Canadian Election 2019

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/PeterMacKay/status/1189766890631180288

https://twitter.com/IvisonJ/status/1189963171957788678

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/MichelleLamarch/status/1190026617910943744

[Pericles]

How come the NDP seems to routine be overrated by the polls? This election, Alberta 2019, Ontario 2018, and arguably the 2015 election all come to mind as examples of the NDP underperforming their poll numbers. It can't all be late swings surely?

[ON Progressive]

How come the NDP seems to routine be overrated by the polls? This election, Alberta 2019, Ontario 2018, and arguably the 2015 election all come to mind as examples of the NDP underperforming their poll numbers. It can't all be late swings surely?

Part of it is that the NDP are more reliant on younger voters than other parties, and another part of it is the NDP GOTV infrastructure is a lot weaker than the Liberals or Conservatives. I'm sure there's other reasons too though.

[lilTommy]

How come the NDP seems to routine be overrated by the polls? This election, Alberta 2019, Ontario 2018, and arguably the 2015 election all come to mind as examples of the NDP underperforming their poll numbers. It can't all be late swings surely?

Part of it is that the NDP are more reliant on younger voters than other parties, and another part of it is the NDP GOTV infrastructure is a lot weaker than the Liberals or Conservatives. I'm sure there's other reasons too though.

I think in Ontario 2018, the NDP peaked earlier and then failed to capitalize on it, but they were polling about 30-35% in that last few days and got about 33%. I think the party made a few mistakes that last week and many anti-OLP voters who were polling ONDP moved to the OPC. Again strategic voting always hurts the NDP, even when the NDP/ONDP were polling ahead of the OLP, the OLP was pushing strategic voting against the ONDP.
That was a different case then we saw here in Fed2019. Here we did see the NDP peak at a good point, a few days earlier would have been nicer but, the last weekend we saw a massive push to vote strategically, and many Progressive voters who lean NDP voted LPC... you can see that in the cities, particularly in Toronto.

[DC Al Fine]

How come the NDP seems to routine be overrated by the polls? This election, Alberta 2019, Ontario 2018, and arguably the 2015 election all come to mind as examples of the NDP underperforming their poll numbers. It can't all be late swings surely?

Part of it is that the NDP are more reliant on younger voters than other parties, and another part of it is the NDP GOTV infrastructure is a lot weaker than the Liberals or Conservatives. I'm sure there's other reasons too though.

I think in Ontario 2018, the NDP peaked earlier and then failed to capitalize on it, but they were polling about 30-35% in that last few days and got about 33%. I think the party made a few mistakes that last week and many anti-OLP voters who were polling ONDP moved to the OPC. Again strategic voting always hurts the NDP, even when the NDP/ONDP were polling ahead of the OLP, the OLP was pushing strategic voting against the ONDP.
That was a different case then we saw here in Fed2019. Here we did see the NDP peak at a good point, a few days earlier would have been nicer but, the last weekend we saw a massive push to vote strategically, and many Progressive voters who lean NDP voted LPC...you can see that in the cities, particularly in Toronto.

Which was lolworthy given the poor NDP results in Toronto seats the Tories had no chance of winning. I'd love to know how many people voted tactically when it didn't matter or voted tactically in the wrong direction

[DC Al Fine]

More fun with FPTP. Here are the biggest "Aw come on!" (I.e. highest share of the vote where they still lost) results for each party:

Conservative
King-Vaughan: 43.2%
Richmond Hill: 43.0%

Liberal
Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill: 42.4%

NDP
Davenport: 41.0%

Bloc
Gaspesie-Les Iles de la Madeleine: 40.8%

Green
Victoria: 29.9%

[lilTommy]

How come the NDP seems to routine be overrated by the polls? This election, Alberta 2019, Ontario 2018, and arguably the 2015 election all come to mind as examples of the NDP underperforming their poll numbers. It can't all be late swings surely?

Part of it is that the NDP are more reliant on younger voters than other parties, and another part of it is the NDP GOTV infrastructure is a lot weaker than the Liberals or Conservatives. I'm sure there's other reasons too though.

