Pollsters say hundreds of thousands of urban, progressive voters in Canada could end up swinging right as they lose faith in the left-of-centre options that used to be their go-to picks. Pedestrians walk past the campaign office for federal Conservative candidate Don Stewart in the Toronto-St Paul’s federal riding on June 21.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
David Fine has voted for the Liberal Party in every federal election of his entire adult life. He says he’ll break that pattern in next year’s election.
“This time, I don’t think I can do that.”
The Vancouver resident is not sure where he’ll land: “None of the above” is the most appealing choice at the moment.
He’s repelled by some of the Conservative Party policies. As a filmmaker, he’s appalled by the promises from party leader Pierre Poilievre to defund the CBC. But he is looking at the Conservatives’ policies on carbon pricing, the economy and social issues, and thinking he will end up basing his vote on who he feels the better candidate is in his urban Vancouver Quadra riding, which the Liberals have held since 1984.
Mr. Fine is just one among hundreds of thousands of urban, progressive voters in Canada who pollsters say could end up doing what millions of urban, Democratic voters did in the recent U.S. election: swing right, or at least not vote the way they did previously, as they lose faith in the left-of-centre options that used to be their go-to political picks.
Certainly, the recent B.C. election and a couple of federal by-elections have given some indication of what might happen.
The federal Liberals lost a very urban Toronto riding, which they had held for decades, to the Conservatives. They also lost a very urban Montreal one, not to the Conservatives but to the Bloc Québécois, which tends to be more left-leaning on many issues.
In the B.C. provincial election, the left-wing New Democrats actually gained voter share in some Vancouver ridings and in one in Delta. But the party also saw its voter share drop in Burnaby, the suburb immediately east of Vancouver, which is usually rock-solid for the left. It didn’t lose seats there, but the margins were much closer. In Surrey and Richmond, the NDP’s share dropped so much that the party lost several seats and barely won some others that were once sure bets.
Those suburban results echo the American trend of suburbs going more right in the recent election, after having swung in a big way toward the Democrats in the two previous presidential votes.
About 30 per cent of people polled in B.C. after the election there said they had never voted for a conservative party before. But there’s not agreement on whether this is a permanent realignment.
“This is not about changing ideologies. It’s rather changing priorities,” said pollster Greg Lyle, president of Innovative Research Group.
Mr. Lyle said people have shifted from listing climate change or homelessness as a top priority to instead focusing on the cost of living, as they feel increasing stress about housing prices, food prices, gas prices and pretty much everything prices.
And, like Mr. Fine, Mr. Lyle said voters have grown impatient with what they view as misguided government policies from Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government in Ottawa that seem to be more about being politically correct than effective.
“People are not willing to support policies they’d supported four or five years ago. And Mr. Trudeau is still thinking it is four or five years ago,” said Mr. Lyle.
The U.S. election saw the Bronx, traditionally a Democratic-voting borough in New York, go from voting 79 per cent Democrat in 2016 to only 46 per cent in November – one of the biggest swings in the state. But other cities, from Miami to Boston to Los Angeles, saw shifts as well.
American analysts pinned part of that on residents’ frustrations with what feels like major dysfunction in their cities. Housing prices are sky high, making it hard for average-income earners to feel confident about their ability to hang on, while public disorder, homelessness, open drug use and petty crime seem more much visible.
Cities, in particular, attract people with higher education because they go there for the good jobs. That is what typically produces more Democratic – or Liberal voters – everywhere from Durham, N.C., a big health care research hub, or Dallas, along with the central cores of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
But the changing demographics of big cities may also play a role as the urban centres see an influx of immigrant populations that tend to cleave toward more conservative voting patterns.
Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet Research, said issues in Canada such as climate change, Indigenous reconciliation and social-safety supports have “dropped down to near undetectable levels,” while the cost of living now exceeds even housing as the panic-button issue.
“It’s been a shift, not necessarily to the right, but a little bit more selfish.”
Economic issues have come to dominate and that’s affecting urban voters as much as everyone else, he said.
Mr. Maggi said people experienced a double whammy because of the pandemic. At first, they were relatively flush, with governments providing support money at a time when expenses plummeted because no one could travel, go to cultural events or take their kids to the usual sports activities.
When restrictions eased, all those expenses started up again and, at the same time, inflation took off.
Mr. Maggi and Mr. Lyle referred to the theory of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which is a pyramid that puts basic housing and food security as the base, and other desires or concerns above that in what people care about when the basics are going well.
“When people are struggling economically, all the other things drop off,” said Mr. Maggi. “The focus is on their own survival.”
Richard Johnston, professor emeritus from the University of B.C. political science department, said there may be a long-term change in the works that will last beyond the current economic challenges.
“We’ve been deceived by a 35-year run of cities voting Liberal or Democrat,” said Prof. Johnston, who is working on a book about how 21st-century parties are realigning as the relationship between income, occupation, education and the party system undergoes a major shift.
“And we sort of forget that the more newly arrived immigrant groups are more traditional, more conservative.”
But Prof. Johnston said he, like the pollsters, doesn’t believe the rightward swing of urban voters in the U.S. will be exactly mirrored here.
For one, “we do have functioning urban infrastructure here,” he said.
As well, although it’s far from a utopia, Canada has somewhat less economic inequality, the result of more robust social programs than the United States.
“We have a materially more egalitarian society. Someone in the bottom 10 per cent here still has 2½-times the purchasing power in Canada of someone in the bottom tenth of the U.S.,” he said.
And, as much as everyone in Canada – from small towns to big cities – has seen the rise over the past few years in homelessness, visibly mentally ill people on the streets, public drug use, and other evidence of a breakdown in social supports and the housing system, it’s still not as bad as American cities.
All of that theorizing about urban voters will be put to the test in the coming federal election next year. And many people have likely made up their minds already.
Mr. Maggi noted that exit polling in the U.S. indicated that 85 per cent of people had decided who they were going to vote for back in January. By the time Kamala Harris came along, many had already made up their minds not to vote Democratic.
That’s what Mr. Fine is doing with the Liberal Party here in Canada.
“I would guarantee it’s going to be a similar level here,” said Mr. Maggi.