Breaking Out of the Rut

As 2023 gets underway, Canadian politics seems to be stuck in a rut. The next federal election is at least a couple of years away. The 2021 election showed virtually no change from the 2019 election. Current federal polls show the pattern continues. 

Last year’s provincial elections in Ontario and Quebec saw little change in seat distribution in their legislatures, both provinces re-electing majority conservative governments. B.C. has a new premier in the NDP’s David Eby. We can expect a very similar style and substance from an Eby government in comparison to his predecessor John Horgan. Eby has taken  over a popular government, steady, practical, progressive and successful on the whole.

This year, it’s possible to break out of the rut. Alberta votes May 29 and Manitoba October 3. Both elections could well result in strong NDP governments replacing right-wing conservative administrations. 

Three NDP governments, instead of just one, will make a big difference on the national political stage, swinging the balance of power to the left. Alone and together, each will expand the possibilities of significant change especially on climate change policy, in the public versus private battles over the management of health and education services, on labour policies and economic approaches. On many issues Progressive Conservative governments in PEI, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick will find more in common with three western NDP governments and the federal Liberal government in a working arrangement with the NDP instead of their conservative provincial predecessors. 

The latest polls in Alberta and Manitoba show the NDP clearly ahead of the United Conservative Party in Alberta and the Progressive Conservatives in Manitoba. Today’s polls are not the end of the story. But for now the NDP in both provinces are in a better position than their rivals.

The seven Alberta polls published since Danielle Smith was elected UCP leader October 6, 2022 have the NDP ahead in five. The latest, by the well-respected Abacus Data, the only poll published since the passage of Smith’s so-called Sovereignty within a United Canada Act, has the NDP at 51%, the UCP at 43%, and others at 6%.

Since the last election in which the one-term NDP was defeated by Jason Kenney and the UCP, the UCP has been bedevilled with problems starting with how it handled the COVID crisis. Each step along the way the government appeared to be deliberately alienating significant blocks of voters. 

Last fall Kenney was forced to quit. Meanwhile, Notley has worked hard to build towards this upcoming election, recruiting strong candidates across the province. She has outstripped her Conservative opponents in campaign fundraising, pounded away at the government’s performance, and linked the NDP to the voters’ dominant concerns, health, education and climate change. 

Notley’s biggest challenge remains the deep roots of political conservatism in Alberta. Will voters come home to the conservatives in their latest incarnation as the UCP?  

Alberta has a bad habit of voting conservative provincially and federally. The Conservatives have won every election since 1971, usually by huge majorities, except for Notley’s win in 2015. Federally the Conservatives have swept Alberta since 1958. Two factors may mitigate the impact of this history: the population has dramatically changed especially in recent years. There is an underlying progressive tradition in the province that is reflected in the current level of support for Rachel Notley, whose background permits her to effectively tap into that part of Alberta’s populist cooperative narrative.

The electoral political history of Manitoba is quite different from that of Alberta. The NDP, initially under the leadership of Ed Schreyer, has won eight of the fourteen elections since 1969, governing for 35 of the 51 years since then. In other words, Manitobans are used to being governed by the NDP. The roof hasn’t collapsed over their heads as a result. 

In Wab Kanew, the NDP has also a strong, articulate and attractive leader. Premier Heather Stefanson succeeded Brian Pallister as Progressive Conservative leader and Premier on October 30, 2021. Stefanson didn’t get the usual bounce from her election as leader and has trailed the NDP in the eight polls since she took office. The latest has the NDP at 46%, the PCs 35% and the Liberals at 13%. 

Provincial elections matter. Universal medicare came to Canada through the political courage, skill and political will of one province. The Saskatchewan people and its CCF-NDP governments battled through a hugely funded and brutal counter-attack from the private insurance industry in Canada and the United States to implement their commitment. They left the federal government and the rest of the provinces no political choice but to implement public medicare across the whole country. 

Perhaps this year we will see three strong NDP provincial governments emerge as a reflection of this generation’s efforts to continue building the narrative of Canada as a progressive country.