Tag / Campaigns

by Rosedeer

BC politics and Big Bang Theory

With just over five months from the start of the next provincial election, are we at a point where BC’s political landscape is about to be reshaped? 

The BC Liberals won the popular vote six times in a row from 1996 to 2017 but that brand has been discarded.  Its successor brand, BC United, has fragmented with two MLAs defecting to the upstart BC Conservatives, and many of its voters parked there too – the amount differs depending on which poll you’re looking at. Regardless of the exact numbers, it is crystal clear that there is a vote split. Electoral coalitions are tough to maintain, but the math is grim when they fall apart. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, it’s ultimately a question of “hanging together or hanging separately”.

What does history tell us?

The re-formulation of BC’s ‘free enterprise coalition’ – or as one astute political observer calls it the “Not NDP” coalition – has followed ‘big bang’ political events on four occasions over the past 83 years.  Once a big bang happens, the voters are presented a revised option to challenge the dominant left-wing option, originally the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and, after 1961, the BC NDP.

The big bangs have taken place in a variety of ways – a deal between parties (1941), the voters choosing a surprising new direction (1952 and 1991), and coalition by migration when MLAs and partisans from weaker parties moved over to support the stronger party in order to remove a vote split (1975).

Let’s Make a Deal

In 1941, fresh after a disappointing election campaign where his majority government was reduced to a minority, Liberal Premier Duff Pattullo, who had led BC since 1933, wanted to carry on as usual.  Concerned by the increasing strength of the left-wing Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), Pattullo’s cabinet and caucus colleagues wanted to join forces with the Conservatives and form a wartime coalition government.  Pattullo dug in.  Frustrated, Liberal cabinet ministers resigned, including Finance Minister John Hart. On December 2nd, 1941, at a special convention of almost 800 Liberal members held at the Aztec Room in the Hotel Georgia, both sides of the argument were heard over the course of a four-hour debate with those favouring coalition prevailing over Pattullo’s point of view, by a vote of 477-312.  Pattullo resigned as party leader and declared, “You have given your verdict, which I accept. But you must remember you are now no longer Liberals – you are coalitionists.” He stepped down from the platform, waving to the crowd, saying, “Good-bye, boys and girls” and walked into the night. (see Robin Fisher’s, Duff Pattullo of British Columbia). John Hart was elected immediately by the Liberal rank and file to lead the party, and, within the week, was installed as the Coalition premier.  Conservatives were brought into cabinet, with party leader, Pat Maitland, becoming Attorney-General.  In the subsequent election, Liberals and Conservatives held joint nomination meetings where an equal number of members from each party were eligible to choose an agreed-upon coalition candidate at the riding level.

The Voters Choose a New Direction

In 1952, voters were tiring of the coalition parties. In fact, Liberals and Conservatives were tiring of each other. After two consecutive majority wins in 1945 and 1949, the coalition parties decided to resume hostilities and run their own candidates, with one key wrinkle – they hatched a plan intended to thwart the CCF by bringing forward a single transferable ballot where voters marked their first, second, and third choices. The thinking was that Liberal and Conservatives would gang up by being each other’s second choice thus denying the CCF a chance to otherwise win under the traditional ‘first past the post’ system. What they did not envision was the Social Credit Party, which governed Alberta but heretofore a non-factor in BC, becoming a plausible option for many voters. The Socreds trailed the CCF after the first count of ballots by a margin of 7 seats, but when second and third choices were counted, they edged ahead of the CCF, with 19 of 52 seats in the Legislature (the CCF had 18). The Socreds, who were actually led by an Albertan during the campaign, did not have an elected leader until after the campaign when W.A.C. Bennett (a former Conservative MLA who went Socred before the election) was chosen by the newbie caucus. W.A.C. then had to twist the arm of the Lieutenant-Governor to be invited to form a government. It worked out – he governed for 20 years on the strength of seven consecutive election wins, and shrewdly did away with the single transferable system after 1953.

In 1991, the voters would take matters into their own hands again and shake up the political landscape. They had had enough of the Social Credit Party, reducing the dynasty that had governed for 36 of the 39 previous years to only seven seats in the 69-seat Legislature.  The BC Liberals literally rose from the ashes under leader Gordon Wilson to jump from zero to 17 seats and claim the Official Opposition, while the NDP steered its way to a majority government under Premier Mike Harcourt.  The Liberals would metamorphosize in the years that followed.  Wilson lost his grip on the leadership leading to a convention where the three Gordons faced off – Wilson, former leader Gordon Gibson, and Vancouver mayor Gordon Campbell.  Campbell prevailed and set forth to rebuild the BC Liberals – then mainly a ‘liberal’ party – by attracting new blood, including ex-Socreds, Progressive Conservatives, and federal Reformers. It would take a decade.  A close loss in 1996 (due to a vote split with remnants of the Socreds under the banner of Reform BC) was followed by an electoral landslide in 2001 when Campbell’s BC Liberals won 77 of 79 seats.  The BC Liberal new era in government would run for 16 years to 2017 when a razor thin, combined NDP-Green majority ousted them in a confidence vote. John Horgan was propelled into power on the strength of a 189 vote NDP win over the BC Liberals in Courtenay-Comox, where the BC Conservative candidate had a coalition-killing 2,200 votes.

Coalition by migration

In 1972, the NDP, led by Dave Barrett, formed government for the first time, aided greatly by the rise of the BC Conservative Party which went from about zero to over 12% of the vote, creating a deadly vote split.  In a Kelowna by-election to fill W.A.C. Bennett’s seat in 1973, the leader of the Conservatives, Derrill Warren, faced W.A.C’s son, Bill Bennett, the Socred candidate.  Bennett the younger prevailed, dispensing with the Conservatives, soon became leader of his party, and ultimately attracted three Liberal MLAs (including former leader Pat McGeer) and one Conservative MLA to cross to him.  The four floor crossers would become senior cabinet ministers after the election. Other key partisans, like former BC Liberal leadership candidate Bill Vander Zalm, jumped to Bill Bennett’s side. It wasn’t just as simple as that, though – the floor crossings followed months and months of public discussions of a ‘Unity Party’ by various opposition MLAs and advocacy by a third-party group – the Majority Movement – that pushed for a united front (Professor Gerry Kristiansen writes a great summary of events in BC Studies). Ultimately, the consolidation of seats under the Socreds sent the political ‘bat signal’ to free enterprise voters that the Social Credit banner had been rejuvenated, and they won the 1975 election decisively, and went on to govern for another 16 years.  The Liberal and Conservative vote collapsed. The NDP vote was virtually unchanged in 1975 but they couldn’t defeat a unified opposition.

After the 1996 election when the BC Liberals won the popular vote but lost the election primarily due to a vote split with BC Reform, ‘Coalition by Migration‘ was effected to solidify support as Reform MLA Richard Neufeld crossed the floor to the BC Liberals (later to serve in cabinet) along with a past party president, and many grassroots members. BC Reformers were effectively wooed by the BC Liberals and room was made in the coalition tent for them. This process was repeated again in 2011-2013 era as Christy Clark moved to shore up the BC Liberal coalition by bringing key federal Conservative leaders onside to head off a BC Conservative comeback, convening ‘Free Enterprise Friday’ at its party convention, and notably recruiting former BC Conservative by-election candidate John Martin to run as a BC Liberal in the 2013 general election.

Fast forward to 2024. 

We’re due for a Big Bang, whether that’s before or after the October election.

Will the parties hold their ground and have the voters choose their destiny for them? Will one of the opposition parties conclusively pull away from the other and turn the election into a two-way race or will they hold each other back and pick up the pieces afterward? As the 1991 example showed, it took a decade for a ‘free enterprise’ alternative to return to power – winning seats is one thing, but, depending on the scenario, the learning curve of brand new MLAs with no legislative experience is quite another. Just because a new option prevails doesn’t mean it’s going to govern anytime soon. It must still have the ability to appeal to more than 40% of the electorate, which is what successful coalitions have been able to do by attracting a broad spectrum of voters.

Alternatively, will the action take place pre-election, whether that’s a brokered deal that includes joint nomination meetings and agreed-upon candidates, similar to 1941 scenario, or party insiders stampeding one way or another as was the case in 1975? And how would the voters react to that? Would they be turned off by backroom maneuvers or energized that there may be a real horse race?

We’ll see. As Mark Twain said, “History never repeats itself but it often rhymes.”

Catch up with Mike McDonald, Kate Hammer, and Geoff Meggs weekly on Hotel Pacifico, your Five Star podcast designation for B.C. politicos.

More …

by Rosedeer

Book your stay at the Hotel Pacifico podcast

Air Quotes Media, a political media company that created Curse of Politics and The Herle Burly podcasts, is proud to announce its newest podcast, “Hotel Pacifico” hosted by Mike McDonald, Kate Hammer, with Geoff Meggs as a contributing panellist. 

Hotel Pacifico will be a weekly hour-long podcast with three reoccurring segments on each episode: first, the pod will begin with an interview by McDonald and Hammer with an important voice in British Columbia politics ; second, the Strategy Suite segment will welcome Geoff Meggs to Hotel Pacifico, where the three politicos (McDonald, Hammer, and Meggs) will break down the latest provincial news of the week; finally, the podcast will close as the hosts raid the Mini Bar, and raise a glass or take a shot at a relevant person or event (think of the closing “Hey You” segment on Curse of Politics). 

Welcome to Hotel Pacifico, your 5-star podcast destination for B.C. politicos. Episode one will be released the week of October 23, 2023.

by Rosedeer

Five facts about the 2023 Alberta election

  1. It was an historically polarizing election

The UCP and NDP combined for close to 97% of the popular vote and all of the seats.  This is an historic level of polarization with minor parties left in the locker room while the two major parties faced off on the electoral playing field. 

