Toronto residents take a break on a bench outside the Ontario Legislature at Queen's Park in 2009,Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
Go to an event held by any major party leader during the Ontario election campaign, and you'll hear praise for "the team."
The Liberals say they have the "strongest team of candidates representing people from all walks of life and every corner of the world – they are truly the face of Ontario."
"My strong Ottawa and Eastern Ontario team are going to stop the taxman before he can raise your taxes again," Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak in Ottawa.
"I made it very clear to my team their messaging should be about this campaign, about what we're offering, about a positive choice for change that puts people first in this election," New Democratic Party Leader Andrea Horwath said in Chatham.
But who's on the team, anyway? I read through 321 candidate bios this weekend to find out.
When it comes to candidate lists, there is much and deserved attention to the number of women and visible or ethnic minorities running. Equal Voice, which aims to get more women elected, said last week that 30 per cent of the candidates running for the four largest parties are women, only a slight increase over 2007.
One metric that's just as interesting, but discussed less often, is the professional background of the parties' slates. What jobs the candidates used to hold can matter a great deal. Ideally, government is supposed to have some connection to the people it represents. If a party has too many members from one kind of profession, or lacks people with knowledge of or expertise in a given field – be it medicine, the law, business, the non-profit sector, or the experience of hardship or privation – it risks losing touch.
It can cause embarrassment too. U.S. president George H. W. Bush's discovery of the common supermarket scanner, or Ontario Social Services Minister David Tsubouchi's suggestion to welfare recipients that they get by on discounted tuna, show the political dangers that arise when too members of the team, or the key person on the team, appears out of step with the electorate on the daily basics.
Finding the right mix of candidates isn't really about creating a super-powered cabinet. Indeed, when it comes to cabinet-making, premiers intentionally try not to match portfolio to a minister's background. Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan ran an addictions recovery home in a previous life. Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky had considerable experience as a school board trustee and chair – but former Tory Education Minister John Snobelen had a Grade 9 education.
The best organized parties are able to draw from, and elect, people from a wide range of backgrounds, while exhibiting some areas of specific strength, relating to their platform or their roots as a party.
Some expected patterns hold. Politics has long drawn people from teaching, the law, small business and from the ranks of political assistants, and the parties have each nominated strongly among their traditional constituencies.
Tory Leader Tim Hudak, running primarily on an economic message, has bulked up with owners or senior managers in small business (31 of his 107 candidates, compared to 17 from the Liberals and nine from the NDP – another 12 Tory candidates have big business backgrounds, compared with two from the Liberals and none from the NDP).
The NDP has nominated 10 union officials (none from the other parties). The Liberals have nominated 12 people in health care (compared with six New Democrats and two Tories).
Of the 26 teachers, 13 are Liberals, 10 are New Democrats and three Tories.
Twenty-three lawyers are running: 10 for the Liberals, eight for the Tories and five for the NDP.
Twenty-one candidates are current or recent political assistants: nine Liberals, seven New Democrats, five Tories.
In addition, by my count 22 of the candidates (16 Liberals, four Tories, two New Democrats) are primarily "politicians," that is elected officials with at least 20 years experience.
These numbers mimic findings on the backgrounds of recently retired MPs by the charitable organization Samara, which found that a quarter of those surveyed were educators, with an even larger number active in business.
Dig a bit deeper and some intriguing stories and data points emerge.
The Tories have a motivational speaker, a video game developer, candidates named Michael Harris and Kirk Russell, and a former board member of a Local Health Integrated Network (an institution the party wants to scrap).
The NDP has two people of the cloth, six students (the other parties have none of either), and several candidates who want make some of their living off artistic pursuits.
The Liberals are the only party with a retired fire inspector and a female engineer standing as candidates.
The NDP's James Terry speaks frankly about a recent experience on unemployment benefits. In his candidate video, the Tories' Tony Genco, running in Vaughan, explains his November 2010 candidacy in the Vaughan federal by-election – for the Liberals.
There are also some surprising patterns. The Tories, in recent years a party with more hostile press relations than the others, count eight journalists among their candidates (compared with five for the Liberals and none for the NDP).
And despite the ongoing strength of farming advocates, and the historical presence of farmers at Queen's Park, this time only nine farmers are running (five for the Tories, two for the Liberals and two for the NDP).
By one key, related metric, each of the parties is falling down.
The most common occupations in Canada are retail sales (for men and women) and (for men only) trucking. They may be 23 lawyers running, but there are only two from these jobs familiar to so many Ontarians: The Tories are running one candidate who works in sales; the NDP has one trucker trainer.
Regardless of profession, it's a good idea to get to know your local candidates, if for one simple reason – there's no party affiliation listed on Ontario ballots.