I think in Ontario 2018, the NDP peaked earlier and then failed to capitalize on it, but they were polling about 30-35% in that last few days and got about 33%. I think the party made a few mistakes that last week and many anti-OLP voters who were polling ONDP moved to the OPC. Again strategic voting always hurts the NDP, even when the NDP/ONDP were polling ahead of the OLP, the OLP was pushing strategic voting against the ONDP.
That was a different case then we saw here in Fed2019. Here we did see the NDP peak at a good point, a few days earlier would have been nicer but, the last weekend we saw a massive push to vote strategically, and many Progressive voters who lean NDP voted LPC...you can see that in the cities, particularly in Toronto.

Which was lolworthy given the poor NDP results in Toronto seats the Tories had no chance of winning. I'd love to know how many people voted tactically when it didn't matter or voted tactically in the wrong direction

You would be surprised! It was infuriating, particularly in the NDP targets that people legit thought they have to vote LPC to stop the CPC... the issue is they did not understand the local vs national polling and voting.

[politicallefty]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm still surprised by Edmonton's reversion to the Tories (Calgary wasn't surprising, but I figured there was a chance in the more urban core ridings). At the provincial level (and yes, I'm well-aware of the differences between federal and provincial politics), Edmonton was still very much a fortress for the NDP. Vote splitting can certainly not be blamed for the Liberals losing Edmonton Centre considering the NDP vote share dropped by almost 4% from 2015. What explains the divergence between federal and provincial politics in Edmonton? I suppose more specifically, what does a federal Conservative/provincial NDP voter look like (particularly in Edmonton)? And we're talking about elections only 6 months apart, so not exactly far apart.

[DC Al Fine]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm still surprised by Edmonton's reversion to the Tories (Calgary wasn't surprising, but I figured there was a chance in the more urban core ridings). At the provincial level (and yes, I'm well-aware of the differences between federal and provincial politics), Edmonton was still very much a fortress for the NDP. Vote splitting can certainly not be blamed for the Liberals losing Edmonton Centre considering the NDP vote share dropped by almost 4% from 2015. What explains the divergence between federal and provincial politics in Edmonton? I suppose more specifically, what does a federal Conservative/provincial NDP voter look like (particularly in Edmonton)? And we're talking about elections only 6 months apart, so not exactly far apart.

The Alberta NDP is pro-oil and pro-pipeline, while the national party is not. Moreover, the West and particularly Alberta are irritated right now. Edmonton and Calgary have some of the highest unemployment rates of any metro in the country. The Tories are perceived as the defenders of the West, while the national progressive parties are perceived as indifferent or openly hostile to their interests. The Alberta NDP doesn't suffer from that problem.

There's not a huge amount polling about who exactly those switching voters are, but just eyeballing it from polls and the final result, they seem to disproportionately be college educated women living in the suburbs.

[Hatman 🍁]

How come the NDP seems to routine be overrated by the polls? This election, Alberta 2019, Ontario 2018, and arguably the 2015 election all come to mind as examples of the NDP underperforming their poll numbers. It can't all be late swings surely?

Part of it is that the NDP are more reliant on younger voters than other parties, and another part of it is the NDP GOTV infrastructure is a lot weaker than the Liberals or Conservatives. I'm sure there's other reasons too though.

I think in Ontario 2018, the NDP peaked earlier and then failed to capitalize on it, but they were polling about 30-35% in that last few days and got about 33%. I think the party made a few mistakes that last week and many anti-OLP voters who were polling ONDP moved to the OPC. Again strategic voting always hurts the NDP, even when the NDP/ONDP were polling ahead of the OLP, the OLP was pushing strategic voting against the ONDP.
That was a different case then we saw here in Fed2019. Here we did see the NDP peak at a good point, a few days earlier would have been nicer but, the last weekend we saw a massive push to vote strategically, and many Progressive voters who lean NDP voted LPC...you can see that in the cities, particularly in Toronto.

Which was lolworthy given the poor NDP results in Toronto seats the Tories had no chance of winning. I'd love to know how many people voted tactically when it didn't matter or voted tactically in the wrong direction

You would be surprised! It was infuriating, particularly in the NDP targets that people legit thought they have to vote LPC to stop the CPC... the issue is they did not understand the local vs national polling and voting.

Time for the NDP to make some misleading "Lib Dem" style bar charts and send them to voters in Downtown Toronto ridings!

[King of Kensington]

In Davenport Cash was likely done in by strategic voting, I'm not buying it for PHP and Danforth though.

