2021 Canadian general election - Election Day and Results

[TopShelfGoal]

Just wanna leave these results here:

Ontario:

LPC: 39.0% - 78 seats
CPC: 35.0% - 37 seats
NDP: 17.9% - 5 seats
PPC: 5.6% - 0 seats
GPC: 2.2% - 1 seat


British Columbia:

CPC: 33.4% - 13 seats
NDP: 29.0% - 13 seats
LPC: 26.8% - 15 seats
GPC: 5.3% - 1 seat
PPC: 5.1% - 0 seats

First past the post is really a wonderful system, isn't it?

How are they so efficient in BC? I know in Ontario they win a lot of GTA seats by relatively limited margins, is that the case in metro Vancouver?

BC is like 3 different provinces. You have the Vancouver Island, the lower mainland and the interior. It doesn't matter how bad the LPC does on the island as the NDP is going to sweep it anyways. LPC's strength is concentrated in the lower mainland allowing them to win lots of seats. If you decouple the lower mainland numbers from the rest of BC it make a lot of sense.

In fact this is actually an example of FPTP NOT screwing up. If you go into individual regions... the people voting in that region more or less got the representation they wanted.

[TopShelfGoal]

Big swing to the Liberals among Chinese voters.  Did O'Toole's "get tough on China" talk hurt?

Yeah the big Chiniese-Canadian Liberal swing was a surprise. Interestingly, the swing towards the LPC among minority groups this election only seems to be limited to Chinese-Canadians.

Looking at the Brampton ridings, it seems the South Asian-Canadian vote moved towards the CPC by ~5% (more than what Ontario as whole moved to CPC).

I think there are 2 factors at play when it comes to O'Toole's struggles with the Chinese-Canadian vote:

1. East Asian community seems to take covid more seriously than any other group, so any kind of "soft on Covid/Vaccines/Masks" perception would hurt you more in that community than among other groups.

2. Candidates matter. The candidates in ridings which people use as proxy for Chinese-Canadian vote (the Richmond ridings, Markham-Stoufville) are no longer a good fit for those ridings. The tory MPs in all those ridings voted against the conversion therapy ban. Alice Wong is one of the most socially conservative member of parliament. All those ridings are very urban, upscale and educated and voting against conversion therapy bans while representing ridings as urban and educated as Richmond and Markham is not a good look.

[TopShelfGoal]

This election was also an extremely bad look for Legault who I think has hurt his position. Trudeau always wanted to appease him to not have him be against him but now that he was openly against Trudeau and worse failed to back his bark when it came to delivering votes- Trudeau will be much more willing to play hardball with him and he may not get his goodies that easily esp going into a provincial election next year.

It also hurts him among the other federal leaders who now see that he cannot deliver them votes.

Finally it hurts his provincial prospects as he no longer has an air of neutrality about him. People know who he backed in a federal election, will see that he failed and likely hurt QC's bargaining position at the table. Openly saying that he was hoping for a CPC minority is not look in the QC electorate. Not saying it will lose him the election but publicly taking sides like that is not conducive to maintainig the 55% poll numbers that he was. This should the Parti Quebecois a much needed shot in the arm and provide a narrative for winning back left leaning quebec nationalist voters from the CAQ and for the Quebec Liberal Party to win centerist/center-right leaning voters from CAQ.

Unnecessary self-own by Legault. He did not need try to flex and take the risk.

[TopShelfGoal]

NDP partisans have lost the plot. Other than 2011 when LPC completely collapsed to due Ignatieff's terrible leadership, this is the the NDP's role in Canada. To be the 3rd major party getting 15-20% of the vote and keeping the Liberals from moving to far to the center. That is the metric that they should be judged against, not the seat count. LPC has taken over many of the NDP policies like pharmacare/childcare. By that metric, Singh is doing his job. NDP partisans should be happy if they care about policy and not just rooting for the orange team.

[TopShelfGoal]

And with all of this hand-wringing over the NDP and its purpose...anyone want to speculate on the future of the Conservatives, O'Toole's leadership, etc?

If they are smart then the Conservatives will keep O'Toole. I see a lot of room to grow with him, he is not like Scheer who was basically a cul de sac electorally. O'Toole ended the election with much better personal ratings than he had 6 months ago and I think Canadians liked his "moderate" image but it will take some time for people to trust it. People are rightfully skeptical of the CPC when it tries to sell a moderate image (hell even O'Toole was throwing out red meat during the leadership race). If they stick with him and he stays consistent with what he said this election. he will have a good chance.

Knowing the CPC though they will fire him and go with someone like Polievre or Leslyn Lewis who would both be disasters.