Despite its progress, the Popular Party (PPC) of Maxime Bernier does not seem to have caused much harm to Erin O’Toole and to his party, since he garnered his best scores in constituencies that, in any case, massively elected conservatives.
This is notably the case in seven ridings in Southern Ontario, where voters crowned the Conservatives with over 40% of the vote, while giving Maxime Bernier 10% or more of the votes (such as Essex and Chatham-Kent – Leamington ).
“There are people who voted for Maxime Bernier who previously voted for something other than the Conservative Party. But there are also people among them who would not have gone to vote [s’il ne s’était pas présenté] ”, Argues the professor of political science Eric Montigny of Laval University.
One thing is certain, the PPC did not do much harm to the Conservatives in Quebec, he insists. “Support for Maxime Bernier was half as strong in Quebec as elsewhere. He started his campaign in Beauce and ended it in Saskatchewan. For me, this is very revealing. “
It was in Alberta – yet the Conservatives’ stronghold in Canada – that Erin O’Toole had his worst result. His party lost three seats (for a total of 30 victories) and saw its support decline by 14 percentage points (55%, against 69% in 2019). The Liberal Party won two of the Conservative seats, and the NDP one.
But again in this province, the PPC garnered its strongest support in ridings that re-elected Conservatives with strong majorities like Fort McMurray – Cold Lake, Red Deer – Lacombe, Red Deer – Mountain View and Lake Land.
“The Jason Kenney effect was much greater [que celui de Maxime Bernier] ”, According to Frederic Boily, professor of political science at the University of Alberta. The mismanagement of the pandemic by the premier of Alberta has allowed Justin trudeau to reactivate the “O’Toole-Kenney” axis, he said.
Fort in Manitoba
At the end of the campaign, several conservative tenors had suggested that the rise of Maxime Bernier would favor Trudeau’s re-election. “The progression of Maxime Bernier could guarantee the re-election of Justin Trudeau,” Tasha Kheiriddin wrote last week in the National Post.
Maxime Bernier “does not deserve your vote”, wrote Diane Francis in the Financial Post. “Worse: he could siphon votes from the Conservatives, the only responsible alternative to Justin Trudeau. “
How? ‘Or’ What ? By snatching votes from the Conservatives in the tight fights in Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg.
In the end, this theory could be confirmed in two constituencies in particular. In Edmonton Griesbach, the NDP won by less than 2 percentage points against the CCP, but the People’s Party won only 6.2% of the vote. In Edmonton Center, the Liberals and Conservatives were neck and neck on Tuesday, but Maxime Bernier only had 4.4% of the support.
In the conservative ranks, it is recognized that the growing popularity of People’s Party of Canada will be monitored for the sequel. But with regard to Monday’s election, it is noted that it would be wrong to make a direct match between the votes cast for the PPC and the effect for the Conservative Party. Because not all Maxime Bernier supporters were convinced Conservative voters.
Notwithstanding, it is recognized that the PPC may have made a difference in a handful of tight constituencies.
Asked Tuesday about the role of the People’s Party in its disappointing results, Erin O’Toole described it as a “vote of frustration” and lamented that Mr. Bernier, like Mr. Trudeau, “used the pandemic to gain capital Politics “.
Moreover, contrary to what one might think, it was not in Beauce (18.2%) that the party had its best results, but in Manitoba in Portage – Lisgar (21.6%), a constituency rural area in the south of the province. But here too, this momentum did not deprive the Conservatives of being re-elected with a comfortable majority.
In Manitoba as elsewhere, Maxime Bernier’s party is most popular in rural areas. “This is where he ended his campaign last Sunday,” said Boily of Westlock, a small rural town north of Edmonton. According to him, “the vote for the Popular Party further accentuates the divide between urban and rural areas”.
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