[King of Kensington]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm still surprised by Edmonton's reversion to the Tories (Calgary wasn't surprising, but I figured there was a chance in the more urban core ridings). At the provincial level (and yes, I'm well-aware of the differences between federal and provincial politics), Edmonton was still very much a fortress for the NDP. Vote splitting can certainly not be blamed for the Liberals losing Edmonton Centre considering the NDP vote share dropped by almost 4% from 2015. What explains the divergence between federal and provincial politics in Edmonton? I suppose more specifically, what does a federal Conservative/provincial NDP voter look like (particularly in Edmonton)? And we're talking about elections only 6 months apart, so not exactly far apart.

The Conservatives are the "party of Alberta." Also provincial conservative austerity hurts Alberta more than federal Conservative austerity would.  The right-wing polls about 10 points behind the federal Conservatives.

[DistingFlyer]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm still surprised by Edmonton's reversion to the Tories (Calgary wasn't surprising, but I figured there was a chance in the more urban core ridings). At the provincial level (and yes, I'm well-aware of the differences between federal and provincial politics), Edmonton was still very much a fortress for the NDP. Vote splitting can certainly not be blamed for the Liberals losing Edmonton Centre considering the NDP vote share dropped by almost 4% from 2015. What explains the divergence between federal and provincial politics in Edmonton? I suppose more specifically, what does a federal Conservative/provincial NDP voter look like (particularly in Edmonton)? And we're talking about elections only 6 months apart, so not exactly far apart.

The Conservatives are the "party of Alberta." Also provincial conservative austerity hurts Alberta more than federal Conservative austerity would.  The right-wing polls about 10 points behind the federal Conservatives.

In general, the federal NDP does much less well in the four Western provinces than its provincial wings:

British Columbia - highest provincial vote: 45% (1979); highest federal vote: 37% (1988)
Alberta - highest provincial vote: 41% (2015); highest federal vote: 17% (1988)
Saskatchewan - highest provincial vote: 55% (1971); highest federal vote: 44% (1945)
Manitoba - highest provincial vote: 49% (2003); highest federal vote: 34% (1980)


Lots of different reasons for this, of course, but two main ones come to mind:

Firstly, and probably most importantly, the provincial parties are much more moderate than the federal (or Ontario) NDP is. Rachel Notley's recent support for pipelines is one example, as is Roy Romanow's heavy deficit-cutting in the 1990s and Gary Doer's government in the 2000s. The BC party is a bit more left-leaning than the ones on the Prairies, but still less than the federal party is.

Secondly, ever since Diefenbaker there's been a strong strain of Prairie populism in the Tories that's allowed them to do very well out West; one started to see, especially in Saskatchewan, many people who voted CCF/NDP provincially & PC federally. Since the reunification of the conservative parties in 2003, this appeal has been even stronger, allowing the Tories to have their two best (peacetime) Prairie results (62% & 64%) in recent years (2011 & 2019) - even better than under the Diefenbaker & Mulroney sweeps.


(One curious instance of provincial & federal trends briefly paralleling and then diverging is Winnipeg: in 1988, the provincial NDP government was heavily defeated and fell to third, while the Liberals took a strong second and dominated the capital. The federal election eight months later saw a similar change, as the Liberals jumped to second place in the province and did extremely well in Winnipeg. However, while at the provincial level the Liberals quickly fell back again and haven't elected more than three MLAs in a general election for the last quarter-century, at the federal level they've remained strong in Winnipeg, generally placing first or second in most ridings there.)

[King of Kensington]

The NDP is the main center-left party in provincial politics in Western Canada.

[DistingFlyer]

Nunavut is still the lone holdout for official counts; the recounts are still ongoing too.

