Well-known community activist Sarah Jama (pictured, centre) will represent the Ontario NDP in former party leader Andrea Horwath’s previous riding. Photo credit: Twitter/Sarah Jama
With Andrea Horwath moving on from provincial politics, the riding of Hamilton Centre is currently without an MPP. Hamilton Centre runs east-west from Kenilworth Avenue to the 403 and north-south from Lake Ontario to the Niagara Escarpment.
Horwath served as MPP from 2004 until 2022, representing the riding of East Hamilton and then Hamilton Centre when the boundaries were redrawn. She was re-elected to the Ontario Legislature in June, but just weeks later, on July 26, announced that she would be running for Mayor of Hamilton. As such, she officially vacated her seat in the legislature on August 15, 2022.
A seat can be vacant for up to six months, meaning that Premier Doug Ford must call a by-election for the riding before February 15, 2023.
In preparation for the by-election, some provincial parties have begun vetting and nominating candidates. And, for obvious reasons (Hamilton Centre is one of the strongest NDP seats in Ontario), the Ontario NDP nomination was the most intriguing. Whichever candidate emerged from the NDP nomination would most likely end up being elected in the by-election.
A number of names, all speculative, were discussed on social media as people who would potentially vie for the job, including federal NDP candidate for Hamilton East-Stoney Creek Nick Milanovic, provincial NDP candidate for Hamilton East-Stoney Creek Zaigham Butt, City Councillor Nrinder Nann, and former Hamilton East-Stoney Creek NDP MP Wayne Marston.
However, the Ontario NDP has a policy that when an incumbent NDP MPP vacates their seat the party will only nominate “an equity-deserving candidate to replace them.” Thus, the NDP stipulated that their candidate would have to be “a woman, a candidate who is Black, Indigenous, or racialized, a person from the 2SLGBTQ+ community or a candidate with a disability.”
In July 2022, controversial Hamilton-based “abolish the police” advocate Sarah Jama announced that she would be seeking the NDP nomination.
In October 2022, the NDP said that Jama, 28, was the only approved candidate and that she would be acclaimed as the NDP nominee. It is unclear if anyone else sought the nomination but were not approved by the party.
Jama has been involved in a number of controversial protests and was even arrested at the site of a Hamilton Police homeless encampment clean-up at a local Hamilton park. She faced charges, but they were later dropped.
She has tweeted support for “abolishing” and “dismantling” the police, although it appears that those tweets have now been deleted. She is also reported to have been allegedly involved in an incident at former Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger’s personal residence. Protestors showed up in the dark in 2020 to Eisenberger’s home and left a coffin in front of his house, saying that there was blood on his hands.
They called for an immediate 50 per cent cut to Hamilton Police Service funding and for half of the money to be diverted to “free housing.”
Jama has been involved with the Disability Justice Network of Ontario, Hamilton Transit Riders’ Union, Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, Community Benefits Network, and Hamilton CareMongering. She has been involved in NDP political campaigns and served on the NDP federal council and executive.
According to polling projections by political analyst Philippe J. Fournier, the NDP have a greater than 99 per cent chance of getting re-elected. Horwath received 58 per cent of the vote in June, the PCs 16 per cent, the Ontario Liberals 13 per cent, and Ontario Greens nine per cent.
Jama and the NDP have already held multiple foot and phone canvasses since November 2022.
As for the other political parties, the Ontario Liberal website does not indicate a nomination race. The previous Ontario Liberal candidate for Hamilton Centre announced that she will not be running in order to be by her “father’s side while he is facing serious health issues.”
Speculation on social media has suggested names such as Jason Farr and even Keanin Loomis as potential high-profile Liberal candidates. Farr ran for the Ontario Liberals in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek in June and later lost in Ward 2 for City Councillor to Cameron Kroetsch. Loomis ran for Mayor of Hamilton in October, losing to Horwath 59,216 votes to 57,553.
It remains unclear who the PC Party will nominate. Their candidate in June was former London, Ontario-based academic and journalist Sarah Bokhari.
Meanwhile, the Ontario Greens have nominated Lucia Iannantuono, a hardware designer who grew up in Muskoka but moved to Hamilton to study electrical engineering.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
