Sixteen elections: How federal parties are targeting segments of voters to deliver Commons seats
National Post Staff | September 19, 201
Crystal Schick/Calgary HeraldPrime Minister Stephen Harper, left, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, centre, and New Democratic leader Thomas Mulcair, greet and shake hands before the Globe and Mail Leader's Debate 2015 in Calgary, on September 17, 2015
Author Susan Delacourt argues that Canadian politics has been transformed in the past 15 years by modern scientific marketing, led by the Conservatives and with the other two major parties now following suit. Delacourt’s 2013 book, Shopping for Votes, was prescient: Surveying the landscape of Election 2015 so far, it can be a struggle to perceive anything but marketing, segment by segment, amid the murk.
It seems less a clash of competing national visions — though the parties would have us believe otherwise — than it is a fierce competition to carve out potent micro-niches of the population, whose targeted votes can deliver Commons seats. With 30 new ridings, half of them from Ontario, this segmentation runs the gamut from geographic — the Greater Toronto Area, for example, with its millions of tightly clustered votes — to ethnic and religious groupings.
Will Stephen Harper retain the loyalty of Jewish voters? Or will the mood for change trump such loyalty? Might tough Tory rhetoric aimed at Vladimir Putin bring Ukrainian-Canadians into the fold?
Will Justin Trudeau’s impassioned defence of religious pluralism succeed in bring Canadians from Asia, southeast Asia and Africa, back to the Liberal fold?
And, this being the first three-way horse race in Canadian history, will Tom Mulcair’s balanced-budget vow persuade rural conservatives the New Democrats can be trusted to mind the store?
There are many ways to dice the target markets for what the parties are selling. Here are 16 of them:
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QUEBECERS
Gilles Duceppe is hitting so many Quebec hot buttons his hands must be scorched. Preserve home mail delivery, the Bloc Québécois leader demands. No tolls on the new Champlain Bridge. Block the Energy East pipeline.
And yet the one federal leader relentlessly courting Quebecers has the least to show for his efforts.
Paul Chiasson/CPBloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe.
The separatist party that Duceppe returned to resurrect faces the prospect of being wiped off the electoral map, and as a sign of the Bloc’s increasing irrelevance, its rivals feel no need to concoct a program tailored for francophone Quebecers.
“What I have noticed is an absence of interest for the Quebec voter,” said Alain-G. Gagnon, a professor of political science at the Université du Québec à Montréal. “The main Canadian parties are worried about making too many promises in Quebec out of a fear that it costs them points outside Quebec.”
One might expect Tom Mulcair’s NDP to be heavily courting the province, which gave it 59 seats in 2011 and propelled the party into the official opposition. But there has been no need; the NDP message to Quebecers that it is best positioned to get rid of the Conservatives has proven more than enough to give it a healthy lead in the polls.
Even the NDP’s signature Quebec policy, the Sherbrooke Declaration committing to accept a vote of 50% plus one in a future sovereignty referendum, is brought up more by its opponents than by New Democrats. This week former prime minister Jean Chrétien joined Justin Trudeau on the hustings in Ontario to attack the NDP constitutional position as irresponsible — a message clearly aimed at voters outside Quebec.
Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, who in the 2006 election campaign wooed Quebec with promises of open federalism and greater international representation, have narrowed their focus to Quebec’s small-c conservatives. Language aside, they are not all that different from conservatives in the rest of the country, and a Tory program such as the enhanced child benefit strikes a chord, Gagnon said.
Trudeau has said he would reverse the Conservative plan to impose a toll on Montreal’s new Champlain Bridge. But his eventual success in Quebec could hinge on the Liberals’ broader tack to the left. With provincial government spending cuts facing growing opposition in Quebec, Trudeau’s willingness to run federal deficits comes as a welcome change from what many decry as austerity.
— Graeme Hamilton, National Post
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ABORIGINALS
When Terry Teegee votes on Oct. 19, it will the first time he casts a federal ballot.
Born in 1971, 11 years after aboriginals belatedly gained the franchise, the chief for B.C.’s Carrier Sekani Tribal Council reached voting age in time for the 1993 election. But he has never turned up at the polls.
“It was voter apathy; ‘What does my vote really do? Does it really matter?’” he said.
CNW Group/Carrier Sekani Tribal CouncilChief Terry Teegee
And Teegee was not alone. Although it’s difficult to find consistent data, according to an Elections Canada report, three-quarters of Canadians cast a ballot in 1997, compared to an Aboriginal turnout rate of 51 per cent.
