Thread by @EricMerkley

I was given a few seconds on @CBCTheNational last night to push back on simplistic narratives surrounding the PPC and its effect on the outcome of #Elxn44. I want to expand on these concerns 🧵1/

cbc.ca/player/play/19…

A lot of people are making strong claims about the effect of the PPC on Conservative Party fortunes by simply adding the PPC vote to the Conservatives. Not so fast... 2/

This assumes that in the absence of a PPC option these voters would have 1) turned out to vote; and 2) voted for O'Toole's CPC if they did so. Let's unpack this assumption..3/

1) What would happen if the PPC didn't exist? We would have had a different, fundamentally unknowable election campaign! Less activation of anti-system sentiment (fewer anti-Trudeau/anti-vax protests)...4/

...O'Toole may not have as effectively bolstered his moderate image without the contrast to Bernier, or he may have been less inclined to pivot to the centre without his flank firmly occupied. I don't know what that campaign looks like. It could have yielded different results 5/

2) Okay, but what if the campaign was otherwise the same but there wasn't a local PPC option? This still assumes these voters would have otherwise turned out to support O'Toole's CPC, but...6/

The PPC drew to some extent from past voters of all parties (though yes, more from the CPC) and most importantly non-voters. The PPC attracted anti-system reluctant voters with anti-lockdown, anti-vax rhetoric who otherwise may not have turned up at the polls...7/

I do think the PPC option cost the CPC a handful of seats, but I would be very, very surprised if it influenced the overall outcome of this election or even a large number of seats. But, we need much more high quality research to come to firmer conclusions. I can be convinced! 8/

I don't just think this narrative is problematic for its shaky empirical foundations, but normatively as well. If we advance the dubious proposition that the PPC cost the CPC the election, we implicitly encourage future CPC leaders to tack populist-right to "co-opt" the PPC 9/

Which would be very bad! For Canada, but also for the long-term health of the CPC. An alternative frame could be that the CPC vote showed remarkable stability nationwide despite the PPC getting 5%, signaling some imp gains in the centre. But that's not the current narrative 10/

And more broadly, this narrative is a familiar one. We hear similar dubious claims about the NDP and Green vote when the CPC win elections. These takes shame people for voting sincerely implicitly or sometimes even explicitly 11/

The LPC and CPC don't own votes. They cannot be stolen by third parties. By peddling these narratives, we carry water for the LPC and CPC and reinforce the pathologies of the First-Past-the-Post system in the minds of voters 12/

So let's put the breaks on these takes from now on. They are empirically dubious at the moment and have normatively questionable implications. They are also simultaneously boring, yet exhausting, much like #elexn44 end/

*brakes