By Lori Turnbull

November 20, 2024

With the usual disclaimer that a lot can happen in a week, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston and the Progressive Conservatives are set to win next Tuesday’s provincial election. If the polls are right, they will form an even bigger majority government than they did following the 2021 election. Houston seems on track to escape the punishment that a number of incumbents – including Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick – have had to endure in the midst of an affordability crisis when many voters report feeling that things are headed in the wrong direction.

The secret to Tim Houston’s success could lie in his emulation of the political strategies that have brought Ontario Premier Doug Ford to victory in the past two elections – and are likely to do so again whenever he chooses to seek reelection. Though both Ford and Houston have won fair and square, their political success may say more about the health of democracy than about their inherent appeal to voters.

Houston and Ford have a lot in common. They both came to politics after achieving success in the private sector. They are premiers who identify as Progressive Conservative but keep their distance from the federal Conservatives and leader Pierre Poilievre. Neither Ford nor Houston comes across as particularly partisan (unless, of course, they are attacking their opponents). Their personal brands loom larger than those of their parties. They both invest in “nice guy” personas and, apart from a few exceptions on Ford’s part, they tend to avoid the socially divisive jargon and wedge politics that have become common for other political leaders.

For example, while his New Brunswick neighbour, Blaine Higgs, decided to pit children’s rights against parents’ rights by insisting that children could not use chosen pronouns in school without their parents’ knowledge, Houston has taken a hard pass on the issue. Premier Ford has said that parents should be informed about their children’s pronouns but, as the opposition parties have pointed out, he seemed at the time to be trying to use this issue as a distraction from the developing Greenbelt scandal. He’s never introduced legislation or policy in the area, as Higgs and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe have done, which suggests his heart isn’t in it. He generally stays away from polarizing stances that will pin him down and potentially cost him votes. Both Ford and Houston have waived, or promised to waive, user fees as a way of appealing to voters across the political spectrum.

Both Houston and Ford shun ideological, values-based rhetoric in favour of practical slogans that, to the extent that they mean anything at all, prioritize effectiveness and results over all else. For example, in 2022, the theme of Ford’s reelection campaign was “Getting it Done.” For Houston in 2024, it’s “Making it Happen.” It’s hard to tell what the “it” is in either case, but both phrases contain an implicit promise that government will do something for you.

The two premiers face similar political circumstances in the sense that, in both Ontario and Nova Scotia, the Liberals and New Democrats each garner enough votes – and win enough seats – that they can’t be ignored. The opposition is not so much weak as it is divided. Both premiers benefit from vote splitting on the centre-left of the political spectrum, particularly in the urban centres of their respective provinces, while they tend to clean up in the rural and suburban ridings. This allows them both to form majorities while ignoring large swaths of the population.

Both Houston and Ford shun ideological, values-based rhetoric in favour of practical slogans that, to the extent that they mean anything at all, prioritize effectiveness and results over all else.

An Abacus poll published November 13th reported that 47% of committed voters planned to support Houston and the Progressive Conservatives, 25% for the Liberals and 23% for the New Democrats. In Ontario, Ford and the Progressive Conservatives have the support of 40% of committed voters, compared to 27% each for the Liberals and the NDP.

Both Ford and Houston have an incentive to stay the course, not rock the boat, and keep winning. The strategy is simple: appeal to enough voters to win most of the seats while attacking your opponents to discourage voters from turning up for them. And don’t get backed into a corner by taking a strong position on anything. If Liberal and/or NDP voters stay home in either Ontario or Nova Scotia, that is as valuable for the Progressive Conservatives as if these voters supported them instead.

Both Houston and Ford benefit from low voter turnout: it was only 43.5% in the last Ontario election and 55.7% in Nova Scotia in 2021. Of the votes cast, the Progressive Conservative parties in Ontario and Nova Scotia won 40% and 38% respectively. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of either premier, but enough to win.

The agendas of both premiers benefit from majority governments, public apathy, and an opposition divided between two parties who each hold enough seats to make merger talks unrealistic (they each have too much to lose and refuse to cede ground to the other). Neither premier pays much attention to the legislature when it meets and both have proven willing to appoint friends to important positions in government. Both have been accused of secrecy and lack of transparency in decision-making. But faces any real risk of losing power.

The bottom line: the keys to success for both premiers lie in an ineffective opposition and a largely checked-out electorate. Transparency and accountability, in any meaningful sense, are absent. Regardless of whether one thinks either of these people makes a good premier, the fact remains that the democracy that elected them is hollow because so many people are not participating and, of the ones that are, most voted for someone else.

Voters need to think about whether the status quo is enough for them. This question is not limited to the electorates of Nova Scotia and Ontario, obviously. We need to think more broadly about whether electoral democracy is working for the public (I would suggest it isn’t) and what changes could improve the relationship of trust and accountability between citizens and governments. Politicians, perhaps especially those who win, might have an incentive to let voters be apathetic. But we don’t want to sleep through this and be left to hope that the people who are elected are competent and driven by the right things. The stakes are too high.

Policy Columnist Lori Turnbull is a professor in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University.