Thread by @DougSaunders

For those abroad trying to understand today's Canadian election, here's an underlying fact: For the past quarter century, in every election, about 60% have voted for a candidate from a left-leaning party

The outcome depends only on how that vote divides among parties

Both Canada's left-wing vote and its right-wing vote are remarkably consistent; there is little movement between polarities, just among parties within those polarities. Here's that data in tabular form:

In the '90s, Canada had two competing right-wing national parties, which pretty much guaranteed majorities to the Liberals. They united just as the major left parties (NDP and Liberals plus Bloc in Quebec) strengthened and began to split the left-leaning vote SO Tory governments

Canada's different from other countries with a 60-40 left/right breakdown in that a) It has a Westminster system rather than anything proportional and b) It is adverse to coalition governments, in part because one of the non-right parties is the Quebec separatist Bloc Quebecois

On the point 1, Conservatives have attempted to exploit the "politics of geography" over the leftish parties' "politics of demography" --they won constituencies with few people living in them.

This has been less easy since 2011 changes. My essay on this:

theglobeandmail.com/opinion/democr…

In 2015, Trudeau's Liberals promised to change the voting system--perhaps to something proportional.

Why'd they drop that? Look what happened in 2015.

The left vote consolidated on one party. Hardly any change in Conservative vote -- from 5.8 million in 2011 to 5.6 in 2015.

The 2019 vote is not poised to be a repeat of that convergence, unless things changed wildly over the last 24 hours (new polls aren't allowed on election day). BUT once again at least 60% will vote leftward and 35 to 40% to the right

How could this change in Canada? I see 3 possibilities.

1. A secular shift in voting ideologies. We saw in 2015 and maybe 2019 that the left-leaning proportion may have risen from 60 to 65%. New, more educated generations voting more leftward could shift the dynamics eventually

2. A merger of the left-leaning parties, like the right-leaning ones did in 2003. This was most plausible after 2011, when the Liberals and NDP were both kind of weak and both nominally social-democratic. But their intense tribalism tends to militate against this possibility

(And of course parties are not going to merge unless they're in opposition, and feel stuck that way)

3. A change in the voting system. It was an issue in 2015, when it looked like that 60% reality was going to work against the Liberals. When it worked for them, they dropped it.

It's not on platforms in 2019, and Canadians have generally been resistant to voting-system changes

Also: Canada has seen SOME of the fragmenting of traditional monolithic parties we've seen in other countries. Greens were up for a while, and a fringe ultra-right party shaved a % or two from Tories. But not much -- it's nothing like the fragmentation of European electorates

Polling data can be found here:

theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…

Anyway, to determine how that leftward 60% splits tonight — and therefore who governs Canada — I’ll be taking part in a panel at 8:30am at the Canadian embassy in Berlin (2:30 Ottawa time) with @lizrenzetti and other smart people. DM me if you might like to attend

So it looks like the pattern held, and about 64% of Canadians voted for a member of a party with a broadly social-democratic platform — but the geography vs demography breakdown divides Canada more than ever.

Most likely outcome will be a 1972 situation — Liberals governing with support (formal or otherwise) of the ideologically similar but tribally distinct NDP. That’ll polarize Canadians, though after ‘72 the conservatives went *leftward* to regain power

Ambassador Stephane Dion: “Canadians, welcome to the European world of fragmented politics”

What does this mean for non-Canadians?
1. Canada will probably become a stronger player on climate. Trudeau campaigned on a very ambitious climate policy and in practice all but dropped the "pipelines and oil" half of his party's platform; supporting parties will hold him to this

2. The notion of Canada as a player in an anti-nationalist coalition of pluralist liberal democracies will continue. This election showed that Canada does not have a viable far-right nationalist constituency; even current Conservatives moved away from Trump so it's cross-partisan