Christo Aivalis

U of T expert on Maxime Bernier's bold move

noreen.rasbach — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 15:34:11 +0000

U of T expert on Maxime Bernier's bold move

noreen.rasbach Fri, 08/24/2018 - 11:34

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Maxime Bernier announces he will leave the Conservative party during a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday (photo by Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Christo Aivalis

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Maxime Bernier, the 2017 Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leadership runner-up, has announced he’s leaving the party to form a truly conservative alternative to Andrew Scheer’s party, which Bernier categorized as “intellectually and morally corrupt.”

While it’s been clear since the May leadership contest that conflicts between Bernier and Scheer persisted – with Bernier removed from the CPC shadow cabinet for publicly challenging the party on supply management in Canada’s dairy sector – this move came as a surprise given that it coincided with the start of the party’s policy convention.

Happier times? Bernier congratulates Scheer after the former speaker was elected the new leader of the federal Conservative party in May 2017 (photo by Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)

Bernier made his move to maximize both media coverage and pressure on his former party, one he’s accused of “abandoning.” The question now is just how effective Bernier’s new party will be, and, if it can find success in time for the 2019 election, how will it affect the CPC and wider federal politics?

Bernier’s new party has potential, if for no other reason than he won more than 49 per cent support in the 2017 leadership contest, meaning that many Canadian conservatives are sympathetic to Bernier’s vision for Canada.

Caucus support?

But there’s no real sense if Bernier has support from key influencers in the CPC. Indeed, Bernier said in his departure news conference that he had not discussed his move with his caucus mates. This doesn’t mean failure is inevitable, but it may be that, however popular Bernier is with segments of the Conservative electorate, he won’t have the institutional muscle to launch a viable party, especially so quickly.

Furthermore, it’s not yet clear just what sort of platform Bernier will offer to Canadians.

In 2017, Conservatives looked to Bernier as the libertarian candidate who ostensibly fit the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” archetype. During that campaign, when hopefuls like Kellie Leitch and Brad Trost made staunch pitches to social conservatives, Bernier highlighted economic issues, namely limiting government intervention.

If this is the basis of his new party, he may well pull support from his leadership backers, as well as right-leaning Liberals who can’t stomach Conservative social policy.

Nonetheless in recent months, Bernier has merged his laissez-faire economics with an approach to cultural and social issues that aligns him much more explicitly with the far right than he did during the 2017 contest.

Most recently and notably, he has become a high-profile critic of what he called the Liberal government’s “extreme” approach to multiculturalism and diversity, which supposedly puts at risk the sanctity and meaning of Canadian identity.

Bernier has intertwined this with his anti-government ideology, saying that the Liberal approach to diversity creates little tribes that “become political clienteles to be bought with taxpayers $ and special privileges.”

What will his platform be?

In a sense, Bernier is keeping many of his libertarian policies while making an overture to those Canadians wary of diversity, immigration and multiculturalism. The question is: Can he convincingly combine these beliefs into a coherent policy suite that appeals to Canadians, or will he end up with a platform that pleases no one sufficiently to win any significant support?

Bernier’s move is likely a gift to Trudeau (photo by Darryl Dick/The Canadian Press)

But with all this in mind, let’s say Bernier wins meaningful support in 2019. What will the potential impact be?

In short, the conventional narrative is that this is a boon to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Before this split, the CBC poll tracker had the Liberals and Conservatives nearly tied in the popular vote, but with the Liberals’ vote efficiency putting them on the precipice of another majority government.

Even if Bernier’s new party wins just five per cent of the electorate in 2019, and a majority of that comes from current CPC voters, it will benefit the Liberals (as well as the New Democrats, to a lesser extent, in some regions where they run second to the CPC).

So if one identifies as an anything-but-Conservative voter, Bernier’s move could be welcome news. The risk, however, is that while a more stridently conservative party led by Bernier will feud with Scheer’s CPC, it may also incubate experimental right-wing ideas that could be eventually incorporated into the CPC’s platform.

Poaching ideas

Such a scenario would be reminiscent of when the New Democrats have championed progressive social and economic ideas like pharmacare before they gained mainstream acceptance, but in so doing gave legitimacy to the ideas, which were then poached by the Liberals.

It isn’t inconceivable that Bernier’s new party could fuel attacks on things like Medicare and multiculturalism, which may allow the CPC to take up those ideas, even just partially, and appear as relatively moderate to the electorate in doing so.

Ultimately, we have no real sense of how Bernier’s plan will unfold, or if it will find even modest success. History tells us that the vast majority of political parties in Canada fail due to our first-past-the-post system. Indeed, only three federal parties have official party status right now; two with roots back to Confederation and one with roots in the Great Depression.

But don’t count Mad Max out. If politics has taught us anything over the past few years, it’s that the impossible is a lot more likely than we’ve previously thought.

Christo Aivalis is a SSHRC postdoctoral researcher in the department of history at U of T. He is a member of the New Democratic Party of Canada.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

An NDP victory in Ontario is a real possibility: U of T expert

noreen.rasbach — Fri, 25 May 2018 14:05:19 +0000

An NDP victory in Ontario is a real possibility: U of T expert

noreen.rasbach Fri, 05/25/2018 - 10:05

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Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath is greeted by local candidate Doly Begum during a campaign visit earlier this month in the GTA (photo by Bernard Weil/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

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At the start of the Ontario provincial election, which unofficially began when Doug Ford was narrowly chosen in March to lead the province’s Progressive Conservatives, most pundits and analysts predicted a two-horse race, pitting Ford against Liberal incumbent Kathleen Wynne.

