By: Jason Ennis, Jordan Pinkster and Lauren Stone

The Prairies remain a stronghold for the Conservatives who are likely to make gains across the region this election, although the Liberals and NDP may be competitive in a handful of urban ridings.

In 2015, the Conservatives won 44 seats in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Liberals took 11, and the NDP 6. Recent polling indicates that the Liberals could be shut out of Alberta entirely after winning four seats in 2015, and the NDP could struggle to hold onto the seats they secured in the last election.

Key Issues

When considering the 2019 federal election and how it is being contested across the Prairies, it’s important to consider where the Trudeau government first started its relationship with the West, after its surge to majority government from its previously third place standing in the House of Commons in the 2015 election.

As Justin Trudeau was being sworn-in as Prime Minister and putting together his first Cabinet, his party had a mix of new and experienced Prairie MPs to draw on, including a ground-breaking four from Alberta. His government had an inter-provincial alignment and dynamic that previous Liberal prime ministers could only dream of (perhaps most importantly, a new progressive government in Alberta) that would allow him a window of opportunity to pursue important progressive policy objectives in areas such as energy and the environment.

Furthermore, Trudeau had a base of popular support that enabled him to be in Alberta on the last day of the 2015 campaign and proudly state in stops in both Edmonton and Calgary: “Our country needs Alberta to succeed…You deserve a government that doesn’t take your votes for granted, or that assumes it will have your votes because of where you live, and a government that understands that the time to invest in Alberta is now, when people need help.”

Over the course of the next four years, each of those political advantages and messages have quickly eroded to the point where the Liberals in 2019 are fighting to maintain seats across the region. This shift is most evident in the spring 2019 election of Jason Kenney’s UCP government in Alberta which defeated Rachel Notley’s NDP.  Should the Liberals win re-election nationally on October 21, the party will face the ideological heart and soul of opposition to its government and its agenda in Alberta, among other Western governments led by conservative premiers.

The reasons for the Liberals’ decline in the region since 2015 are complex and, in some instances, expected, given the government began to accumulate a track record of decisions that were perceived in the West to be contrary to the region’s interests. This region reflects most clearly the governing difficulties all parties will face heading into the next Parliament. The electorate in the West is frustrated and diverges from other parts of the country on a number of important national policy questions, particularly around resource extraction and environmental policy. This creates a difficult path forward for another federal government under Justin Trudeau and the Liberals to build common ground across the country.

With little change in polling over the past several months, the Prairies appear to be going all in on the ability of Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives to form government and answer some of these difficult questions. As it stands, current projects see the Conservatives on track to carry 54 seats out of 62 – or 87% of the total number of seats across Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. There are only a few seats – in ridings such as Ralph Goodale’s in Saskatchewan and Jim Carr’s in Manitoba and perhaps one or two ridings in urban Alberta – where the election is proving to be competitive.

For the governing Liberals, success in Election 2019 has more to do with holding on to some good MPs who might be able to sit inside a potential Cabinet as opposed to opening up new seats like they did in 2015. For Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives, it isn’t just about winning, but rather translating their strong lead in the polls into results and regaining seats that went Liberal red in the last election in mostly urban swing ridings in areas such as Edmonton, Calgary, Regina and Winnipeg.

At the moment, there are no big wins to be had for the rest of the electoral field.  While the Green Party has assumed its traditional role as a spot to park a protest vote and the People’s Party has not made any significant gains to draw away Conservative votes, the New Democrats are fighting hard to keep their one seat in Alberta and others in the region and maintain the ability to call themselves a national party.

In the days following election day, the West will need to work its way through some difficult policy discussions regardless of which party forms government.  How will the West respond if the region finds itself looking in from the sidelines of a government dominated by Liberal MPs from Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal? Will a Liberal minority government scenario exacerbate already complicated and important policy files?  Will the next administration feel the need to reconcile the intense frustrations of a pro resource development region that has been an important contributor to the Canadian economy?

Top ridings to watch 

Polling for the Prairies

Courtesy of calculatedpolitics.ca
(September 24, 2019)

Note: The graphs below reflect support in Alberta, and Saskatchewan-Manitoba combined and labeled as the “Prairies”.