Weekly Writ for Apr. 3: Trudeau vs. the premiers
Who wins in a jurisdictional squabble? Plus: are the Liberals rebounding, or is it a mirage?
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.
In the run-up to the federal budget later this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been announcing new measures that will appear in that budget — a break with the tradition of keeping it under wraps, but a political move that makes some sense.
Past polling conducted by the government itself has long shown that there is very little recall of what’s in a budget. Here today, gone tomorrow. Budget day is a big show, but there’s so much to cover that a lot of it goes in one ear and out the other. The Liberals appear to have concluded that announcing morsels of the budget ahead of time gives them a little bit more time to breathe rather than risk them getting lost in the morass of numbers and reactions to those numbers that dominate political coverage for about 24 to 48 hours.
Two examples have been the proposed renters’ “bill of rights” and a new national school meals program. We might see more in the coming weeks.
What these measures have in common — along with the already announced dentalcare and pharmacare programs — is that they overlap (or outright infringe upon) provincial jurisdiction. It’s the kind of thing that politicians and constitutional scholars might care a lot about, but is not usually top-of-mind for voters.
So, if any of these measures turn into a jurisdictional bun-fight, are they battles that Trudeau is in a position to win?
The last set of polling by the Angus Reid Institute gives us a hint. Every quarter, the ARI tests premiers’ approval ratings, as well as that of the prime minister. As they are measurements made by the same pollster using the same methodology, they make for good comparisons.
Below, I’ve compiled the premiers’ and prime minister’s approval ratings from the ARI’s most recent surveys. You can see that in most parts of the country, Trudeau is less popular than the local premier.
In some places the difference is stark — 14 points in British Columbia, 20 points in Alberta, 28 points in Saskatchewan and 31 points in Manitoba.
But these numbers in Western Canada aren’t as bad as they look, at least from the Liberals’ perspective. The party has few prospects in Alberta and Saskatchewan anyway. And in British Columbia and Manitoba, the premiers are New Democrats. Not exactly friends, but also not mortal enemies like the conservative premiers in the other two provinces.
The numbers are a little more interesting for Trudeau in the rest of the country. Tim Houston and Andrew Furey are significantly more popular than Trudeau, so that might be a lost cause. But Trudeau is slightly more popular than Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick and François Legault in Quebec, while he is only slightly less popular than Doug Ford in Ontario.
Quebec, of course, will always take a unique approach to jurisdictional issues — and a squabble with Legault would just extend to a squabble with the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, who is more popular than either Trudeau or Legault.
But in Ontario and New Brunswick, both provinces where the Liberals have some seats at stake (a handful in New Brunswick, a bucket-load in Ontario), being on the side of struggling renters and hungry children is a pretty good place to be. Winning the jurisdictional argument on these issues against these premiers is doable, even if the aversion to Trudeau in other parts of the country makes it harder for him to get a hearing there.
Will any of this make a difference? The decline in Trudeau’s support has been steady for a long time, which makes it all the more difficult to turn around. But it’s probably fair to say that these two measures in particular are going to be more popular than Trudeau is. He won’t get the benefit of the doubt in most of the country even if his proposal is popular, but, for the Liberals, anything that could drag his numbers up is worth a shot.
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News on which seat vacancies have yet to be filled and what byelections are coming down the pike, plus some new research into territorial elections.
Polls on the national landscape, with one poll that hints at a narrowing gap. Plus, an update on Ontario.
The Conservatives are on track for an even bigger majority than they were last week if the election were held today.
Another retirement from the New Brunswick PC caucus opens up a seat for the Liberals in today’s riding profile.
The Ontario CCF gets its first leader in the #EveryElectionProject.
IN THE NEWS
Vacancies yet to be filled
Tick tock!
There are a number of seat vacancies that will need to be filled around the country over the next six months. Here’s a breakdown of the byelections we know will have to be called sometime this year — and in many cases, very, very soon!
HOUSE OF COMMONS
The date for a vote in Toronto–St. Paul’s needs to be set by July 14. Carolyn Bennett won this seat for the Liberals by a margin of 23.9 percentage points over the Conservatives in the 2021 election.
The Montreal riding of LaSalle-Émard–Verdun needs to have its byelection campaign kicked-off by July 30. The Liberals’ David Lametti won here by 20.8 points over the Bloc Québécois.
Winnipeg’s Elmwood–Transcona became vacant over the weekend, and the date to fill the vacancy left by Daniel Blaikie will need to be set before the end of September. Blaikie won here by 21.6 points over the Conservatives.
If the federal government decides to hold all three byelections on the same date, this gives us a window for the call to be made somewhere between mid-April and mid-July, setting us up for a trio of byelections between mid-May and mid-August.
