tank: saskatchewan liberals' vote-splitting appeal rife with hypocrisy
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greg poelzer, liberal candidate for saskatoon-university, speaks during leader mark carney's campaign stop in saskatoon at the remai modern.
michelle berg
/
saskatoon starphoenix
if you watch some social media, you might forget that federal conservatives are even fielding candidates in some saskatchewan urban ridings.
the battle for votes between the liberals and ndp seems to be consuming considerable oxygen with a debate about strategic voting and vote splitting.
saskatoon—university liberal candidate greg poelzer has been posting polling results on social media arguing that this riding has become a race between the liberals and conservatives.
“this is our moment to come together — country over party — and flip this seat,” one of poelzer’s posts proclaims. “don’t split the vote. let’s win it.”
with polling suggesting that liberal fortunes in saskatchewan have been revived since the departure of justin trudeau and the ascension of mark carney as leader, the liberals suddenly see value in strategic voting.
the question faithful traditional ndp supporters will ask is where was this altruistic, country-first ideology that liberals are now so enthusiastically embracing in recent federal elections in saskatchewan?
when the liberals had plummeted to distant third-party status, you heard little about the need to band together with fellow centre-left progressive voters to stop a conservative from getting elected. now it’s become the party’s mantra.
take the seat where poelzer is running. conservative corey tochor won the riding in 2021 with just under 48 per cent of the vote, one of just six out of 14 saskatchewan seats where conservative support failed to crack 50 per cent. the liberal candidate took just under 11 per cent and the ndp won about 35 per cent.
so ndp supporters could well blame the liberal vote for preventing a more competitive race.
in saskatoon west, conservative brad redekopp won with the lowest support of any victorious saskatchewan mp in 2021, registering just above 45 per cent — less than the combined total of the ndp (39 per cent) and liberal (eight per cent) candidates.
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if the liberals felt guilty or remorseful from vote splitting as the distant third-place party in that contest, which was the closest of any saskatchewan race in 2021 or 2019, they stayed awfully quiet about it.
clearly, the liberals have smelled opportunity in saskatchewan or carney would have not have made a campaign stop in saskatoon earlier this month. but for major gains, the ndp vote would need to completely collapse and that seems unlikely despite a drop to third place in polling.
you can argue that this current election has evolved as distinct from others, given the existential threat posed by american president donald trump and his trade war.
you can also dismiss any such argument from liberals and instead view it as simply the party’s trademark arrogance and entitlement that made trudeau’s party less popular in saskatchewan (10.6 per cent vote share in 2021; 11.7 in 2019) than anywhere else in canada for the last two elections.
those liberal voters stuck to their principles through trudeau’s unpopularity and, presumably, justified their support as voting their conscience, rather than casting a cynical strategic vote against the conservatives.
but now, with the liberals in the rare position in saskatchewan as the second-place party that stands to benefit, candidates are appealing to people who usually support the other guys to abandon their beliefs.
you can see the blatant hypocrisy. plus ndp core supporters have always valued principles over power.
yet a debate on strategic voting sounds strange in a province so dominated by the conservatives. perhaps voters who sat out the last two elections because they considered the conservative candidate unstoppable will show up monday.
just a decade ago, half of saskatchewan’s ridings were won by less than 45 per cent of the vote and the province sent three ndp mps and one liberal (ralph goodale) to ottawa.
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but liberal hopes for an utter new democrat collapse should be tempered by the resurrection of the provincial ndp, while the provincial liberal party no longer exists.
the federal liberals played saskatchewan’s third-place spoiler for the better part of 60 years, and may now face the frustration the ndp felt as the second-place party.
phil tank is the digital opinion editor at the saskatoon starphoenix.
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