At City Hall, homeowners call the tune
In municipalities across Ontario, candidates for local office are doing everything they can to reach voters before Election Day on Oct. 27. The campaign, which officially kicked off in January, is in the home stretch. By this point, candidates have knocked on hundreds of doors, shaken hands at summer festivals and block parties and spoken at countless community meetings and debates.
If you are a homeowner, however, your local candidates have likely been paying special attention to you. The reason for this is simple: Data from the General Social Survey, conducted annually by Statistics Canada, show that homeowners vote at much higher rates in municipal elections than renters. The gap is significant even after controlling for a variety of other factors known to influence voter turnout, including age, income and education. While the difference also exists in federal and provincial elections, it is particularly acute at the municipal level.
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