Tory growth appears to be slowing. Canadians are asking about Andrew Scheer’s right-wing alliance with Doug Ford and Jason Kenney. That leaves an opening for the Liberals.
By Sheila Copps
Published first in The Hill Times on May 20, 2019.
OTTAWA—What is up with the CBC?
I woke up to a shocking CBC headline last week. It was an analysis of recent provincial election defeats stating, “Not since the Great Depression have more governments been defeated on one PM’s watch.”
The hyperbolic headline went on to state that if the Liberals lost the Thursday Newfoundland election, “that would make Trudeau’s term in office the bloodiest for an incumbent government in Canadian history.”
The analysis, by the CBC’s Éric Grenier, purported to be an opinion piece on the popularity swings of the current federal government.
It rehashed how many provincial governments had fallen during the past four years.
According to Grenier, Trudeau is to be tagged for the defeat of New Democratic premiers in Alberta and Manitoba, both of whom lost to the Tories.
Grenier fingers the prime minister for Liberal losses in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island.
The same morning the CBC “election feed” did not stop there. A second Grenier story claimed recent Green breakthroughs could redraw the electoral map.
That conclusion came from another analysis piece claiming the Greens could be heading for the mainland after storming Vancouver Island in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith Green byelection win.
The media spent weeks predicting Greens were poised to form government in Prince Edward Island, vaulting that story to worldwide attention. In the end, the Green Party formed official opposition, polling one point ahead of the Liberals in the popular vote.
Greens garnered 30.6 per cent of the vote compared to 36.5 for the Tories and 29.5 per cent for the Grits. It is pretty hard to explain a six-point vote gap on the same day multiple pollsters predicted a Green government.
When that did not materialize, the incorrect prediction was merely attributed to small samplings in pre-election surveys by local polling firms.
Grenier’s piece on Trudeau failed to mention a factor that loomed large in British Columbia, P.E.I., Ontario and Quebec Liberal takedowns. All four involved voters suffering one-party, multi-election fatigue.
In British Columbia’s case, the Liberals even won the popular vote. That was quite a shock, considering Grits had been in power in that province for 16 years. But the Greens made common cause with the New Democrats to replace the Liberals in a coalition arrangement.
In Ontario’s case, the Liberals had also been in power for 16 straight years. Premier Kathleen Wynne pulled off a surprise victory in the previous election but her personal unpopularity matched that of her predecessor when Doug Ford’s Conservatives toppled her government.
The same phenomenon was repeated in Quebec. With the exception of an 18-month interregnum period for the Parti Québécois, the Liberals had been in power in Quebec for 16 years.
And as for P.E.I., Liberals had dominated the province since premier Rob Ghiz was first elected in 2007. So 12 years of uninterrupted Liberal island rule ended with an unexpected Tory victory.
What is perhaps more surprising, is that after more than a decade in office, the Liberals were only one point behind “government-in-waiting” Greens.
So four provincial governments that had been in power for an average of 15 years were defeated in a “change” vote.
It is hardly a reason to claim Trudeau has authored a provincial “bloodbath.”
Reporting on polls is one thing.
But the growing propensity of pollsters to try and shape the narrative should be disturbing for every political watcher.
There is no doubt; a surge in Green support affects other parties. But one party at greater risk is the NDP.
In the last P.E.I. election, the NDP leader came fourth in his own riding and the party garnered only three per cent of the vote, a 70 per cent drop since 2015, when the combined Green-NDP vote was almost 22 per cent.
Considering the Liberal vote dropped 25 per cent, it is a pretty sure bet that the balance of the winning Green surge came from the Grits.
Even in victory, Prince Edward Island Conservatives lost one per cent in popular vote from 2015.
Disgruntled Liberals are not switching to the Tories.
Instead, they are choosing parties that offer a counterbalance to the backward Conservative agenda on issues like climate change, immigration and women’s reproductive choice.
Tory growth appears to be slowing. Canadians are asking about Andrew Scheer’s right-wing alliance with Doug Ford and Jason Kenney. That leaves an opening for the Liberals.
Trudeau needs to convince progressive voters that Liberals are the only antidote to a Scheer shift.
Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.