The Liberals have not yet nominated a candidate in Toronto–St. Paul’s, which has been vacant the longest, so it doesn’t seem like a call is imminent.
ONTARIO
A byelection call is coming for Lambton–Kent–Middlesex (perhaps within hours), after Monte McNaughton vacated his seat back in October. The Progressive Conservatives beat the Liberals by 40 points here in 2022. Polling by Liaison Strategies, released this morning, gives the PCs a lead of just 13 points over the Liberals.
Milton has only been vacant for about six weeks, but with the PCs having already nominated Zee Hamid as their candidate it seems likely the two byelections will be held at the same time. Parm Gill, who will run for the federal Conservatives, won here by just 4.3 points over the Liberals in 2022. According to Liaison, the two parties are now tied.
NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR
One byelection campaign is already underway in Fogo Island-Cape Freels, which I profiled a few weeks ago. The Liberals’ Derrick Bragg won here by 24.4 points over the PCs in 2021, but passed away earlier this year. The byelection is taking place on April 15.
Another byelection will have to be held in Baie Verte-Green Bay, vacated by Brian Warr at the beginning of March. He won this for the Liberals by just 4.1 points.
Of these, the byelections in Toronto–St. Paul’s, Elmwood–Transcona and Milton stand out. The first two because they will be tests of just how ambitious the federal Conservatives can be in their targets, while Milton was so close last time. Seatless Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie opted not to run here, and the results will give us some indication as to whether that was a good idea or not.
From the Ivory Tower: Deep-dive into the territories
Those of us in the South don’t often get much exposure to a lot of deep analysis of the political situation in the North. Thankfully, articles published in the forthcoming issue of the Canadian Political Science Review can help fill that gap.
Christopher Yurris of McGill University wrote about the 2019 election in the Northwest Territories, while Sara McPhee-Knowles of Yukon University and Ken Coates of the University of Saskatchewan delve into the 2021 Yukon election.
We often forget that Andrew Furey isn’t the only Liberal premier in Canada. Sandy Silver narrowly held onto power in Yukon after the 2021 vote, and was replaced by Ranj Pillai after Silver resigned early last year. The next election in the territory is scheduled for 2025, so you have some time to brush up, but the few poll numbers that are available aren’t any better for the Yukon Liberals locally than they are for the Trudeau Liberals nationwide.
THIS WEEK’S POLLS
Not likely a new trend is building in the polls
A poll published on Tuesday by Nanos Research got some attention, as it put the gap between the Conservatives and Liberals at 12 points — a narrowing of eight points in only a matter of weeks.
But the trend is not one that is appearing in other polls, particularly the two surveys published over the last week by Ipsos and Léger.
While Nanos put the Conservatives at 38% to the Liberals’ 26%, the polls by Léger and Ipsos had wider margins of 16 and 18 points, respectively.
If we compare these numbers to where things stood when all three of these pollsters were last in the field at the same time, we see very few common threads. Since the end of January, the Conservatives are down two points according to Nanos, up two points according to Léger and up five points according to Ipsos. The Liberals are up slightly in the Léger and Nanos polls, but down significantly in the Ipsos survey. The NDP is down according to both Léger and Nanos but stable in Ipsos’s tracking, while the Bloc is either losing a little steam (Léger, Ipsos) or gaining a lot of momentum (Nanos).
It’s not new to see Nanos come out with numbers that show a lot of movement — it’s a by-product of its methodology. Every week, it adds about 250 respondents surveyed over the last seven days to its rolling sample and drops about 250 respondents contacted over four weeks before. The four-week rolling poll oscillates dramatically, as you can see here:
Not every one of those peaks and valleys are new trends — though some of them can turn out to be. The last time the Conservatives gained a lot of support, at the end of last summer, their numbers didn’t drop back down.
But there’s no reason to believe that the movement picked up this week is any different from what we’ve seen before. If we look at the six other national surveys conducted at least partially in the March 2 to March 29 window of the Nanos poll, the Conservatives have averaged 42%, the Liberals 24%, the NDP 18% and the Bloc 7%. That’s in line with what we’ve been seeing in the polls for months now, and doesn’t suggest that the gap is narrowing between the Conservatives and Liberals, nor that the Bloc is making massive headway in Quebec.
One interesting result from the Léger poll was the question of who Canadians prefer as prime minister. Pierre Poilievre led with 29%, followed by Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh, each tied at 17%. We’ve seen some close numbers for Trudeau and Singh in past Léger polls, but it’s notable that Singh beats Trudeau throughout Western Canada as the preferred PM and is actually placing ahead of Poilievre (by two points) in British Columbia.
Nevertheless, it should also be noted that Nanos is still measuring a seven-point advantage for Trudeau over Singh on best prime minister, with Trudeau trailing Poilievre by 11 points.
