There are still a few ballots to be counted to determine the final standings in the three provincial elections that have taken place over the last two weeks. But before those events are overshadowed by the political tsunami to our south, it’s worth reflecting on what the October elections in British Columbia, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan can tell us about the state of politics in this country. 

Several themes are common across the three elections. First, there was a strong element of the kind of populist-driven polarization that’s threatening to destroy democracy in the U.S. and, with Pierre Poilievre, is getting a run in Canada. In New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, the parties in power moved to the right, and in B.C. the incumbent government had to fight off a motley crew of right-wing populists running under the Conservative banner. 

Secondly, the right-wing parties wanted to hang the albatross of  Justin Trudeau around the necks of their opponents,  whose response was “Justin Who?” And lastly, in all three cases, the governing party had been in power through at least two elections, and vulnerable to the “time for a change” argument. 

The good news is that despite the unsettling rise of the Conservatives in British Columbia, when all three elections are considered, the centre-left either held its ground against the right or improved its standing. 

British Columbia

In B.C., the Conservatives, who went from zero seats to 44 did so not by taking the province by storm but by taking over the business-led anti-NDP/CCF coalition that has been the natural governing party in the province since the 1950s. For years that coalition went under the name of Social Credit. More recently the right-wing coalition has been nominally Liberal and somewhat moderate. But after losing badly to the NDP in 2020, its leadership decided to apply some Trudeau-repellent by changing the name to BC United. 

The move backfired against BC United when right-wing voters started telling pollsters they supported the Conservatives, likely confusing a provincial party that received less than two percent of the vote in 2020 with the technically non-affiliated federal Conservatives led by Poilievre. 

As the Conservatives overtook them in the polls, the BC United leader bowed to business pressure and pulled his party out of the race to avoid splitting the right-wing vote against a suddenly less popular NDP government, whose policies on carbon pricing and the opioid crisis were seen as closely aligned with Trudeau’s.

The spectacle of a party led by a climate change denier, whose ranks include racists, anti-vaxxers, and conspiracy theorists, coming within a few seats of a majority was certainly sobering. But a revolution it isn’t. 

The right wing vote – the Conservatives and a few die-hards from BC United who ran as independents – totalled 47 percent, up ten percentage points from 2020. The NDP vote dropped only three percentage points, from 48 to 45 percent. The Greens dropped the most – from 15  percent in 2020 to only eight percent 2024. That eight percent was enough to give the Greens two seats in the legislature. It was also sufficient to split the centre-left vote in ten ridings, allowing the Conservative candidate to win with less than 50 percent of ballots cast.

Overall, despite the anti-Trudeau, anti-carbon tax, time-for-a change dynamic, combined support for the NDP and Greens was 53 per cent, down from the two previous elections in 2020 and 2017, but higher than both 2009 and 2013. And some in the crop of newly-elected Conservatives could prove to be obstacles to growth by the opposition party – or even to Poilievre and the federal Conservatives.

One of the more toxic of the newcomers is Brent Chapman. He has an ugly social media history, including referring to Palestinians as “inbred,”comparing harm reduction strategies to the Holocaust and suggesting that the Quebec mosque shooting, the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and the Orlando night club mass killing were all faked. 

Chapman happens to be married to Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a long-time Conservative MP and Poilievre insider. Findlay served in Stephen Harper’s cabinet from 2013 to 2015 and was appointed chief whip by Poilievre in 2022. According to the Conservative website, “She also sits as the B.C. Representative on Pierre’s Leadership team.” 

But no worries, we’ve been assured that the B.C. Conservatives and the Poilievre Conservatives are not connected.

New Brunswick

I may be too bullish in thinking that the populist wave has crested in B.C., but there is a definite reason for optimism to be found in the result in New Brunswick. Voters there delivered a strong rebuke to Blaine Higgs, who tried out many of the  tactics in the right-wing playbook. Higgs even made a contribution of his own to the populist manual with Policy 713. It required educators to obtain parental consent before using the preferred pronouns or names of transgender or non-binary students under 16.  