The NDP’s win in 2015 was at the lowest point of polarization in the 30-year period between 1993 and 2023. In other words, the NDP won when the conservative vote was split.

BC had consecutive elections of two-party polarization in 1979 and 1983 at 94% and 95% combined, respectively, but were not quite as high as the Alberta 2023 result.

2. The UCP share of the popular vote almost matched 2019

The UCP popular vote was almost 53% and was only 2% below that of Jason Kenney’s win in 2019.  While it was less efficient, regionally, it was resilient overall. 

The combined vote of the PCs and WildRose parties in 2015 (52% combined from 28% PC; 24% WR) was about the same as the UCP in 2023. 

Jason Kenney did the heavy lifting of unifying the PCs and Wildrose into the UCP and Danielle Smith unified the UCP base after the expiration of Kenney and fallout of a messy leadership campaign.

  1. Danielle Smith is one of only three premiers who can claim a majority of votes

Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe (60%) and PEI’s Dennis King (56%) are the only other premiers to win a majority of the popular vote.  Due to presence of third parties in other legislatures, achieving a majority mandate is very difficult.  BC Premier David Eby and Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson are yet to gain their own mandate, having attained office mid-term. 

  1. The NDP ran the table on the centre-left

The NDP won 30% more votes in 2023 (over 775,000) than during its election win in 2015 when it won just over 600,000.  650,000 more Albertans voted NDP in 2023 than the 2012 election, just over a decade ago. Few leaders have grown and sustained a party’s vote as Rachel Notley.

There were very few electoral table scraps left for the NDP to devour on election night.  The Alberta Party collapsed, and the Alberta Liberals continued their descent to the bottom.

The Alberta Party dropped from 172,000 votes in 2019 to below 13,000 in 2023.  

The demise of the Alberta Liberals has been taking place since 1993 when they contended for power. During this 30-year period, they have plummeted from almost 40% of the popular vote to 0.2%.  

Next time, can the NDP count on third-parties to clear the way as they did in 2023?  The NDP pathway will have to be direct next time – take away UCP votes in the battleground. Consolidation can only get them so far.

  1. Alberta has elected the most women premiers in general elections

Alberta leads all provinces and territories when it comes to electing women premiers in general elections.  Three different Alberta premiers – Alison Redford, Rachel Notley, and Danielle Smith – have accomplished the feat and all in the past 11 years. Christy Clark is the only premier in Canada to win twice (in 2017, she was given the opportunity to swear in a cabinet and face a confidence vote).   

by Rosedeer

May 5th, 1993: the emergence of new leadership for BC

Thirty years ago, on May 5, 1993, a historically-significant event in BC politics took place. 

In front of over 600 supporters at the Hotel Vancouver ballroom, the Mayor of Vancouver bounded onto the stage, and announced he was seeking the leadership of the BC Liberal Party.

At 45 years old, Gordon Campbell was already doing in local government politics what no one had ever done, nor will likely ever do again – he was Mayor of Vancouver, chair of the regional district, and president of the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) at the same time. He had been mayor for almost seven years but the boundaries of local government could not contain him. He had restless energy for a new challenge, and this meant a challenge like no other.

Taking a step back, between 1952 and 1991, the Social Credit Party had governed for all but three of 39 years. When Campbell was elected mayor in 1986, the Socreds were enjoying a resurgence with leader Bill Vander Zalm, who triumphed at the polls a month earlier. However, the aging Socreds were not a great fit with the City of Vancouver nor were they a great fit with a ‘new era’ politician like Campbell. Elected as mayor in 1986, he had been careful to live up to the “Non-Partisan” aspect of the Vancouver NPA. While it was clear the NPA was not the left-wing party, it was a centrist blend of ‘free enterprisers’ – liberals, conservatives, and those simply there for good government. And as the Vander Zalm government imploded in the late 1980s, he was wise to steer clear of provincial politics.

And then in the 1991 B.C. election, the heretofore also-ran BC Liberals blew up the provincial political landscape. 

During the TV debate, BC Liberal Leader Gordon Wilson caught lightning in a bottle, precipitating the collapse of the tired Socreds and a fundamental realignment of BC’s political landscape. Mike Harcourt’s new NDP government – the first NDP government since 1975 – was greeted unexpectedly by an even newer BC Liberal opposition. 

Leaping from zero to 17 members, the BC Liberals were inexperienced in almost all respects. Wilson, who had been a tenacious one-man band out in the political wilderness, struggled as the leader after the election. The House Leader left caucus to sit as an Independent. The Caucus was a hotbed of unrest. By January of 1993, under huge political pressure, Wilson acceded to a leadership convention.

Wilson instantly sought to regain his leadership. Former BC Liberal leader Gordon Gibson put his name forward. Gibson had been the lone BC Liberal in the Legislature from 1975-1979 before the party slipped into sleep mode for 12 years, and had a family history in the party that led back to the 1950s with his father Gordon Gibson Sr. (‘Bull of the Woods‘) serving prominently as BC Liberal MLA and thorn in the side of the Socreds.

All eyes then turned to yet another Gordon, Mayor Campbell. An opening lay before him, but it was not as obvious as it seemed; Campbell was not a member of the BC Liberal Party. Many weren’t sure what he was in terms of partisan labels, though he was seen as a business-oriented, budget-conscious centrist that was in tune with the times.

But leading the BC Liberals? They had been in the political cold until only recently. The BC Liberal brand dated back to 1903, to the advent of party politics in British Columbia. BC Liberals had not governed since being vanquished by the Socreds in 1952 , its elected remnants had been decimated by floor-crossing MLAs in the 1970s, and the party had been further weighed down by its affiliation with the very unpopular P.E. Trudeau federal Liberal government in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Wilson picked up the leadership in 1987 after it had recently improved to 7% of the popular vote, but had no seats. Under his leadership, the party split from the federal wing before the election in 1991 and became an independent provincial party, a pivotal moment, and a precondition of its breakthrough and sustained success.  

Campbell contemplated taking on this brand and the shell of an organization. It had about 3,000 members, weak riding associations, an eclectic group of MLAs who were surprised to get elected, and the continued existence of the Social Credit Party on its right flank. In order to be successful, he would need to modernize the BC Liberal Party, demonstrate its independence from the federal Liberals, and make it a vehicle for ‘free enterprise’ in order to wrest power from Mike Harcourt’s NDP government. 

By 1993, there was a hunger already for change among non-NDP forces. Mike Harcourt’s NDP government was already taking on water. ‘Tax and spend’ budgets had angered voters in Campbell’s orbit. On April 5, 1993, Campbell headlined a tax revolt rally at Oakridge Mall that drew over 4,000 angry taxpayers. The issue was the NDP’s move to restrict the homeowner grant. It set off a brushfire. The Oakridge rally seemed to make the idea of an anti-NDP provincial groundswell more real. Memories of Dave Barrett’s one-and-done NDP government were fresh in the minds of seasoned politicos.

Campbell faced a fork in the road – actually more like a trident. There were three paths: (1) Lead the upstart BC Liberals; (2) Revive the Socreds which had a deeper organization and governing experience; or (3) Form a new free enterprise movement and bring the two other parties together. 

All options had flaws. 

The 1993 Socreds had a deeply damaged brand, lacked an urban sensibility, and were of another generation. A new party would be greeted with stiff resistance by both parties, and without any seats, would be on the outside looking in with no guarantees of gaining a foothold. Despite some brand baggage, at least the federal Liberals had been out of power for nine years, and antipathies toward the word ‘Liberal’ had faded. The BC Liberals had a relatively fresh sheet with the voters and were the Official Opposition, keeping them front and centre in Question Period for the foreseeable future. 

Thus, sometime in April 1993, Campbell decided to take the plunge and make it a race of the ‘Three Gordons’ (and a Linda, Wilf, Allan, and Charles). He had heard from many BC Liberals that pledged their support, mitigating fears that it would be perceived as a hostile takeover.  In fact, as a non-member, it was very important for Campbell to be invited, even drafted to run, and not press too hard appearing to want the leadership.  Party members came to him throughout April. Wilson, while admired for his breakthrough, never had a deep organization behind him and seemed even weaker now. Gibson was respected for his thought leadership and policy focus, but had been out of elected politics for 14 years and was not as well known in the general public. 

Campbell made it clear from the outset that he was running to be the leader of the BC Liberal Party and not looking to broker a coalition of parties.  He stated his view to the media, shaped by his experience in Vancouver, when he launched his leadership bid:

“I don’t think it’s a question of parties. Frankly I think that is obsolete thinking. It is not bringing parties together; it is bringing people together that will make a difference. I am not trying to lead the Social Credit party. I am trying to lead the Liberal party. I am not in favor of the Socred way. That would be a step backward. I am not seeking a coalition.”

Campbell was newer and fresh. He had no provincial political baggage, though much was made of his business community ‘Howe Street’ connections, similar to a federal political mantra of the time – ‘Bay Street vs Main Street’ – pushed by the federal NDP. The attack sought to convey that he was more interested in business elites than regular people. The BC NDP picked its theme early and hammered it for years, not to mention Campbell’s leadership rivals playing it up.   

Four MLAs from the 17-member caucus backed him from the beginning along with a cross-section of active BC Liberal members, federal Liberals, some Progressive Conservatives, but the added oomph came from two places – the NPA network in Vancouver, a highly effective political machine at that time, and from mayors and councillors around BC that he had met through his service with the UBCM. Campbell had built up friendships around the province that would belie charges that his support was too Vancouver-centric.

