Lori Turnbull

September 17, 2021

In the final days of the federal campaign, all eyes are on the national polls, which show a tight race between the Liberals and the Conservatives (though some polls are tighter than others). On the Friday before the election, Nanos Research indicated that 31.9 percent of voters had the Liberals as their first choice, compared to 30.4 percent for the Conservatives. Abacus Data suggests that there is a bit more space between the two leading parties, with the Liberals at 34 percent and the Conservatives at 30 percent. Either way, the polling numbers point to a close race, a Liberal win, and a minority government.

Though the polls tell a compelling story, they do not always give us a clear sense of what will happen on election night. We put a lot of pressure and emphasis on national polls as indicators and predictors of election night results; this is probably too much pressure. Polls are not votes; they are pulse-checks that measure trends in public sentiment. They don’t have the capacity to tell us which party will win an election because they obscure the details of how close ridings will finish. Sometimes, when election results surprise us, we say that the polls “got it wrong.” But, it’s not so much that they got it wrong; it is that they measured what they were designed to measure at the time: public opinion. Voter activity is a different thing.

Sometimes, when election results surprise us, we say that the polls “got it wrong.” But, it’s not so much that they got it wrong; it is that they measured what they were designed to measure at the time: public opinion.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has never escaped criticism for the timing of this election call. This is likely due to his failure to put a clear policy-based ballot question in the window. This is not an election about childcare or a guaranteed income. It’s about who voters want and trust to be prime minister. It is a campaign based on leadership, trust, and motivation. Unfortunately, campaigns that fit this description tend to be fought on negative rather than positive terms.

There is an incentive to turn people against your opponents with even more vigour than that with which you try to turn them towards you. We have certainly seen this throughout this campaign, perhaps most notably in its final days. For example, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, who has spent most of the campaign letting voters get to know him and his platform, has spent the final days in attack mode against Trudeau. While making an announcement about the Conservative childcare plan, with children jumping on a bouncy castle in the background, O’Toole stood at the microphone and attacked Trudeau’s integrity on a personal level. It was a jarring juxtaposition. Furthermore, Conservative attacks likely won’t work on Trudeau. He’s a very well-known entity, one that is not vulnerable to being defined externally.

O’Toole has had his own problems in the last week of the campaign. His platform has been attacked from both the left and the right as not going far enough in either direction. His lack of clarity with respect to the privatization of health care and the regulation of assault-style weapons fuels speculation that he would say anything to be elected and thus cannot be trusted. Further, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s bombshell apology for moving too quickly from a pandemic to an endemic approach seemed to catch O’Toole off guard. Earlier this year, he indicated his support for Kenney’s handling of the COVID crisis and now, faced with questions from reporters, he’s not clear on whether he stands by his comments. Refusing to answer these questions directly has put him on the defensive and could cost him the ground he has gained throughout the campaign.

It has been suggested that, if the Liberals come back with a minority, the election will go down in history as a waste of time and a useless affirmation of the status quo. Trudeau suggests that this is not true, that we’ve had important conversations about childcare and other policy challenges facing the country. But let’s be honest: if this campaign produces a result similar to what we had at dissolution, it will be interpreted as a relative loss for Trudeau and an unnecessary power play during the fourth wave of a pandemic. It will appear in textbooks for decades as an example of why a prime minister ought not call an off-cycle election. Never take voters for granted.

It might actually be the case that this election results in a minority Parliament that is far more toxic and less stable than the one that was dissolved in August.

The Trudeau government held a strong minority, and Jagmeet Singh and the NDP pledged its support on all matters of confidence. That was about as secure as a minority government gets, toxic or not. It’s possible that, if Liberal numbers shrink and those of other parties’ grow, even a plurality of seats won’t provide the security that Liberals had in the previous Parliament.

It is possible that a stronger showing from the Bloc Québécois could strain the ties that bind the federation, particularly if the Bloc were strong enough to hold a balance of power and the Liberals, once again, failed to elect members in Alberta. It will be a long election night, and likely a long morning after as well.

Contributing Writer Lori Turnbull is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the School of Public Policy at Dalhousie University. She is a co-winner of the Donner Prize for political writing.