Finally, it’s on. The federal election campaign officially began Wednesday and so far it doesn’t feel much different from the unofficial campaign that’s been underway for months.
The campaign begins with the two top contenders — the incumbent Liberals and the opposition Conservatives — locked in a virtual tie atop public opinion polls, with both parties polling in the low to mid-30s nationally.
Two other parties are fighting over the same ground in what is currently a battle for third.
With the Liberals and Conservatives in a dead heat, the prospects for a minority government are very real, and the party that finishes with the third-most seats in Parliament would likely hold the balance of power and corresponding sway over a minority government’s agenda.
The NDP, although mired a distant third in the polls, are still most likely to emerge as that third-place party. It is polling in the mid-teens nationally, while the Greens have risen to a new highwater mark, polling better than 10 per cent across the country.
The New Democrats won’t admit it, but its secret — and second-worst scenario — goal is to win at least 12 seats, the number needed to retain official party status in Parliament.
At the outset, the Green Party has little realistic chance of attaining official party status. Its support is widely, but thinly, spread across the country, and only deep enough to win seats on the west coast where both of its current MPs are located.
That’s vitally important because with that status comes profile, by guaranteed things like questions during question period, as well as the staff and resources required to run a party’s Parliamentary office.
At the outset, the Green Party has little realistic chance of attaining official party status. Its support is widely, but thinly, spread across the country, and only deep enough to win seats on the west coast where both of its current MPs are located.
While the Liberals and Conservatives are showing the same level of popular support, it’s the seat count that matters, and the Liberals have the advantage there.
The conventional wisdom is that the Conservative vote is pretty much locked in and the party has some room to grow. But in order to win the most seats, the Conservatives need one of the second-tier parties — the NDP most likely — to pull support away from the Liberals.
That’s because the Conservative vote is concentrated in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The party will win landslides across the west but, in relative terms, won’t have a lot of seats to show for it. There are only 69 to be had across the three Prairie provinces.
The flip side of that is the Liberals’ lead in Quebec and Ontario. Each of those provinces has more seats than the three Prairie provinces combined, which is why modelling based on most polls shows the Liberals winning more seats than the Conservatives.
The conventional wisdom is that the Conservative vote is pretty much locked in and the party has some room to grow. But in order to win the most seats, the Conservatives need one of the second-tier parties — the NDP most likely — to pull support away from the Liberals. A strengthened NDP — or, less likely, a surge from the Greens — will create the splits on the left the Conservatives need to win enough seats, mostly in Ontario and B.C., to take them to government.
In Atlantic Canada, where the Liberals won all 32 seats in 2015, the party has largely recovered from the SNC-Lavalin affair and corresponding drop in popularity, and now holds a 10-point lead over the Conservatives across the region.
Still, the Liberals won’t repeat the sweep of 2015. The Conservatives have targeted seats in Nova Scotia and particularly southern New Brunswick, and they’ll win some of them.
Pollsters are finding there’s more fluidity in the vote on the left of the political spectrum, where most folks place the Greens along with the NDP and the Liberals, although Green purists claim the party is neither left nor right and the Liberals are often more centre than left.
A second term for the Liberals requires that they retain their current level of support and, to win a majority, syphon off some support from the NDP, the Greens or both.
Conversely, the Conservatives need a resurgence of the NDP or a Green wave to take away some Liberal votes and deliver Conservative seats in three-way races in Ontario and B.C., along with Quebec, where the Bloc is back.
The next 39 days will be filled with promises, gaffes and more than a little acrimony. All of which Canadians will weigh before deciding where to place their vote.
Campaigns always matter, but with the main opponents dead-even at the starting line, the party that runs the best campaign may actually win this election.
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