From the Hotel Vancouver, he headed straight to the airport and flew to Kamloops for an evening event on day one. Day two would see him hit the road to Williams Lake then onto Prince George. It was felt he needed to get out of Vancouver to campaign as soon as possible, to send a message. A campaign office was procured at City Square Mall, across the street from City Hall. The grande dame of Liberals in BC, May Brown, chaired his campaign, along with young BC Liberal MLA Gary Collins, who saw the need for the caucus and the party to evolve its leadership. From there, it was four months of relentless travel to sink his roots deeper in the party, and around the province. The NPA brought membership strength in the city, and the municipal network put meat on the bones outside Vancouver.

One odd aspect of this leadership process was that the rules had not been confirmed at the outset. There were existing rules, but the party executive expressed a strong preference to move to a universal ballot, instead of a delegated convention. In addition, it favoured an unweighted ‘one member one vote system’. This basically meant there was one ballot box; whoever got the most absolute votes province-wide would win. However, in order to effect these changes, there needed to be a party convention to approve the rules, with two-thirds support required.

On July 31st, BC Liberals convened at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Vancouver. The Campbell campaign favoured the executive’s recommendation for one member one vote, and the Gibson campaign advocated for regionally-weighted results, so that every riding was equal. 

One of 689 voting cards raised in the air

The Campbell campaign was not too concerned about regional weighting – it could win either way. It favoured one member, one vote, in part, to support the party recommendation, but also from a practical perspective of campaigning, it was very focused on membership sales wherever they could be found. Regional weighting would have shifted the focus to gaming out 75 micro-campaigns. The Gibson campaign felt regional weighting was the right way to go for its interests, given Campbell’s strength in the City, and its own regional perspective (and it should be noted that the BC Liberals and other parties now use regional weighting).

Next came what turned out to be a defining moment in the leadership race. There was a heated debate on the convention floor with a long lineup of speakers. Campbell and Gibson supporters were bedecked in t-shirts, with floor captains directing traffic. Campbell delegates were instructed to stay in place and not even consider leaving the room. At last, voting cards were raised, and a manual count tabulated. The vote was 460-229 in favour of the executive’s recommendation for one member, one vote (province-wide). 

As it needed two-thirds support, this meant it passed – by one vote. 

The crowd was stunned, then jubilation erupted among the Campbell delegates while Gibson delegates despaired. The chair of the meeting paused, then proceeded to the next item. No immediate demand for a recount was heard. The rules were set.  Campbell’s team had demonstrated considerable organizational strength at the convention and it carried through to the leadership vote.

By the time the vote was held on September 11, it was fairly clear Campbell would win. The membership of the party had grown to over 15,000, much of it driven by Campbell’s campaign. By that point, it was only a question of by how much, and whether it would need more than one ballot. 

This was a real issue facing Campbell’s team – what if it did need a second ballot? This was pre-Internet. The party was using a technology called “TeleVote” where members received a code in the mail and voted their first ballot choice by phone, then waited for the results by listening to the radio or trying to find it on TV. It was not a preferential ballot, as is used today in most leadership elections.

Had it gone to a second ballot, turnout likely would have dropped off a cliff. But it didn’t get that far. Campbell won the Battle of the Three Gordons decisively with 63% of the vote on the first ballot, with Gibson in second, and Wilson well back in third.

While the leadership race had been hard work, Campbell faced little resistance. He had a blank canvas. He could redefine what it meant to be a BC Liberal, and he did. The BC Liberals were shaping up to be a real contender, led by a four-time winner from the province’s largest city. But what he had just gone through was dwarfed by his challenge going forward.  

While there was goodwill from most in his caucus, and a gem in Fred Gingell who led the caucus in the interim, it was not Campbell’s team and it would take a while to learn to work together (Wilson, and his wife Judi Tyabji, left caucus immediately after the leadership vote to start a new party). Campbell matched up well against Harcourt, but it was NDP enforcer Glen Clark who would inflict political damage with relentless attacks and emerge as his main rival. Campbell had to raise money, find his way into the Legislature, win over old Socreds and Conservatives resistant to the BC Liberal brand, learn the cadence of provincial politics, recruit a campaign team, and help a 30-year old country lawyer in Matsqui take on the most experienced campaigner in British Columbia, and new leader of the Socreds, Grace McCarthy, in a titanic byelection battle.

The rest is history, as they say. Campbell encountered many obstacles and suffered setbacks. Winning the popular vote in 1996, but losing the election. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but he decided to gut it out, spending almost eight long, and, sometimes, miserable years in opposition. He triumphed in a 77-2 electoral landslide in 2001 and launched the ‘New Era for British Columbia’, the slogan of his winning campaign. The BC Liberal franchise from Campbell to Christy Clark would win the popular vote six consecutive times between 1996 and 2017 and earned majorities four consecutive times. 

Over time, the makeup of the BC Liberals changed, but from the time of his leadership win, Liberals who had fled the Vander Zalm Socreds or had never warmed up to them in the first place, were at the heart of contending for power, building a party where everyone on the non-NDP side of the ledger were welcomed. Candidates and staff with Liberal pedigrees, and liberal sensibilities, took key roles, alongside those with Socred, Progressive Conservative pedigrees, and conservative sensibilities. And many had no evident federal leanings at all. 

That new BC Liberal identity was being formed. It was a vehicle that occupied the centre/centre-right of the political spectrum, united mainly by economic and fiscal policy, and represented a foundation from which Campbell could move. While a formal coalition of parties never did happen, a de facto coming together of ‘free enterprise’ voters took place.

The new definition of BC Liberal would begin to mean something – not to everyone’s liking, and especially not to some die-hard Liberals who had campaigned for Wilson or were resistant to Campbell’s policy approach, but it was being legitimized to a plurality of voters in urban and rural B.C. The party left behind some of the idealists, and some unwilling to make necessary compromises to grow the party, and attracted the pragmatists and those wanting to be part of building something new. He was careful not to get drawn into federal politics, following an instinct that served him well with the NPA. He recruited a new generation of provincial politicians from all stripes. The class of 1996 was young, with the mainstream in their 30s and 40s, and he led them to government five years later.

Turning away from the Social Credit Party and building, essentially, a new party under the BC Liberal brand, under a young but experienced leader, ultimately was a winning model. The Party gained a new life in 1987 when Gordon Wilson took it on and delivered the miracle breakthrough. Campbell benefited from the shakeup in the landscape, and proved that he could take it to the next step, albeit later than he hoped. Christy Clark extended the life of the BC Liberal government for six additional years until 2017. 

What if? What if Campbell had not run for the BC Liberal leadership? The landscape would be very different today. Perhaps Gordon Gibson would have led the party from 1993 on; perhaps new Socred leader Grace McCarthy would have won the Matsqui by-election and the Socreds would have hung in there longer. Different circumstances may have kept Campbell out of provincial politics indefinitely or forever. Who knows? It’s hard to imagine Campbell being in any role in provincial politics other than leader.

Today, the BC Liberal brand has been relegated to the dustbin in favour of BC United.  Lessons can be learned from the BC Liberal rise to power, how it aligned with a new generation in politics, and the struggle to win.

Looking back, the BC Liberals had a remarkable 30-year period from 1987 to 2017. For almost 18 years during that span, Gordon Campbell led the party, serving close to a decade as premier. And it all started at the Hotel Vancouver on May 5th, 1993. 

Mike McDonald served under all three BC Liberal leaders who led the party from 1987 – 2017.  He worked for Gordon Campbell from 1992-2003, as Special Assistant in the Mayor’s Office, Campaign Director in the 1993 leadership campaign, and in various other roles in the party, Premier’s Office, and Government Caucus. He was Chief of Staff to Premier Christy Clark.

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by Rosedeer

The hazards of switching leaders between elections

The last few months have provided fresh case studies about political parties in the parliamentary system that change leaders while governing.

Most leaders come to power whilst their party is in opposition.  Lose an election and the pressure mounts for change.  Why leave when you’re governing?

But sometimes, heads of government are forced out when their re-election prospects look bleak and/or they have lost the trust and confidence of the grassroots of their party.

This was the case recently in the United Kingdom and in the Province of Alberta.

And sometimes leaders leave for health reasons – as is the case in the Province of British Columbia.

In all of these cases, the selection of the new leader, and, therefore, new head of government, is in the hands of the members of the respective political parties – a small percentage of the overall population. The general public just sits back and watches while a new prime minister or premier emerges – someone you may have never expected to be leading when you voted in the previous general election. 

It’s actually more inclusive than before

Back in the ‘old days’, leadership election was the purview of party caucuses.   Win the support of your colleagues and you become leader.  

Then, in Canada, parties moved toward delegated conventions.  Each riding would elect delegates from among its members.  Those delegates would congregate in a central place to hear speeches and vote.  The conventions would often take multiple ballots where delegates voted each time, after the bottom candidate was knocked out and others chose to pack it in.  Many conventions were exciting from a participant and viewer standpoint.  Delegated convention, on a national scale, could include anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 voters.  

As exciting as they may have been, many clamoured for change.  The delegated conventions were backroom affairs where party insiders controlled the process.  Members back home watched on TV while the 8 or 12 delegates from their riding decided on leadership election at the exciting convention.  Mind you, those delegates were probably elected with a mandate to support a particular candidate, but the folks back home were on the couch while the delegates were wined and dined and had the influence on the convention floor.

The calls for “one member – one vote” began in the 1990s in Canada and most parties have a form of that for leadership election today.  In Canada, there are variations between weighted and unweighted.  Weighted means each riding is basically equally (as is the case in delegated conventions).  Regardless of whether you have 1,000 members or 100 members, you still have the same clout.  In unweighted, it’s one big bucket of votes.

