there was a noticeable electoral result in hamilton, a large city in the golden horseshoe region of the greater toronto census region. you can bicycle from toronto to hamilton and back without exiting an urban zone, if you have all fucking day to waste. that's not the norm in canada, where population centres are generally separated by large, sprawling green spaces. in that sense, oshawa/toronto/mississaugua/oakville/burlingon/hamilton is really one big city around the lake, with hamilton located at the southwest corner of the lake.

the outgoing mayor of hamilton was badly defeated by a right-wing challenger. she only managed 14%. just a few years ago, she was running for premier of ontario; she was the leader of the ontario ndp for quite a lengthy period and had a lot of influence during the minority phase of the wynne government.

what happened?

all evidence suggests it's the drugs in hamilton, which, like many places in ontario, has seen a stark increase in drug addiction since the pandemic as a result of inflation, immigration, "harm reduction", lingering pandemic restrictions and austerity measures converging into a perfect storm for drug addicts. you could previously afford to live on disability in this province, be a drug addict and get housed. you could even do it on welfare if you could find the right supports. you can't do that anymore - less because of inflation and more because housing availability crashed, due to a combination of population increases (almost entirely due to immigration) and insufficient supply being generated to meet it. if you get evicted here now, and you have addictions problems, you may find it extremely difficult to impossible to get housed without going through the homeless shelter system, and they won't let you stay there unless you're cleaned up, and in the end they'll stick you in some insufficient hole in the wall. so, you end up in a tent, which means you don't vote when it's time. both sides of the political equation are fed up with the established left on this. the poor (including the addicts) want less immigration and more housing, and the conservatives want more policing and less tolerance for the drug use. horwath seems to have decided to run on abortion instead, which is just totally bizarre. it's like she just gave up and everybody could see her giving up in real time.

so hamilton, a union town and often an ndp stronghold, has a new very conservative mayor, and bafflingly voted 85% for the right, in a total rejection of harm reduction and immigration at the same time. 

how much of this is fair and how much of it is voters being dumb?

it's mostly voters being dumb. they won't get what they want from this outcome. they're likely to get cuts n services, and the result is predictable: it won't last long.

but the truth that ndp politicians need to grasp is that the formula on addiction presented by the pseudo-left isn't working. harm reduction isn't working and housing isn't keeping up. everybody's fed up and looking for somebody to blame. horwath had a target on her back due to her experience in toronto, and her identification with the ndp.

the ndp needs to adjust it's messaging on addiction and it's consequences if it wants to return as a competitive political force in the areas it used to dominate.