NDP SPLIT MAKES RACE 'HARD TO CALL

East Hamilton-Stoney Creek looked like another sure win for Paul Miller and the NDP in the June 2 provincial election until their acrimonious split over what party leader Andrea Horwath called a "pattern of troubling behaviour."

This included allegedly having been a member of an antiMuslim Facebook page — a claim he rejects as baseless but led Horwath to kick him out of caucus.

Now running as an independent candidate, Miller has coasted to victory in the past three of four elections since the riding's creation in 2007, most recently beating runner-up Progressive

Conservative candidate Akash Grewal by 9,834 votes in 2018.

This time, Miller faces seven challengers, including his NDP successor, rookie Zaigham Butt, Liberal Jason Farr, currently Ward 2 city councillor, and PC Neil Lumsden, a former CFL star running back.

"It's really hard to call that race," observed Peter Graefe, an associate McMaster University political science professor.

He said the Liberals have a higher profile candidate this time and are unlikely to do as poorly as in 2018, when their provincial vote dipped below 20 per cent.

Population growth from new development in Stoney Creek should also benefit the Liberals and PCs more than the NDP, Graefe added.

"Then you have the split between Paul Miller and the NDP, and it's hard to know how many of those votes last time were Paul Miller votes and how many of them were NDP votes," he said.

Graefe said Miller's treatment by the NDP is likely a bigger issue in the party's traditional, steelworker core west of the Red Hill Valley.

But he said he expects most voters to be focused on affordability issues, especially with rising prices for housing and gas, rather than health care and climate change, the latter of which polls show is "completely off the radar."

Anthony Marco, president of the Hamilton District Labour Council, agrees pocketbook issues are top of mind.

He said he won't wade into the Miller-NDP turmoil, but the labour council has only endorsed NDP candidates in Hamilton's four other ridings because it's yet to be asked to do so by any candidate in East Hamilton-Stoney Creek.

Marco said a living wage and benefits for workers are central to the election because they are crucial to other issues, like improving people's health, affordable housing, worker's rights in the gig economy and ensuring kids are fed before they go to school.

He said the NDP is best able to deliver on that front, including with a commitment to raise the minimum wage to $20 per hour over four years.

"We see decent work kind of as a keystone element to helping alleviate poverty in the city, and by doing that, we start to provide relief on a whole bunch of other issues,"

Marco said.

Lynda Lukasik, who lives in the riding and is executive director of Environment Hamilton, said she understands affordability concerns, but believes climate change should be the No. 1 issue.

That includes challenging the Ford government's push for more highways and housing on farmland, and plan to fire up gas plants to meet Ontario's energy needs, she said.

"This current government sucks when it comes to the climate emergency and taking action. They've undone so many things that were taking us in the right direction," Lukasik said, like cancelling a capand-trade agreement on carbon emissions.

She said although the Ford government is belatedly investing in electric vehicles and ArcelorMittal Dofasco's Hamilton plant to make cleaner steel, it's only doing so to save the auto industry.

"I don't think the irony is lost on a lot of Ontario voters who care about these issues that it's the same government that pulled subsidies for Ontarians to be able to purchase an EV (electrical vehicle) and literally ripped out charging stations."

STORY BEHIND THE STORY: We wanted to get some non-politician views on election issues in East Hamilton-Stoney Creek.