While we wait, here are the best individual results (in terms of percentage majority) for the two big parties since 1896:

Liberals
1896 - Wilfrid Laurier wins Quebec East by 2191 (52.0%)
1900 - Wilfrid Laurier wins Quebec East by 2772 (62.7%)
1904 - Charles Fitzpatrick wins Quebec County by 2174 (80.0%)
1908 - Henri Severin Beland wins Beauce by 3899 (91.4%)
1911 - Joseph Demers wins St. Johns & Iberville by 1909 (56.7%)
1917 - Charles Fournier wins Bellechasse by 3692 (96.1%)
1921 - Joseph Demers wins St. Johns – Iberville by 6158 (87.0%)
1925 - Paul Mercier wins St. Henri by 8990 (61.3%)
1926 - Edouard-Charles St.-Pere wins Hochelaga by 13809 (71.3%)
1930 - Sam Jacobs wins Cartier by 6303 (52.6%)
1935 - Edouard Lacroix wins Beauce by 13367 (77.9%)
1940 - Peter Bercovitch wins Cartier by 15837 (77.1%)
1945 - Jean-Francois Pouliot wins Temiscouata by 8418 (63.1%)
1949 - Ches Carter wins Burin – Burgeo by 11537 (84.6%)
1953 - Alcide Cote wins Saint-Jean – Iberville – Napierville by 14087 (76.9%)
1957 - Jack Pickersgill wins Bonavista – Twillingate by 7811 (74.4%)
1958 - Jack Pickersgill wins Bonavista – Twillingate by 9347 (51.9%)
1962 - Ches Carter wins Burin – Burgeo by 9370 (59.7%)
1963 - Ches Carter wins Burin – Burgeo by 9728 (66.6%)
1965 - Ches Carter wins Burin – Burgeo by 7990 (52.7%)
1968 - Pierre Trudeau wins Mount Royal by 35437 (86.0%)
1972 - Pierre Trudeau wins Mount Royal by 32429 (70.9%)
1974 - Don Jamieson wins Burin – Burgeo by 11276 (68.3%)
1979 - Pierre Trudeau wins Mount Royal by 39542 (78.0%)
1980 - Monique Begin wins Saint-Leonard – Anjou by 38487 (73.9%)
1984 - Charles Caccia wins Davenport by 7700 (31.2%)
1988 - Don Boudria wins Glengarry – Prescott – Russell by 25763 (51.7%)
1993 - Sheila Finestone wins Mount Royal by 36274 (76.0%)
1997 - Sergio Marchi wins York West by 18401 (63.7%)
2000 - Irwin Cotler wins Mount Royal by 30629 (75.1%)
2004 - Irwin Cotler wins Mount Royal by 25399 (67.0%)
2006 - Irwin Cotler wins Mount Royal by 17627 (47.7%)
2008 - Scott Simms wins Bonavista – Gander – Grand Falls – Windsor by 15735 (55.0%)
2011 - Gerry Byrne wins Humber – St. Barbe – Baie Verte by 9560 (31.9%)
2015 - Judy Foote wins Bonavista – Burin – Trinity by 25170 (71.7%)
2019 - Patricia Lattanzio wins Saint-Leonard – Saint-Michel by 22443 (49.4%)

Conservatives
1896 - Clarke Wallace wins York West by 4068 (60.6%)
1900 - Edward Kidd wins Carleton by 727 (29.1%)
1904 - John Barr wins Dufferin by 1286 (44.1%)
1908 - John Barr wins Dufferin by 1443 (47.5%)
1911 - William Maclean wins York South by 5293 (58.2%)
1917 - Howard Whidden wins Brandon by 10136 (79.2%)
1921 - Joseph Harris wins York East by 6538 (35.4%)
1925 - Charles Bell wins Hamilton West by 11224 (67.9%)
1926 - Joseph Harris wins Toronto – Scarborough by 11382 (61.5%)
1930 - Robert White wins Mount Royal by 13449 (50.9%)
1935 - Robert White wins St. Antoine – Westmount by 5683 (25.9%)
1940 - Denton Massey wins Greenwood by 7313 (28.6%)
1945 - Arthur Ross wins Souris by 3537 (33.2%)
1949 - Clair Casselman wins Grenville – Dundas by 3348 (23.8%)
1953 - William Blair wins Lanark by 4713 (29.8%)
1957 - Howard Green wins Vancouver Quadra by 16296 (48.0%)
1958 - Douglas Harkness wins Calgary North by 25446 (59.2%)
1962 - John Diefenbaker wins Prince Albert by 14103 (54.6%)
1963 - John Diefenbaker wins Prince Albert by 14451 (57.9%)
1965 - Frank Fane wins Vegreville by 10012 (57.4%)
1968 - Jack Horner wins Crowfoot by 11725 (52.2%)
1972 - Jack Horner wins Crowfoot by 16076 (65.1%)
1974 - Jack Horner wins Crowfoot by 14571 (61.0%)
1979 - Don Mazankowski wins Vegreville by 22600 (67.5%)
1980 - Don Mazankowski wins Vegreville by 21309 (62.1%)
1984 - Don Mazankowski wins Vegreville by 28687 (70.8%)
1988 - Brian Mulroney wins Charlevoix by 27736 (65.8%)
1993 - Jean Charest wins Sherbrooke by 8210 (14.4%); Bob Mills wins Red Deer by 23870 (48.5%)
1997 - Elsie Wayne wins Saint John by 16615 (47.2%); Jack Ramsay wins Crowfoot by 23910 (55.5%)
2000 - Norm Doyle wins St. John's East by 9771 (22.0%); Monte Solberg wins Medicine Hat by 26742 (63.8%)
2004 - Kevin Sorenson wins Crowfoot by 34034 (72.5%)
2006 - Kevin Sorenson wins Crowfoot by 39335 (75.2%)
2008 - Kevin Sorenson wins Crowfoot by 35559 (74.1%)
2011 - Kevin Sorenson wins Crowfoot by 39310 (74.8%)
2015 - Kevin Sorenson wins Battle River – Crowfoot by 42047 (71.5%)
2019 - Damien Kurek wins Battle River – Crowfoot by 50124 (80.4%)

