The people have spoken,
and Canada has a minority Liberal government.
In my home community of Thunder Bay, there will be double representation
on the government side as both ridings went Liberal. This however was not the result of strategic voting
or a calculated decision by the local electorate to go with what they saw as
the winning side but the outcome of ingrained behaviour. Thunder Bay always votes Liberal at both
federal and provincial levels except on occasion when it goes NDP because the
voters feel the Liberals ought to be punished.
However, their NDP support is a temporary dalliance and they ultimately return
to their original faith.
If Monday’s
election had yielded a Conservative minority or majority, then Thunder Bay
would have been on the outs and of course complaining incessantly about the lack of government attention. Yet, loyalty to one party by a smaller and more remote community does not always ensure you will get what you want if your team is in power. If your support is always assumed to be there, than that can also work against you when it comes to getting your issues on the table.
Electing a variety of
representatives over the years based on calculation rather than political faith
or loyalty is another approach to collective voter wisdom and diversity in
outcomes over time is one way of ensuring your support is not taken for
granted. While Thunder Bay generally always
votes the same way, nearby Kenora is much more flexible and over the years has
voted in representatives at the provincial and local level affiliated with all
three of the major parties. This time,
they switched from Liberal to Conservative at the federal level.
While parts of
northern Ontario seem to be closed shops when it comes to voting patterns, the
region as a whole, has actually elected a diverse portfolio of representatives with the balance what one might term centre-right rather than
centre-left - if you assume the Liberals are more centrist than the other two
parties. Given that the Liberals and NDP
generally term themselves as “Progressive” the region as a whole is probably more
centre-left. One can only imagine what
the “Progressives” would now term themselves if the federal Conservatives had
not rebranded and retained their “Progressive Conservative” label.
In terms of results
for the 10 ridings, they are:
Kenora: Conservative
Thunder Bay-Rainy River:
Liberal
Thunder Bay-Superior North:
Liberal
Timmin-James Bay: NDP
Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing:
NDP
Sault Ste. Marie: Liberal
Nickel Belt: Liberal
Sudbury: Liberal
Nipissing-Timiskaming:
Liberal
Parry Sound-Muskoka: Conservative
On a map, electoral northern
Ontario is a bit of an oreo sandwich made up of two conservative graham
wafer borders -Kenora and Parry Sound-Muskoka - and a rather large dollop of Liberal
cream accented with some additional NDP filling. Obviously, northern Ontario voters as a whole
like their electoral food spiced with diversity even if smaller regions within
prefer more monotonous diets. However,
if one takes a pan-northern view, the north is greater than the sum of its
local parts when it comes electoral wisdom and has made sure it has its bases covered.
On a final note, a
special congratulations to Eric Melillo who pulled ahead of incumbent Bob Nault
to win the Kenora riding. Eric is a
graduate of the Economics program at Lakehead University and I am thrilled to
see him do well. Eric was a hardworking
and keen student in Economics and a very pleasant young man and I wish him all
the best.
