Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[King of Kensington]

The Tories lost their most "diverse" seats in the GTA, Lower Mainland and Calgary in the last election.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

To the point about immigrants and minorities, it's not an iron-clad Liberal lockbox, but the Conservatives haven't helped themselves. Doug Ford's retail politicking did wonders with many immigrant/minority demographics, the biggest pro-PC swings in 2018 happened in areas with large immigrant populations. But the federal brand seems to have been tainted by Harper's final election, and it has gotten worse. The CPC did about 6% worse in Ontario in 2021 compared to the PCPO in 2018 - but if you look at immigrant-heavy ridings, the CPC-PCPO gap is way, way bigger.

...which is funny because O'Toole and Ford have a rather similar style in practice - mainstream conservatism with a populist bent (also both had fathers who were Harris MPPs).  The main difference is that Ford is in government and O'Toole is in opposition.  Also the Ontario PCs have a more moderate caucus, most of the candidates were nominated when Patrick Brown was leader.

Similar styles, yes...kinda. Ford is more outspoken and loud-mouthed, although I don't think there's any substantial policy difference between them.

I think the difference is that Ford is a good retail politician, and O'Toole is not. He has an established brand separate from "conservative", and I think that makes him more amenable to traditional non-conservatives.

[Poirot]

73-45? Ouch.
Have we a geographic breakdown of who voted how?

It was a secret ballot, so we only have MP's public statements

Known O'Toole supporters:
Chris d'Entremont - West Nova
Eric Duncan - Stormant-Dundas-South Glengarry
Michelle Rempel - Calgary Nose Hill
Tim Uppal - Edmonton Mill Woods
Ron Liepert - Calgary Signal Hill
Karen Vecchio - Elgin Middlesex London

Known opponents
Garnett Genuis - Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan (also reportedly started the coup)
Bob Benzen - Calgary Heritage

We can make some educated guesses as well. Socons hated O'Toole, there's no way Poillievre didn't vote to remove him, etc etc.

Gerard Deltell voted to keep the leader. Not surprising given his current role. He will not run for leadership.
Dimitri Soudas said before the vote that last week the Quebec caucus seemed to be behind O'Toole but today he knew of four Quebec MPs voting against.

Mario Dumont seems to be angry about Poilievere's stance on truckers. Dumont says it shows Poilievre doesn't have the stature of Prime Minister and next time he is a guest on his show he will have to apologized.

[King of Kensington]

Potential leadership candidates:

Pierre Poilievre
Peter MacKay
Rona Ambrose
Leslyn Lewis
Michelle Rempel Garner
Brad Wall
Patrick Brown
Caroline Mulroney
Doug Ford
Andrew Scheer


https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2022/02/02/who-will-be-the-next-conservative-leader-here-are-some-potential-contenders.html

[King of Kensington]

Patrick Brown is a non-starter, given that he went much further in his attempt to "liberalize" the Ontario PCs than O'Toole did with the federal Conservatives.  Basically the Justin Trudeau of the Conservative Party.

[Storr]

Patrick Brown is a non-starter, given that he went much further in his attempt to "liberalize" the Ontario PCs than O'Toole did with the federal Conservatives.  Basically the Justin Trudeau of the Conservative Party.

Caroline Mulroney would literally be the Justin Trudeau of Conservatives.

[Хahar 🤔]

Re: the next election

The Tories got a shade under 34% last time. Say they need to pick up six points to form government (probably a bit less than that, but suppose for argument sake).

Does anyone seriously believe that the Liberals have six points worth of white collar professional types, who were put off by pro-choice, pro-carbon tax, Liberal-gun-ban-accepting O'Toole, but would embrace the Tories if they moved just a little bit more left?

A significant chunk of those six points are going to have come from the PPC, and perhaps the Bloc Quebecois,  some sort of accomodation is going to have to be reached to win those voters over. Even among current Liberal/NDP voters, the path of least resistance is probably going to be in the voters concentrated in places like Northern Ontario and rural Newfoundland, not the Andrew Coyne types. Those voters aren't going to be won over with the sorts of things pundits usually think the Tories should do.

To be really blunt, if Poillievre becomes leader, I'd be more nervous for the party if he runs on a platform of fiscal orthodoxy, than if he does the sort of cultural conservative stuff pundits wring their hands over.

