Weekly Writ 6/18: Who won the House sitting?
The Liberals and NDP are higher in the polls than they were in January. The Conservatives, not so much.
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The House of Commons will adjourn this week, sending MPs back to their constituencies for the summer. As of this moment, they are scheduled to return on September 21.
This sitting of the House began on January 26, when the House returned from a six-week holiday break. The spring sitting has traditionally been the more important one, since that is when the federal budget has normally been tabled. But now that the budget has moved to the fall, the fall sitting will presumably take centre stage going forward. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an important sitting.
And, with the help of the polls, we can get an assessment of which party won or lost the sitting — at least in terms of how the last five months have impacted public opinion.
When the House returned from its holiday break, The Writ’s Vote and Seat Projection (which wasn’t yet in operation, but historical data was input into the model to get some tracking) awarded the Liberals a relatively narrow lead over the Conservatives: 42.4% to 37.9%. The Liberals were projected to win a small majority of 178 seats, with 124 going to the Conservatives. The NDP and Bloc Québécois trailed with 8.5% and 6.9%, respectively.
Things shifted in February when the Liberals took off in the polls. They’ve since come down a little (more on that below), but remain above where they were when the House first sat in 2026.
With 44.3% in the projection, the Liberals are up 1.9 points over where they were in January. The New Democrats, too, are up by 2.1 points. That would seem to make both the Liberals and the New Democrats the “winners” of the sitting, though the contexts are significantly different.
The Liberals have seen their seat projection balloon from 178 in January to 211 today — a huge majority and a gain of 33 seats in the projection. By comparison, the NDP has not seen the same bump out of a similar two-point gain. The New Democrats are projected to be leading in 15 seats, only three more than they were projected to be winning in January.
The Conservatives have not made good use of the last five months. With 34.5%, they are down 3.4 points since the House returned in January. Those losses have come in all of the worst places for electoral success — the party is down about three points in Ontario, four points in Atlantic Canada (and Saskatchewan) and five points in Alberta and British Columbia. The Conservative slide has been more broad-based than the Liberal uptick, as Mark Carney’s party is up only marginally in B.C. and is holding steady in Atlantic Canada, Ontario and the Prairies. It’s in Quebec and Alberta, with gains of four and five points, respectively, since January, where the Liberals have made significant gains over the last few months.
(The Bloc has also had a rough few months, down 3.8 points in Quebec. This is largely why the Liberals are up in the province.)
Granted, the Liberals have lost two points since April when they hit their high in the projection at just over 46%, so if we were comparing that peak with where they were in January we’d be seeing big jumps in Ontario and B.C. And things would be looking worse for the Conservatives if we were doing this comparison a few weeks ago, when the party hit its lowest point at 33.5%.
But, the sitting didn’t end in April or in early June. As MPs head back home to their ridings to see their constituents (and take some much-needed time off), it’s the Liberal caucus that can be most pleased with how the last few months have gone. For the Conservatives, they might just be happy to get a chance to regroup and hope for better results in the fall.
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News on the federal Green leadership race that has just been kicked off and an upcoming federal resignation that will increase the number of vacancies in the House to six by summer’s end. Plus, a byelection campaign has begun in Prince Edward Island and another is coming to a close in Nova Scotia.
Polls show stability at new cruising altitudes for the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP, plus we have new provincial polling out of Quebec and British Columbia.
#EveryElectionProject: When John Diefenbaker resigned his party’s leadership for the first time.
NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Greens call leadership race to replace Elizabeth May
Green Party leader Elizabeth May announced last summer that she would not lead her party into another election, but there were many questions remaining about when the leadership contest to name her replacement would actually occur.
Those questions were answered last week when the Green Party announced that her successor will be named on November 14 when her second stint as party leader will come to an end.