As a result of one member-one vote, more people than ever have a direct vote in leadership elections in the parliamentary system.    In the UK Conservative leadership election, 141,725 voted in the race that elected Liz Truss. In Alberta, 84,593 UCP members voted in the leadership elections that produced Danielle Smith.  In the federal Conservative leadership in 2022, over 430,000 members voted – a Canadian record.

However, in spite of this huge increase in participation in internal leadership selection, it is still a far cry from the mandate one receives in a general election.  In the previous general election, the UK Conservatives received almost 14 million votes – about 100X that voted in the 2022 leadership process.   The Alberta UCP received over 1 million votes in the previous election, but less than 9% of that total participated in their leadership process.

And BC?  In 2020, John Horgan’s NDP received almost 900,000 votes, but at the time Horgan announced his plans to retire earlier this summer, it has been publicly reported that the party’s membership base had shrunk to as low as 11,000, representing just over 1% of the voters that elected them.

The pitfalls of one member – one vote

One of the reasons or theories in support of one member – one vote is that it more closely mirrors a general election than delegated conventions or caucus selection.  Include more people and you are more likely to end up with a leader who has broader appeal, so the theory went.

In my own experience, that was probably the case in 2011 when Christy Clark was elected leader of the BC Liberal Party.  She had broader public appeal than other contenders, but was not as strong among party insiders and certainly would not have won a vote held just in caucus.

Plus, weird things can happen at delegated convention where a dark horse ‘comes up the middle’. Unexpected leaders like Joe Clark (PC 1976), Bob Skelly (BC NDP 1984), and Stephane Dion (LPC 2006) became leader in large part because they were less objectionable and/or over-performed at the convention, but ultimately were not very successful in rallying their party or resonating with the public. 

While one member-one vote brings out the party’s membership base, that is no guarantee of mirroring the party’s voter base – or the voters that the party needs to win the next election.  The membership base can be more extreme, hard line, or issue obsessed than regular voters.

In Alberta, the appetite for change was already strong among grassroots members – 48% of whom voted to replace Premier Jason Kenney in May 2022.  This reflected Kenney’s lack of popularity in the polls.   When it came time to replace him, party members opted to go outside the caucus for a leader with views in stark opposition to Kenney.  Danielle Smith is a known commodity in Alberta, and had served as Opposition Leader, yet some of her policies and positions are very different than those the UCP campaigned on in 2019.  In terms of the ‘red meat’ (e.g., Sovereignty Act, appeals to the unvaccinated) she threw out to UCP members in order to win, will that be appetizing to the broader UCP voter base and swing voters?

In the UK, Liz Truss emerged as Conservative leader once members got their say.  In their process, the caucus narrows down the choices to two then the members decide.  Truss was third choice on the first caucus ballot but made the top two by the 5th ballot.  She won the membership vote handily demonstrating how she resonated more with party grassroots than Westminster colleagues.  She set forth on implementing her promises and caused a firestorm when markets reacted badly and stability was threatened.  Her poll numbers crashed. After 37 days, she has already sacked her finance minister while a daily newspaper has a live feedcomparing her political lifespan to a head of lettuce.  The UK Conservative members clearly backed her policies but public pressure has forced her to back down.  Are UK Conservative members that far off the political mainstream?

In BC, there is a different issue.  The NDP has not yet elected its successor, but it is facing a math problem.  The membership base was very low when the leadership process started.  While the UK Conservatives freeze their membership list to prevent new members from joining when a leadership race is called, Canadian political parties tend to have a period of time for membership sign-ups to spark renewal and generate excitement and fundraising.  Such is the case with the BC NDP which allowed a period of about 8-10 weeks for sign-ups.  Leading contender David Eby managed to sew up the vast majority of caucus, earning 48 endorsements of the 57-member caucus.  It seemed like a done deal.  However, MLAs only get one vote, just like anyone else who joins the party.  With potential MLA contenders declining to run, Eby appeared to have a clear path to acclamation.  Then along came a challenger.

Anjali Appadurai is writing the textbook case of a challenger who has no elected experience, no support from caucus, scant support from party insiders, but is able to fully leverage the rules to her advantage.  A weak membership base made the party ripe for the picking.  The BC Liberal opposition in BC recently chose a leader with over 30,000 members voting.  Appadurai would have sized up the NDP situation and concluded that 5,000 to 10,000 new members would give her a chance to win.  And as an experienced organizer, with strong links to environmental groups, she knew where to find them.

That’s fair cricket, as far as I’m concerned.  The rules allow for new members.  Leaving aside the political side show of ‘Green Party hostile takeover’ (a silly premise) and allegations of paid-for members, this situation was allowed to happen through complacency.  David Eby, should he prevail as leader, will have done so with probably the weakest membership sign-up in a Canadian one member-one vote election, ever.  By all accounts, he brought in little, relying on the existing small membership base, where he apparently has a strong following, and caucus support. 

Albeit a former NDP federal candidate, Appadurai is a true outsider who opposes many of the policies of the government she wants to lead. Her policies would be a major change of course.  And this could happen because she signed up maybe 5,000 to 10,000 members and had some support from the existing small base of members?  An Appadurai government would be nothing short of a coup in Canada’s third-largest province, a political coup obviously, but one that the general public never could have anticipated.  To compare to Alberta, Appadurai’s policies would be more starkly different than her predecessor and she is much less-known than Danielle Smith, not to mention not having any elected experience.  It would be unfair to voters, who voted for John Horgan and his policies, to end up with the political whiplash offered by an Appadurai government. Frankly, it’s ridiculous that it even got this far.

The True Election

At the end of the day, there is actually only one real leadership election.  The Crown decides.

By convention, the King or, in Canada, the Governor-General or Lieutenant-Governor, accepts the governing party’s choice of leader.  However, that is based on a demonstration by the incoming leader that he or she can command confidence.

In the case of Liz Truss and Danielle Smith, they have passed that test.  While espousing policies that may be off the mainstream for voters and even members in their own party, they are still, for now, seen to be able to command a majority in parliament.  When Christy Clark was elected leader of the BC Liberal Party in 2011, she only had one MLA endorse her.  But her history as a cabinet minister, deep ties in the party, and 1:1 diplomacy with the caucus assured her of confidence when she arrived at Government House. This is now the question for the BC NDP.

Sure, they may bounce Appadurai from the race on some grounds.  The cut-to-the chase reality, however, is that she surely does not have any chance of commanding confidence in the Legislature.  It is hard to believe that 44 of the 57 NDP MLAs would turn the keys over to her given her policy statements and lack of experience.  In that case, she wouldn’t make it to Government House.  She would be a leader of a political party, not the leader of its parliamentary wing.  They are two distinct roles and one does not guarantee the other. This is obviously a very unwelcome scenario for the NDP.  It’s one thing to entertain a challenger that represents a point of view within the party who is running to make a point; but it’s quite another when they could govern!

Thus, the question is:  would the NDP MLAs support her as head of their government?    This is the question all government caucuses should be asked before a leadership candidate even gets on the ballot. 

How best to change leaders of governments on the fly?  

All leadership processes have flaws, but electing a leader while governing is especially perilous.

One member – one vote systems need to take the parliamentary caucus into account to some extent, as they do in the UK.  While that is no guarantee of smooth political passage, it does provide for more legitimacy. 

I sympathize with the reforming impulse.  Not many will say political insiders should have more power.  Leadership change, especially after a long reign, can help reset a party’s direction in a way that is positive and sometimes it takes the membership to make that happen. 

There is a natural tension that should exist between those guiding the political system, the membership base, and the public at large. First of all, the incoming leader needs to have been seen to have gone through a rigorous test. In fairness to voters, the incoming leaders should also have reasonably consistent views with those put forward by that party in the previous general election. If there is to be a major course change, the new leader should go quickly to the polls to earn a new mandate.

Parties can set membership cut-off dates at the time a vacancy opens to prevent takeovers.  That deprives them of new energy, but that is a mechanism to control.  In a perfect world, political parties would have ongoing vibrant memberships that attend non-leadership conventions, debate policies at riding level, strengthen the party system, while being more resilient in terms of ‘instant members’ and takeovers.  There is a clear trend in Canada that has seen the diminishment of member involvement outside of leadership processes.  Members even have less say in candidate selection than they used to, yielding their power to the leader and party officials. Stronger grassroots would be a much-needed counter balance to the centralization of power in political parties, but to suggest that may happen in the near-term is wishful thinking.

Many political observers, including media, say parties should go back to delegated conventions.  There’s a fair amount of nostalgia for them given some of the exciting outcomes in the past. Some great leaders emerged from that process, but great leaders have also emerged from one member-one vote. Delegated conventions are less transparent and heavily brokered. Be careful what you wish for.

Wherever, and whenever, there is a leadership change resulting in a new prime minister or premier, it’s an opportunity to influence.  Special interest groups often make full use of the process. But individual citizens can join a party and vote, if there’s still time to join. As the numbers demonstrated above, one’s influence in a party membership price is sometimes 100X the impact of one’s vote in a general election. For $5 or $10, it’s a pretty good deal.

And given the fact that a new leader will presumably govern (assuming confidence), it’s time to put these processes under more rigorous oversight by independent bodies. 

The only other piece of advice I have is that when a new prime minister or premier is elected in a general election, try to assess whether their political lifespan is longer than a head of lettuce.  You may end up with someone in charge of government that you didn’t expect and not have much to say about it. 

by Rosedeer

The meaning of Surrey South

BC Liberal candidate Eleanore Sturko marched to victory on Saturday in Surrey South, winning a seat that the party would typically view as a ‘safe seat’ until recently.

