In an interview with CTV News host Evan Solomon on a weekend edition of his political observer programme, Overview, former federal New Democratic Party leader Tom Mulcair stunned the avuncular host by telling Mr. Solomon that he believes we are in the midst of a “wave election” (an election in which one party makes significant gains), that rising support for Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party, aided by the sharpest two-week decline in confidence for a sitting Prime Minister that he’d witnessed in his political lifetime will translate into a massive majority win for the Conservatives, out of power in the nation’s capital since the end of the 2015 federal election.
“As we neared the end of the 2011 federal election campaign, despite all the work that Jack and I had put into growing the New Democratic Party in the province of Québec, our internal polling showed us that we were likely to make only minimal gains, likely only two additional seats in the province, raising our number from three to five. And then the French Leaders’ Debate took place, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaking halting French, and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff speaking perfect Parisian French. Only Jack, who’d spent a good part of his childhood in Québec, spoke the familiar language of the Québécois, employing the patois of the Québec people throughout, showing that he was “one of us.” Coming out of the debate, approval ratings for the NDP skyrocketed, such that by election day we won 59 out of 75 seats, while catapulting the NDP into the position of Leader of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition.
In 2015, the federal New Democratic Party began the election with the rock solid support of 35.7% of the electorate, with the Tories stuck at 31.7%, and a hapless Justin Trudeau-led Liberal Party mired at a 23% approval rating. On September 26, 2015, during the Munk debate in Toronto the probable outcome of the election changed, as Mr. Trudeau went after me for condemning the work his father had undertaken, a feckless Stephen Harper standing between the two of us, mute, unamused and confused. Now, Liberal support had grown to 27% by the end of September — which put them a long way off from power — but in the final 19 days of the campaign, Campaign 2015 became a wave election, with support for my New Democratic Party crumbling to as low as 21%, with support for Stephen Harper’s Tories also taking a hit.
Justin Trudeau won that election with 39.7% of the popular vote.
Last week the polling graphic above was fiction. This week? Not so much.
Long story short, when the electorate gets it into their heads they want change — as they have in 2021 — change is what they’re gonna get. In 2021, as support for Erin O’Toole grows daily, only the province of Québec is denying Mr. O’Toole the majority he seeks. Québécois citizens are not fools — in the same way that 2015 support for the Liberals grew from 5 seats to 40, because under no circumstance do the people of Québec wish to be left out of the power equation, I believe that it is only a matter of time before Mr. O’Toole and Conservatives begin to sweep Québec, effectively eliminating the Bloc Québécois as serious contenders for office, while dramatically downsizing the number of Liberal seats in the province.
Make no mistake, with three weeks to go, Canadians are in the midst of a wave election — nothing can stop this wave. On Monday, September 20, as hard as this is for me to voice to you, Canadians will elect a strong, secure majority Conservative government to Ottawa.
God help us all!”
Recent polling in British Columbia shows an utter collapse in support for the Liberals, and a two-way fight for dominance between New Democrats and the Conservatives. The Liberals will be lucky to come away with five seats.
Federal Tory popularity in Alberta — in the 2019 election at 71% — has grown 14 points in the past two weeks, wiping out any support whatsoever for Justin Trudeau, and maybe, just maybe, allowing the New Democrats to hold onto their lone seat in Edmonton. A week in politics is a lifetime.
Support for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals has collapsed across the Prairies.
One of the reasons that Justin Trudeau called an unnecessary summer election occurred as a consequence of the internal polling numbers that showed that, thanks to the Liberal party’s work on the COVID-19 pandemic, Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives, the New Democratic Party, and the Bloc Québécois would be all but wiped out come Election Day — with particular application in the province of Ontario, where the Liberals held a commanding 45% to 27% lead over Erin O’Toole’s hapless Conservatives.
Clearly, that is no longer the case, with Justin Trudeau’s Liberals losing more and more support in Ontario with each passing day, as is occurring in Québec and, most surprisingly, in the Maritimes. The only factor in play denying Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives a healthy majority government — support for the Tories in la Belle Province, Québec always a potent decider.
If the politically astute lifelong resident of Québec, Tom Mulcair, is right — and there’s no reason to doubt Mr. Mulcair’s political acumen — the people of Québec will soon jump on the political wave that is currently sweeping the nation and, as Mulcair states will also “not want to be left out of the party, and be denied access to power in Ottawa”, translating into massive support for Erin O’Toole’s Conservative, growing the party exponentially over the next three weeks, gaining as many as 40 seats in Québec, predicts Mr. Mulcair, providing the Tory leader with a comfortable majority in Parliament with which to govern over the course of the next four years.
All of the above said, we’re still three weeks out from Election Day.
If, in fact, a week is a lifetime in politics, absolutely anything could happen over the course of the next 20 days to change the political calculus.
As campaign co-chair on the successful 2015 Liberal campaign, and long a senior advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, although Gerald Butts is probably tearing his hair out at the current state of affairs vis-à-vis Liberal fortunes in the 2021 federal election, Mr. Butts is absolutely correct …
Campaigns Matter
Any day now, Erin O’Toole could step in the muck, and absolutely destroy his campaign, or a Tory candidate or three or five could go rogue, and say something so off-putting that it could destroy the Conservative campaign once and for all, setting the stage for a change in the electoral fortunes of the beleaguered Liberal Party of Canada, allowing Justin Trudeau to pull off a come from behind election victory, once again installing him as Prime Minister of Canada. Everyone likes a good, old-fashioned underdog story.
In 2021, the Leaders’ Debate — when the vast majority of people first take notice of the election — emerges as an especially important and perhaps even pivotal event in the life of the current campaign to form government in Ottawa, after Election Day 2021, on Monday, September 20th. Let’s face it, this election will be about what it was always going to be about: which one of the major political parties and which one of the political party leaders is best prepared to protect families across Canada from the continuing and ongoing ravages of COVID-19, and the deadly Delta variant.
Erin O’Toole Says If He Wins Justin Trudeau’s New Office Will Be A Porta-Potty
There’s an easy answer to the question above, and it isn’t Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party of Canada. As you’ve heard so many times, “It ain’t over til the tubby, 71-year-old guy sitting in front of his computer, says it’s over.”
Round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows. David Herle presents details on the latest EKOS Research data, compiled by founder Frank Graves and his crack team, on the Curse of Politics podcast, above.
In addition, here’s Mr. Graves on Twitter late last night ……