The appeal of this position is obvious, but the issue is that voters who chose right-of-Conservative parties in 2021 are politically marginal and concentrated in uncompetitive ridings. Obviously Canadian voters are uniquely volatile, et cetera, but since I have a file with 2021 results by riding I decided to do a little exercise.

If 100% of People's Party and Maverick Party voters had instead voted for the Conservative Party, the effect would be a loss of 15 Liberal seats, 6 NDP seats, and 1 Bloc seat, for a Conservative gain of 22 seats. This would give us a result of Liberal 145, Conservative 141, Bloc 31, NDP 19, Green 2. Even an extreme scenario of every right-wing voter instead voting Conservative would still have resulted in a Liberal government. The Conservative loss in 2021 is not attributable to bleeding votes to the right.



If we consider instead the prospect of winning over Liberal voters, winning over 7% of Liberal voters from 2021 would deliver a Conservative minority government. Winning over 15% of Liberal voters from 2021 would produce a Conservative majority. As it happens, 15% of Liberal voters would be 7,500 fewer than the total number of People's Party voters, but those votes would be far more valuable. Another way to put it is that winning back all the People's Party voters would not be enough, but convincing half as many Liberal voters would mean a Conservative government.



As it is, Canada's electoral geography puts the Conservative Party at a disadvantage, and trying to consolidate the right flank would mean doubling down on that disadvantage. The realistic options for a Conservative victory that don't involve trying to win over Liberal voters are mobilizing non-voters or flipping Bloc voters. The former seems unlikely and the latter is perilous. Winning isn't necessarily the only thing that matters in politics, but if Conservatives want to pursue a more overtly confessional strategy, then they should be aware of what they're doing.

[StateBoiler]

How can Peter Mackay be considered a serious option that has a chance of winning?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Patrick Brown is a non-starter, given that he went much further in his attempt to "liberalize" the Ontario PCs than O'Toole did with the federal Conservatives.  Basically the Justin Trudeau of the Conservative Party.

His embrace of a straight-up carbon tax is not something the CPC base is ready for, even though a revenue-neutral carbon tax is a pretty market-friendly and small-c conservative policy, it's too far out of line with most Conservative voters' priorities, especially out west (but generally across rural Canada too I'd say).

Tories with Brown-esque views already have a CPC MP to champion their views, Michael Chong. Chong won't win the leadership, but I think he would do better than Brown. Chong is a pretty likable guy with a history of focusing on things like transparency and open government, something that could actually appeal to a broad section of Tory members. Brown is a slimy political opportunist with skeletons in his closet.

[Benjamin Frank]

Interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen.



And

[mileslunn]

Patrick Brown is a non-starter, given that he went much further in his attempt to "liberalize" the Ontario PCs than O'Toole did with the federal Conservatives.  Basically the Justin Trudeau of the Conservative Party.

His embrace of a straight-up carbon tax is not something the CPC base is ready for, even though a revenue-neutral carbon tax is a pretty market-friendly and small-c conservative policy, it's too far out of line with most Conservative voters' priorities, especially out west (but generally across rural Canada too I'd say).

Tories with Brown-esque views already have a CPC MP to champion their views, Michael Chong. Chong won't win the leadership, but I think he would do better than Brown. Chong is a pretty likable guy with a history of focusing on things like transparency and open government, something that could actually appeal to a broad section of Tory members. Brown is a slimy political opportunist with skeletons in his closet.

While probably wouldn't work, the first carbon tax was introduced by none other than Gordon Campbell in BC who was fairly conservative.  Michael Chong predicated it on massive income tax cuts and Tories should like that.  Problem is base hates carbon tax so much many ignore that. 

One way they could win here is get lots from Bay Street to sign up as this type of policy popular there.  But unlike past seems Bay street which used to have huge influence on both parties is pretty marginal today.  More importantly, that might look bad in general election where many associate them with higher inequality.

Other on environment is perhaps a cap and trade like Quebec has as while base won't like that, I think it would be an easier sell than carbon tax.

Off course climate change not only issue.  You have a strong anti-abortion element even though this is dead for many and gun lobby is very powerful and anything short of promising to repeal recent OIC  will make winning leadership tough (although also be political suicide in general election).

If base were rational and understood politics, a smart one would just say, I hear your concerns but country won't go for this so you have a choice: stick with your ideas and have continued Liberal governments which you hate or accept something that moves closer to what you want but still falls short.  Getting your way just is not feasible.  Unfortunately I've found with a lot of the base, this falls on deaf ears and they refuse to accept its about the art of possible, not ideal.  Harper understood this thus why despite being a Reformer, he didn't stray too far to right as he understood public wasn't there.  But he was also a lot smarter than most in the base and understood where public stood better than much of base.