Many felt, based on the stark choice on display – combined with the Liberals seemingly poaching key NDP policy initiatives – that New Democrat Andrea Horwath would be starved of media coverage and political relevancy before ultimately being cut down by a strategic voting movement that would unite behind Wynne to stop Ford.

What a difference a few weeks makes.

Instead, Horwath’s NDP has momentum after first establishing itself firmly in second place ahead of the Liberals, and now by challenging Ford’s Conservatives for first place. Recent polls from Abacus Data, Maclean’s-Pollara, and Ipsos have placed the NDP and the Conservatives within a point of one another, both well ahead of Wynne’s Liberals, who sit as low as 18 per cent.

And while other pollsters and aggregators like the CBC Poll Tracker see the Conservative lead as being slightly bigger, every major analyst agrees that the momentum is with Horwath and the NDP, while the Tories seem to be on a bit of a downward shift. In fact, two of three recent polls give Horwath a slight lead over Ford, brother of the late Toronto mayor, Rob Ford.

What’s behind Horwath’s momentum?

There are two key questions here: First, what’s fuelling the NDP’s momentum? And second, will it result in Horwath winning on June 7 to become only the second NDP premier in Ontario history to lead the province?

In broad terms, Horwath’s rise in the polls can be explained by three overarching issues.

First is her general popularity, especially when compared to Ford and Wynne. This has been evident throughout the election, but some recent data shows that while Wynne and Ford both have negative popularity numbers (-47 and -20 respectively), Horwath enjoys a +29 rating that is increasing as more voters tune into the election. Conversely, Ford’s numbers are slipping as more voters become familiar with him.

Ontario PC leader Doug Ford makes an announcement during a campaign stop on a farm in the town of Lakeshore, Ont. on May 23 (photo by Geoff Robins/The Canadian Press)

The second factor is the party’s platform, which is not only ambitious in its scope, but has been fully costed and vetted by former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page.

Conversely, neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have released a platform, and while Wynne can claim that the recent Liberal budget is in effect the party’s platform, the Conservatives have offered scant details about what their specific objectives are. While they have recently promised a platform due a couple days before the election, there is no definitive sense for what a Ford government would do.

Generally, the Tories have promised major tax cuts without cutting jobs and services by finding billions “in efficiencies.” This has led many people, including economist Mike Moffat, to suggest that it is likely Ford will create the largest deficits, whereas Howath’s NDP, even after accounting for a recent $1.4 billion platform budget error, is the party most likely to run smaller deficits.

It could therefore be the case that, for many fiscally prudent voters, the NDP is considered potentially better at minding the public purse than the tax-cutting Conservatives.

Strong in debates

The final factor has been Horwath’s campaign trail performance. Starting with the first televised debate, Horwath has been seen as the sharpest candidate, and has also been perceived as offering a positive message, especially when juxtaposed with Ford and Wynne’s “bickering.”

This was followed up by an interesting moment in a debate on Northern Ontario issues in Parry Sound, Ont., where a picture of the three leaders showed Ford and Wynne’s podiums filled with notes, while Horwath spoke without any.

Horwath, Wynne and Ford take part in the second of three leaders’ debates in Parry Sound, Ont., on May 11. Horwath’s podium is absent of notes (photo by Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)

A minor factor to be sure, but that image helped to craft a narrative that Horwath spoke with passion and sincerity on the key issues, and not from a series of pre-baked talking points.

But the real question, as noted above, is if Horwath and company can keep up the momentum for the next couple weeks and actually form a government. Right now, with recent polls painting the race as a dead heat between Horwath and Ford, the advantage still lies with the Conservatives.

In fact, according to Global News, Ford could win a narrow majority government even after finishing in second place.

This is for a host of reasons.

First, Ford is doing very well among older voters, who tend to be more reliable in terms of getting to the polls. Second, the Conservatives have a more efficient distribution of voters, meaning that they have support spread across ridings, while the NDP’s support is more concentrated within certain ridings and regions. Third, the Ford Conservatives are very strong in both the Greater Toronto Area and what is known as the 905 – the heavily populated communities that surround Toronto.

This is the province’s most seat-rich region, and it is powering the current Conservative lead. That’s why, according to seat simulators like Too Close to Call, the NDP would need to win by several points to win a plurality or majority of seats.

Still a path to NDP victory

This still doesn’t mean Horwath and the NDP can’t find a path to victory. If their momentum continues, even at a slower pace than we’ve seen, they may establish a statistically significant lead on Ford and company.

Furthermore, the 407 data scandal – in which it’s alleged that upwards of 29 Conservative candidates used illegally obtained voter information to win riding nominations – is still percolating, and there are ongoing investigations by both law enforcement agencies and Elections Ontario. This could cause real trouble for Ford and push the Tories down in the polls.

Just as interesting are the continuing effects of strategic and bandwagon voting. In the aforementioned Abacus data, they found that once voters saw that the NDP, and not the Liberals, were in second place, they accelerated their move from Wynne to Horwath. And given that voters pay more attention as election day approaches, this trend could continue.

Again, the NDP likely needs to beat Ford by a few points to win the seat count, but if they can continue to pull in strategic Liberal supporters, and flip a few more soft Conservative voters, the New Democrats could easily build a more stable lead.

Will that happen? Only the next couple weeks will tell. But one thing is nearly certain, in my view: On June 7, Ontario will have a new premier, and there is a decent chance it will be Andrea Horwath.

Christo Aivalis is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council postdoctoral researcher in the ��Ƶ's department of history. He is a member of the New Democratic Party, and is on his riding association executive.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.