Here are the results of the by-election compared to the 2017 and 2020 general election results:

*By-election results are not final

Hot take:

  1. The BC Liberals won, which was no small thing. A loss here would have been a major setback. After being pummelled by John Horgan’s NDP in the 2020 general election, the BC Liberals have shown they can win again, albeit in very friendly territory. Moreover, the BC Liberals gain a potential frontbencher from the Lower Mainland who, among other things, presents a new face for the party in the LGBTQ+ community.
  2. NDP poll results didn’t translate to Surrey South. In 2020, the NDP won the popular vote 48% to 34% – a massive margin. Since then, the NDP have sustained that polling gap in many polls, including a Leger poll that recently showed a 16 point gap. With those kind of numbers, we could have expected a close race in Surrey South, similar to 2020. Instead, the final result (percentage of vote) looks very much like the 2017 dead-heat general election. The NDP didn’t go all-out to win this by-election – the leadership vacuum existing between Premier Horgan packing his bags and David Eby, presumably, waiting to pick up the keys may have been a factor.
  3. Neither party got the vote out – while the BC Liberals got enough votes out to win, both the BC Liberals and NDP received significantly fewer votes than previous elections. Low turnout is normal for a by-election, indicating low voter interest and perhaps low voter anger too. The summer timing certainly conspired against high turnout as well.
  4. The BC Conservatives showed up and it didn’t impact the result– the BC Conservatives didn’t run a candidate in 2017 or 2020, but they showed up for the by-election and garnered about 13% of the vote. This could have been highly problematic for the BC Liberals in a close race, but Sturko still won with a Cadieux-like margin. Let’s say Jinny Sims becomes mayor and resigns her seat in neighbouring Panorama – a 13% BC Conservative vote there would make life more difficult for BC Liberal chances.
  5. What happened to the Greens? – Sonia Furstenau’s Greens fell to less than 4% of the vote. Is the Green brand in a funk? Normally, a by-election would be a time to stand out, but they ended up in fourth, here, well behind the BC Conservative. Surrey is not a Green hotspot though so their attention may be elsewhere.

I recently wrote about the consequential BC by-elections of the past 50 years. In Surrey South, BC Liberals held a seat they have traditionally held so it doesn’t appear to be historically important, except that the margin of victory could indicate that BC politics is returning to a more competitive footing. The by-election result may not be the cause of a new dynamic, but rather an indicator of what is already taking place. The 2020 general election was an outlier in terms of the pandemic and that the NDP had a major leadership advantage. Perhaps it was an aberration, like 2001, and we are slowly returning to the polarized, competitive political landscape that has been typical of BC politics since the mid 1970s.

I guess you could say the Surrey South by-election was like an NHL exhibition game – interesting, sparsely attended, an opportunity to see some new talent (Sturko), but the real action will be when the regular season starts in December once the new NDP leader gets on the ice.

by Rosedeer

30 years later: The Election that Changed Everything

British Columbians went to the polls on October 17, 1991 and changed BC politics forever.

It was the election of Premier Mike Harcourt’s NDP government and only the second time in BC history that the NDP had gained power. The election was hugely significant for the NDP as they governed for a decade. But its more profound impact was the realignment of the free enterprise vote in BC.

oct-17-1991-liberal-leader-gordon-wilson-on-the-campaign.jpg
Gordon Wilson, BC Liberal leader in 1991 breakthrough election.

The Social Credit Party had governed for 36 of the previous 39 years, mostly with a Bennett at the helm. It had renewed itself during the first NDP term of office in the 1970s and emerged stronger under WR Bennett with a broader base of support. Bennett had revived the Socred coalition by attracting Liberals, Conservatives, and even an NDP MLA to run with him in 1975. The renewed coalition was maintained for three elections (1975, 1979 and 1983) in the most polarized elections in BC history. When the Social Credit chose a new leader in 1986, they chose Bill Vander Zalm. While he led the Socreds to victory one more time, their coalition would unravel under his premiership.

Starting in the early 1980s, a small group of Liberals worked to revive the provincial wing. From virtually no candidates in 1979, they ran close to a full slate in 1983 under leader Shirley McLaughlin, with parachutes attached to many Young Liberals. They garnered about 3%. Most federal Liberals (a vanishing species at that time) were supporting the Social Credit Party.

Undaunted, Liberals held a leadership convention in 1984 where former Member of Parliament Art Lee, the first Chinese-Canadian leader of a political party in BC, defeated Stan Roberts, who would go on to help establish the Reform Party of Canada. Lee would build a strong relationship with Liberal Party of Canada leader John Turner, who represented Vancouver-Quadra, and BC’s Iona Campagnolo who was president of the Liberal Party of Canada.   “A Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal” was a mantra I heard at my first political convention in 1985, at the Empress Hotel, as a keen 16-year old.

When Bill Vander Zalm called the October 1986 election, on the heels of a very popular Expo 86, Art Lee managed to field a team of candidates in most ridings across the province. There was no TV leaders debate and little money so it was hard for Lee to make an impact. The Liberals placed their hopes on winning one seat – the Leader’s.

Bill Vander Zalm’s charisma trumped the NDP and its faltering leader, Bob Skelly, who famously fluttered at his opening press conference. The Liberals were squeezed out, but doubled their vote to about 7%. Hopes for a seat were dashed as they were shut out of the Legislature. Art Lee stepped down. On election night, BCTV cruelly reported that Art Lee was going to win his seat. Bedlam erupted at Liberal HQ in Vancouver. Out in Maple Ridge, we piled into an old black Lincoln and headed in for the ‘party’. Somewhere around the Sperling interchange, CKNW reported that someone had made an error and Art Lee was 5th! Cheers turned to tears at the Liberal election night party at the old Plaza 500. I ran into my new friend Christy Clark at the wake. We had joined the SFU Young Liberal Club that month.

Art Lee decided to move on from his unpaid, under-resourced, and under-appreciated leadership. By the time the BC Liberals got around to choosing a new leader on Hallowe’en Day 1987, there was only one candidate – Gordon Wilson. A political unknown to most, he had at least been elected to local office on the Sunshine Coast and put up a respectable showing there in the 1986 election. He was an outsider to the Vancouver-centric Liberal Party in BC. Yet he showed up and took on the mantle, though he wasn’t going to get much help from the city folk.

The focus for most Liberals in BC during that time was federal politics, with an election looming in 1988. While Wilson sought to get established, the Vander Zalm government started its meltdown with moderates fleeing. Ministers and MLAs would resign from cabinet and/or resign their seats. Around this time, a group of free enterprise supporters encouraged prominent developer Jack Poole (later the Chair of the 2010 Olympics) to take over the BC Liberal leadership as a response to the Social Credit Zalmplosion. While this is truly a story for another day, Poole would go through a due diligence effort, assisted by former leader Gordon Gibson, and organizers Colin Hansen and David McPhee, but ultimately decided not to seek the leadership. Gordon Wilson, who had reluctantly cooperated with the Poole potential candidacy, ventured forth unfettered when Poole left the scene. No one gave him much of a chance.

Wilson’s leadership in 1989 and 1990 could be described as persistent and tenacious, but also was met with setbacks. Byelection results were disappointing while the party was in a constant financial crisis. Federal politics intervened again as Jean Chretien succeeded John Turner in June 1990 after a lengthy leadership campaign.   One issue where Wilson and Chretien had common ground was over the Meech Lake Accord. Wilson was as a strong critic and aligned with Manitoba Liberal leader Sharon Carstairs and Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells on the issue. This was a very divisive issue within the Liberal Party of Canada, but Wilson made a name for himself on this issue. However, the relationship with the Chretien team would become increasingly uneasy.

I was part of a group that strongly believed that the Party should split into separate federal and provincial political parties. The “BC” Liberal Party needed to be strictly provincial and put BC first on issues. During the Turner years, the party membership did not want to make the move, in part out of respect for John Turner and his commitment to BC. By 1991, the provincial wing believed it was in their political interests, and the federal wing believed it was in its financial interests. At a convention in Spring 1991, the parties decided to split. This was a defining moment in BC political history. Had this not happened, the BC Liberal Party could not have emerged as a ‘big tent’ political party. It was hard enough to attract non-Liberals to the BC Liberal Party in the 1990s, but it would have been impossible if the provincial party was not independent.

There is no greater boost for an opposition party than an imploding government. With many Socreds absolutely ruling out going to the NDP, and some NDP voters open to a liberal option (as they would never go Socred), the opportunity presented itself. The advantage of the Liberal brand, especially once it was detached from the federal wing, was its ability to push out from the middle in both directions.

Thus, a core group of party supporters decided to give it one last push. It was felt if we couldn’t break through this time, there was no hope for the BC Liberal Party ever. We had no money and not much of an organization. But we did have a leader who was quick on his feet and would work day and night to succeed, and we started to draw some candidates that helped with credibility. There were some good recruits like Linda Reid who would become the longest serving women in BC history, business executive Fred Gingell, young pilot Gary Collins who won in Fort Langley, and author/executive David Mitchell who had some media cachet. Clive Tanner had served as an MLA in the Yukon and Val Anderson was a former party president and United Church minister who was well known to Liberals. But we had many gaps. My volunteer job was to find candidates with my pal Christy, to fill out the slate. I would find them, Christy would close them. During this time there was an epic road trip, borrowing Clive Tanner’s van, to Prince George, the Cariboo, Kamloops, and the Okanagan. We met with candidates in hot tubs, recruited mustard manufacturers, dragooned university friends like Karen Bill and Kimball Kastelen, and found the lonely Liberal outposts in places where they had been in hiding. Clive is probably still paying off the bill from his car phone, a real novelty in those days.

