With just days to go before the provincial election, two Green Party candidates in Kitchener-Conestoga and Waterloo have made a surprising move—publicly endorsing their NDP opponents to prevent vote-splitting.
In Waterloo, Shefaza Esmail, the Green candidate, threw her support behind Catherine Fife, the NDP incumbent, a decision that Fife admitted took her by surprise.
“So it’s quite unprecedented, I have to say. This has never happened to me before,” Fife told CTV News.
She first learned about the endorsement through the media and social media on Monday. Despite the unexpected nature of the support, she expressed gratitude.
“She didn’t want to see the vote split, and she didn’t want to see another riding go to Doug Ford, because he’s done a lot of damage in the province,” Fife explained.
Later that evening in Kitchener-Conestoga, another Green candidate, Brayden Wagenaar, followed suit, publicly endorsing NDP candidate Jodi Szimanski during an all-candidates meeting.
“It was the last opening statement of the night, and that’s when Brayden voiced his support,” Szimanski recalled.
Both Fife and Szimanski acknowledged that the NDP and Green Party share common ground on key issues, such as housing, healthcare, and education.
Fife suggested that Esmail’s move might inspire broader conversations about cooperation between political parties in the future.
“What Shefaza did caused us to look at how we interact as political parties and how we can support each other when there’s a greater calling,” she said.
