Does Andrew Scheer have a pathway to power?

One way to find out is to ask how the math worked for six (Progressive) Conservative wins dating back to 1962.  Excluding the freakishly large Mulroney win in 1984, examples of Conservative wins provide insight as to how Andrew Scheer can find his pathway to power.

Of these six examples, only two resulted in majorities.  One example – Mulroney ’88 – was the ‘Quebec-Alberta bridge’, where the PC’s dominated in both.  The second example – Harper 2011 – was domination in English Canada.

Diefenbaker 1962

Dief won a minority government in 1962 following a massive majority he won in 1958.  The Progressive Conservatives won 44% of the seats on 37.2% of the popular vote.  The plurality was based on winning two-thirds of the seats in the West and North and two-fifths of the seats in Ontario.  He lost the huge gains he had made in Quebec.

Won big in the West, fell short in Ontario

Clark 1979

It was a long wait for the PC’s to win another government and Joe Clark came close to a majority (48% of seats) with less than 36% of the popular vote.  No government has won a majority with less than 38%.  Clark lost the popular vote by over 4%.  How did he win a plurality? Domination in the West, winning almost three-quarters of the seats, and winning a strong majority (60%) of seats in Ontario. While he won a majority of seats in Atlantic Canada, he was virtually shut out of Quebec. This template was virtually the one Harper won a majority with in 2011.

Won big in the West, won majority in Ontario, but blown out in Quebec

Mulroney 1988

Brian Mulroney won everywhere in 1984 in what was truly a change election. However, in 1988, the ‘free trade election’, it was much more competitive.  In the West, Mulroney had to contend with an upstart Reform Party and strong NDP campaigns.  He managed a majority of seats in the West (54%) but it was lowest level of the six examples – while Alberta was dominated by PCs, BC went NDP and Liberals made gains in Manitoba.  The PC’s did not win a majority of seats in Ontario (47%) but came close.  The big difference was Quebec.  Unlike the five other examples, Mulroney won big in la belle province, taking 84% of its seats.  The Quebec-Alberta bridge delivered a majority – the PC’s held 57% of the seats in the House of Commons.

Won big in Quebec to complement bare majority (50%) of seats in combined West/Ontario

Harper 2006

In Stephen Harper’s first successful election, he won a minority (40% of seats) with 36% of the popular vote.  The Conservatives won two-thirds of the seats in the West but less than two-fifths of the seats in Ontario.  The shape of Harper’s win was similar to Dief’s in 1962 except that Dief won in Atlantic Canada and Harper fell far short.  Both did poorly in Quebec.

Won big in the West, fell short in Ontario

Harper 2008

Stephen Harper fought hard for a majority in 2008 but fell just short with 46% of the seats on 38% of the popular vote.  The shape of this win was similar to 2006, except that the Conservatives were stronger in the West (76% of seats) and Ontario (48% of seats).  They continued to fall short in Quebec (13%) and Atlantic Canada (31%).  Compared to 1962 and 1979, the West/Ontario rose from 59% to 65% of the seats in the House of Commons making it more possible to win with a strong position in those regions, but Harper needed a clear win in Ontario in 2008 and he didn’t get it.

Won big in the West, fell short in Ontario

Harper 2011

Harper finally gets his majority winning 54% of the seats with 40% of the popular vote. The Conservatives dominated the West (78% of seats) and Ontario (69% of seats).  They also raised their game in Atlantic Canada (44% of seats) while falling back in Quebec (7% of seats).  The Harper win was a souped-up Joe Clark pathway to power – winning everywhere while being trounced in Quebec.  The difference was that Harper got more out of the West and Ontario than Clark.

Won very big in the West, won strong majority in Ontario

Table 1:   Popular vote, Percentage of total seats for examples

What it means for Scheer

Even if Scheer wins 20%-25% of the seats in Quebec, he must dominate Western Canada while pushing toward a majority of seats in Ontario.  There are now more seats in these two regions than there were in the examples listed above.

• West/North 107 seats
• Ontario 121 seats
• Combined 228 seats (67% of all seats in the House of Commons)

The Conservatives are expected to dominate Alberta and Saskatchewan, but will need to improve their standings in BC and Manitoba, compared to 2015, in order to get the seats needed to win a plurality of seats.  Without a strong showing expected in Quebec, Scheer would need over two-thirds of the seats in the West to ‘pull its weight’, which would equate to over 70 seats.  Other than Mulroney ’88, the (Progressive) Conservative wins have had at least 42% of all of their seats from the West, and in Harper’s minorities, over 50% of Conservatives seats came east of Ontario.  If that was to be the case this time, Scheer would need to push north of 75 seats in the West, meaning he will need to do much better in BC.

Winning just half of the seats in Ontario would yield 60 seats for the Conservatives. Therefore, the Conservatives could scrape a plurality by adding a combined 20-25  seats from Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

A Scheer majority comes into play if he follows the “Win big in the West, win majority in Ontario” model.  If he has a dominant effort in the West (75-80 seats) combined with majority-plus in Ontario (70-75 seats), topped off by 20-30 seats in Quebec in Atlantic Canada, then a majority (170) is attainable.  The popular vote required to deliver a majority is, historically at least 38.5% of the vote, but with more parties splitting votes (eg. Greens, PPC), it’s possible that the magic number is 37% or even lower.

Prime Minister Scheer?  It could look like a Dief/Clark minority path or a Harper majority path, but it won’t be easy and it won’t look anything like the Mulroney path.

In a future post, I will look at the Liberal path to re-election.

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Table 1: Results from six (Progressive) Conservative wins