We ended up with candidates in 71 of 75 ridings. That was enough to argue that Gordon Wilson should be on the debate. We were shut out of the debate initially because the NDP and Socreds didn’t want us there. So we launched a protest and had picketers in front of the CBC building. The pressure built and the network capitulated. We could not have asked for a better scenario – to have to fight to get on the debate and then win the fight. I found out we had made the debate when I was in Rogers Pass recruiting a candidate. Yes, our candidate was living in Rogers Pass, at the Glacier Park Lodge. She was a wonderful candidate and did respectably in Columbia River-Revelstoke, though our local Golden Liberal wouldn’t help sign the nomination papers in public – “Someone could lose their job by signing these”.

On debate night, party president Floyd Sully invited me to go to the CBC studios with him and be part of the team with Gordon Wilson. We showed up in his dressing room. I will never forget how calm he was. He was walking around, shirt off, listening but focused – his mind was elsewhere. Very calm. He had experience as an actor, which likely helped his preparation. I’m sure we were chattering away with miscellaneous advice that was completely off point and I’m sure he disregarded it. His media aide, John Stewart, prepared for the onslaught as there was a much bigger media hoard back then. Though the media didn’t know it beforehand, Gordon Wilson would be the story of the night and the election.

We watched the debate in the dressing room while it took place down the hall with no audience. When Premier Rita Johnston and Mike Harcourt were squabbling back and forth, Wilson nailed them: “This is a classic example of why nothing ever gets done in the Province of British Columbia”. Boom! I don’t think the media realized the full impact of that line when it was delivered, but they did realize that Wilson had made an impact. We were giddy in the dressing room. Floyd and I sprinted down the hall to the studio. I remember passing Mike Harcourt in the narrow hallway backstage – “Hey, how are you,” I think he said. Disciplined, cheerful, seemingly unruffled. Rita Johnston didn’t look too happy. Wilson was surrounded in the studio. He would never turn down a media interview after begging for attention for years. We were excited.

I had had this feeling once before when I helped the Manitoba Liberals in the 1988 election – the feeling of everything coming up roses. Sharon Carstairs had won her TV debate, and rose from one seat to almost win the election, settling for 20 and preventing Gary Filmon from forming a majority. Could this be the same? It was definitely on my mind that we could get on a roll, big time. There wasn’t a lot of time left in the election either.

Floyd and I thought we should head back to Party headquarters at 210 West Broadway. The office was closed so we walked in and our six-line switchboard was lighting up like a Christmas tree. We took calls, offers of help, crazies, you name it. We had finally been noticed.

An interesting thing about the 1991 campaign was that BCTV commissioned and ran nightly polls. Then, as now, BCTV (Global) led the evening news ratings, but back then it dominated the entire news landscape as well. Anchor Tony Parsons would come on at 6pm and announce the new numbers in their daily poll and, after the debate, the Liberals spiked up. The nightly polls were a self-fulfilling prophecy. Each good poll begat higher polling numbers the next time. As we rose, the Socreds were doomed. The Socred coalition was built on winnability. It became clear within days that the Liberals would be the party that would challenge the NDP.

As we headed into Thanksgiving weekend, there was a real likelihood we could win the whole shebang. The momentum seemed unstoppable. I remember talking on the phone with Clive Tanner, who was running in Saanich North & the Island (and would win decisively). We speculated about actually forming government. At that point, Clive, who was in the bathtub, contemplated electrocuting himself.

The NDP appeared to get a grip and turned their guns on us. Glen Clark showed his fangs and attacked our platform. A hastily organized press conference where Gordon Wilson and Floyd Sully (who had run and served as Finance critic) costed our platform was necessary. Vaughn Palmer provided a dose of the first scrutiny our campaign had had. Up until the final week, no one thought we had a chance so no one cared if our plan made sense or who our candidates were. I can safely say that many of our candidates would not have survived a modern-day social media screening process.

Vaughn has been around a loooooong time

Around that time, I was driving up Kingsway in Vancouver and came across Glen Clark’s campaign office. I walked in to collect some brochures. I was greeted warmly by a receptionist (best practice) and quickly self-identified as “undecided”. I was directed to a table of brochures and within 20 seconds I had Glen Clark interrogating me. “Hey, how are you? Undecided? Want a coffee?” Here he was in a safe seat and he was working for every vote. Of course, I folded like a cheap lawn chair from Zellers. I confessed my true identity and Glen switched gears to quiz me on Floyd Sully, who he debated on finance issues. “What’s he like? He seems intense.” Etc. In any event, that gives a glimpse how hungry the NDP were.

We had come from zero to somewhere. By the time Election Day arrived, I don’t think we thought we were going to win. But I did think something would happen, but how much would happen, I didn’t know. I would have been happy with four seats. That was always our dream, to just get a toehold. It was quite something to consider our party’s dismal history, and the prevailing conventional wisdom that we had no chance, then use our eyes and ears to understand what was happening right in front of us. It was hard to believe.

In the final week of the campaign, Christy and I transitioned over to Gibsons to help the leader with his local campaign. He had to win and we were there to help. On October 17th at 8pm, we watched the first tranche of early results in Sechelt where it looked like we would be Opposition and would eclipse the Socreds. Gordon Wilson was up in Powell River taking in the results, soon to jump a plane to Vancouver to celebrate with a lot of long-suffering and delighted Liberals. By the time the votes were all tallied up, we won 17 seats and 33% of the vote. We won historically liberal seats on the North Shore and west side of Vancouver, but we also took Saanich North, Richmond, South Delta, South Surrey, most of the Fraser Valley, and Kelowna. Places where Liberals had no business winning, until then.

It was clear that it would be quite a party that night. While Wilson made his way to the celebration, a crew of us from the Sunshine Coast were taken on a chartered boat from Gibsons over to Horseshoe Bay. It was a calm, warm night, cruising on moonlit waters before everything would change.

Volunteers from West Van picked us up in station wagons and drove us to the Villa Hotel in Burnaby. It was electric. My best friend Iain, who is a big guy, was drafted to bring Wilson into the room with another big guy, Jim. Peter Gzowski would comment on CBC the next morning about the “two gorillas” that brought the skinny, bookish professor, Gordon Wilson, into the frenzy.

As I walked in, I encountered a gruff old guy named Dick Kirby who was from Oak Bay. He was the most hard-working, dedicated volunteer you would ever find. At that moment I saw everything we had accomplished on Dick’s face – a sense of elation, satisfaction, and emotion.  It brought it all home to me suddenly because I knew how hard he and others had worked and the example that they had set for others.  The moment has always stayed with me because it was the essence of politics as we would like it to be.   When you are part of an underdog team that overcomes the odds like that, it is a really special bond. But when you add in the unselfishness of a guy like Dick Kirby, it is a joyful moment.   I will never forget that.

That’s where the story should end. It’s a good story.

Euphoria doesn’t last. Hard political choices are ultimately made. Emerging parties that surprise in a 28 day writ period must evolve in order to consolidate their gains.

The BC Liberals had to decide what they wanted to be if they wanted to govern. They would go through a tough process between 1991 and 1993, when they elected Gordon Campbell to succeed Gordon Wilson. They would go through another tough process between 1993 and 1996 when they failed to win. Idealism crashed on the rocky shores of reality. They would go through a brutal five-year process from 1996 to 2001 when the heat was cranked and the NDP tanked. The NDP would wait until the fifth year of the mandate to go to the polls and the electoral buzz saw. It was a long decade and a transformative evolution for the BC Liberals.

During that time, a modern political party was built one meeting at a time, one chicken-dinner fundraiser at a time, one local parade at a time, one vote at a time. The old saying comes to mind – the worst day in government is better than the best day in opposition. The hard work paid off with the greatest election win in BC history when the BC Liberals won 77 of 79 seats in the 2001 election.

The Party changed and evolved. It became a successful, regionally-balanced, modern political party that took a big-tent approach. It was a successful vehicle for the mainstream – winning the popular vote in six consecutive elections between 1996 and 2017. The 1991 election put Liberals back into the free enterprise coalition. While some would argue they were always there during the Social Credit years, by the mid 1980s, they had withered away. The realignment put Liberals back in the centre of the coalition, and by 2001, it was becoming truly balanced with most conservatives and former Socreds signing on.

Gordon Wilson created the opportunity. Gordon Campbell built the foundation, in painstaking fashion, and cemented it as the free enterprise coalition through eight grinding years in Opposition and three successive winning elections. Christy Clark renewed it and earned her own term, tapping into the 1991 experience, knowing that conventional wisdom can be defied, that the ultimate connection for leaders is with the voters, not the intermediaries, and that believing in oneself and the team around you is essential.

Yet, time caught up with the BC Liberals. By 2017, the Party was long past its scrappy origins and frenetic early years in government. Governmentitis crept in. Baggage accumulated. The extremely narrow margin in Comox that divided power from defeat ended a remarkable era for the BC Liberals – a rise from the ashes that begun on Hallowe’en night 1987 with Gordon Wilson taking the stage as leader, and ending in Penticton in July 2017 when Christy Clark took a walk on the beach and put a cap on it. Four years in the wilderness, ten striving years in opposition, sixteen years in power and four mandates.

Ironically, in the aftermath of 2017 and 2020 elections, the BC Liberal Party’s biggest challenge is to retain and recruit Liberals. It has come full circle.

All three of those BC Liberal leaders from 1987 to 2017 – Wilson, Campbell, Clark – taught us that it’s bloody hard work to create, build, and renew.

