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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 07 April 2025

Elections Canada confirmed today that the NDP is fielding Anna Gollen as their candidate in this month’s Federal election. 

Nominations closed at 2pm this afternoon (7 April 2025). So far, only the Conservative, Liberal and NDP candidates appear on the official Elections Canada website but it will be updated with the definitive list posted on Wednesday. The People’s Party of Canada says their candidate is Andre Gagnon. The Greens are fielding David Hitchcock.

No chance

The NDP’s Anna Gollen is a paper candidate with no hope of winning.

She has no track record of doing anything in Newmarket-Aurora but I wait to see her profile once it is posted on the NDP candidates website. She has no digital footprint and her “campaign” as I tap this out is completely dark.

Mandy Price

Her election agent, Mandy Price, is also the agent for two other NDP candidates in this election, in Bowmanville-Oshawa North and Orleans. But there may be more.

In January the NDP was looking to recruit

“numerous Election Campaign Official Agents to act on behalf of local election campaigns across the country as Official Agents”. 

It may be that Mandy Price is one.

Spoiler

I wouldn’t object to Anna Gollen running for election to the Federal Parliament if she had a track record of doing things. Campaigning. Speaking out. Causing trouble. Being a nuisance.

But we don't have that here. She has been parachuted in.

Until I get to know her, Anna Gollen is just another paper candidate whose only role in this election is to act as a spoiler, increasing the chances of a Conservative win. 

Sandra Cobena and her team will be rubbing their hands with glee.

Brand Strength

In the last three Federal elections in Newmarket-Aurora the NDP vote was greater than the difference between the Conservatives and Liberals. Admittedly, in those elections the NDP had a very strong candidate, standing head and shoulders above all the other contenders. But, even with an invisible candidate this time around, the NDP could easily pick up few thousand votes just on the strength of the brand alone.

Astonishingly, there are no election debates being organised in Newmarket-Aurora in what could be one of the most consequential elections in the nation’s history. So voters have no way of getting the measure of Ms Gollen.

The boundary of Newmarket-Aurora has changed for this election taking a chunk out of the south-west corner and, with it, some Conservative support.

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Update on 9 April 2025: There appears to be no PPC or Green candidates running in this election.

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 05 April 2025

The latest projection from Éric Grenier - who does the CBC's Poll Tracker - puts the Liberals as the likely winners of the election in Newmarket-Aurora.

This is the state of play on Saturday 5 April 2025.

Grenier defines likely and unlikely this way:

Likely means the party has a high likelihood of winning the seat, though there is an outside chance (less than 5%) that another party could win.

The converse, unlikely, means the party is not in serious contention for the seat, but there is an outside chance that, with enough polling and modelling error and/or local dynamics at play, the party could pull off an upset. This is the flipside of the “Likely” rating.

The big unknown is whether the NDP candidate, Anna Gollen, will secure the 100 endorsements from local electors which she needs to get on the ballot paper. We shall know on Monday.

If it is a straight fight between the Liberals and the Conservatives there is little doubt Jennifer McLachlan will be our next MP.

That said, it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings.

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 04 April 2025

Newmarket Public Library’s membership rocketed last year by an eye-watering 9,476 new members. We are told this was a 43.47% increase on 2023. 

These figures remind me of the old tractor production statistics we used to get from the former Soviet Union.

So good they can’t possibly be true.

The Library’s Chief Executive, Tracy Munusami, will be giving a presentation to Newmarket councillors on Monday (7 April 2025) on the Library’s annual Report to the Community 2024 and I shall be interested to hear what she has to say.

Amazing!

In the time she has been in charge I have grown used to Ms Munusami’s well-polished library lingo. 

Everything is amazing, exciting and extraordinary.

So when Library Board chair, Darryl Gray, told us in the foreword to the Library’s latest Report to the Community that 2024 had been extraordinary and membership had grown significantly I had to take a second look.

“This past year has been extraordinary for the Newmarket Library, marked by significant growth in membership and an expanded presence throughout our community.”

Where did the 9,476 new members come from?

It wasn’t from the Library’s outreach programme which saw “new card memberships” increase by 595 in 2023 and 1,543 in 2024.

A simple request. Can we have the number of library members for 2024 and for 2023?

Comparisons

It’s not an easy job tracking down the figures. We used to get detailed statistics on library usage in a time series that allowed us to compare performance over the years. But that’s all been thrown out of the window. 

In the latest Report to the Community we see, for the most part, amazing percentage increases in Library usage from 2023. And where, unusually, we see a 26.34% decrease in “reference questions answered”  we are told:

“it is highly likely that this significant decrease is due to a technical error”.

Significant increase

It may well be that these “new members” are simply former members rejoining the library after the COVID pandemic. Perhaps the library suspended membership renewals during COVID.  But if that is the case then the “significant” increase in membership should be labelled as such.

I wrote to Ms Munusami last December about the Library’s outreach work and about the huge increase in the number of “out-of-town” members.

