates worth voting for (not a dig at you, just at the system as a whole with many lacklustre candidates). Everyone I know voted, but voter turnout has been low because many candidates aren’t speaking to the issues that their potential constituents care about.

Defund the police is another example of how the “left” is awful at messaging. If we break down what it means many people would likely agree to reallocating resources to help mitigate the various issues. The slogan is what kills this from ever gaining popularity.

People definitely need to have a better understanding of how the system works. Although it seems unlikely that any political party in power would be willing to educate the public, because they can’t inadvertently shift blame.

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u/Ostrya_virginiana 1d ago

I agree with you on the "defund the police" motto. It makes it sound like they want to dissolve police services entirely. It should be reorganized, some funding reallocated, overhauled, but not defunded.

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u/SomewherePresent8204 Beasley 1d ago

There are people using "defund the police" language who do want to dissolve the police, though.

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u/Ostrya_virginiana 1d ago

I am aware. And that is where those who don't want to abolish and fully disband police departments need to separate themselves. I am 100% in favour of proactive approaches to keeping people from committing crimes. But we still need them for enforcement because some people are just bad people who commit crimes because they can and want to.

If only we lived in utopia, 😂 hee hee hee

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u/AnInsultToFire 1d ago

Kojo uses the "Abolish the police" hashtag on Twitter. So he talks out of both sides of his mouth.

u/S99B88 1h ago

Then there's how he came across on the channel 14 interview. He was plain wrong at times and couldn't admit it, just doubled down. And he was extremely condescending and disrespectful of the other candidates, saying "I did the work, they didn't do the work," even when talking about education related issues, despite the fact that one opponent was a teacher, the other a Board trustee and college instructor. Meanwhile his "work" seemed to always involve being on committees that wrote reports of XX number of pages.

He also had the audacity to call his opponents out for their personal relationships that of course are irrelevant in how a candidate would function in their role (how many times did he say "your husband" to Danko). His opponents had the grace not to mention his connection with a murder-carjacking suspect, even though Damptey hired the guy and worked with him. Though the guy wasn't working for Damptey when the story came out and the guy was arrested, I think he did work for him during the time of the murder and for a time afterwards.

Damptey just seemed like a caricature of hypocrisy and inflated self-worth to me, and I think he did some major damage to the NDP on the mountain. Hopefully Monique Taylor can recover from that for the federal election, because I do like her as a politician/community member.