After Stephen Harper won a majority government in Canada’s 2011 federal election, a widely discussed book by the columnist John Ibbitson and pollster Darrell Bricker advanced a bold thesis about the future landscape of Canadian politics. As its title suggested, 2013’s The Big Shift predicted not only another Harper victory but the structural transformation of culture and governance in conservatism’s favour. They suggested that more liberal and left-leaning metropoles such as Toronto and Montreal, long established as the epicentres of politics and finance, would increasingly be overshadowed by the growing power and influence of western Canada and suburban Ontario – both more conservative, and each a pillar of Harper’s 2011 majority.
But in 2015, Justin Trudeau secured a huge election win, re-establishing the electoral dominance that the Liberal Party maintained through much of the 20th century in Canada. (That very same year, the province Alberta – birthplace of modern right-wing Canadian politics – also threw out its hegemonic conservative dynasty and elected the centre-left New Democratic Party to a majority government.) In the years since, however, the Conservatives have steadily eroded Liberal support, winning the national popular vote (though fewer seats) in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. Under the leadership of veteran Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre, who was chosen by a whopping margin at the party’s 2022 convention, the Conservatives have seemed poised for a victory of generation-defining proportions.
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