Weekly Writ 10/23: Turning points everywhere
From Victoria to Fredericton to Ottawa, the political landscape has changed this week.
Welcome to the Weekly Writ, a round-up of the latest federal and provincial polls, election news and political history that lands in your inbox every Wednesday morning.
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Canadian politics might be hitting a turning point this week.
Today is supposed to be the day when the big showdown takes place in Ottawa between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the members of his Liberal caucus who want him to step down. The rumoured number of MPs who have signed the letter calling for a leadership change seems to go up with every passing day, but we still don’t know just how real this revolt is. Will it peter out when they have to look Trudeau in the eyes and deliver the message that it is time for him to go?
Regardless of what happens, it will be a turning point. Either Trudeau steps down and the Liberals kick-off an unpredictable and potentially divisive leadership race, or Trudeau survives and any further discussion of his departure can be put to rest. How fatally weakened the Liberal Party will be coming out of this affair, with or without Trudeau, remains to be seen.
We’ve already experienced a few turning points in provincial politics in the last few days.
On Monday, the New Brunswick Liberals proved the brand is not quite dead yet. Susan Holt defeated the PCs under Blaine Higgs handily (more on that below), finally giving the Liberals a bit of good news and dealing a blow against conservative forces in the country. Will it be a local one-off affair, or will Canadian conservatives across the country takes lessons from Higgs’s defeat — namely that pushing the boundaries too far in the culture wars can backfire? The Manitoba PCs experienced that first hand in October 2023 and now the same has happened to the New Brunswick PCs.
And in British Columbia, another political re-alignment took place. The B.C. NDP held on (for the time being, again more on that below), but are now confronted with the fourth iteration of the ‘free enterprise coalition’ that the New Democrats have faced-off against ever since they were known as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. First it was the Liberal-Conservative coalition of the 1940s, followed by Social Credit between 1952 and 1991 and then the B.C. Liberals. Now, after having to build-up a contending party from little more than nothing, the B.C. Conservatives will have the opportunity to organize, professionalize and monetize. A final count and subsequent recounts will determine whether or not the Conservatives get a shot to govern this time, but there’s little doubt that, one day in the future, the Conservatives will govern British Columbia again for the first time since the Great Depression.
That’s a lot for one week. And it’s only Wednesday.
Programming Note: We’re changing things up over at The Numbers podcast, moving to public episodes every week! You can add The Numbers to your favourite podcasting platform by following the instructions at this link here. If you want to support the work that Philippe and I are doing at The Numbers (along with our French-language podcast Les chiffres), you can join our Patreon here. Members of the Patreon get access to our Discord, exclusive mailbag episodes every week and periodic special episodes. For example, this week Philippe and I are going to do a seat-by-seat projection for the Saskatchewan election — the kind of ‘projection meeting’ the TV networks do before election night!
Because we’re moving to a weekly schedule with our public episodes of The Numbers, The Writ Podcast will shift to an irregular schedule. New episodes will appear on Thursdays or Fridays, but there will not necessarily be a new episode every two weeks. The latest episode of The Numbers will continue to appear in your feed on Friday mornings when there isn’t a new episode of The Writ Podcast.
My goal with this trade-off is to provide more of The Numbers to a broader audience (Philippe and I have a lot of fun with it, and I hope you are having fun listening!) while increasing the focus, timeliness and quality of The Writ Podcast. But don’t worry — you’ll continue to have a new episode of one or the other podcast every week!
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
Lots of analysis of the results in both British Columbia and New Brunswick, plus updates on the many news items in the political world over the last week.
Polls show the Saskatchewan Party could be in trouble as the NDP continues to close the gap — or even move ahead. Also, new numbers out of Ontario and on what Canadians think about Justin Trudeau’s leadership and the timing of the next election.
Harris loses her edge over Trump in the U.S. election projection.
Big majority for Doug Ford if the election were held today. Not so big for Scott Moe.
A past turning point election in New Brunswick in the #EveryElectionProject.