From polling to populism: A 2024 Canadian political primer

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings If you managed to avoid Canadian political discourse in the year 2023, you may have thought you were doing the smart thing after all the past few years had shown little to no change in the way almost everyone voted. So all that differed was rhetoric. If you did manage to tune it all out, however, you missed a pretty serious shift, one that I can helpfully sum up for you in a few seconds right now.

CLIP Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: We know that housing is a real challenge, not just here in Kier, but right across the country, and that’s where we need to work together to solve it. Do you

CLIP Pierre Poilievre: Ever feel like everything’s broken? In Canada?

CLIP: Conservatives leave the liberals by as much as 10 points according to recent polling data. And according to the writ ca, those numbers would have a huge impact if an election were held today,

Jordan: The political ground in this country is clearly shakier than it’s been in years, and 2024 will be a year that Canadians ask many questions but only get answers to a few of them. Is Canada really broken? Can Justin Trudeau and the liberals make it feel otherwise to millions of people staring down rising costs and unpaid bills? Will Pierre Poilievre conservatives manage to hold tight to the message that took them into the lead in the first place? What can we expect from Canadian voters in the coming year in scheduled provincial elections and in a potential federal campaign, and what do we already know about their intentions? I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings, and this is the big story. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a look occasionally at some of the biggest issues facing Canada and the world in the coming year. One of those, of course, is who’s in charge of this country or these provinces. And on that note, Philippe J. Fournier is the editor in chief and the creator of 338canada.com, one of the best sites in the country for political junkies. Hello, Philippe.

Philippe J. Fournier: Good morning, Jordan.

Jordan: Why don’t you start with this, because I know you look at a ton of polls every week, every day, especially over the course of a year. What surprised you most about all the political data that we saw in 2023?

Philippe J. Fournier: That is a good question. I would say that, I’m not sure about surprise, but the fact that we saw movement in the federal polls, Jordan for the first time, well, since the 2021 election, and I would go even further back since the height of Covid in the summer of 2020, for about two and a half years, the liberals and the conservatives were mostly tied. The conservatives were leading by a point or two or three in most bowls. But when we did the seat projections and when we calculated the advantage that the liberals had for the map, the bull parties were essentially tied and then suddenly in June and July and August, we saw in the summertime the conservatives really, really starting to pick up support while the liberals were crumbling. And the first reactions we had was, okay, this is summer polling. This is a little blimp. But then September came and October came and it never really got better for the liberals. Right. And so did it surprise me maybe a little bit. But now we are entering an election year in Canada, pre-election year, or rather, should I say. So it’ll be very interesting to see how the government reacts to those numbers and then what they plan to do to try to write the course because a 15 point gap between admin two parties is not really sustainable for the liberals, so we’ll be following that closely

Jordan: Before we talk about 2024 and what’s to come. We’ve spoken before about how that relatively even federal split can translate to a huge advantage for the liberals because of vote distribution. And I know what you do at 338 is you take those polls and break them down by writing to give us a sense of where the seats will go. So what does that translate to the lead you just mentioned in terms of actual seats?

Philippe J. Fournier: Well, in the summer of 2023, as I said, when the conservatives really picked up support and went into the low forties in national support, we saw that not only were they gaining support, but they were gaining support where they needed to. We saw the numbers in Ontario, in Atlantic Canada, a little bit in Quebec, although we’re not sure how sustainable that is. But the conservatives we’re not just running up the score in Alberta in the prairies as they did with EM O’Toole and as they did with Andrew Shear. And so Mr. Poilievre was picking up support where he needed to. And so when we translate that to the seat projection, the liberals went from a two to one advantage in Ontario to a two to one disadvantage. And so if you are the liberals and you only win, I dunno, 25, 30 seats in Ontario, there is no path to victory whatsoever. And I would also add, as I said, Atlantic Canada, the Atlantic provinces have been very good to the Trudeau liberals since Trudeau came to power in 2015 and the numbers completely flipped. Now, of course, at the end of the year in December, 2023, we saw slightly better numbers for the liberals, but there were still double digits behind the conservatives and some of that was in Atlantic Canada. So we have to keep following these regional numbers to have a better sense of the landscape, but the conservatives basically are leading in every province except Quebec.

Jordan: You mentioned the liberal saw some better polling in December. How do you decide whether that’s a blip, whether that’s noise, whether that’s the beginning of trend? I mean, like I said, you’ve been looking at these polls for years now, right? How do you tell?

Philippe J. Fournier: Well, we have multiple, very good polls in Canada that have tested their methods through elections, and so when we see not one but two, but three different polls using different methods, different samples, all showing the same trends, usually this is designed that it’s a pretty solid trend that we see in the numbers, and so Abacus data was the first one to detect it. The week after that, in mid-December, we saw a poll from Leger and then the tracker from Nanos Research, it does a sub-sample of 250 every week. We saw the same trends, so the liberals went from between 22 and 24% to all the way to 26, 27. Now it is a modest bump, but when all posters see that the same time, this is a sign that the chances are it is real. Although I would stress that maybe liberals were happy to go to 27, but this is like 13 points behind the conservative still. When you’re down double digits and you’re happy about a poll, you’re in trouble.

