NUMBERS, NUMBERS EVERYWHERE ...
By Kirk Winter
With only a few days left before Canadians cast their vote in the 2019 federal election, the underlying numbers remain extremely volatile. This is what we think we know:
338Canada.com, who provides polling data to Maclean’s Magazine, L’Actualitie and the Montreal Gazette, released these intriguing numbers on October 13 while the rest of us were devouring the turkey or ham of our choice:
Liberals – 31.3% support/136 seats
Conservatives – 32.5% support/135 seats
NDP – 16.4% support/30 seats
Green – 9.5% support/4 seats
Bloc Quebecois – 6.6% support/32 seats
People's Party of Canada – 2.8% support/1 seat
Undecided Canadian – 15% of eligible voters
Most pollsters expect we will be up late with British Columbia’s 42 seats determining who may govern, and who may be in opposition. Based on their polling, 338Canada.com has the province sitting this way:
Liberals – projected to win 11 seats in British Columbia
Conservatives – projected to win 17 seats in British Columbia
NDP – projected to win 10 seats in British Columbia
Green – projected to win three seats in British Columbia
338Canada.com has some local insight as well.
Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock as a “likely Conservative win” based on the following polling data:
Conservatives – 40%
Liberals – 23%
NDP – 20%
Green – 13%
People's Party – 3%
Peterborough-Kawartha, at this point, is a “toss up” based on the following polling data:
Conservatives – 34.2%
Liberals – 33.3%
NDP – 20.9%
Green – 7.6%
People's Party – 3.3%
One in five eligible voters will have already voted in advanced polls over the Thanksgiving Weekend.
Some press outlets report on a “whiff of panic” in the Conservative Party as Andrew Scheer and his team continue to push the stories that voters need to know why Justin Trudeau left his job teaching in British Columbia and that the Liberals are going to legalize harder drugs. All reputable press outlets have found both narratives false, but the Conservatives continue to put the stories out, trying to keep the focus on Trudeau rather than Scheer.
Depending upon the final results on October 21, we may all be hearing a lot more about the election of 1925. Liberal Prime Minister Mackenzie King was defeated by Conservative Arthur Meighen. Meighen won a plurality of seats but fell eight seats short of a majority. The third party, the Progressives, refused to enter a coalition with the Conservatives and threw their support behind the Liberals allowing King to stay in power. Meighen accused King of holding on to power “like a lobster with lockjaw.” The Conservatives “won” the election but could not govern.
With a slight shift in the predicted seat count, 2019 could be a replay of 1925 with Scheer winning the most seats, but not ruling for lack of a coalition partner. With three other parties representing the democratic center-left , Trudeau will have at least two potential coalition partners, the NDP and the Greens, if faced with a minority government. Scheer and his Conservatives have only one in the People's Party, but with Maxime Bernier projected to win between one and three seats, his support could be negligible. Many pundits believe that the last two years of acrimony between Scheer and Bernier would make any kind of coalition between the two difficult at best. Most experts also predict that neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals would be willing to form any kind of working agreement with the separatist Bloc Quebecois, as tempting as it might be, for fear of the political fallout that it would cause. Scheer, like Meighen, could “win” the election but Trudeau would continue to govern after making a deal with either/or the NDP and Greens.
In this age of political “shock and awe” some are awaiting that one last bit of damaging scandal to be released by a party desperate to change the current election trajectory. So far, Canadian voters have barely been budged by the SNC-Lavalin Affair, the brown face scandal, “Cupgate” or Andrew Scheer’s questionable resume claims. If this bit of “tittle tattle” exists, expect to see it leaked Thursday or Friday of this week for maximum impact at the polling station.
Number crunchers are varying wildly in their projected turnout numbers for next Monday. The election of 2015 was a “change election” with voters wanting to see Stephen Harper defeated. Turnout was in excess of 60 percent. Some suggest that the numbers could be just as strong this time around, while others believe the turnout could be closer to 50 percent, as many voters have been turned off by the mudslinging and general quality of political discourse on display the last six weeks. Generally, parties on the political right benefit from lower turnouts as their voters are committed to exercising their democratic rights, while center-left voters are often tempted to sit out election cycles that have failed to excite them. Donald Trump was the direct beneficiary of that phenomenon in 2016 when nearly seven million Democratic voters who supported Obama refused to come out and support Clinton.
Has anyone else noticed how few candidates’ signs there are on actual people’s lawns this election? Lindsay is normally abloom with signs proudly displaying a voter’s party of choice. There are still hundreds of “ditch pigs” all around town, displayed on public land that everyone has the right to access, but they mean nothing when figuring out true political support. In the polarized political environment in which we live, some wonder if people are no longer willing to share with neighbours their voting preferences for fear of ostracism and backlash.
Finally, I want to share a bit of political wisdom that my father shared with all his children regarding exercising the right to vote, and it has stayed with me for the last 40 years. Dad said, “If you don’t vote you lose the right to complain about anything the government is going to do for the next four years.” Regardless of who you support, democracy only works when you exercise your right to vote. A Syrian refugee, who has since become a Canadian citizen, was interviewed outside an advanced poll in Toronto and said, “Today was one of the greatest days of my life because for the first time in my life I have the opportunity to freely and fairly cast my ballot.” That is what democracy is all about. Make your mark and support the democratic process in Canada.