[T'Chenka]

RIP Canada. Maybe in the short term the conservatives going far right helps the Liberals but no party can stay in power forever and eventually the trucker lunatic party will be in charge again.

The citizens WILL NOT vote in a crazy trucker party, at least, not unless they have a leader that condones condemns the insanity. Canadians on average just do not approve of MAGA deplorable behaviour and won't vote in a Prime Minister that's okay with it.

As Laddicus Finch said, conseratives can't win the culture war up here.

[CumbrianLefty]

RIP Canada. Maybe in the short term the conservatives going far right helps the Liberals but no party can stay in power forever and eventually the trucker lunatic party will be in charge again.

The citizens WILL NOT vote in a crazy trucker party, at least, not unless they have a leader that condones the insanity. Canadians on average just do not approve of MAGA deplorable behaviour and won't vote in a Prime Minister that's okay with it.

As Laddicus Finch said, conseratives can't win the culture war up here.

I think you meant a similar but very different word there?

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1489275288970223624?s=20&t=Zcm5GP...

I know in last election we saw some Green -> PPC swings under the hood, but the thought then was that this was just anti-establishment voters. But maybe there is more too it?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1489275288970223624?s=20&t=Zcm5GP...
I know in last election we saw some Green -> PPC swings under the hood, but the thought then was that this was just anti-establishment voters. But maybe there is more too it?

Even the NDP and Liberal Partisan divide is far weaker than i'd expect.

[Central Lake]

For the Conservatives, I would say keep stuff mostly the same including blue collar workers strategy except replace the appeal to muh centrists in urban areas strategy with a Rob/Doug Ford strategy.

General outline of things

1. Target every single non-urban/non-metropolitan riding held by the Liberals or NDP. Especially Northern Ontario and Newfoundland where were some big swings towards the CPC.

2. Try to emulate the Ford brothers and work hard on ethnic outreach for GTA seats. Strategy could be transferable the Vancouver area as well.

Some finer points: (I might think of more stuff later)

1. Do outreach and try to move the needle slightly in Indigenous communities located in current (and potentially future) CPC-NDP battleground ridings.

2. Vigorously target the two Beauport seats held by the BQ.

3. Don't limit ethnic/minority outreach to the GTA, Lower Mainland, Edmonton and Calgary. Put a similar effort wherever applicable such as Kitchener, Niagara Falls, Niagara Centre, Fredericton, N.B. etc.

[LabourJersey]

https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1489275288970223624?s=20&t=Zcm5GP...

I know in last election we saw some Green -> PPC swings under the hood, but the thought then was that this was just anti-establishment voters. But maybe there is more too it?

Do the Greens have a strong anti-vax contingent?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

For the Conservatives, I would say keep stuff mostly the same including blue collar workers strategy except replace the appeal to muh centrists in urban areas strategy with a Rob/Doug Ford strategy.

General outline of things

1. Target every single non-urban/non-metropolitan riding held by the Liberals or NDP. Especially Northern Ontario and Newfoundland where were some big swings towards the CPC.

2. Try to emulate the Ford brothers and work hard on ethnic outreach for GTA seats. Strategy could be transferable the Vancouver area as well.

Some finer points: (I might think of more stuff later)

1. Do outreach and try to move the needle slightly in Indigenous communities located in current (and potentially future) CPC-NDP battleground ridings.

2. Vigorously target the two Beauport seats held by the BQ.

3. Don't limit ethnic/minority outreach to the GTA, Lower Mainland, Edmonton and Calgary. Put a similar effort wherever applicable such as Kitchener, Niagara Falls, Niagara Centre, Fredericton, N.B. etc.

I'll add something wonky and inside baseball, but it was mentioned by the CPC's election post-mortem: modernize their voter information and outreach systems.

There's a reason why the Liberals are so good at winning marginal seats, even when national trends aren't in their favour - the "Liberalist" system they use is very modern, sophisticated, easy to use, and contains an extensive database. I don't identify with any party now but there was a time when I was a Liberal partisan and worked on Liberal campaigns (2015 and 2019 - Liberalist was introduced in 2015). The system was designed by the consultants who do this work for the Democrats, and any Canadian party being on the same level of analytical sophistication as an American party is a huge boost. The CPC system, I've never used it, but it looks like it was designed in 2004 on an AOL account. Their outreach system isn't as data-driven and targeted, and in today's hyper-professionalized political environment, that hurts ya.

