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Notes -
Mark Carney, Ascendant
At the start of the year there was somewhat of a stalemate in Canadian politics. The Liberals were close to a majority with two recent floor-crossings, but still a few seats shy. Prime Minister Mark Carney was reasonably popular, but the Liberal party he led was decidedly not. Conversely, the Conservative Party was moderate popular, but its leader Pierre Poilievre was not. All this added up to what was essentially a deadlock in voter intention should an election be called.
Since then, there has been a dramatic change in political fortunes. Mark Carney is now the most popular Canadian politician in recent memory. Pierre Poilievre is now the most unpopular (give or take a Justin Trudeau). The difference between their favourability metrics (i.e. how much people approve vs disapprove of them) is now 60 points, which is truly monumental. The Liberals are now polling into solid majority territory, but they don't even need to call an election to get one. With two more defections (one from the Conservatives, and another from the NDP last night) they will have a majority if they (almost certainly) win two of three forthcoming by-elections. And that's even if there isn't more floor-crossers, of whom there are several more expected from both the Conservatives and NDP.
What the hell happened?
I've always said that even the most dysfunctional democracies favour boring bankers as leaders in times of crisis. Carney is probably the most-qualified PM in Canada's history, if you try and rank them by achievement before taking office, but obviously that only goes so far in the social media age. But the economic and political turmoil, and especially the impact of Trump, definitely works in his favour. As the various American attempts to squeeze the Canadian economy have continued, Carney's popularity has grown. This isn't all pure contrarian reaction to Trump - Carney's messaging has been very effective. He makes repeated high-profile trips to foreign countries to secure new trade deals and terms, and I think this is a huge boon to his popularity as the news of new trade deals, investment, partnerships, etc. is a good counterpoint to the economic uncertainty. Even the areas where Liberal support reached a nadir, like Alberta and Saskatchewan, have substantially warmed up to him because of his success in ending trade conflict with China and clearing the bureaucratic hurdles towards substantial new infrastructure projects. Also it can't be overlooked how influential his speech at the WEF was in setting himself apart from the crop of other Canadian politicians in terms of having a coherent, long-term philosophy that is achievable rather than a mishmash of contemporary trends and reflexive partisanship.
Speaking of which, Pierre Poilievre is largely the victim of his own personality. He is not exactly what you would call charismatic. He has had basically no work experience outside of being an MP, and for decades was the "attack dog" of the Conservative caucus who gave much of their replies during Question Period in Parliament. In short he developed a character that was partisan, quippy, and negative. This worked just fine when he was up against a very unpopular Justin Trudeau. Even while he was still unpopular himself he was looking at a super-majority election win at the end of 2024. But up against a very popular Carney he comes across very poorly by comparison, and Canadians have soured on him even more as a result. It doesn't help that his leadership style is very literally driving MPs out of his party: all the three defectors from the Conservatives so far have cited his abrasive nature as a reason for leaving. In late January his continued leadership of the party was confirmed at the Conservative convention, but you wonder how much leash he has if Carney remains popular and peels another few Conservatives away. It's one thing to lose an election: it's another to then let your opponent form a majority because you've driven off your own MPs.
The third element in all of this is that the NDP, the traditional third (fourth?) party and the left flank of Canadian politics, is currently having its leadership race and looks set on picking Avi Lewis, who is firmly from the progressive/activist mould. He is an interesting choice for leader in the sense that there is some reward to the risk; he's a very smooth media personality and has the potential to sell Canadians on a different approach. But his views are at odds with average Canadians and more NDP MPs seem primed to jump ship to the Liberals if he wins, which is very bad for the NDP as they're already skating on thin ice. Even the MP who just quit the party, Lori Idlout, was a supporter of Lewis not an opponent. But at some point you figure it's better to be in the tent pissing out, so to speak. Especially given that Carney has (so far) been successful at securing foreign deals and investments, there's a strong personal and political incentive to join the winning team if you can secure something for your region out of it.
Anyways, here are the polls as they stand now. You can see the very marked shift in fortunes since the start of the year. This is a new phenomenon in Canadian politics; floor crossers are nothing new, but the sheer number of them in such a short span of time, let alone to form a majority government, is entirely novel.
Not sure about Canada, I asked aislop and it says that basically the Liberals run Canada, forever, except for that one time that a liberal spoiler party joined the election and spoiled it for the Liberals. It also seems like a standard case of "Conservatives conserve nothing" just like in the UK. Why should anyone bother voting Conservative if it just means tax cuts and infinity immigrants?
Anyways it seems like the era of third parties and spoilers may be coming to a close, so we may see Canada simply become a one-party two-bit petrostate.
That's why they lost the last 2 elections. This is why PP continues to have that mandate, by the way- at least he's saying Reform things this time rather than "but we should bend over backwards for whatever Karen of Toronto wants". You can't win that way, you see.
The NDP was the other counterbalance for reform, but they're arch-Conservatives now, which is why they're so indistinguishable from the LPC that most of their MPs are LPC now.
If the petrostate part of the petrostate isn't smart [or powerful] enough to prevent that, and content with losing elections for ever, then it will be so.
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