Justin Trudeau is not the first head of government in Canada to call a snap general election during the pandemic, not even bothering to deny that they’re only doing it because polls put them in majority territory. John Horgan (BC-NDP) and Blaine Higgs (NB-PC) both managed to convert minority governments into majority governments in their respective provinces off the back of a pandemic incumbency boost. Andrew Furey (NL-LIB) also managed to hold onto his majority lead in early polls, albeit barely, despite a wave of coronavirus interrupting the entire process.
Justin Trudeau is looking to follow in these three Premiers in converting his minority government into a majority one, by calling a federal election two years before it’s due under Canada’s fixed election laws. In 2019, his Liberal Party finished 13 seats short of being able to form a majority government. So where can these 13 seats be found, and how easy is it for the Prime Minister to take them?
Target Seats
Of the first 13 seats that the Liberals lost by the smallest margins in 2019, six are Conservative seats in Ontario, four of which they picked up from the Liberals in that election. The battleground also includes Bloc Québécois seats in Québec, and some Conservative seats in British Columbia.
The 13th seat on this list if Beauport — Limoilou, in the east of Québec City. This seat was a tight three-way race in 2019, and even though the Liberals finished in third place, they only finished 4.3% behind the Bloc Québécois. Therefore, a relatively modest vote share increase of between 2–2½ percentage points, if uniform across the country, should be enough to get those seats.
Going Without Ontario
As you’d expect in Canada, polls are not pointing towards uniform swings in all areas of the country. The Liberals are making the most gains in BC and Alberta, but are actually down in Ontario compared to the 2019 vote. This puts them at risk of losing a handful of seats in Canada’s most populous province, andthey will have to make up for these lost seats, as well as the lost potential to gain seats, elsewhere in the country.
Of the first 16 non-Ontario targets, they’re split nearly evenly between Bloc Québécois seats in Québec and Conservative seats in the west, with most of the latter being in the Metro Vancouver area. Steveston — Richmond East is the 16th seat on this list, which implies that a vote share increase of 3–3½ percentage points outside of Ontario should help them get to a majority.
Such swings were looking pretty likely a week ago before the election was formally called. It’s still too early to say whether the downward momentum can continue, or whether we will see a mean reversion in the coming days.
Where is the Majority Target?
Given where we are now, it looks like the Liberals could get a majority government on somewhere between 36–37% of the popular vote, which is around two points above where they are at the moment.
This would be the lowest share for any majority government in Canadian history (Jean Chrétien won a majority on 38.5% in 1993). That’s not a bad position for a Prime Minister who pledged to make the 2015 election the last one to be fought under First Past The Post — assuming, of course, he can get there.
Canada’s 44th federal election will be held on Monday, September 20, 2021.
