Provincial Elections

In the past week there have been two provincial general elections and the results of both surprised virtually everyone. That is strange because we have a whole industry, the polling industry, that is supposed to provide us with an idea of what is happening leading up to an election. In both cases they were way off. Kind of makes you wonder about the federal polling we have been seeing. Are their estimates accurate? Probably not.

Many are trying to read the entrails of both elections to guess how a federal general election might turn out. I would caution people from reading too much into the results for the federal level. This country is famous for voters voting one way federally only to have the same voters vote the exact opposite provincially. 

All that being said there are some encouraging signs. Blaine Higgs won a minority government six years ago and during that time he seemed like a moderate conservative. Then he won a majority government, governed from the far-right, and was crushed in the next election. A government only lasting 6 years in this country is a rarity. 

The results in BC is the biggest surprise. The incumbent NDP government had been in power for about a decade. Like all governments, they had a lifespan and like all governments they were running on borrowed time after eight years. Considering these facts the BC conservative party should have swept to power. Instead, as of writing this blog entry, they are tied. Either one could come out on top but regardless of which one does they will not have a strong majority either way.

Overall, the results of these elections shows us just what Canadians feel about the far right. The far-right Premier of New Brunswick lost big, including his seat. The BC conservatives, lead by an extreme right politician could not score a decisive victory over a 10 year incumbent government. That should give more than one conservative politician in this country pause, considering they have been drifting further and further right for about two decades.

While I will reiterate my caution about reading too much into these elections' impact at the federal level the one is BC is interesting. Like the federal level, a progressive government, long in the tooth, was up against a conservative opposition. That conservative opposition ran on far right policies (and continuously and blatantly lied) and they could not "bring it home". Kind of makes you wonder if something similar will happen when the writ is finally dropped at the federal level considering the parallels between the BC election and the probable federal election will be stark.

I am not certain how the next federal election will turn out but these two provincial elections seem to indicate that governing and campaigning from the far right has limited appeal to a significant number of voters, making being elected that much more difficult. (Except in Alberta where voters there seem to have this perverse belief that they have to punish themselves.)