For many First Nations, refusing to vote is a matter of principle. By casting a ballot, it is said, the aboriginal voter is legitimizing a “colonial” government.
But the tables may be turning.
Although the Tories got a running start on First Nations issues with the 2008 residential schools apology, the relationship has become markedly estranged in recent years.
Idle No More, for instance, was spurred by a spate of Conservative-led changes to environmental laws and the Indian Act. And then a $1.8 billion education bill blew apart due to disagreements over accountability, resulting in the resignation of Assembly of First Nations head Shawn Atleo.
The Tories have refused an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, while both the NDP and Liberals have made it a key promise. The First Nations Financial Transparency Act also came in with Tory support — raising leadership outrage that on-reserve salaries were none of the public’s business.
There are a record 50 aboriginal candidates running in 2015 (mostly for the NDP, who are fielding 23). And with many reserves lying in close rural ridings, there are 51 seats in which a sudden tide of First Nations voters could sway the result, according to numbers crunched by the Assembly of First Nations.
– Tristin Hopper, National Post
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RURAL CANADIANS
Since the dawn of Confederation, rural voters have carried a disproportionate punch at the ballot box.
In the riding of Labrador, the winning candidate could go to Ottawa with as few as 6,000 votes. In Niagara Falls, that kind of support wouldn’t even earn third place.
Fortunately for the Conservatives, rural ridings have long been their specialty.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean KilpatrickA divided Supreme Court of Canada says the federal government has the right to order the destruction of Quebec's federal gun registry data — but all three Quebec judges on the court disagreed. A rifle owner checks the sight of his rifle at a hunting camp property in rural Ontario, west of Ottawa, on Wednesday Sept. 15, 2010.
The Tories scrapped the gun registry, cut taxes and defend supply management. And this election, one of Stephen Harper’s first campaign promises was a $200 million promise to expand broadband to rural areas.
But, while it may seen baffling to condo dwellers who would never think of voting Tory, it’s quite normal for rural voters to switch from Conservative to NDP without contemplating the Liberals.
While Tom Mulcair hasn’t done himself any favours with an earlier promise to restore the gun registry, he has vowed to tackle rural doctor shortages.
— Tristin Hopper, National Post
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THE LIKABILITY VOTER
There has been unexpected behaviour lately on the campaign trail: Tom Mulcair has been smiling more than ever. Justin Trudeau has been emoting less than ever. Stephen Harper has been answering questions in public. All of this is not only unusual, but strategic.
Likable candidates are the engine of electoral success.
Research suggests likability can, and has, determined the outcome in tight races. And as of this week, most polls had the three major parties in a virtual tie.
Jonathan Hayward/CPNDP Leader Tom Mulcair has worked hard on portraying a friendlier image this campaign.
“I know that this stuff works,” said Francesco Trebbi, a political economist who studies electoral campaigns at the University of British Columbia.
He cited one study that showed people who are shown pictures of candidates in elections they are unfamiliar with pick the winner, based just on the face, with a regularity far greater than chance.
“They systematically select candidates who are vastly more likely to win,” he said.
Other research has shown that the more informed and educated a person is, the less likely they are to be influenced by a candidate’s likability. But it works, and as Trebbi put it, with a candidate that voters dislike on instinct, “you are already at a disadvantage.”
Likability, then, is “a cheap way for voters to quickly gain knowledge of candidates,” he said.
Colloquially known as the beer factor, as it measures whom a voter would most like to drink with, likability has been most intensely studied in the U.S. At least twice, in 2000 and 2012, likability had a “decisive effect,” according to a study of presidential votes from 1972 to 2012, by Andreas Graefe, a German social scientist. In other elections, likability’s effect on the vote averaged to almost 3 percentage points.
Trudeau is the most likable Liberal leader in years, but his youthful earnestness has become the target of opposition attack ads, casting it as a liability.
Mulcair is less likable than Jack Layton, but he has made a clear effort to soften his “angry” reputation; the man won’t stop smiling.
And even though Harper has evidently wagered that trust will trump likability at the ballot box, he is also making efforts to ingratiate himself with Canadians.
“They know it much better than I do,” Trebbi said. “They do it for a living.”