POLLING NEWS BRIEFS
Though the numbers are a little dated as the poll was conducted between Feb. 28 and Mar. 6, the Angus Reid Institute published a new report on Ontario, showing the Progressive Conservatives leading with 37% against 27% for the Liberals, 25% for the NDP and 6% for the Greens. The poll showed a near-tie between the Liberals and PCs in Toronto, a small Liberal lead in the 905 and large PC leads in eastern, southwestern and northern Ontario.
IF THE ELECTION WERE HELD TODAY
With the Conservative lead in Ontario averaging 20 points in the Ipsos and Léger polls, the party is now projected to win over 213 seats across the country, with the Liberals dropping to 64. Despite the massive change in seats happening in virtually every region of Canada, the New Democrats remain unchanged at 25 (though not the same 25 as they currently hold).
In Ontario, the Progressive Conservatives drop back to a very narrow majority, due in large part to their under-performing results in the GTA in the ARI poll.
The following seat estimates are derived from a swing model that is based on trends in recent polls as well as minor tweaks and adjustments. Rather than the product of a statistical model, these estimates are my best guess of what an election held today would produce, based both on the data and my own experience observing dozens of elections since 2008.
Changes are compared to last week. Parties are ordered according to their finish in the previous election (with some exceptions for minor parties).
RIDING OF THE WEEK
Saint John Portland-Simonds (New Brunswick)
Another stalwart of the New Brunswick Progressive Conservatives has decided that he’s had enough of politics, as Trevor Holder announced this past week that he will not seek re-election.
This makes Holder the eighth incumbent PC MLA to announce they will not re-offer when the province next goes to the polls. The election is scheduled for October.
On the one hand, Holder has been in politics for a long time. He’s the dean of the New Brunswick legislature, having first been elected in 1999 and re-elected six times after that. The to-and-fro of New Brunswick politics over the last few decades means that Holder has served as a cabinet minister under three different premiers: Bernard Lord, David Alward and Blaine Higgs.
With such a long time in politics, retiring might not come as a shock.
But Holder also has a reason to hold a grudge against Higgs. He voted with the Liberal opposition on the controversial Policy 713 on gender identity and subsequently quit cabinet, sharply criticizing the premier.
So, it’s difficult not to interpret this departure as part of the overall turmoil and disgruntlement within the PC Party that has resulted in more than a third of PC MLAs elected in 2020 either resigning or not running for re-election.
It’s part of a broader narrative that does not bode well for Blaine Higgs. More locally, Holder’s retirement opens up his seat of Saint John Portland-Simonds.
Holder won this riding in 2020 with 55.1% of the vote. The Liberals’ Tim Jones finished with just 28.8%, followed by the Greens at 8.4%, the People’s Alliance at 4.9% and the NDP at 2.9%.
It was a big margin, and the margins have been getting bigger ever since Holder’s first win in 1999. He won his seat by 21 points in that election, but his margin of victory shrank to just three points in 2003. It grew marginally to five points in 2006, jumped to 15 points in both 2010 and 2014 and increased again to 25 points in 2018 before settling at 26 points in 2020.
That makes winning this seat a tall order for the Liberals, even without Holder on the ballot. But the area has voted Liberal before, sticking with the party during the Frank McKenna years.
Located in northern Saint John, with much of the territory of the riding being occupied by voter-less Rockwood Park, the re-christened Saint John Portland-Simonds (the city name is being added) has slightly new boundaries, with a few polls at its northeastern edge being added from the old riding of Rothesay.
The electoral impact is marginal, leaving the Liberals with a 26-point margin to overcome.
That’s a lot. But it could be doable.
Provincewide, the polls have suggested that there has been a total swing of 10 points between the PCs and Liberals. That wouldn’t be enough to flip Saint John Portland-Simonds, except that polls by Narrative Research have suggested an even bigger swing in southern New Brunswick.
The PCs won the region by about 34 points in the last election, but the last three polls from Narrative have put the margin at just 20 points last summer and six points in the fall. In February, the gap was four points — in the Liberals’ favour. This suggests a swing of between 14 and 38 points, which theoretically puts Saint John Portland-Simonds in range of the Liberals.
Are the polls indicating a trend toward the Liberals in southern New Brunswick, or is this just a mirage caused by the small sample sizes? If we average out all three polls, we get a total net swing of about 27 points from the PCs to the Liberals. That puts Saint John Portland-Simmonds on the outer margins of winnable for the Liberals. That they no longer face an incumbent for the first time in more than 20 years improves the odds for the Liberals a little more.