Quebec was the Liberal fortress from 1896, almost single-handedly putting native son Wilfrid Laurier in office and providing some huge personal majorities for Grit MPs. Once Newfoundland joined Canada a half-century later, the rural part of the province also supplied some very big wins as well. Even with Liberal weakening in rural Quebec, Montreal has remained very strong, and Toronto has gradually become so in the last few decades.

As for the Tories, Macdonald's National Policy turned Ontario from an even-to-Liberal province in the early days to a Conservative bastion for many decades, keeping the Liberals in a minority there for nearly sixty years (1878 to 1935). Only unusual circumstances (the war issue in 1917 & a populist Prairie leader in 1945) prevented the safest Tory riding from being in Ontario (or wealthy Anglo areas of Montreal - 1930 & 1935). Another Prairie populist, Diefenbaker, had a more lasting effect, as the best Conservative results since then have been in that part of the country. Only the intervention of the Reformers, starting in 1988 where they elected nobody but shaved down some Tory majorities (and handed four seats to the NDP) and ending in 2004 with the party merger, saw anything different.

[politicallefty]

I don't think it's entirely fair to compare federal and provincial results. The Western provinces are basically a 2-party system now, very different from the federal multi-party system. I wasn't just comparing the provincial NDP to federal NDP results. I was looking at the collapse of the Liberals as well. Like I said before, I would've figured the Liberals could've at least held Edmonton Centre.

I suppose it makes some sense that if college-educated women are the primary swing voters that someone like Rachel Notley would be a very strong leader for the NDP (not just for the fact of becoming the first left-of-centre government in Alberta in generations) and as evidenced by keeping her on as leader even in defeat. But to be fair though, isn't almost everyone in Alberta pro-oil and pro-pipeline? I read that the new NDP MP for Edmonton Strathcona is willing to work with the Liberals (although apparently not willing to join the Cabinet) and she's not really in line with the federal NDP on those specific issues.

Also, just curious, but is there any precedent in Canada for a government to have an opposition MP in Cabinet?

[DistingFlyer]

I don't think it's entirely fair to compare federal and provincial results. The Western provinces are basically a 2-party system now, very different from the federal multi-party system. I wasn't just comparing the provincial NDP to federal NDP results. I was looking at the collapse of the Liberals as well. Like I said before, I would've figured the Liberals could've at least held Edmonton Centre.

I suppose it makes some sense that if college-educated women are the primary swing voters that someone like Rachel Notley would be a very strong leader for the NDP (not just for the fact of becoming the first left-of-centre government in Alberta in generations) and as evidenced by keeping her on as leader even in defeat. But to be fair though, isn't almost everyone in Alberta pro-oil and pro-pipeline? I read that the new NDP MP for Edmonton Strathcona is willing to work with the Liberals (although apparently not willing to join the Cabinet) and she's not really in line with the federal NDP on those specific issues.

Also, just curious, but is there any precedent in Canada for a government to have an opposition MP in Cabinet?