– Joseph Brean, National Post
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THE TORY/LIBERAL NEXUS
Where the Conservative and Liberal parties fight each other hardest, governments are elected. Or defeated. Such is the case with Ontario, in particular the suburban ring around Toronto.
Voters in the so-called 905 territory may not decide on their own how the 2015 federal election unfolds, but they will likely determine the fate of one party and its leader: the Conservatives and Stephen Harper.
James MacDonald/BloombergThe 905 region that surrounds Toronto is a key Conservative/Liberal battleground.
To remain in government, the Tories must keep most of the 28 seats they took in the Greater Toronto Area in 2011; almost all are in the 905 belt that surrounds the City of Toronto itself. No surprise, then, that the Harper election team is spending a disproportionate amount of campaign time in the region. Its main concern is the party’s traditional 905 rivals, the Liberals, in position to steal plenty of Conservative-held ridings.
Several factors work for the Liberals in the 905, says Toronto-based political strategist John Duffy, a well-known party loyalist and consultant on previous campaigns. Trudeau’s nascent fiscal policies and his pledge to run deficits for three years, while spending $125 billion on new infrastructure projects, should help win over suburban Toronto voters, he says.
Trudeau’s spending promise “resonates very well in that part of the country, which needs more urban infrastructure” such as roads and railways, to improve commuter times, Duffy says.
Another factor: The NDP “is not putting a lot of resources into the 905,” he says.
That’s crucial, because a reasonably strong NDP showing there would most benefit the Tories, allowing them to come up the middle and take ridings where centre-left votes are divided.
Dimitri Pantazopoulos, a strategist and pollster with Conservative party connections, notes that when the NDP have 20% or more of the vote in a particular 905 riding, the Conservatives tend to win the seat. “Conservatives win on splits,” he says. “They (usually receive) 30% to 35% of the vote.”
He does not believe the NDP has given up on the 905. “Their numbers are trending up,” says Pantazopoulos. But he agrees it’s fundamentally the same two-party race in the region, like elections past.
— Brian Hutchinson, National Post
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THE TORY/NDP NEXUS
In Alberta, nothing is taken for granted. There’s little talk of a Tory sweep, mostly because of Edmonton, and the NDP. Historically across Canada, there have been few two-way Conservative-NDP battlegrounds. The Alberta capital is now one of them.
Linda Duncan is an anomaly, the only NDP member of parliament from Alberta, and the province’s only MP who is not a Conservative. Elected for the first time in 2008, in the riding of Edmonton-Strathcona, she’s expected to reclaim her seat Oct. 19.
Political strategists, analysts and pundits all seem to agree that when the dust settles and the ballots are counted, Duncan will have some company.
The Conservatives took seven of the city’s eight seats in 2011. That’s domination. But few expect the party to hold them all.
Ryan Jackson/Postmedia News/FilesLinda Duncan is Alberta's only MP who is not a Conservative. The NDP is hopeful for a breakthrough this election.
Socio-economic factors, changing demographics and an historic NDP breakthrough in Alberta provincial politics this year will heavily impact local voting behaviours in this federal election. Indeed, Edmonton has emerged as the most concentrated, populous Conservative-NDP battleground in the country.
Pollster and strategist Dimitri Pantazopoulos, who has Conservative connections, says the “view of Alberta as a Conservative monolith was shattered” by May’s provincial election, when Rachel Notley ended more than three consecutive decades of Progressive Conservative rule.
“The NDP is emboldened by that,” says Pantazopoulos, noting other factors that play well for the NDP in Edmonton. It’s a government town with a large university that employs thousands. It’s less affluent than Calgary, with more residents collecting “public paycheques,” he says.
If the question is, ‘Who do you want as a Harper replacement,’ then Edmonton’s answer “is probably the NDP,” says John Duffy, a Toronto-based political strategist who has worked on Liberal party campaigns.
— Brian Hutchinson, National Post
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THE LIBERAL/NDP NEXUS
The NDP and the Liberal Party are competing for votes across Canada, but their battles are fought hardest inside Canada’s three largest cities, where urban progressives congregate. Vancouver is the epitome of this two-party race.
Like its urban cousins in eastern Canada, Vancouver is consumed with complex micro-issues. In its case, the condition of its waterways, coastline and beaches; persistent homelessness; high housing prices; densification; gentrification; a spreading drug culture.
The issues inform Vancouver’s political culture, which explains why the city is remains in the grip of centre-left politicians.
