I went to vote on Good Friday, the first available opportunity to do so.
I showed up at Ma-Te-Way and noticed that both parking lots were fairly busy, but there’s lots of stuff that goes on in that place, and I wasn’t really sure how a stat holiday like Good Friday would impact any of those things, so I just assumed it was the fitness and hockey crowds taking up those spaces.
As I pulled up, I did take notice of a number of people standing outside the main doors to the complex, and it looked from a distance that many of them had voting cards in their hands, but I just optimistically assumed that these were voters in need of a smoke. As a non-smoker, their need to pound back a dart or two before making a big and important choice was something I could understand, although my own choice had never been in doubt. So I clutched my own voter card, and dressed in my Good Friday Mass clothes, made my way to the place where the bright yellow election arrows were pointing, there to exercise my democratic franchise.
It was a line.
I’d voted at advance polls at Ma-Te-Way before, so I knew that if there was line outside the main door, there was a pretty good chance that the line inside would be longer than I was hoping for. I steeled myself for a bit of a wait.
I had never seen a line like this before, so I found that to be interesting, and since I’m the kind of guy that attempts to derive meaning from the smallest of things, I set about making sense of my situation.
An election worker came out, or I think she was, because she had an armband that matched the election arrow pointers, so that smacked as being pretty official so far as I was concerned. I asked her how long the line was. She told me I was looking at a wait of about an hour and a half.
So, all dressed up in my church party clothes, I had to make a decision: Democracy or Jesus. Not much of a choice, especially since nobody went out of their way to do or say anything that might make me want to stay. Come to think of it, as it turned out, it was the same way at church, but I did hang in there, because, well, I did.
So I’ll return to vote another day. After all, there’s only one shot at Good Friday, right?
After Mass, and after returning home, my mind returned to the meaning behind the line, especially since long lines were since reported elsewhere in the riding, in the province, and in the nation.
Something was definitely going on, but what was it? And am I smart enough to suss it out?
Usually, a large turnout of eligible voters favours the Liberals, the party with the broadest catchment potential, especially in an election that appears to be a contest between two parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, where nervous progressive voters will flock to the Liberals to keep the Tories at bay. In this regard, it absolutely sucks to be the NDP.
Hearing that advance polls were this busy immediately had me thinking that this was a sign of a strong Liberal-leaning turnout, although in my riding of Algonquin-Renfrew-Pembroke, making an assumption like this can leave you looking foolish. I’m of the opinion that this riding will return safely to the Conservative column, so I should be careful trying to interpret the tea leaves.
The people in line were kind of a clue in their own right. I’m sixty-six years old but by God I was the youngest person in the line. Come to think of it, I think I may have been the youngest guy at church as well, but that’s a digression of no import to this discussion.
There’s an indisputable truth about Conservative political support. The party, whether federal or their more progressive conservative cousins, can usually be guaranteed of somewhere in the area of 32-33% of iron-clad supporters who will vote for the Tories if they have to do so with their last breath. I’m not kidding, Conservative supporters will show up in a snow storm, or hurricane, or any natural calamity, and cast their vote, so help them God. They’ll come out and brave everything, even hooked-up to life support, to vote Blue, every single time, twelve times out of ten. It’s like the birds flying south and then flying north. It’s a constant, like pi in mathematics, you just get the same thing over and over when you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter, if that’s how you want to spend your weekend.
Maybe the line was chock full of Conservative voters who were bound and determined to vote at the first opportunity, because, well hell, you could be dead next week so let’s get ‘er done.
The trick for the Conservatives is to get beyond that 33% threshold, to get an additional six or seven percent of the electorate to support them and propel them to government.
Until recently, they had it. They had it all wrapped up in a bow. And then Donald Trump and Mark Carney came along to shoot holes in the hull of the Tory war boat.
That six or seven percent that the Conservatives were counting on this time out were likely people who voted for Justin Trudeau and the Liberals back in 2015 but had since soured on the former prime minister and his rage-inspiring socks. It’s not that these people are Conservatives by definition, but they were more than fed up with Trudeau and were willing to hold their nose on Pierre Poilievre and vote to turf the Libs.
But it looks like these folks have all gone overboard and are swimming for a safer shore. Add to that the virtual collapse of the NDP, and you’ve got the making of a two-party parliament, but one with the Liberals in control by virtue of a majority government. And even though the Conservatives may well win an impressive number of seats, they’ll be nowhere near able to stop the Liberals from cruising over the majority government threshold.
Another painful truth for the Conservatives is the fact that a huge exodus of NDP support away from that party doesn’t spell any happiness for the Tories. Because not a single one of those traditional NDP supporters are jumping ship to swim over to the sinking HMCS Tory. They jumped ship to go over to the Liberals. Remember, it’s a much longer walk for an NDP guy to go to the Tories than it is to get to the Liberals. Also, in the current political climate, people don’t seem willing to hold their nose on Poilievre anymore.
Nor should they.
So, after some reflection, I don’t really know what it means to have a 90-minute line show up at a Renfrew advance poll. I suspect it was the strong, solid, 33% Tory vote making sure they voted before they dropped or forgot their names.
But elsewhere, anywhere not named Alberta, I think it’s a harbinger of a big Liberal win, an unthinkable statement just two months ago.
And on top of that, the Liberals are suddenly competitive in about a dozen Alberta seats.
Yes friends, you read that right. And if the Tories drop any Alberta seats, then that’s a sign that the freaking wheels have come off the boat, an unfortunate mixing of metaphor, but an accurate statement. If they lose any seats in Alberta, they could be in bigger trouble than I’m suggesting as being a possibility.
We’ll know in less than two weeks.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 