In September 2024 the number of out-of-town members (5,830) was more than a quarter of the total membership which, at that point, was 22,935. 

I asked her:

“What explains the very significant increase in out-of-town members in 2024? In speaking to your counterparts in neighbouring libraries, is this surge in out-of-town members something that they too are experiencing?”

She told me:

“Over 3.9 million Ontarians, or nearly 27% of the population, hold a public library card. Collectively, the goal across Ontario public libraries is to provide equity of access to information and contribute to education, literacy and life-long learning. This starts with getting more people through library doors, which is why we open ours. 

The Newmarket Library has a long-standing reciprocal borrowing agreement with York Region Libraries, Bradford West Gwillimbury Library and Brock Township Libraries.

We have removed barriers to open up our membership system so our library is accessible to anyone who may come through its doors. This included removing fines and welcoming our out-of-town neighbours to become members.  

We also know that Newmarket is a regional hub that brings people into our community for shopping, recreation and culture programs, and healthcare, which in turn may bring more people into our library.

In speaking with library counterparts, we all take a similar open-door approach, so much so that many libraries do not distinguish out-of-town users within the data they capture.

The Library receives funding from the province in addition to municipal funding.”

Her reply didn’t really answer my question.

Free membership, Province wide 

Newmarket library now allows free membership to anyone living in Ontario. That means non-residents can borrow what they like and sign up to services such as Hoopla which costs the Library money for each item borrowed.

This is a different approach from many other libraries in Ontario. They charge non-residents fees unless reciprocal arrangements apply. For example, Bradford and West Gwillimbury charge $60 a year; East Gwillimbury $40; Toronto $150; Hamilton $100; Burlington $63 and so on.

Our neighbour, Aurora, charges an annual fee of $80 to non-residents coming from areas with no reciprocal agreement.

The Library Chief Executive, Jodi Marr, tells me the number of these non-residents is 10 or less.

Breakdown

So are these out-of-towners joining Newmarket Library for free and then using their membership to access other libraries in York Region where a membership fee would ordinarily have to be paid?

Should Newmarket Public Library collect and publish a breakdown showing the numbers of resident and non-resident members and those with reciprocal memberships? 

Tracy Munusami would probably say it serves no useful purpose. 

I disagree.

The library has just started to collect and make available Library membership numbers by ward. That's progress.

So why abandon collecting statistics on non-residents?

Is it just too much hassle?

Or not exciting enough?

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Note: I was told last year that the full range of library statistics for 2023 was not collected.

Click "Read More" below for email from NPL's Chief Executive

Update on 9 April 2025: From Newmarket Today: Focus on Community Outreach gives Newmarket Library a growth spurt

Read more: Newmarket Public Library Report to the Community 2024

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 03 April 2025

Éric Grenier, the brains behind the CBC’s Poll Tracker, says the Liberals remain on track for a majority win. 

In his latest post this morning – the day after Trump announced his global tariffs – Grenier says:

“The Liberals are leading the Conservatives by roughly six points nationwide and would be heavily favoured to win a majority government if an election were held today. The New Democrats and Bloc Québécois, struggling to make headway in the polls, are on track to suffer significant seat losses.”

Leaning towards Liberals

For the past three days Grenier's model has moved Newmarket-Aurora from being a toss-up between the Liberals and the Conservatives to leaning towards the Liberals with a Conservative win still a possibility.

He defines “leaning” this way:

"The party is projected to be leaning and has a good chance of winning the seat, with odds ranging from roughly 68% to 95%."

Philippe Fournier of 338Canada.ca says the Liberals have climbed to their highest projection since the height of the pandemic.

“This second week of the federal campaign shows – on average – no tightening of the race, but rather a widening of the gap between the main parties…”

Collapse

The ascendancy of the Liberals has been fuelled by the collapse in the projected NDP vote.

Here in Newmarket-Aurora we have a completely invisible NDP candidate, Anna Gollen, who was selected, acclaimed and imposed by the Party High Command. The local Party is moribund.

Her name does not yet appear on the list of approved NDP candidates (as of 3 April 2025). 

Missing candidates

Indeed the list only shows 205 candidates running for a Parliament with 343 seats (up from 338). This means that only 60% of ridings currently have an NDP candidate. Nominations close on 7 April 2025 and to get on the ballot paper a candidate must receive the endorsement of 100 electors. No mean task for a complete unknown.

The federal Conservatives and their cousins, the provincial progressive conservatives, have historically benefitted from a split in the vote on the centre-left.

It would be a tragedy if this happened yet again in Newmarket-Aurora where the insertion into the election of a completely unknown NDP appointee were to tip the balance and deliver the seat to the Conservatives.

Tariff Election

Trump’s tariff war has produced a major (if temporary) realignment in Party loyalties. 

And Mark Carney is seen as being the man of the moment.

In the right place at the right time.

People are pragmatically choosing the Liberals as the best available bulwark against the utter madness of Donald Trump.

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