Another inside baseball thing, they should consider scrapping membership fees like the Liberals did. It will cost funds at first, but if you can get people who lean tory but not willing to make a financial commitment, to join the party, you now have a bigger database of supporters to contact and encourage to vote, donate, volunteer, what have you. It's much easier to reach out to identified members because you have their phone number, email address, home address, etc. The CPC (and all parties) already do this, but by removing the barrier of entry, you increase the pool of voters of whom you have this kind of info.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1489275288970223624?s=20&t=Zcm5GP...
I know in last election we saw some Green -> PPC swings under the hood, but the thought then was that this was just anti-establishment voters. But maybe there is more too it?

Do the Greens have a strong anti-vax contingent?

Yep. The Greens have long attracted the more fringe elements of the left. The Tulsi Gabbard party, basically.

[Central Lake]

I kind of get your second point. From anecdotal experience quite a number of people are reluctant to pay a membership fee.

[Хahar 🤔]

For the Conservatives, I would say keep stuff mostly the same including blue collar workers strategy except replace the appeal to muh centrists in urban areas strategy with a Rob/Doug Ford strategy.

General outline of things

1. Target every single non-urban/non-metropolitan riding held by the Liberals or NDP. Especially Northern Ontario and Newfoundland where were some big swings towards the CPC.

2. Try to emulate the Ford brothers and work hard on ethnic outreach for GTA seats. Strategy could be transferable the Vancouver area as well.

Sometimes I think about the Rob Ford crack video. Any politician could have sent someone down to the ethnic neighborhood to pick up drugs and then consumed them with his rich friends, but what made Rob Ford distinctive is that he actually smoked the crack there. If you want to be less flippant, you can look at the ethnic composition of the football teams he coached. The point here is that Rob Ford actively liked immigrants and wanted to be around them. That's the sort of thing that can't be replicated just by passing out Punjabi-language flyers in Brampton.

It also seems unlikely that the sort of soft anti-vaccine (or even just anti-lockdown) pressure coming from the right flank of the Conservative Party would play well with minorities. This is a repeated issue facing the Conservative Party when it comes to winning Liberal votes.

[Central Lake]

To build off a previous post about NDP voters switching to Liberals. What is the absolute floor for the NDP? 12%? 9%?

The NDP got 16% of the vote in the last election so if the floor is 12% an additional 4% goes to the Liberals. Which is approximately 37% for the LPC.

What do you guys think this is the absolute floor for the NDP? In a situation where a right wing CPC is leading the LPC and the Conservatives are poised to win an election.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

To build off a previous post about NDP voters switching to Liberals. What is the absolute floor for the NDP? 12%? 9%?

The NDP got 16% of the vote in the last election so if the floor is 12% an additional 4% goes to the Liberals. Which is approximately 37% for the LPC.

What do you guys think this is the absolute floor for the NDP? In a situation where a right wing CPC is leading the LPC and the Conservatives are poised to win an election.

The NDP floor is probably like 15%. They rarely poll that low, but have a tendency to underperform polls by a couple percentage points. You could add a couple points of BQ-LPC transfer in Quebec, and maybe a small red tory transfer, I'd say this scenario (NDP at its floor, Trudeau approval stable, more right-wing CPC) could net a scenario where the CPC gets about 38-39% of the vote, and the LPC gets 36-37%.

The bigger risk with this strategy is that, even if the CPC in 2021 had won over every PPC voter, they still wouldn't have won the election. They would have taken 39% of the popular vote, whole 7 points ahead of the LPC, and still lost seat count. This is because PPC votes are most concentrated in ridings already held by the CPC (and some weird ones like Timmins-James Bay and the Windsor ridings, but there aren't enough of those). Most LPC-held ridings, even the very marginal ones, don't have many PPC voters to pick up.

Take a look at Kanata-Carleton, a swing riding in suburban Ottawa. The kind of Liberal-held seat that the Tories should be able to win. If you added all PPC votes to the CPC count in 2021, the Liberal candidate still wins.

