What do yesterday’s by-elections mean for October’s federal election?
It’s not very often you get three by-elections on the same day in three different battleground provinces. But yesterday, that’s exactly what we had, with new MPs being elected in York — Simcoe (ON), Outremont (QC), and Burnaby South (BC). While all three of them have their own distinct stories to tell, they also provide a few hints about what we may see when Canadians go to the polls in October. (Usual caveats about by-elections apply.)
York — Simcoe
Of course, there was no doubt that the Conservatives were going to hold onto this riding, north of Toronto, after Peter Van Loan’s retirement. But what is interesting to look at is how the vote has changed since the last general election in 2015, as it gives us a hint of what could happen in other ridings across Ontario.
A swing of over 6% from the Liberals to the Conservatives is a significant swing, which may have been as large as 8% if the “PC Party” (Progressive Canadians) hadn’t shared a similar name to the recently-elected Ontario government. If such a swing were to be replicated across Ontario, it would see the Liberals lose 30–40 seats in the province. This would be enough to not only wipe out their majority, but if not for Québec, would risk them slipping into second place behind the Conservatives.
Outremont
The Orange Wave of Québec started in this Montréal riding in a 2007 by-election, and it is here where we see the tide has firmly left. While the loss of Tom Mulcair was always going to result in a drop in the vote, an 18% decline in the vote is a phenomenal drop in support over less than four years. To put this into context, the Bloc Québécois lost around 15% of the vote between 2008 and 2011, when they first lost official party status.
Translating this collapse in the vote into seats, though, is a bit challenging for the other parties; the NDP only won 16 seats in Québec in 2015. If this swing is typical of what we see in the province, the Liberals would be set to pick up all but three of these seats. While this would be enough to put them comfortably enough ahead of the Conservatives in the House of Commons, it would not be enough to prevent them losing their majority.
Burnaby South
This seat, vacated by the now-Mayor of Vancouver Kennedy Stewart, requires several extra caveats: the NDP leader stood here, the Green Party not putting up a candidate, and the People’s Party candidate has considerable name recognition in the area. This makes it difficult, pointless even, to extrapolate this riding to the rest of BC.
Instead, I’m going to look at the potential impact of the People’s Party if this kind of swing is replicated (one poll last week from Léger put the PPC on 7% in BC). The expected swing from the Liberals to the Conservatives in BC, based on opinion polls, is a little over 2%, which is rather underwhelming. If the People’s Party manages to take even half of what they took in Burnaby, then this would bring this swing down to approximately zero, and most of the gains that they would otherwise make here would be very much in jeopardy.
Thinking Nationally
If I were any of the three main party leaders, I would have reason to be pessimistic about yesterday’s by-election results. This is not the kind of result that Andrew Scheer will want to see if he wants to form the next government, though Justin Trudeau shouldn’t see these results as a sign that his majority government is safe this fall. While Jagmeet Singh will be pleased to have entered parliament, he’ll see the other two ridings as a sign he needs to fix whatever’s wrong with his party, and fast, if he’s to keep the NDP relevant.