There's Borden's Unionist Government, where he brought a few pro-conscription Liberals alongside (and saw them subsequently run under the Unionist rather than Liberal banner in 1917), but otherwise no.

[King of Kensington]

Also, just curious, but is there any precedent in Canada for a government to have an opposition MP in Cabinet?

Pierre Trudeau approached Ed Broadbent of the NDP after the 1980 election about bringing in the NDP into a coalition in order to have more Western representation in the government.

[politicallefty]

I don't know if it's just me, but Justin Trudeau does seem to be echoing his father in a lot ways. However, it does seem like this Liberal minority is more stable than it might appear. I've heard the NDP is beyond broke and can't realistically contest another election anytime soon. I imagine the Liberals and NDP can probably broker some sort of unofficial accord. I also have to wonder if the fact that the last time the NDP brought down a Liberal minority, it resulted in almost 10 years of Conservative rule under Harper. Obviously any political party wants to increase its seat count, but as far as getting its policies closer to enactment, a Liberal minority is probably one of the most preferable results for the NDP (especially considering they can provide a fairly comfortable majority).

[adma]

(One curious instance of provincial & federal trends briefly paralleling and then diverging is Winnipeg: in 1988, the provincial NDP government was heavily defeated and fell to third, while the Liberals took a strong second and dominated the capital. The federal election eight months later saw a similar change, as the Liberals jumped to second place in the province and did extremely well in Winnipeg. However, while at the provincial level the Liberals quickly fell back again and haven't elected more than three MLAs in a general election for the last quarter-century, at the federal level they've remained strong in Winnipeg, generally placing first or second in most ridings there.)

Countering that, the federal NDP's 1980 best result in Manitoba happened when there was an unpopular provincial PC government--ditto with Sask and (using the Socred proxy) BC in 1988...

[DistingFlyer]

(One curious instance of provincial & federal trends briefly paralleling and then diverging is Winnipeg: in 1988, the provincial NDP government was heavily defeated and fell to third, while the Liberals took a strong second and dominated the capital. The federal election eight months later saw a similar change, as the Liberals jumped to second place in the province and did extremely well in Winnipeg. However, while at the provincial level the Liberals quickly fell back again and haven't elected more than three MLAs in a general election for the last quarter-century, at the federal level they've remained strong in Winnipeg, generally placing first or second in most ridings there.)

Countering that, the federal NDP's 1980 best result in Manitoba happened when there was an unpopular provincial PC government--ditto with Sask and (using the Socred proxy) BC in 1988...

Yes, that's true; provincial governments' popularity getting reflected in federal results is especially strong in BC, where the NDP does well (at the federal level) only when they're not in power provincially. In addition to Saskatchewan in 1988, you can see it in 1984 as well: in spite of a big nationwide victory for Brian Mulroney, in Saskatchewan the Tories only made small gains (and actually did less well than in 1979, which was pre-Devine).

In the 1990s, one saw this happen across a couple provinces: the NDP governments of BC & Ontario were extremely unpopular (though the BC party managed to squeak in a second term anyway), and the federal party was nearly destroyed in those two provinces. The Romanow government in Saskatchewan, however, while it did some controversial things, remained popular enough to win another decade in power and keep a respectable total of MPs during that time.

Popularity of a recently-elected government can also be a boost federally: their best-ever showing in Saskatchewan was in 1945 (just edging out 1988), which I'm sure had to do with Douglas' provincial victory a year earlier. The NDP's modest gains in BC in 1972 were also probably a reflection of Dave Barrett's win two months before. Obviously Alberta in 2015 is an exception to this, as the federal party did very poorly at year's end, as in Manitoba throughout the Doer years (particularly 2000).

[adma]

Popularity of a recently-elected government can also be a boost federally: their best-ever showing in Saskatchewan was in 1945 (just edging out 1988), which I'm sure had to do with Douglas' provincial victory a year earlier. The NDP's modest gains in BC in 1972 were also probably a reflection of Dave Barrett's win two months before. Obviously Alberta in 2015 is an exception to this, as the federal party did very poorly at year's end, as is Manitoba throughout the Doer years (particularly 2000).