So yes, winning over PPC voters is part of the CPC's path back to power, as much as the pundit class may hate that prospect. Certainly if the CPC can start winning in traditionally left-wing areas like Northern Ontario by picking off PPC voters, that makes their path easier. But however you cut it, the path to winning the seat count also involves winning some current LPC voters - and trying to appeal both to Bernier voters and some Trudeau voters is a difficult task.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

I doubt it's a coincidence that Bergen, the MP from the riding with the highest number of votes going PPC, was made the interim leader and has been unabashedly pro-trucker. The Tories probably figure that the Liberal and Trudeau brands are going to be so tarnished by the time the next election comes around that they'd lose to literally anyone (see: Premier Doug Ford), whereas if the PPC is able to seriously contest rural seats then the Conservatives have basically no path to a majority. However controversial they may be, nobody (except maybe traumatized downtown Ottawans who never vote Tory anyway) is going to be casting their ballot based on trucker protesters in a year, much like how the rail blockades had minimal impact on the last election.

The only real potential for a backfire would be if Trudeau suddenly decided to hold an election in the middle of the CPC leadership race, while they're still busy pandering to their base. In that case they'd actually have to deal with the disconnect now when people actually care, but I'm pretty sure it would also be completely unprecedented and early elections typically backfire on Prime Ministers. Still, with the inflation and supply chain issues I have a hard time imagining Trudeau having any better luck a year from now and at least right now there is a(n increasingly narrow) majority supporting mandates and lockdowns.

[2952-0-0]

I doubt it's a coincidence that Bergen, the MP from the riding with the highest number of votes going PPC, was made the interim leader and has been unabashedly pro-trucker. The Tories probably figure that the Liberal and Trudeau brands are going to be so tarnished by the time the next election comes around that they'd lose to literally anyone (see: Premier Doug Ford), whereas if the PPC is able to seriously contest rural seats then the Conservatives have basically no path to a majority. However controversial they may be, nobody (except maybe traumatized downtown Ottawans who never vote Tory anyway) is going to be casting their ballot based on trucker protesters in a year, much like how the rail blockades had minimal impact on the last election.

First off, the rail blockades were pre-empted by the start of the pandemic, so of course, no one remembers them.

Secondly, there's another trucker convoy scheduled for this Saturday in downtown Toronto, outside the provincial legislature. For context, the provincial legislature is immediately adjacent to four of the city's largest hospitals. Already, some hospital appointments have been delayed, and hospital workers scheduled for this weekend have been asked to not wear their uniforms when coming to and from work. Any disruption to these hospitals will immediately turn the Conservative brand into radioactive waste in the GTA, which will destroy any hope of them forming government for a long time to come. The Toronto police are much less hesitant to break out the batons than their Ottawa colleagues, so there's a little hope on that aspect.

Thirdly, the Conservatives have demonstrated they can't play 3D chess, as much as they want to think they can. Harper was both smart (able to keep the party unified) and lucky (Liberals were leaderless). Complacency that "next time we will win for sure because the other guy will be so hated" is dangerous, as Scheer and O'Toole discovered, and as Democrats discovered in 2020.

The Conservatives should pray that the riot police break up the protest ASAP, so they can face-savingly denounce "a few radicals" while blaming Trudeau for various grievances anyway. The longer this goes on, the less this can happen.

The only real potential for a backfire would be if Trudeau suddenly decided to hold an election in the middle of the CPC leadership race, while they're still busy pandering to their base. In that case they'd actually have to deal with the disconnect now when people actually care, but I'm pretty sure it would also be completely unprecedented and early elections typically backfire on Prime Ministers. Still, with the inflation and supply chain issues I have a hard time imagining Trudeau having any better luck a year from now and at least right now there is a(n increasingly narrow) majority supporting mandates and lockdowns.

Any mandates are certain to be revoked in the coming weeks. Each relaxation of mandates will peel off the size of the crowd; and the smaller the crowd, the more radicalized, and the more embarrassing it will be for anyone who supported them. One group arrived today, led by a star of the QAnon movement who claims to be the secret Queen of Canada and who has ordered the execution of anyone involved in vaccinating children. The Queen of Canada then burned the national flag in front of the Parliament building, in which case, I can't think of any faster way to enrage and offend voters.

At that point, the Conservatives will be stuck having to explain their stance on a few dozen QAnon followers led by a self-professed Queen of Canada who burned the national flag, while the rest of the country will have moved on. They can again try to pivot to the middle to make themselves electable, but that will be even harder during the next election than it was in the last two ones. And, as I mentioned earlier, they can't simply assume they can coast to victory using the incumbent's unpopularity.