this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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Conservative candidate wins federal byelection in Durham, CBC News projects (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 8 months ago by grte@lemmy.ca to c/canadapolitics@lemmy.ca
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[–] CalPal@lemmy.ca 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

So I ran the math on the election outcome on this, as someone who lives in the riding directly:

32401 / 116259 = ~ 27.9% (Voter turnout)

27.9 * 0.574 (Percentage of vote which went to Jivani) = 16.01%

16% of the electorate gets to decide a candidate for the remaining 84%. I don't know about anyone else, or whether it's just supposed to be the way that things go, but it gives me a real ick feeling when I see a number like that. Maybe if it was something closer to 30% or something along those lines, I could at least begrudgingly accept that this is such a solid Conservative riding, but only 16%?!

I just really hate voter apathy, guys. Come on, we had 4 days of early voting, mail-in voting, the actual vote day itself, you can legally request time off work to go vote if you need it... was it that difficult to get out and vote, or am I just missing some other context?!

[–] LittleTarsier@lemmy.ca 5 points 8 months ago

We need electoral reform.

[–] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 months ago

Hear, hear!

[–] grte@lemmy.ca 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Not overly surprising. As the CBC says, the Conservatives have held this seat for decades at this point. I think the most surprising thing about this election is that the PPC's vote share held fairly steady between this election and the last. Meaning the Conservative gains came either directly from the Liberals and NDP, or as a relative gain from those two party's voters staying home. That probably feels good in the moment, however if the national mood shifts between now and the next election in (probably) October 2025, the PPC maintaining the small relevance that it has could end up biting the CPC in the ass.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The victory isn't surprising. The margin is.

Also I listened to the guys speech and he sounded coherent at first, then he went on about the liberal elites running the corps that make life more expensive for working people and I fucking lost it. Straight face and all, truly believing this, or an amazing actor. So close to grasping the trurh!

[–] psvrh@lemmy.ca 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

He knows his audience, and this audience doesn't give a damn what happens as long as their house value goes up and their property taxes go down.

Durham is...weird. Other than some very small pockets, it's like no one really lives there. Oh, sure, there's schools and strip malls and housing developments, but there is almost no industry outside of big-box retail: everyone is either in construction, or works in Markham or Toronto. There's little to no stake that anyone has in the community, outside of mercenary concerns about taxes, so as long as you keep the numbers going in the right direction, you're golden. The reason Liberal support collapsed is purely because of those mercenary concerns: largely a) inflation, and b) housing (being either unaffordable, or, perversely, dropping in value. Yeah, weird, I know...)

So when you have a community that doesn't care about the community except for the value of it, it's going to be ripe for the kind of politician that only talks about money. Social concerns come into it, but only couched around how they're costing you money. It's Conservative, but more Doug Ford conservative than Pierre Poillevre conservative.

Put it this way. Toronto has "citizens". Montreal has "citizens". Even places like Lanark County, Ontario, have "citizens". Durham has "taxpayers".

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Right but the policies he's suggesting aren't going to keep their property values high or their grocery bills low. I'm not even going as far as expecting them to give a shit about social issues.

[–] UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, didn't get what u meant to say. Are you saying that the CPC lost voters to PPC, or that they gained voters from LPC and NDP or both?

Like is the entire country in a rightward shift, where NDP and LPC lose votes, CPC stay the same and PPC gain more?

[–] grte@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

PPC support doesn't seem to have moved much either way. What I mean to say is that CPC gains (speaking as a percentage) would have to come either from previous Liberal/NDP voters voting for the CPC this election, or alternatively from Liberal/NDP voters not showing up in numbers as large as the previous election making Conservative support look stronger relative to the weaker showing from the other two.

That said, polling-wise the country is absolutely feeling further right than it did during the 2021 election. We're still a year and a half away from the probable next election though so it's a bit early to take that as fate.

[–] psvrh@lemmy.ca 3 points 8 months ago

The PPC won't make headway in the 905: they're not a pocketbook party.

I know this seems weird, but Durham isn't really socially conservative in the way that the PPC is. For one, there's a lot of immigrants there, propping up the housing market, and two, they aren't really concerned about gay or trans rights, at least as long as they don't have to pay for it.

What is scary, though, is that the CPC's social push to the right--to playing footsie with fascism--is going to radicalize places like Durham, York and Halton. The CPC is trying to tie economic conservatism to social conservatism, largely because they remember the 1990s and the Reform/PC split that kicked them out of office for a long time, and they don't want a repeat.