A Bit More Detail

The CBC’s reposting of this Canadian Press report on the changing political balance deserves to be reposted. The past decade’s ascent of the NDP from third-place national opposition party (fourth if you include the regionally-concentrated Bloc Québécois) to Official Opposition making inroads in Conservative areas is a fascinating story.

(The NDP’s ascent has strongly negative implications for the Liberal Party, especially if the apparent shift of voters from the Liberal Party to the NDP is sustained.)

The Canadian Press Harris Decima survey indicates that the NDP have 34 per cent of popular support, compared to 30 per cent for the Conservatives.

With a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points, support for the two parties could be equally split.

Still, the poll indicates that the New Democrats have become competitive in traditional Tory areas.

Among rural Canadians, the poll suggests the New Democrats have 31 per cent support, compared to 35 per cent for the Tories.

The NDP appear to have the support of 36 per cent of urban and suburban men, a number that has risen steadily since February.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are seeing their support in that demographic appear to hover around 29 per cent, down from close to 40 per cent four months ago.

As well, the New Democrats appear to have supplanted the Liberals as the natural party among women, said Allan Gregg, chairman of Harris Decima.

“Remember this is a party that a decade ago, half the electorate said they would “never” vote for,” he said.

Will the New Democratic Party follow up on its success in the 2011 federal election and manage to position itself as the alternative party of government, replacing the Liberals? Much depends on whether the New Democratic Party can come up with a leader who can live up to the late Jack Layton’s promise; still more depends on whether the party’s membership will grow sufficiently, especially in regions of the country where it has traditionally been sparse. Joan Bryden’s Canadian Press report puts an optimistic spin on trends.

A record number of card-carrying New Democrats are eligible to choose the federal party’s next leader, with British Columbia and Ontario holding the key to victory.

Final membership numbers released Tuesday by the party show membership has swelled to 128,351, an increase of just over 50 per cent since the start of the leadership contest last October.

All members are entitled to cast ballots, starting March 1 and culminating in a Toronto leadership convention on March 24.

British Columbia, with 38,735 members, and Ontario, with 36,760, will have the most influence over which of the seven contenders emerges victorious. The two provinces account for 30 per cent and 28.6 per cent of the membership respectively.

Ontario outstripped all other provinces in terms of membership growth, adding more than 14,000 members since October.

In Quebec, membership numbers have shot up to 12,266 from 1,695 last fall — a 600 per cent increase.

Still, Quebec accounts for only 9.5 per cent of the total membership, leaving the province with limited influence in choosing the party’s next leader even though it delivered more than half the 103 seats won by the NDP in the May 2 election.

[. . .]

Quebec’s clout is virtually identical to Manitoba’s 12,056 members (9.3 per cent), and only slightly better than Saskatchewan’s 11,264 (8.7 per cent), and Alberta’s 10,249 (7.9 per cent).

Nova Scotia is the most influential of the Atlantic provinces, with 3,844 members (2.9 per cent). The other three Atlantic provinces and the northern territories each account for less than 1 per cent of the national total.

By way of comparison, Québec’s population of eight million is ten times the size of Nova Scotia’s, eight times the populations of Saskatchewan’s and Manitoba’s, and a bit more than twice the size of Alberta’s. Québec is also the province that elected 59 NDP Members of Parliament out of a total of 75, providing a majority of the NDP’s caucus in Parliament.

Dan Arnold at the National Post‘s Full Comment blog is more skeptical of what this means.

First off, 45,000 new members isn’t “skyrocketing” when you consider both the Liberals and Conservatives exceeded that level in their most recent leadership contests. Heck, the B.C. Liberals and Alberta PCs posted similar or higher membership totals in their leadership races last year.

As for that “staggering” increase in Quebec – a little perspective people! Yes, that’s a big percentage increase, but it also means Quebec will have just a third the votes of B.C. Adding 12,000 Quebec members is well below Mulcair’s original target of 20,000, and it’s below the 14,000 who voted in the BQ leadership race. Keep in mind, those are actual BQ votes, not memberships, from a party most describe as “dead”. It’s also a total nearly every media outlet in Quebec ridiculed at the time.

In fairness, the NDP seems likely to surpass the 58,000 who voted in their 2003 leadership contest – though even that isn’t assured when you consider many of their current members are only members because of provincial leadership races last year. Still, we probably shouldn’t sneeze at 45,000 new members, especially when that includes the NDP’s first real Quebec membership base ever. There might very well be more votes in the NDP leadership race than the Liberal leadership race – especially if no one runs for Liberal leader.

Much depends on whether the NDP can deepen its base in Québec–increase its membership, especially–in time to keep its newly-acquired base and secure its position as a national party.