Re Manitoba, any "particularly" in 2000 probably had more to do with federal than provincial patterns (it being a sloppy-seconds election for Alexa and all); but they held all of their seats, and a lot of the shifts (much as in Saskatchewan) had more to do with the broader federal ReformAllianceConservative shifts that have brought us to this monolithic-blue-bloc day.  In fact, I'd argue that Doer's steady hand at the official-opposition tiller actually made, in a reverse from 1988, the NDP *overperform* in Manitoba relative to the federal pattern in 1993 (even if said pattern was so dismal, it was only good enough to save Bill Blaikie's seat), and turned that into four seats in 1997, which was double the 1988 tally...

[DistingFlyer]

Looking at long winning streaks in particular provinces/regions, here is how things compare:

Conservatives in Ontario beat the Liberals in fourteen consecutive federal elections (1878 to 1930).

The Liberal streak in Quebec comes with an asterisk or two, as in 1891 & 1911 the Tories outpolled them while electing fewer members. If you go by MPs only, then the Liberal run lasted from 1891 to 1957 - seventeen consecutive elections. If you remove 1891 & 1911 from this period, then it lasts from 1917 to 1957 - a still-impressive eleven-election streak, and one with generally bigger margins than the Tories enjoyed in Ontario (one reason why Liberal governments became the norm after 1896).

As for the West (or the Prairies), it gets a bit more complicated: multi-party races became normal much earlier than elsewhere, sometimes with informal pacts (like the Liberals & Progressives in the 1920s) making vote shares tricky. Other times, like 1957, you have a party coming fourth in votes (the CCF, at 22%) electing the largest number of MPs (22). The Tory split in the 1990s also complicates things.

If the criteria are getting both the largest number of votes and electing the largest number of MPs, the Conservative (or conservative) streak on the Prairies begins in 1958 rather than 1957, and lasts to the present day if you include the Reform & Alliance victories during the Chretien years. That's a run of twenty consecutive elections (so far). If you don't include the Reformers, then the run lasts from 1958 to 1988, a still-high tally of eleven elections.

If one includes BC and looks at the entire Western region, the conservative run begins in 1972 and lasts until the present - fifteen elections with probably more to come. If one doesn't include the Reformers and just goes by capital-C Conservatives, then the run is only six elections (1972 to 1988 and 2004 to 2019).

Finally, my own region of Atlantic Canada. Although it has generally tended Liberal since Confederation (and especially since Newfoundland's admittance), it's also been quite willing to go Tory, sometimes even against the grain of a Liberal government (as in 1896, 1925, 1926, 1968, 1972 & 1997, and to a degree 1965 & 1974). For that reason, the longest streak of victories for any party is five (Conservatives from 1878 to 1896 and Liberals from 1935 to 1953).

[DistingFlyer]

Popularity of a recently-elected government can also be a boost federally: their best-ever showing in Saskatchewan was in 1945 (just edging out 1988), which I'm sure had to do with Douglas' provincial victory a year earlier. The NDP's modest gains in BC in 1972 were also probably a reflection of Dave Barrett's win two months before. Obviously Alberta in 2015 is an exception to this, as the federal party did very poorly at year's end, as is Manitoba throughout the Doer years (particularly 2000).

Re Manitoba, any "particularly" in 2000 probably had more to do with federal than provincial patterns (it being a sloppy-seconds election for Alexa and all); but they held all of their seats, and a lot of the shifts (much as in Saskatchewan) had more to do with the broader federal ReformAllianceConservative shifts that have brought us to this monolithic-blue-bloc day.  In fact, I'd argue that Doer's steady hand at the official-opposition tiller actually made, in a reverse from 1988, the NDP *overperform* in Manitoba relative to the federal pattern in 1993 (even if said pattern was so dismal, it was only good enough to save Bill Blaikie's seat), and turned that into four seats in 1997, which was double the 1988 tally...

Agreed - I was just illustrating some instances where a popular NDP provincial government (or unpopular non-NDP one) didn't translate into much of an improvement at the federal level, while in other instances it did. Certainly the NDP's weak state during this time made such a thing very hard to do, especially with the Reformers taking up the Prairie populist banner so effectively; this also helps to explain the party's poor Alberta showing in 2015. It also ties back to a point made earlier about those provincial parties being far more moderate than the federal one: many voters there who support leaders like Rachel Notley, Roy Romanow or Gary Doer may be more inclined to vote Liberal (or even Tory) at the national level than NDP.