Howard Hampton (born May 17, 1952) is the leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP). He has served in the Ontario Legislative Assembly since 1987 as the Member of Provincial Parliament from the northern riding of Kenora—Rainy River.

Hampton's wife, Shelley Martel, is also an MPP, representing Nickel Belt.

After Rae retired from politics, Hampton became the leader of the NDP on June 22, 1996, beating Frances Lankin, who was seen as a Rae ally and whom many had considered the front-runner, on the third ballot. Leadership candidate Peter Kormos and his support generally went to Hampton rather than Lankin, which was seen as important to Hampton's victory. Tony Silipo also ran for the leadership and would become Hampton's Deputy Leader until 1999.


In the 1999 Ontario election, some progressives and union leaders, who had been a crucial source of NDP support before 1995, attempted to defeat Mike Harris, the Progressive Conservative premier, by abandoning the NDP for the Liberals. This tactical voting, commonly called "strategic voting," did not succeed in ousting the Harris government, but nearly decimated the NDP as they took just nine seats and 12 per cent of the popular vote in their poorest election showing since the 1950s. As Hampton was not judged to have been at fault, he stayed on as leader. Hampton himself faced a challenging re-election against Liberal Frank Miclash, but was able to win fairly convincingly.

Hampton endorsed Bill Blaikie in the latter's unsuccessful bid for the federal New Democratic Party leadership in 2002. This decision was unpopular with some other members of his caucus, including Deputy Leader Marilyn Churley who was a leading supporter of Jack Layton.

In Harris' second term, the government unveiled plans to privatize the public electricity utility, Ontario Hydro. Hampton quickly distinguished himself as a passionate advocate of maintaining public ownership of the utility, and published a book on the subject, Public Power, in 2003. Harris' successor as premier, Ernie Eves, was ultimately forced to back down on selling the hydro utility.

Hampton and the NDP won only seven seats in the 2003 Ontario election, losing official party status for the first time since 1963. However, Hampton retained his seat and the party won a larger share of the popular vote than it had in 1999. After intense lobbying to lower the minimum number of seats for party status, embarrassing the new government in that they were failing to follow the spirit of their promise of electoral reform, a compromise was reached which allowed additional funding for the NDP and more inquiry opportunities during Question Period.

On May 13, 2004, the NDP regained official party status in a by-election in Hamilton East, where city councillor Andrea Horwath was elected to fill the vacancy left by the death of Liberal member Dominic Agostino. When Marilyn Churley resigned her Toronto—Danforth seat in May 2005, the NDP was granted official party status at first until the by-election, and then until the 2007 provincial election; NDP candidate Peter Tabuns won the seat.

Since regaining party status in 2004, the NDP has received positive press coverage for its feisty presence in the Ontario legislature. The provincial NDP also appears to be benefitting from increased support for its federal counterpart, which won 12 seats in Ontario in the 2006 federal election.

Recent polls suggest that the NDP may at long last be recovering its early 1990s levels of support. A July, 2006 Environics poll showed the Ontario NDP with 27% popular support, it's highest level recorded since March, 1992, when Bob Rae's government was still in power.* However, in the most recent Environics poll, the NDP still trailed the governing Liberals who received 35% support and the Opposition Progressive Conservatives who led with 36%. After losing party status in two successive elections, the pressure will be on Hampton to translate the NDP's recent resurgence into more seats in the next provincial election.

The Ontario NDP increased their seat count to nine in September 2006, when well-known local United Church minister Cheri DiNovo won a byelection. The seat became vacant when Liberal MPP Gerard Kennedy resigned to seek the Liberal Party of Canada leadership.