Much depends on whether the Liberals are indeed gaining as much as they seem to be in southern New Brunswick — as well as on the quality of the candidates nominated by the Liberals and PCs (less so for the Greens, who have never done better than 9% in this riding). For now, no party has a candidate nominated in this seat.
ON THIS DAY in the #EveryElectionProject
The Ontario CCF’s first leader
April 3, 1942
As the Second World War raged across Europe, North Africa and the Pacific, Canadians sensed that things would not go back to where they were before the war had started — assuming the Allies could win, of course. The trauma of the Great Depression and the demands of the war demonstrated to Canadians that there was a need for a more activist central government, one that would ensure the well-being of everyone. If the government could mobilize massive resources to defeat enemies overseas, why couldn’t it do the same to guarantee a minimum standard of living at home?
This was the moment that the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation had been waiting for, and accordingly the CCF started to surge in some of the first political polls ever conducted in Canada.
Already established in Western Canada, the CCF was having difficulty breaking through in Ontario. But a byelection in the riding of York South provided an opportunity for the party.
The Conservatives had yet to recover from the defeat of R.B. Bennett’s government in 1935. His replacement as leader, Robert Manion, had no success in the 1940 election and the Conservatives went back to the drawing board. Rather than look forward, however, the Conservatives looked back and acclaimed Arthur Meighen, leader and briefly prime minister during the 1920s, as their party chief in 1941.
Assailed on his war record, Mackenzie King was desperate to see his old and hated foe go down to defeat. When a byelection was called in the riding of York South to get Meighen into the House of Commons, the Liberals opted not to run a candidate. To avoid splitting the vote, they left the field open to Joseph Noseworthy, the seemingly long-shot candidate of the CCF.
With a little help from the federal Liberals — though not the provincial Liberals, whose leader, Premier Mitchell Hepburn, backed Meighen — Noseworthy scored an upset victory in February 1942. It spelled the end of Meighen’s comeback attempt, but also created some positive momentum for the Ontario CCF.
The Ontario CCF wasn’t in the best of shape. In the last provincial election in 1937, the party had failed to elect a single candidate and took just 5% of the vote. But with support for the national party rising and fresh off the stunning win in York South, it was decided that the Ontario CCF needed to get better organized. To mark the 10th anniversary of its founding convention, the Ontario CCF decided they would finally name something they hadn’t yet had: a party leader.
A convention was set for April 1942, where the party would decide on platform policy and name its new leader. A total of 17 candidates were nominated for the post, including Noseworthy, future federal NDP leader David Lewis, then-sitting Ontario CCF president Sam Lawrence and Agnes Macphail, the first woman ever elected to the House of Commons.
In the end, all but two declined the nominations. One was Murray Cotterill, the 28-year-old secretary to the Toronto labour council and a stalwart of the CCF Youth Movement.
The other was Edward (Ted) Jolliffe, the vice-president of the provincial council of the CCF. “Tall and slender,” according to media reports, Jolliffe was born in China while his Christian missionary parents were in the country. Also young at just 33, Jolliffe nevertheless had an impressive resume. He had been a Rhodes scholar at Oxford (where he had founded an Oxford branch of the CCF with David Lewis), a journalist and a lawyer, and had twice stood as a candidate for the federal CCF.
Between the two, it wasn’t much of a contest. The delegates gathered at the Carls-Rite Hotel in Toronto, more than 100 strong, and overwhelmingly selected Jolliffe as the first leader of the Ontario CCF. The detailed results were not announced, but “it was learned reliably, however, that the majority was so sweeping as to show almost complete endorsation by the 107 delegates” according to the Canadian Press.
In his victory speech, Jolliffe attacked the Hepburn government, both on the premier’s unpatriotic position on the war effort (he had dismissed the U.S. Navy and predicted that the Soviet Union would be defeated) and his unwillingness to create a social safety net for Ontarians.
“We believe the C.C.F. has the policy and the C.C.F. is the only hope in this province,” he said, citing a previous meeting he had with Hepburn where the fate of those on unemployment relief was discussed. “There was contempt and hatred in his tone of voice,” Jolliffe charged, “hatred and contempt for the unemployed.”
“The time has come, following C.C.F. successes in other provinces and in the federal field, to open a ‘second front’ here in Ontario. And with the help of the workers and the farmers we are going to do it.”
Jolliffe would deliver on his pledge. Before the convention, one of its organizers had confidently predicted that the Ontario CCF could elect 15 candidates in the next election. When it was finally called in 1943, the CCF won 34 seats and formed the official opposition. One of those seats was Ted Jolliffe’s. He ran, and won, in York South.
That’s it for the Weekly Writ this week. The next episode of The Numbers will be dropping on Friday. The episode will land in your inbox but you can also find it on Apple Podcasts and other podcasting apps. If you want to get it early on Thursday, become a Patron here!