I’m honoured to have served all three. And I’m honoured to have worked alongside those behind the headlines that made it possible. It was quite a journey that would have ended early had it not been for the remarkable results of October 17, 1991.

by Rosedeer

What to expect in BC on Election Night… and more

Five weeks ago, Justin Trudeau launched his campaign to win a majority government with British Columbia destined to deliver the seats to put him over the magic number of 170. On Election Day, it might be BC that keeps his parliamentary plurality in tact, in a successive Liberal minority government.

The Liberals and NDP entered this election with 11 seats each in BC, while the Conservatives had the largest chunk at 17.

Party – BC standings20152019
Liberals1711
Conservative1017
NDP1411
Green12
Independent01

In 2019, there were 32 seats in BC that stayed the course and 10 seats that switched hands, mostly at the expense of the Liberals.

Riding2015 winner2019 winner
Vancouver GranvilleLiberal – floor crossing to independentIndependent
Steveston – Richmond EastLiberalConservative
Pitt Meadows – Maple RidgeLiberalConservative
Cloverdale – Langley CityLiberalConservative
Mission – Matsqui – Fraser CanyonLiberalConservative
Kelowna – Lake CountryLiberalConservative
South Surrey – White RockConservative – Liberal (by-election)Conservative
Nanaimo – LadysmithNDP – Green (by-election)Green
Port Moody – CoquitlamNDPConservative
Kootenay – ColumbiaNDPConservative

This time, I expect much fewer seats to change hands in BC as the parties have stayed fairly close together in terms of popular vote. While they will likely have a plurality of the popular vote in B.C., the Conservatives will be challenged to reach their popular vote level from 2019 in B.C., thanks in part to the PPC. The Liberals may cough up a few points to the NDP, while the Greens appear to be doing the same and then some. The NDP may come out with the most gains in terms of votes and seats here. But they will likely be incremental gains.

Seats to Watch in BC

At the outset of the campaign, I listed the seats to watch in B.C. The sands have shifted a bit in five weeks, and I’ve narrowed the list for Election night. Here are the seats to watch tonight:

  • Burnaby North – Seymour – competitive three-way race between incumbent Liberal Terry Beech and NDP and CPC challengers. Lots of attention from the Leaders’ tours. In 2019, the Conservative candidate imploded during the writ period. The question can the Conservatives spring back and leap frog over the Liberals, or can the NDP harness Jagmeet Singh’s popularity and edge out the Liberals.
  • Nanaimo – Ladysmith – given the collapse of the Greens, incumbent MP Paul Manly is basically an independent without much help from his party. Nevertheless, he has fended off the NDP twice before and has a strong local organization. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and CPC leader Erin O’Toole have visited the riding. A stronger NDP plus weaker Green Party is the recipe for an NDP win. A perfect Green/NDP split may allow the Conservatives to sneak up the middle.
  • Vancouver – Granville – Jody Wilson-Raybould vacated the seat throwing it back to the major parties. This riding is inherently Liberal, but the NDP and Conservative candidates have a business case with the NDP pressing hard among renters north of 16th and the Conservatives working single family home neighbourhoods. It should have been a lay up for the Liberals, but now looking like a toss up.
  • The Northeast suburbs – There will be a lot of action in three contiguous ridings from Port Moody to Maple Ridge. In Port Moody – Coquitlam, the three major parties were between 29% and 31% in 2019, with the Conservatives prevailing. This time, the advantage is to the NDP. In neighbouring Coquitlam – Port Coquitlam, Liberal MP Ron McKinnon faces a stiff challenge from the Conservative Katerina Anastasiadis. The Liberals won by less than 1% in 2019. This time, the Liberal saving grace may be the absence of the Greens, which took 7% last time. Potential Conservative pickup. And across the Pitt River, Conservative MP Marc Dalton entered the campaign with a three-way race. This election will likely rise and fall with party fortunes. If Conservatives win a plurality of votes in BC, this riding likely stays in their column. Likewise, if the Liberals or NDP win a plurality in BC, it could fall in their columns respectively.
  • Surrey – Liberal MP Ken Hardie faces a challenge from Conservative candidate and former MLA Dave Hayer in Fleetwood – Port Kells. If things start going the Conservatives’ way tonight in BC, this is one of those ridings that could fall into their hands. Next door, former Liberal MP John Aldag is trying to wrestle Cloverdale – Langley City from Conservative MP Tamara Jansen. Jansen won by less than 3 points in 2019, but this time, there is no Green, Elizabeth May endorsed Aldag, and the provincial ridings have gone orange – for the first time. Aldag could benefit from changing dynamics out there, but again, this riding likely goes with the flow based on party trends in BC. The NDP are hungry for Surrey-Centre in an effort to knock off Liberal MP Randeep Sarai. If it’s their night, watch this seat, but it will take a lot to knock off Sarai.

Overall, I do not expect a lot of seats to change hands in BC. Ten changed hands in 2019, and I would not be surprised to see only 5 or 6 change hands this time. Therefore, I don’t see a big change to party standings. My guess would be as follows:

  • Liberal: 9 to 11
  • Conservative: 16 to 18
  • NDP: 13 to 15
  • Green: 1 to 2

Nationally, I see a reduced Liberal minority tonight. Losses in Ontario and Atlantic Canada to the Conservatives and possible losses to the Bloc in Québec, but gains on the Prairies, particularly Alberta.

For the Conservatives to win more seats in Ontario and Liberals to win more seats in Alberta is good for Canada, overall. Both parties need better regional balance in their caucuses. I hope it works out that way.

The Conservatives have been beset by rearguard action from PPC and the untimely political disaster unfolding in Alberta. Throughout, Erin O’Toole’s leadership numbers have improved and he has been more competitive in the middle ground. It will be a big payoff if they do better than expected in vote-rich Ontario.

The NDP look strong heading into Election Day, but it could be an illusion of sorts. Almost every poll in 2019 had the NDP higher than where they ended up. Same thing in 2015. The reason is that they are much stronger with younger votes who do not vote at the same rate as older voters. Conversely, this is why the Conservatives end up higher on Election Day than forecast. Overall, the smaller parties tend to do worse on Election Day as they do not have the machine to get the vote out, like the major parties.

There may be a some micro-surprises tonight. The Greens could win a seat in Kitchener, after the Liberal candidate was fired during the campaign. It would be quite something if the Greens came out of this election with three seats.The Liberal candidate that was fired in Spadina may still win and would have to sit as an Independent.

Often times on election night, we say, “How did that happen?” Storylines could be surprising Conservative strength in Ontario or Liberals gaining seats there; a major shift in Québec; the PPC being much higher than expected; the NDP winning bushels of seats in the West that were not expected; or the Conservatives pulling away from the pack in BC. Whatever is the case, the voters are always right.

by Rosedeer

Justin Trudeau’s pathway to victory

If Justin Trudeau’s Liberals win Canada’s 44th general election, how will it be done? It’s been a topsy turvy campaign for the Liberals with an assumed lead at the outset that appeared to evaporate. In the final days, it’s an open question as to whether they will achieve a plurality and, if so, by how much.  In this post, I look at examples of past Liberal wins, and the regional coalitions they were based on, since the 1960s – and which of these scenarios Justin Trudeau’s Liberals might emulate this time (See my recent post: Erin O’Toole’s pathway to power)

Will a Justin Trudeau win be:

  • Lester Pearson’s near miss in 1965
  • Pierre Trudeau’s close shave in 1972
  • Pierre Trudeau’s Central Canadian Special in 1980
  • Jean Chrétien’s ‘Ontario, baby!’ win in 1997 (a model he used three times)
  • Paul Martin’s missing majority in 2004
  • His own ‘all-in’ majority win of 2015
  • Or his Ontario drawbridge minority of 2019?

Pearson 1965: the near miss

Lester_Pearson_1957.jpg
He loved baseball but couldn’t hit the home run in 1965

Lester Pearson won a minority in 1963, defeating John Diefenbaker’s minority government that was elected in 1962.  The 1965 campaign was their fourth battle and Diefenbaker seemed out of gas.  Pearson recruited three star candidates in Québec by the names of Pelletier, Marchand, and Trudeau.  Despite boosting support there, Diefenbaker stubbornly clung to support in the rest of Canada (ROC), and rolled back Liberal support to some extent in the west and Atlantic Canada.  

The math came up a little short with Pearson winning 49% of the seats (131 of 265).  Tommy Douglas’s NDP held the balance of power along with the Social Credit/ Créditistes.  Pearson won almost three-quarters of Québec, a majority in Ontario, but did poorly in the West.

Won big in Quebec, majority in Ontario, but lost big-time in the west

PET’s close shave in 1972

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Land was Strong, but campaign wasn’t

Pierre Trudeau’s first win was in the height of Trudeaumania in 1968.  He won two-thirds of the seats in B.C. along with a strong showing in Central Canada.  By getting more out of the west, he had done what Pearson couldn’t do – win a majority.

The mood soured by 1972.  In the rematch with Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield, Trudeau’s Liberals were very much on the back foot, and reduced to 38% of the vote and 109 seats in a Parliament of 265 members.  The Liberals sunk below thresholds that Pearson had won with in 1965, scraping by with a two-seat margin over the PC’s because of its strength in Québec where they won over half of their seats (56).

Won big in Québec, lost majority in Ontario and Atlantic, lost badly in the west

PET’s Central Canadian Special in 1980

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In his fifth and final election campaign, Pierre Trudeau drove the Central Canadian Special right down the gut of Canada’s electoral map, winning a majority with 147 of 282 seats (52%).  

