British Columbia will have 42 seats in the next Parliament, an increase of six courtesy of redistribution. Talking to strategists for the three main parties, you might think the province had 60 seats, so bullish are all three on their chances.
Bullish means public spin. Of course we will do better than last time, insist NDP and Liberal strategists. We will hold what we have, reply the Conservatives, and win most of the new six seats.
They all cannot be right. But hope springs eternal about three months before voting day in a province with the third-largest number of seats in the country, and a reasonable chance of deciding which party will have the most seats in the next Parliament. British Columbia counts a lot in this election, which might explain why the party leaders have visited so often.
Put crudely, the New Democrats and Conservatives each have a lock on about a dozen seats. Public polls, for what they are worth three months from an election, give momentum to the NDP. Ekos has the NDP at 36 per cent in B.C., compared with 24 per cent for the Liberals and a dispiriting 21 per cent for the Conservatives. Insights West, polling for the environment group Dogwood Initiative in eight ridings, shows strength for the NDP everywhere, declining fortunes for the Conservatives, but stubborn support for the Liberals in three Vancouver-area seats.
The Liberals usually show better in B.C. between elections than on voting day. Many years ago, the Liberals could steal a seat in places such as Skeena or Kamloops, but those days are long gone. Liberal support, such as it is, lies mainly in central Vancouver, North Vancouver and parts of Surrey.
If the Liberals, winners of just two seats in the 2011 election under leader Michael Ignatieff, drew to an inside straight, they might win seven or eight seats this time. They do have in Justin Trudeau a leader who spent many years in the province, and therefore knows the place better than the other party leaders. The Liberals have some credible local candidates, but lack a ground game and just aren't rooted in many parts of the province. If they did win seven or eight seats, their astonishment would be matched by disbelief in the other camps.
The NDP and Conservatives will be slugging it out throughout much of the province, just as the provincial NDP does with the small-c conservative coalition called the provincial Liberal Party.
Drawing a link between the provincial and federal New Democrats will be a staple of the Conservative campaign. Glen Clark, once an NDP premier, and Adrian Dix, the previous NDP leader in the province, aren't remotely involved in this federal campaign, except in Conservative rhetoric. Remember them, the Conservatives will remind all but hard-core NDP supporters, because the federal New Democrats are joined at the hip to their provincial cousins.
The Conservatives are on the defensive on the environment, an issue of perhaps more importance in B.C., or at least certain parts of the province, than anywhere in Canada. B.C. is political home to Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, who is expected to be re-elected in Saanich-Gulf Islands.
A strong Green showing would come largely at the expense of the NDP. If the election for non-Conservatives is about getting rid of Stephen Harper, a Green vote might be a wasted one for some wavering supporters.
Aboriginal voting could help the Liberals and NDP. Despite appeals from some chiefs to participate in the election, however, the vast majority of aboriginals won't cast a ballot, if the past is any guide.
Looking at the B.C. election map shows that a funny thing happened on the way to redistribution of seats.
Prince George (not that populous a place) is split between two ridings. Penticton is separated from its natural region, the Okanagan, and placed in a riding farther south. It's hard to squeeze enough people into rural and small-town ridings so boundaries are sometimes made strange.
B.C.'s six new seats are distributed with one for Vancouver Island and five for the Lower Mainland. Some of the up-country and other largely rural ridings are enormous and therefore will be very tough to serve for whoever wins.
It's increasingly the same story across the country, everywhere but the Maritimes. Cities get more seats, while ridings in rural areas with declining populations are geographically large, and getting larger.