Donald Wright, a University of New Brunswick political scientist assessed Higgs’ campaign this way in a Globe and Mail op ed:

“Mr. Higgs and his team took aim at the woke mob (whoever they are), the liberal-friendly media, Justin Trudeau, carbon pricing, supervised consumption sites, and asylum seekers. Targeting asylum seekers – especially when almost no one is seeking asylum in New Brunswick- marked a new and shameless low.”

Higgs added another staple of the right – promising a two percentage point cut in the HST. But none of it appeared to work as Susan Holt led the New Brunswick Liberals to a solid victory. 

The PCs (with the “progressive” clearly missing in action) emerged with 35 percent of the vote, a point or two below their standing in most pre-election public opinion polling. Just as significant was the decline in the overall conservative vote. In the 2020 election, the Higgs party received  39.3 percent while the right-wing populist People’s Alliance received 9.2 percent, electing two members. 

Those two members later joined Higgs’ caucus, effectively gutting the PA, which received less than one percent this time. That left the right wing parties with a combined vote of only 36 percent, down by more than 12 percentage points. The  Liberals (48.2), Greens (13.8) and NDP (a paltry 1.3 percent) received the rest – a resounding 64 percent altogether.

Although Higgs (like Tim Houston is now doing in Nova Scotia), tried to bring federal politics into the provincial campaign, his failure to make that work for him does not necessarily mean the tide is turning for the Trudeau-led Liberals. Back in 2014, in a warm up for the Trudeau Liberal sweep of Atlantic Canada the following year, the New Brunswick Liberals under Brian Gallant came to power, at least partially, on Trudeau’s coattails. Susan Holt, on the other hand, was careful to distance herself from Trudeau. Nevertheless, as the federal Liberals look for ways to stall the Poilievre party’s momentum in Atlantic Canada, the New Brunswick election provides a ray of hope.

Saskatchewan

While the NDP can take no solace from its showing in New Brunswick, the party has to be encouraged by the outcome in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan party Premier Scott Moe has been a strident critic of the federal government on many files, including carbon pricing and equalization, and has picked up Higgs’ “parents rights” initiative on transgender students and made it his own. 

Moe’s embrace of that right-wing cause was in response to a threat from the further right SaskUnited Party (SUP) led by MLAs who split from his government over COVID-19 restrictions. The governing party’s strategy succeeded in rural and small town Saskatchewan and the SUP received less than four percent of the vote. But it bombed in the cities. The NDP won every seat in Regina and are elected or leading in 13 of 14 in Saskatoon. 

The New Democrats, who have been on the ropes since their traditional Tommy Douglas era rural support began to crumble 30 years ago, received 40 percent of the vote in last week’s election, their best showing since 2003.

“Time for a change” likely played a significant role in the NDP rise and the 14-seat loss by the government, given that the Saskatchewan party has been in power for 17 years. When the federal election rolls around that same mood may re-emerge as continuing support for the federal Conservatives who now hold all 14 seats in the Province.  

However, in the 2015 election the Conservatives were defeated in half of the seats in Regina and Saskatoon, with the NDP winning two and Liberal stalwart Ralph Goodale the other. In the 2021 federal election, four of the six seats in the two provincial NDP strongholds were won by Conservatives with less than 50 percent of votes cast. If the parties of the centre-left decide to co-operate at the riding level to keep Poilievre out of power, Saskatoon and Regina would be high on the list.  

The three October provincial elections strengthen the case for such co-operation across the country.The outcomes in British Columbia, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan demonstrate that the kind of right-wing populism espoused by Poilievre and his provincial imitators has limited appeal among the electorate. But unless the Liberals, NDP and Greens decide to co-operate at the next election, all recent polling points toward a populist minority taking power in Ottawa – whether or not the majority of Canadians want that outcome.

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