New Democratic Party

Ontario election 2011: For Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, it’s all about connecting

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Photo by Anna Mehler Paperny/The Globe and Mail

Saturday, September 24, 2011 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

Friday night in North Bay, Ont. The blonde behind the bar is talking up patrons on tax policy.

They aren’t sure who she is or why she’s here; 15 minutes ago, they’d never heard her name. But they are riveted and, for that matter, so is she: Her politely agitated handlers need to pry her away to scrum outside the pub.

“Can you get her to come back?” schoolteacher and pub-goer Val Spivey asks. “We want to ask about her education policy.”

This is what Andrea Horwath does.

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Politics not in the cards for Andrea Horwath’s son. But his mom? “She’d be stoked” to be premier

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Photo by Anna Mehler Paperny/Globe and Mail

Friday, September 23, 2011 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

Hamilton — Julian Leonetti has a habit of acing his civics exams. But you could argue he has an unfair advantage.

Mr. Leonetti, 18, was raised immersed in a political milieu – tagging along to meetings and putting up signs for his mom, Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

He remembers going from day care to Ms. Horwath’s office in Hamilton city hall, where she was a councillor.

“I would hang with her secretaries and meet all the politicians. … It was actually a really, really, really good environment to grow up in,” he says.

Mind you, he wasn’t so sure about that at the time.

“When I was there, I was bored as hell. But when I look back on it, every other kid was sitting at home, watching Arthur on TV. Those kids weren’t learning what I was learning.”

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The price of democracy: Canada’s election costs have skyrocketed in the past decade

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Saturday, April 2, 2011 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

When Canadians vote on May 2, they’ll be paying for a federal election whose cost has grown 50 per cent in the past decade, thanks in large part to the money given to political parties.

This year’s election is expected to cost $300-million – up from $198-million in 2000.

The amount spent by Elections Canada covers everything it takes to rev up a cross-country electoral machine at the drop of a writ – from hiring and training about 200,000 people, many of whom will only be needed for a day or two, to renting polling stations and conducting campaigns to boost voter turnout (which dropped to only 59 per cent in 2008).

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