What is the safest Liberal riding in Canada?

[DC Al Fine]

The trick in deciding what is safe IMO, is to look at what a party would hold onto if they lost in a massive landslide. i.e. Their opponent getting ~50% of the vote. If we take the expected seats and then add a margin of safety to account for popular incumbents, we get a rough idea of the 'true safe seats'. Since the Tories haven't won that big since 1984 we have to do some guess work.

Let's suppose the Tories got 50% of the vote in 2011. The Liberal share of the vote was already pretty low, so most of that gain would have to come from the NDP, with the remainder mainly coming from the Liberals with a little bit of the Bloc and Green thrown in.

In my scenario here are the Liberals 2011 seats that would be retained:
1) Winnipeg North, MB
2) Guelph, ON
3) York West, ON
4) Toronto Centre, ON
5) Ottawa Vanier, ON
6) St. Laurent-Cartierville, QC
5) Westmount-Ville Marie, QC
6) Saint Leonard-Saint Michel, QC
7) Bourassa, QC
Cardigan, PEI
9) Cape Breton-Canso, NS
10-12) The three western Newfoundland ridings.

If we take out some of the incumbent based ones like Winnipeg North, that gives us about 10 seats to choose from. I'd say any of the francophone, federalist Montreal ridings or rural Newfoundland ones fit the bill.

[DC Al Fine]

I disagree with Kensington' pick because St. Paul's doesn't have the tribal element I'd want from a safe seat. Obviously it's still a very Liberal friendly riding, but if we're choosing the safest seat, I'd want a place where the typical voter has deep seated reasons to hold onto the party. That would limit elasticity in a wave year.

Put another way, Maxime Bernier won ~60% of the vote in Beauce last year, but I'd call a rural prairie seat with a similar Tory vote share safer.

[DC Al Fine]

For the Tories, it really depends on whether you count the Socreds as a predecessor of the modern Tories like you would Reform.

If the Socreds don't count, then the oldest Tory area is the Souris part of Brandon-Souris in Manatoba. It's been Tory since 1940.

If the Socreds do count, then the oldest Tory area is Lethbridge, Alberta stretching back to 1930.

[DC Al Fine]

Brandon-Souris went Liberal in 1993.

Damn you're right. It would be parts of Calgary I think then.

[DC Al Fine]

Yeah, in looking at the 1993 results, the Liberals did well in a few rural Saskatchewan seats (only winning in Souris-Moose Mountain but weren't far behind in most ridings). But, those days are long over.

That's an interesting pattern on its own. It seems like when there's a 'throw the bums out' election, the winning party will overperform in some places where they have no roots, and immediately return to their normal level once they aren't running against an unpopular incumbent or riding a wave.

The Liberals in the Prairies in 1993 is a good example of this. So is the Tories in parts of Quebec in 2006. What would be the equivalent example for the 2015 Liberals?

It's kind of tough to tell, since we don't know whether an unusual result is part of a realignment/demographic trend or just a fluke. I'd guess the nationalist parts of Quebec or rural BC.