This isn’t complicated. If an election happens, it will be because the opposition parties decided to cause one.
Would swing voters be happy that they made that choice? I have my doubts
People can make polling sound complicated, or not.
Here’s my elevator ready version of how it works in Canadian elections. It has held up pretty well over the years.
One third won’t vote. One third already always know which party they will vote for.
Elections are decided by the other third. The swing voters.
Swing voters don’t follow politics every day. They don’t notice the drama, don’t watch the TV shows about politics, and pay only light attention to the news. The biggest political events will grab their attention, but only hold it for a small amount of time.
They are living their lives, otherwise. Raising families, paying bills, hoping for a vacation, wishing for less stress.
Politics adds, rather than subtracts stress. Elections are not a game for these people, and politics is a mostly uninteresting sport.
They want politicians who embrace the idea of service, not celebrity. They prefer the smarter, over the simpler. Careful, not fearful. Bold, not reckless.
For them, the country just had an election, and they’ve been satisfied enough with the outcome. Having another election now seems like a waste of time and money.
A lot of the commentary in the political bubble is about how “impatient people are for a deal with Trump”. But unlike dedicated partisans, swing voters are not scrolling their social feeds anxiously awaiting the breakthrough. They are living their lives.
They see a lot of Donald Trump and they know he is a challenge for much of the rest of the world, and for many Americans as well. When things go badly with Trump, these Canadians don’t ask “how could we have screwed this up”, they’re dismayed at America’s leadership, and the more they want to lean in on “economic diversification and resilience”, political-speak for “let’s not have to worry about American mood swings as much in the future.”
Some argue that voters have a countdown clock in their minds, and that grocery and shelter prices have to materially decline within weeks or months, otherwise the country will demand another election and choose a different outcome. Based on our research, this is exaggerated, a made-for-punditry drama.
There’s plenty of frustration with the cost of living. But equal awareness that this is problem not only in Canada, and one that will take time to ease.
Swing voters will have a few takeaways from next week’s budget. They won’t consume it in detail. They might like it, or dislike it, but hating a budget usually only happens because it contains tax hikes. Bigger deficits, especially if people believe the money is being spent on things that will be useful, rarely trigger a political revolt.
Opposition parties have plenty of ways to express their unhappiness with the budget, without forcing an election. They can, simply, acknowledge that voters just elected a government, and don’t want an election again so soon. All while vividly and loudly decrying the bits they don’t like.
This isn’t complicated. If an election happens, it will be because the opposition parties decided to cause one. And take the risk that swing voters will be happy that they made that choice. I have my doubts.
You know, I just love listening to people go on about the budget or the deficit when they actually have absolutely no idea how the deficit works in a sovereign country. It’s not like their household budget where there’s only a finite amount of money and if they have to pay for something really expensive over here, they have to take money away from something over there. That’s not how federal budget in sovereign countries work.
And it’s certainly nothing that any of the conservative governments we’ve actually had in Canada, who created 3/4 of the deficit in Canada now carries, cared about at all. When the conservatives were in office, they weren’t worried at all about creating massive deficits in the governmental budget. The only time the right wing in Canada has ever ever been concerned about budgets or federal spending is when the liberals are in office and then they go off on this huge hue and cry jag about “oh my God the liberal are going to be spending all this money”when they did more of that themselves than any other liberal government has ever done.
And then, of course we have the people who don’t see any great changes in our country in the last eight months. If they haven’t seen any changes in Canada in the last eight months, they aren’t paying any attention whatsoever.
I’m a political junkie and have been for 60 years and I can honestly say that the amount of things that the Carney government has done in the last eight months is more than any other government in my lifetime has managed to do in the 4 to 5 years, they were in office.
Think of the way things were back in the early part of the year, like we were on a great huge ocean liner going full steam ahead and all of a sudden there’s an iceberg in front of us and we have to make a real sharp turn to port. Do you know how long it takes to move a great big ship going full speed in one direction to suddenly going in another direction? It’s not a simple or easy thing to do! And that’s the problem with the vast majority of voters. They have no idea what government does or how it does it. They have no idea which level of governments are responsible for what or which level of government has the biggest impact on their lives and they think that even the most complicated issues can be solved really simply and quickly with a 3 word slogan!
Great read Bruce. The third that live their lives everyday are tired of drama and skeptical of things that require them to jump to conclusions based on hyperbole. Most Canadians, whether they want it or not, are drowning in Trump stuff everyday and most of them know it’s a clown show they want no part of. Any Canadian politician thinking Trump has coattails in Canada might well have to run twice to have a seat….