When 2016 began, Donald Trump was regarded as a joke and Justin Trudeau as an environmentalist crusader, and at least 75,000 British Columbians were going to have jobs in construction projects for the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry.
How times have changed.
The election in the United States proved that a carefully crafted message can go a long way in establishing a connection with voters. It matters little in this day and age if what is being said is true or not. What matters, and the reason why Trump is set to become the 45th president of the United States, is taking those speedy sound bites to the places where voters are more likely to be motivated and switch. The Electoral College’s composition facilitates this process, and is partly to blame for the fact that a presidential candidate received almost three million votes more than the other and still lost. The post-election reality is simple: a Republican who campaigned on a promise to repeal the North American Free Trade Agreement, and is regarded as “bad for Canada” by four in five Canadians, is now in charge of the government of our closest trading partner.
The federal government’s approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline extension has been regarded as a betrayal to the environmentally friendly voters whom Trudeau courted during photo ops on the Grouse Grind in the 2015 campaign. The federal Liberal Party went from getting 13% of the vote in the 2011 federal election in British Columbia to 35% in 2015 under Trudeau. It remains to be seen whether the province’s voters who sought change with Trudeau – especially the youngest ones – are satisfied with the decisions he has taken while in office. His British Columbia MPs, among whom are three cabinet ministers, will find out in 2019.
An Ernst & Young report quoted in the BC Liberal Party’s platform in 2013 suggested that 75,000 construction jobs would be created in British Columbia in 2016 alone if the push for LNG was successful. We are not there. Add to this seemingly unfulfilled promise a highly motivated young electorate – outraged equally by the grizzly bear hunt and the impossibility of joining the ranks of homeowners – and we could be headed toward one of the closest and bitterest electoral campaigns this province has ever witnessed.
For the governing party, the economy will be the most important issue. On most indicators, British Columbia is doing better than other provinces. Stephen Harper campaigned on this premise in 2015, essentially reminding Canadians how lucky we were not to be facing the problems of some European nations. It did not end well, as the messenger no longer had the ability to establish an emotional connection, especially in this province, where the Conservatives lost more than 149,000 votes from 2011 to 2015.
Canadians and British Columbians are used to voting governments out instead of welcoming new faces in. The opposition will have to find a way to strike a balance – avoiding being labelled anti-jobs and anti-growth, while still discussing issues that the centre-left base cares about deeply.
The two spring provincial elections of 2016 provide good examples of what British Columbia’s next ballot may resemble. In Saskatchewan, we witnessed how a popular premier can succeed in systematically obliterating his rivals. In Manitoba, we saw how the notion of change, any change, does not need to be accompanied by an embrace of a leader’s personality. •
Mario Canseco is vice-president of public affairs for Insights West.