Conservatives look longingly from without, trying to appeal to local residents with the same generic message they’ve been sending across Canada: Trust our proven leadership, again. It doesn’t seem to resonate in Vancouver.
Local NDP voters are already “locked in,” says Vancouver-based pollster and strategist Dimitri Pantazopoulos, who has worked for federal Conservatives and B.C.’s Liberal party, among others. “They haven’t changed their minds for four years.”
While he’s “not convinced” the Tories will lose their one seat in Vancouver, Pantazopoulos admits that Vancouver’s “current landscape works against the Conservatives.”
It’s a view shared by UBC political scientist Richard Johnston. Even the upper crust in Vancouver, what he calls “the yacht club people,” has “sort of had it with the Prime Minister,” he says, owing to highly localized, “symbolic blunders” such as the closing of a local Canadian Coast Guard station, and the federal government’s “guerrilla war” on harm reduction, a drug strategy which most of the city’s strata have come to accept, if reluctantly.
Vancouver proper — not including its suburbs — has six federal ridings, up from five in 2011. Two are solidly Liberal, and have been for a generation. No changes expected there. The NDP holds firmly two inner-city ridings, including Vancouver East, long represented by party stalwart Libby Davies, who is retiring. Her replacement, former provincial NDP MLA Jenny Kwan, should keep the seat.
The remaining two ridings are up for grabs. Vancouver South, with Conservative incumbent Wai Young, could return to the Liberals. It’s a closer, three-way battle for Vancouver Granville, a new riding south of the city’s downtown core, but the Liberals are emerging as the favourite there, too.
— Brian Hutchinson, National Post
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SOUTH ASIANS
Conservative Party candidates won all four seats in Brampton, Ont., in the 2011 federal election, part of a blue wave that swept the Greater Toronto Area and helped the party win its first majority government under Stephen Harper. In the years since, Yudhvir Jaswal, the editor and CEO of a local South Asian newspaper and host of popular South Asian radio and TV news shows, has noticed a significant change in his work life. “The party leaders are a lot more keen to give us interviews,” he said.
Almost 1.6 million Canadians self-identified as South Asian in 2011, according to Statistics Canada. That makes them the single largest visible minority group in Canada. But winning the South Asian vote isn’t as simple as crafting an immigration policy or showing up at the Gurdwara, mosque or temple. “I did a two hour talk show this morning and there was no talk of immigration,” Jaswal said Wednesday. “Any time a politician comes to talk on to talk just about immigration, I have to interrupt him.”
(Aaron Lynett / National Post)Conservative leader Stephen Harper speaks during a campaign stop in Brampton, Ontario, Friday evening, April 29, 2011.
There are ridings and cities where the South Asian vote is crucial, like Brampton — where the population is almost 58% South Asian — and Surrey, B.C. But even within those cities, old loyalties are proving less reliable and old tactics less sure. “It’s very complex now,” said Rattan Mall, the editor of the Surrey-based Indo-Canadian Voice newspaper. “There was a time when you could almost take it for granted that the majority of Indians would vote federally for the Liberals and locally for the NDP. But all that has changed now. They’re in every camp, they’re looking at what’s good for them.”
They are, in other words, much like other Canadians. “Everything is up in the air,” said Mall. “Everything will depend on what happens in the last week. If there’s suddenly a move toward the Conservatives, then a lot of Conservatives will win. If there’s a move toward the NDP then a lot of Conservatives might go down.”
– Richard Warnica, National Post
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MUSLIMS
Muslims comprise the largest non-Christian religious denomination in the country. There are 1 million Muslims in Canada according to the last census — half of whom live in the Greater Toronto Area. Muslims make up almost 8 per cent of the population of the GTA, and at least nine suburban ridings could be vulnerable to a concerted voting effort.
To Muneeza Sheikh, director of communication with Canadian Muslim Vote, a non-partisan advocacy group, those figures represent an enormous opportunity.
“When someone says ‘I don’t think my vote makes a difference’ we can sit down with these statistics and say: ‘Look, you live in this key riding. You could have made a difference if more of you came out to vote.”
Muslim turnout is about half that of comparable religious groups, said Sheikh, who thinks they feel politically disengaged after ‘‘a tough decade’’ and what he called “a lot of hate’’ against the community.
With the Syrian refugee crisis, the growth of ISIL, and fear of terror at home and abroad, and controversial security measures like C-51, the relationship between the government and this growing minority has been fraught.