Jordan: What will you be looking for then? First of all, I guess in terms of polls as the year begins, but also just in terms of events that could drive dramatic changes or shifts in the polls in this year,

Philippe J. Fournier: The natural answers would be, well, there’s the budget in the spring, the spring session, that should end June, and then we’ll have an economic of update in the fall. This is the classic stuff. However, what has really moved the needle in the past two years in Canada were unexpected events. The convoy in Ottawa, the Ukraine War, now we have this Israel Hamas war going on that’s really raging up a lot of people on all sides in this country. What we have in store for 2024, I do not know. What we do know, however, is that the liberals and the NDP have an understanding, a sort of coalition, that piece of liberal in power Now will that last, as long as the numbers stay the same as we see now, there is no reason for either the liberals nor the NDP to go into an election to rush the country into an election. Right now, I think we are focused for fall of 25 for the next action, but who knows, really, right? I don’t think one year ago we could have predicted the movement we saw during the 2023

Jordan: Because you mentioned them, and I realize I have not yet. Has the NDP gained anything from the support the liberals have lost or has it all seemingly shifted to the conservatives?

Philippe J. Fournier: Short answer is no. Wow. We haven’t seen movement from DNDP. If you look at the trend lines for the NDP through all the polls, we saw some blips in late November. We say we had a consecutive polls that had the NDP in the twenties, it’s gone back to 18%. It was just a fluctuation. So this is one of the movements that is so interesting. We saw the liberals went from about 33% of voting intentions in this country to the mid twenties, and yet the NDP has not been able to capitalize on that. Usually it happens when the liberals go down. The NDP goes up a little bit. Historically that’s been the case, not this time. And so the conservatives with PEV had a strong convention in Quebec City. I remember I was there in Quebec City and they just had great polls, double digit leads in every regions of the country almost. And they have kept this momentum going to the point that right now the conservatives do not really need to recruit new voters. The base is there to win an election. And so the hockey analogy that I use is that Poilievre could play the trap for the next year and a half and you could win. It’s just, I’m not sure it’s in the conservative’s DNA to play like that.

Jordan: In terms of the time between now and the next federal election, you mentioned before we started recording that it’s not just the federal election coming up. This is a somewhat election heavy stretch for Canada that we’re heading into now. What are you watching besides the federal race and what piques your interest there? What should Canadians be paying attention to?

Philippe J. Fournier: Well, there are three scheduled provincial elections in 2024. There’s British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick. Now, they’re all interesting in their own ways. In British Columbia, we have maybe a realignment that happens once in a generation that is showing up in Nepals. We have this BC conservative party very much aligned when Poilievre, but that had only 2% of the vote in 2020. It was a marginal party. And we see now in polls that they are rivaling the formerly called liberals, the BC Uniteds in the mid twenties in polls. And so this could completely split the vote on the center right of the spectrum. And the NDP right now is facing the possibility of a major victory. Now, there will be 93 seats in the provincial election in bc, they changed their map from 87 to 93. Right now, my projection has DNDP just below 80 seats, and so it could be a blowout and such a blowout sometimes can lead to a realignment. So BC will be very interesting to watch this year. Saskatchewan one, we have a dynasty right now we have the SASS party in power for more than a decade. Now, SMO was going for a second straight victory, and even though we have seen some tightening in the polls during 2023, nothing that would indicate that the party in government right now would change. The NDP in Saskatchewan is popular in both cities in Regina and Saskatoon, not very much outside those cities. And so the map is so that there’s 61 seats, you need 31 to win a majority. The NDP maybe could get 20, maybe could get 22. If they have a good election, they’re not going to get 30 unless again, there’s a huge wave that we can’t foresee. And New Brunswick will be very interesting. I think New Brunswick is the one I’m the most excited about because the map in New Brunswick makes a whole difference. Now, Jordan, in 2018, the liberals in New Brunswick were in power. Mr. Gallant, the premier won the popular vote by six points, won the popular vote by six points, and yet still lost the election because of the vote distribution of the map, which really helps the PCs, the progressive conservatives over there. So Mr. Higgs came into power, and so that’s why we have to be very careful when we see a poll in New Brunswick. You see the liberals leading by two or three. I was like, oh, that’s nice, but that’s really not enough. It should be a close race. There’s also a strong green party in New Brunswick that could hold a balance of power if there’s a minority government. So lots of dynamics in this election. And to put the cherry on top there, Jordan, all those three elections are scheduled in October, and that’s why I don’t think we’re going to have a federal election in the fall because it’s just too busy already. Well, we’ll see.

