Weekly Writ 7/16: Could the Greens make a run at government in PEI?
Plus another poll in Nova Scotia adds to the confusion.
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Atlantic Canada’s party system is probably the most staid in the country.
Social Credit has governed in British Columbia and Alberta. The CCF held sway in Saskatchewan, the only province in which the forerunner to the NDP formed government under that brand. Manitoba has been run by Progressives and Alberta had some United Farmers in office once, as did Ontario. Quebec has been governed by federalists and sovereignists and those in between.
Each of these provinces have been governed by at least four distinct party brands and as many as six. But in Atlantic Canada, only once has a government that was neither Liberal red nor Tory blue has taken office, and that was when Darrell Dexter’s NDP won the 2009 Nova Scotia election. They were turfed (by the Liberals) in 2013.
Newfoundland and Labrador has only ever been Liberal or PC. The same goes for New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, with the transition from the Conservative to the PC brand in the 1940s was the only political innovation. It seems unlikely that the Liberal-Tory tradition will change anytime soon in three of the four Atlantic provinces, but Prince Edward Island could buck the trend — and do something that has never happened anywhere else in Canada before.
The Greens won a provincial byelection on Monday (more on that below). It’s not an earth-shattering event — they’ve won byelections before — but the victory came just days after a new poll was released that put the Greens in the lead in Prince Edward Island. The poll, which looked a little funny last week, doesn’t look so strange now.
This isn’t the first time that the Greens have been in this position. Heading into the 2019 provincial election, the Greens were leading some late-campaign polls. Those polls proved too enthusiastic for the Greens, who lost to the PCs but nevertheless formed the official opposition. At the time, there were a few Islanders who expressed some exasperation at the mainland’s over-excited attention to PEI’s politics. They knew better that the old ways would win out.
Maybe those old ways will still win the day — and maybe more Islanders will be peeved at yet another Central Canadian speculating about Canada’s first Green government (even though, out here in the Gaspé, I’m about as far east as some Islanders are!).
But it’s still an interesting development. And as the Greens implant themselves in more places and for longer periods of time on Prince Edward Island, perhaps the notion of breaking those old ways won’t seem so outlandish.
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News on that Green victory in Cornwall—Meadowbank, which has ended the career of the Liberal leader. Plus, the CAQ is rebranding, a familiar face enters the Mississauga mayoral race and the New Brunswick Greens settle on a leadership date.
Last week, polls disagreed on where things stood in Nova Scotia. This week, they disagree again. Plus, an update on the federal numbers.
#EveryElectionProject: When Manitobans elected a premier “decidedly picturesque in his expressions.”
Upcoming milestone for Mark Carney that he can probably ignore.
NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Greens pull off upset win in PEI
Are the Greens set to cover Prince Edward Island like the morning dew?
The results of Monday’s byelection suggest the PEI Greens might be the chief opposition to the governing Progressive Conservatives ahead of next year’s scheduled provincial election — and if they could repeat the results of that byelection across the province, the party would form its first government in Canada.