Two Green candidates endorse NDP rivals in Waterloo Region days before election

Two Green candidates are telling their supporters to vote for their rivals. CTV’s Heather Senoran explains why.

Days away from the provincial election, two Green candidates in the Kitchener-Conestoga and Waterloo ridings are endorsing their NDP rivals in a bid to avoid vote-splitting.

Catherine Fife, the NDP Candidate in Waterloo and incumbent said she wasn’t expecting an endorsement from her Green party rival Shefaza Esmail.

“So it’s quite unprecedented, I have to say. This has never happened to me before,” Fife told CTV News.

Fife said she heard about it in the media and then on social media Monday. She said she’s grateful for the support and thanked Esmail.

“She didn’t want to see the vote split and she didn’t want to see another riding go to Doug Ford because he’s done a lot of damage in the province,” said Fife.

It happened again Monday evening in the Kitchener-Conestoga riding with Green candidate Brayden Wagenaar endorsing NDP’s Jodi Szimanski.

“It was an all candidates meeting last night and Brayden was the last to give the opening statement and that’s when he gave his support,” said Szimanski.

Both NDP candidates said their platforms do share some similarities with the Greens.

“I agree on a lot of issues when we’re debating. Housing and health care and education,” said Fife.

Fife said this could open up the conversation in the future for coming together when there’s a common goal.

“What Shefaza did caused us to look at how we interact as political parties and how we can support each other when there’s a greater calling,” Fife said.

Is it the right move?

A political science professor said the timing of the endorsements raises some concerns.

“People are going to be confused. People are going to be disappointed,” said Simon Kiss, from Wilfrid Laurier University.

He said it was not a good call on the Green candidate’s part as some have already voted or were planning on voting their way.

“[It’s] going to leave a sour taste in the mouths of people who chose that person to be the Green Party candidates, it doesn’t look good on the Greens,” he said.

Kiss said trying to avoid split-voting is a near impossible task and isn’t worth it. He said strategic voting can sometimes do more harm than good and people should just vote for who they want to.

“It’s every voter’s right to cast a vote for the party that best expresses their values and let the chips fall where they may,” Kiss said.

Schreiner reacts

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said his party is not leader-centric and the bosses of candidates are the people in their riding – not him.

“They made a decision on their own and I respect that decision if that’s what voters in their riding tell them,” he told CTV News.

Schreiner said despite their actions, his party’s momentum is going strong.

“I’m going to continue to keep working hard to elect Greens because people say that we punch well above our weight at Queen’s Park and those are the kinds of local champions we desperately need down at Queen’s Park right now,” Schreiner said.

Ainslinn Clancy, Green Party candidate in Kitchener-Centre, said the actions of those two candidates are not related to her campaign.

“I’m excited for the final few days of the campaign as we connect with more voters from across the community,” she said in a statement to CTV News.