Jordan: I would assume that out of those three provincial elections, it is New Brunswick that could give us the best sense of if the federal momentum has shifted. I mean, I am assuming federally, BC and Saskatchewan are pretty clearly spoken for as a block.

Philippe J. Fournier: Well, Saskatchewan, I agree. There are stories in bc again, if there is a realignment, the BC Uniteds, which were called the Liberals until last year, decided that the liberal brand was too toxic for them because they were a right of center party. They decided to change the name and instantly in the polls they fall double digits. They fall 10, 12, 15 points, and this marginal conservative party goes up. And again, as I said, they are really closely aligned with the federal conservatives with Mr. Poilievre. And so will Poilievre try to help the leader of the conservative, Mr. Rustad, his name is in bc, will it work and if it doesn’t, could it hurt the federal conservatives? We don’t know. So there are some stories in bc, but as you said, I agree. New Brunswick I think has a lot of sway. I think because we look at the Atlantic region for hints on what will we liberal vote federally in those provinces? So this could be a hint, but it’s still very different dynamics from protal to federal. I mean, we know in Ontario there are Ford Trudeau voters, though those voters exist, and so we should not assume that a liberal voter is a liberal voter across the board or a conservative or an NDP, but still those crossovers are going to be interesting to follow.

Jordan: You’ve been doing this for years now. What kind of lead do you look at and say, okay, well, if the election started now that’s too much to make up over the course of a campaign. We famously have shorter campaigns than American politics that love to drag it out for months and months. I know the conservatives now, as you mentioned, around 13 points. Can Poilievre really just rag the puck and be guaranteed of a win here as long as he can stick to it?

Philippe J. Fournier: The thing is every campaign is different, but I would say this in the past, I would say two decades election campaigns that ended the same way they started. And I mean polling wise, and I mean popular support wise are the exceptions rather than the rule. Usually we see movements during campaigns. This is the time when most people, most voters actually pay attention to politics. Leaders are on tv, on the radio, on the internet every single day. And so we usually see movement. However, when we have a big lead, as you said, Jordan, with the conservatives way on top, and Mr. Trau, even though he still has a core of support, his main support that gave him power in 15 and 19 and 21, that support has been eroding. So if we see more fluctuation this year, perhaps that means that voters can still change their minds. And we’ve seen Mr. David Colletto of Becker’s data had some great insights and numbers on this that a lot of voters have not changed their mind yet, but they say that they could. So they will pay attention if Poilievre decides to act foolishly or to be more in your face with the media stuff that his base really likes, but not sure that the middle of the road voter enjoys as much. There’s still time and space for Ms. Yev to tumble and for the liberals to have the benefit of time to go back up. But when you see a double digit lead that has been sustained for, what, six months now, this is a real momentum shift that rarely happens in the politics. When it happens, it’s really hard to reverse.

Jordan: What polls will you be interested in in terms of either issues or demographics in the coming year that you think could help us determine what will matter in the upcoming campaigns?

Philippe J. Fournier: Well, the polling on issues that we saw in 2023 were not as different as some said compared to 2022. The main issues were the housing and the cost of living and inflation, and those are still top of mind. However, if the economy picks up in 2024, if maybe interest rates start going down a little bit, I’m betting that the liberals could be okay, maybe if outside factors can help us, our support will go up. So we will follow those closely. I mean, even though covid is still around, it’s not top of mind for a lot of people and running on Covid and healthcare will not work like it did in 2021 for the liberals. So they have to find another issue. And the same goes for the conservatives. There’s a faction of the conservatives. They’re small, they’re a minority, but they can be loud that they were very strongly against the vaccine mandates and all kinds of mandates during Covid. If they are still angry and yelling about this come election time, I don’t think it will resonate with people. The polls show that it’s very far back of mine for many voters, so the issues will change in 2024, but right now with high interest rates and the grocery prices are still through the roof, I think those issue will stay top of mind for a few months at

Jordan: Least. Philippe, thanks for this. As always. It’s fascinating to dive into what we can expect and enjoy your busy year.

Philippe J. Fournier: Always appreciate speaking with you, Jordan. Take care. Thank you.

Jordan: Philippe J. Fournier is the editor in chief of 338canada.com, where you can go to get a look at all those polls he just mentioned. If you want to get a good look at us, you can head to the big story podcast.ca. You can also send us some feedback. What do you want to know about the coming year? What are you curious about? What do you worried about? What questions do you have that maybe, hopefully we can help you answer, reach out to us Absolutely anytime. You can do that on Twitter, not X at the Big story Fpn more easily. You can do it via email at hello at the big story podcast.ca. Or you can do it by calling and leaving a voicemail. 4 1 6 9 3 5 5 9 3 5 is that number. You can find the big story in absolutely any podcast player. And if over the holidays somebody gave you a smart speaker for Christmas, you can use it to play this podcast by asking it while to play the Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.