During last month’s Maclean’s debate, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair plainly accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of being biased against Muslims.
And this week, the niqab debate inserted itself into the campaign, after the Federal Court of Appeal quashed the Conservative government’s attempts to ban face coverings at citizenship ceremonies.
After the government said it will appeal, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said this at a Calgary rally: “This government … is continuing with the politics of division and even fear.”
On the other hand: the Tories have built a voting coalition with many ethnic communities on bedrock conservative values — in Ontario, some Muslims have allied with Christian social conservatives to oppose a new sex ed curriculum.
That said, Sheikh’s group solicited videos from all party leaders, asking them to encourage Muslims to come to the ballot box on election day. All the parties but one — the Conservatives — responded.
— Jen Gerson, National Post
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JEWS
A majority of Canadian Jews voted for the Conservatives in the last federal election — marking a historic shift in what was traditionally a predominantly Liberal community. Much of the credit for that shift has been rested on Stephen Harper’s high-profile support of Israel and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Canadian Jewish News recently earmarked four ridings with high concentrations of Jewish voters — Mont Royal in Montreal and York Centre, Thornhill and Eglinton-Lawrence in the Toronto area — where “Jewish votes could make the difference.”
REUTERS/Andrew BurtonStephen Harper meets with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the side lines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, September 28, 2012
There is a “universal recognition that the Harper government has been an extraordinary friend to the Jewish state,” said Shimon Koffler Fogel, the CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
But, Fogel said, “Is that an exclusive Conservative claim? Or can the case be made that even though the Tories established the benchmark, the other two parties have moved to the same place on core issues?”
While all three major parties have vowed to be staunch supporters of Israel, there has been some divergence. Both the Liberals and the NDP released statements that in “welcomed” the Iran Nuclear Deal, while the Tories expressed skepticism — a distinction that prompted a Jewish Defence League protest outside a Liberal fundraiser that Justin Trudeau attended at a Jewish supporter’s home in Toronto last month.
– Jake Edmiston, National Post
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CHINESE-CANADIANS
In the past federal election, Conservatives received strong support from what Ipsos pollster Darrell Bricker calls the middle-class, suburban “immigrant striver,” many of them ethnic Chinese.
There are now more than 1.4 million Canadians of Chinese ethnic origin and Chinese is the third most common language spoken in Canada after English and French.
Chinese-Canadians were won over in 2011 by the Tories’ economic and law-and-order policies. The Tories also ran a strong ground game, attending many cultural events and dinners in Vancouver and Toronto suburbs.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian WyldAlice Wong responds to a question during Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Tuesday March 13, 2012.
In British Columbia’s Richmond Centre riding, where half the residents are Chinese, incumbent Alice Wong appears to be drawing from the same playbook. She declined an interview request, but her campaign materials tout the Tories’ income-splitting initiative, benefits for families and anti-marijuana legalization stance. She recently was pictured at a Sino-Canadian table tennis tournament and alongside Jason Kenney at TAIWANfest.
The Tories have also held ethnic media-only events. Last month, Kenney held a roundtable for Chinese media at a Richmond restaurant to talk immigration. Wong invited only Chinese media in 2012 to a restaurant to show her support for shark’s fin soup, a controversial Chinese delicacy. “Smart politics,” Bricker says.
But support for the Tories is not a lock. Talk of recession has raised questions about their economic performance and the Chinese vote, particularly among newer immigrants, is “up for grabs,” Bricker says.
The Liberals are trying to mobilize Chinese voters in 14 ridings across the Greater Toronto Area with a message of “real change,” assailing the Tories’ immigration policy and accusing them of fracturing relations with China.
In Richmond Centre, they’ve pitted Lawrence Woo against Wong. He is the former chair of S.U.C.C.E.S.S., an immigrant services agency. Woo’s campaign is focused on two key messages: Conservative policies cater to the elite (he bashed their income-splitting plan and decision to delay Old Age Security to 67) and tear at the multicultural fabric of the country.
SAM LEUNG / THE PROVINCE
Holding events for Chinese media only does not engender a spirt of openness, Woo said. He also criticized Wong for not stepping in to mediate the debate over Chinese-only business signs. “It’s up to people like ourselves to act as a bridge and try to break down these types of differences.”
Conservatives and Liberals are focusing too much on Chinese voters at the expense of Filipinos, South Asians and others, said Jack Trovato, the NDP candidate in Richmond Centre. Unlike his rivals, whose campaign materials are printed in English and Chinese, Trovato’s are in English only. Volunteers are nearby to assist with translations, if needed.