He took 99% of the seats in Québec and a majority of seats (55%) in Ontario.  He had a little help from the Atlantic too, where  he had a better result (59%) than the previous two examples.  In the west, the Liberals were virtually extinguished, winning two seats in Manitoba.  Nuttin’ in BC, Alberta, or Saskatchewan.  Blanked in the North as well.

Dominated Québec, majorities Ontario and Atlantic, nowhere in the West

Jean Chrétien’s ‘Ontario, baby!’ in 1997 (and 1993 and 2000)

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“Ontario was really good to me, like really really really good”

In his first re-election campaign, Jean Chrétien’s Liberals took 155 of 301 seats for a majority.  It was not the mandate that Chrétien received in 1993 but it was still a majority.  No party has ever relied upon one region so thoroughly as the Liberals did in this campaign – Ontario – where they won 101 of 103 seats.  Ontario accounted for 65% of the Liberal Caucus.  This was due to a stubborn vote split where the PC’s and Reformers played chicken with the Liberals coming out on top.  Even the NDP couldn’t figure out how to steal some seats from the the wily Shawinigan fox in Ontario.  

Unlike PET and the Central Canadian Special, Chrétien only won about one-third of the seats in Québec, and also failed to win a majority of seats in the Atlantic and the west, though he had a much stronger showing in the west and north than PET did in 1980.  Chrétien’s Ontario, baby! formula was entirely based on the opposition’s lack of unity.  Though it worked three times, it was not sustainable.

Dominated Ontario, got enough from Québec, Atlantic, and west to reach majority

Paul Martin’s missing majority in 2004

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And now the opposition unites?!

Paul Martin looked like an unstoppable force when he won the Liberal leadership in 2003 but he was bedevilled by lingering scandal from the decade-old Liberal government.  New Conservative leader Stephen Harper chipped away, as did new NDP leader Jack Layton.  The opposition was now much stronger than the Chrétien years.

Martin did better in the Atlantic and came in about the same in the west as Chrétien, but he could not replicate the Ontario dominance and fell a bit in Québec.  Losing 31 seats in Central Canada cost him the majority.  

Under any other circumstance, winning 70% in Ontario would be a huge accomplishment but it wasn’t the 98% that Chrétien had, and he couldn’t make those seats up in other regions.

Strong majority in Ontario and Atlantic, weak in Québec and the West

Justin Trudeau’s all-in majority in 2015
Justin Trudeau’s majority in 2015 (54% of seats) was unlike these other examples.  It was much more balanced than his father’s majority in 1980 – not as dependent on Québec and much stronger in the west, winning almost 30% of the seats there (the most of any example discussed).  

Justin won two-thirds of the seats in Ontario, half in Québec, and 100% in Atlantic Canada.  There were no glaring regional weaknesses.  Of all the examples, this was the most regionally representative.

Strong majority in Ontario, dominant in Atlantic, majority in Québec, competitive in west

Justin Trudeau’s Ontario drawbridge minority of 2019

Ontario drawbridge minority? In 2019, the Liberals gave up seats in all regions, except Ontario – well, they lost one seat in Ontario. While the Conservatives and other parties were on the march in other regions, the Liberals pulled up the drawbridge in Fortress Ontario, landing Andrew Scheer in an unfortunate Game of Thrones-like situation which resulted in him not being brought back for another season.

A little more from the regions, please

The Liberals won 80 seats in 2015, and took home 79 of 121 seats in 2019. In the rest of Canada, the Liberals dropped from 104 seats to 78 – a net loss of 26 and enough to cost them a majority government.

Liberal vote, compared to 2015, sagged in all regions – a loss of 6 seats in BC, 4 seats in Alberta, lost the only Liberal seat in Saskatchewan, gave up 3 in Manitoba, 5 in Québec, and dropped 6 in Atlantic Canada. In the North, they lost 1 of 3 Liberal seats.

What’s different from previous Liberal minorities is that the Liberals maintained a beachhead in Western Canada – in Metro Vancouver and Manitoba – while winning a good chunk of Québec and most of the Atlantic. But when you drop 6 points in the popular vote, and, in fact, lose the popular vote, there are going to be consequences.

Hold Ontario, distributed losses in other regions

What it means for Justin Trudeau, this time

The examples discussed demonstrate that you can win by utterly dominating a large region, as PET did in 1980 and Chrétien did in 1993, 1997, and 2000.  However, if there’s not utter domination, there must be some regional balance.  Justin Trudeau’s pathway in 2015 to a majority was regional balance – getting enough in all regions. In 2019, he got enough regionally to hang on, but he was backstopped, big time, by Ontario.

This time, much like 2019, the popular vote between the Liberals and the Conservatives has been very tight. However, a shift is afoot. Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives are betting on gains in Ontario, while possibly giving up some support in their Alberta fortress. It is possible that we see more Conservatives in Ontario, and more Liberals in the West.

Justin Trudeau’s pathway to a minority is to make up what he might lose in Ontario with gains in B.C., Alberta, and maybe Québec too. With a 36-seat edge in 2019, he has a bit of wriggle room.

The pathway to a majority is to follow his own footsteps from 2015. Compared to 2019, the Liberals need to crank it up in B.C., win a slice in Alberta, and incrementally grow in Québec and the Atlantic, all while holding down Fortress Ontario. It’s a tall order.

by Rosedeer

Erin O’Toole’s pathway to power

Does Erin O’Toole 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 O’Toole 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.

(This article updated – first published in 2019)

Diefenbaker 1962

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Nice maps

Dief won a minority government in 1962 following a massive majority he won in 1958.  In the ’62 campaign, Dief’s Tories 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

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Majority: close but no cigar

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%.  In fact, Clark lost the popular vote by over 4%. 

How did he win a plurality? Domination in the West by winning almost three-quarters of the seats there, 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 with which Harper won a majority with in 2011.

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

Mulroney 1988

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Mulroney did what no other Conservative could do in last 60 years – win Quebec

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. 

Mulroney managed a majority of seats in the West (54%) but Conservative share of seats in that region was the lowest level of these six examples. While Alberta was dominated by PCs, BC went NDP and Liberals made gains in Manitoba.  The PC’s came close to winning a majority of seats in Ontario (47%).  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 plurality (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. But after 13 years of Liberal government, a win’s a win!

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 amped it up 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. In the aftermath of the 2008 election, Harper almost saw his minority mandate slip away when the opposition parties ganged up to – almost – catapult outgoing Liberal leader Stephane Dion into 24 Sussex Drive. It surely made Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper hungrier for a majority the next time.

Won big in the West, fell short in Ontario – again

Harper 2011

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Partying likes it’s 2011

Harper finally gets his majority winning 54% of the seats on the strength of 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

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What it means for O’Toole

Given the Conservatives’ chronic lack of success in Québec, O’Toole’s Conservatives 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 (and North) 107 seats + Ontario 121 seats = 228 seats (67% of all seats in the House of Commons)

The Conservatives dominated Alberta and Saskatchewan in 2019 – 69% of the popular vote in Alberta and 64% in Saskatchewan, winning all but one seat. It was a Big Blue Wave from Yellowhead to Prince Albert. The swamping of the prairies helped the Conservatives win the national popular vote, which was cold comfort considering we measure power by the seats. Outside of Alberta and Saskatchewan, Scheer’s Conservatives didn’t measure up. They didn’t get enough out of B.C., Québec, the Atlantic, and certainly did not get enough out of Ontario. In fact, the Liberals virtually locked in their 2015 Ontario results onto the 2019 map.

Conservatives might need three Erin O’Toole’s to win a plurality

Erin O’Toole’s team has clearly decided that winning big on the Prairies and losing big in Ontario is a pathway to Stornaway. The Conservative campaign has shifted its focus to appeal more broadly in urban and suburban ridings, especially Ontario. As is often the bargain, move in one direction and face a rearguard action from the other. Gains made in the middle have been challenged by populist rage on the right under the leadership of Mad Max.

O’Toole cannot replicate the Mulroney ’88 win – he doesn’t have the support in Québec and may lose seats in Alberta as well. It does not look like O’Toole has the support to pull off the Harper 2011 majority win which was dominance in the West and a strong majority in Ontario.

He’s looking at a Dief ’62 / Clark ’79 model – strong showing in the West and stronger showing in Ontario compared to Scheer, combined with modest gains in Québec and the Atlantic. B.C. is a wildcard – he really needs to push toward winning half of the 42 seats in B.C. (a gain of 4), but throughout this campaign, public polling indicates a competitive three-way race without any party pulling away to make major gains. We’ll see.

Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives lost 157-121 in seats. A simplistic view is for O’Toole to hold steady outside of Ontario and flip 20 seats in Ontario, for a narrow plurality. The Liberals won Ontario by 9-points in 2019 and have not been near that mark so far in public polling. So, if O’Toole can get to Joe Clark levels in Ontario, and nets out the same in the rest of Canada, he might get there.

But it isn’t that easy. Despite how tantalizing the opportunity in the middle is to Conservative strategists, a renegade crew of angry, non-vaxxed populists could put a barricade across the pathway to victory by weakening fortress Alberta and splitting the vote in key battlegrounds. In this respect, there are parallels to Mulroney’s ’88 win in that the PC’s had to fend off pesky Preston Manning and the Reform Party in order to protect the fortress. Mulroney defended his fortress in 1988 before watching the walls crumble in 1993; the assault on O’Toole’s fortress is happening in real-time.

Prime Minister O’Toole?  It could happen, but he needs a combination of Joe Clark math and Mulroney ’88 magic.

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

**

Table 1: Results from six (Progressive) Conservative wins

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