Trovato said his messaging is broad and not meant to target a specific group. Issues he’s focusing on: shortening wait times for family reunification, cutting small business taxes and speeding up recognition of foreign credentials.
“I don’t want to be seen as the ethnic candidate.”
– Douglas Quan, National Post
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UKRAINIAN-CANADIANS
Roughly 1 million Ukrainian-Canadians are eligible to vote in the upcoming election, catapulting the ongoing standoff with Russia into a major campaign issue, with the Ukrainian vote a possible deciding factor in key battlegrounds.
An Ottawa Citizen analysis found high concentrations of Ukrainian-Canadian voters in at least seven hotly contested ridings — including Winnipeg North, with 11,105 Ukrainian Canadians, where Liberal Kevin Lamoureux won by 44 votes in 2011. Since then, Stephen Harper has emerged as a staunch Ukraine supporter in the wake of the crisis there.
Since early 2014, Harper has loudly condemned Russian military intervention in the region, rolling out sanctions against the country, pledging Ukraine hundreds of millions of dollars in support, inking a Ukraine-Canada trade deal, and deploying Canadian Forces personnel to assist in Ukrainian military training.
Late last year, Harper gained international attention for his rebuke of Russian President Vladimir Putin, reportedly telling the leader at the G20 summit, “I guess I’ll shake your hand but I have only one thing to say to you: You need to get out of Ukraine.”
Harper’s political rivals have tried their best at oneupmanship, pointing out shortcomings in the sanctions regime by, for example, calling for more names to be added to the list of sanctioned Russians.
– Jake Edmiston, National Post
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OLDER FOLKS
Federal politicians rarely promise new universities, free tuition, state-subsidized daycare, or other youth-centric goodies. Young people don’t vote.
Old people vote.
Which is why politicians prefer to talk about balanced budgets and seniors’ benefits.
Over the last two elections, a paltry 40 per cent of the electorate between the age of 18 and 24 bothered to cast a ballot — a rate that steadily increased until as it edged closer to the 65 to 74 demographic.
In 2011, almost 80 per cent of retirement age men younger than 75 years old voted.
Not only do older people vote more, but there are a lot of them. Aging baby boomers and seniors swamp younger demographics in this country.
“We noticed in 2011 that the political campaigns were taking very seriously and in a new way the importance of older voters,” said Michael Nicin, policy director for the Canadian Association of Retired People. “All the parties, some more than others, are picking up where they left off in 2011 and going hard after the older vote … That’s given us a lot of clout when bringing issues to politicians.”
Additionally, after the age of 65, men are more likely to vote than women. As a result, old men are one of the most powerful voting blocs in the country; the concerns and value of this group, the economy, government spending taxes (especially as it pertains to investment income), for example, generally remain paramount themes in any election campaign.
All the parties have been trying to court this demographic.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean KilpatrickNDP Leader Tom Mulcair greets attendees during a campaign stop at the Regina Senior Citizens Centre in Regina, Sask., on Friday, Sept. 18, 2015.
The Liberals have pledged to roll back Conservative reforms to Old Age Security, returning the age at which beneficiaries can collect to 65 from 67 by 2023. They also plan to increase the Guaranteed Income Supplement.
As for the NDP: Tom Mulcair this week pledged $1.8 billion over four years to improve seniors care including expanding home care; providing more nursing home beds and improving end-of-life care; $40 million over four years to develop a national Alzheimer’s strategy; $300 million to build new health-care clinics and expand existing ones; $200 million to recruit doctors and nurse practitioners; and $100 million to improve mental health services for youth.
Ultimately, though, voters over the age of 64 vote Conservative — which is why Tory budgets tend to be chalk full of goodies like home accessibility tax credits, increased tax-free saving account limits, compassionate leave and tax nuances intended to ease retirement funds.
— Jen Gerson, National Post, with files from Windsor Star
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WOMEN
It is well-known there are far fewer women than men in the House of Commons, but women predominate somewhere else: the ballot box.
In 2011, women between the ages of 18 and 64 were more likely to head to the polls, a gap reversed only for Canadians over 65.
Women tend to skew toward more progressive parties — and certainly about two-thirds of decided voters at this point favour the centre-left social policies of the NDP and Liberals.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has vowed to keep anti-abortionists out of his caucus, and promised half a Liberal cabinet would be women. On child care, the Liberals are promising to give parents a larger monthly child-care cheque with no clawbacks, but haven’t promised to create more spaces.
“My own personal commitment to a federal cabinet with gender parity will go a long way to demonstrating that Canada is serious about valuing and creating opportunities for the incredible contributions that women make to our economy and our country every single day,” Trudeau said Wednesday in Calgary.
The New Democrats have promised a $15-per-day national child-care plan, and have far more female candidates than any other party.
The Conservatives recently increased the amount paid monthly to parents with children under the universal child care benefit (UCCB), and raised the tax deduction limits for daycare expenses. The Conservatives also extended the compassionate care leave to six months, up from six weeks.
The Green party platform talks of the gender pay gap as “a black mark against Canada,” and proposes tax breaks for employers who provide on-site child care for workers.
It remains to be seen whether either Harper or Mulcair will be penalized by female voters for their decisions to skip a debate focused on women’s issues. That forum, Up for Debate, is scheduled to take place on Sept. 21.
— Jen Gerson, National Post, with files from The Canadian Press
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PARENTS
Far before Conservatives mailed out the first child benefit cheques to 3.8 million families in July, it was clear the most coveted voting block was likely to be parents.
The government packed its spring budget with family-friendly tax credits, including what ended up being a $3-billion handout (including six months of retroactive payments) to parents a few months before the writ was dropped.
Each of the opposition parties offered their own family-friendly policies — the Green Party, for example, pledged tax breaks to companies offering workplace childcare — and followed through with family-friendly election trail optics.
Justin Trudeau took his kids, and photographers, to their first day of school. Tom Mulcair’s schedule has been packed with events touting his $15 a day national childcare strategy. Stephen Harper’s children were a fixture early on the campaign trail this summer.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan HaywardLiberal leader Justin Trudeau holds a baby as he attends an event in Fredericton, N.B. Tuesday, Sept, 8, 2015.
“Because families are the cornerstone of our economy, it’s a perfect place to anchor many of the political positions or the policy perspectives,” said Nora Spinks, CEO of the Ottawa not-for-profit Vanier Institute of the Family.
The approaches are very different: The Conservatives will deliver the benefits to all qualifying parents to use as they see fit — ‘‘helping parents help their kids.’’ The Liberals have pledged to scrap the Conservatives’ multiple child tax credits in favour of a unified Canada Child Benefit, which would put more money into parents’ pockets each month, but favour those in greater need (the more you make, the less cash from the government). The NDP would see parents continue to get government benefits to help with the cost of raising kids, but also create a million more daycare spots, that would come at a cost of only $15 a day (with taxpayers footing the bill for the rest).
Back in the 1980s, Spinks noted, politicians might have only thought only about mothers’ votes when they counted children in childcare. Thanks to fathers doing far more caregiving, and grandparents sharing the load, the votes influenced by childcare policies can add up to six or eight.
— Sarah Boesveld National Post
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THE APATHETIC
For campaign strategists, they are the white whales — the 9.4 million people who did not vote in the last federal election. But this time, there will be faint hope in war rooms across this country that they’ll figure out a way to tap into that basin of unused votes, says one campaign veteran.
“Everybody always plays that game,” says Stephen Carter, who worked as a campaign strategist on for Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi and former Alberta Premier Alison Redford.
With marijuana decriminalization in play during this campaign, some are expecting a boost in youth turnout, which has hovered around 40 percent since 2004 (the worst of any age group). But others, including former NDP staffer Ian Capstick, argue that the pot question will only motivate pot activists, who are already longtime voters.
“A truly established non-voter is a very difficult beast to motivate,” Capstick, currently managing partner at Media Style.
There are, however, three groups — young people, new Canadians and aboriginal voters — are worth sinking resources into targeting.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin TangThe debate around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report has grown fraught.
Indigenous voters are more susceptible to campaign messaging now, buoyed by progress like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, says Capstick, whose company was involved with the TRC. And new Canadians take “a few elections” to become engaged, he said.
Youth wings of political parties on university and college campuses have historically been tasked with mobilizing young voters, “and let’s face it, for the past 30 years they have not been very good at it,” Capstick said.
“You have to go where they are, and they are not watching television, they are not reading newspaper,” said Carter. “Instagram is wicked for that.”
– Jake Edmiston, National Post
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