George Le Masurier photo
“Liberal Rush” tricked voters in NDP ridings and exposed an electoral system flaw
The 2025 federal election turned out pretty much as expected. The Liberals won a strong minority government. The Conservatives swept Alberta and Saskatechen. The NDP lost official status in the “Liberal Rush.” But who could have predicted Pierre Poilievre would be so unpopular in his own riding?
With 168 Liberal seats, seven NDP and one Green, this government looks solid for a whole term. That stability will benefit Canadians as the Mark Carney government deals with Trump and the economic chaos he has caused.
We fortunately escaped the damage to Canada that Poilievre – the “Mini-Me Trump” – would have caused by channeling the US Presidents attacks on education, the CBC and media, clean energy initiatives and more.
Now here comes the “But ….” Despite the positive big picture outcome, this election exposed a glaring vulnerability within our electoral system.
And that vulnerability caused otherwise smart people to forget how our Canadian parliamentary system actually works. Namely: We do not have a proportional representation form of government.
A Canadian majority or strong minority government gives a single party almost dictatorial powers to change and make laws, to decide how to spend our money and to shape our social, environmental and financial futures.
That’s because, like today’s American Congress, our provincial and federal governments vote in a block. If you’re a federal MP or a provincial MLA, you’re expected to vote how your party’s caucus tells you to vote. Exceptions to this rule are rare and usually get you booted out of town.
So it makes sense that when voters go to the polls on election day, they cast their ballots for the party they want to form the government, the party whose values, policies and promises align with their own.
And there’s the problem. What if the party you align with best has no hope of winning your riding? What if there are three parties running candidates in your riding and you like parts of all of them? What if you want to vote for one party in your riding but doing so will result in the election of another party that you detest, that stands for the opposite of everything you value?
Those were the conflicts facing many voters on Vancouver Island this year. And it was the NDP, Liberals and Green parties themselves that squeezed Island voters into this awkward and divisive situation.
When the NDP, Liberals and federal Greens all ran candidates against a single Conservative, the parties forced progressive voters to figure out on their own how the vote would split and where their vote would do the most good.
Sadly, the Liberal party enthusiasm convinced many traditional NDP voters on the Island to buy into the fantasy that a Liberal candidate could win in ridings like North Island-Powell River (NIPR) where they’ve never finished better than third for over half a century.
They sold “The whole country’s going Liberal this year” like snake oil hustlers in the Wild West. It was a hollow promise.
Yes, it’s true that the Liberals got about 12,000 more votes in the North Island-Powell River riding than they did in 2021 – most of those stolen from the NDP.
But they still finished third and accomplished nothing.
The whole push to “Vote Liberal” didn’t help anybody. It didn’t help the Liberal party win the riding. It didn’t help the NDP, which fell about 5,000 votes short. And it won’t help the majority of people living in the riding – especially indigenous people – who will now be represented by somebody they didn’t want and who will be a do-nothing opposition backbencher.
It had, in fact, the opposite effect of what the Liberals intended.
In NIPR, the Liberals, NDP and Greens tallied 47,819 combined votes compared to 30,551 for the Conservative. It should have been a dominant mandate for progressive values: 60.6 percent.
But we still lost. A gift to the Conservatives.
It was the same sad story in Nanaimo and Cowichan. Across the province, this strategy resulted in a gain of four Liberal seats but a loss of 10 NDP seats, for a net loss of six progressive MPs.
Did people get swept by the charm of Mark Carney and think they were voting for him? Canadians don’t elect a prime minister. We elect MPs in ridings and the leader of the party with the most seats becomes our PM.
After this election, the political parties and many individual candidates will take time to reflect on their campaigns and how their strategies correlated with the final results.
Conservatives will try to understand how they lost a 25 point lead in about eight weeks. Pierre Poilievre will reflect on how he lost his seat in Parliament. Political operatives from all parties will try to assess the effect US President Trump had on this election. The NDP will think about its future as a viable federal party.
Voters should take time to reflect, too, on whether their vote choice got the result they wanted. They might also think about which were the informative and trustworthy sources of information they relied on to make those choices, and which were not.
In the election aftermath, there will be a renewed call for electoral reform. Proponents of proportional representation will make another noble attempt, but Ottawa will be wary of such a fundamental change while Trump still has eyes on our natural resources.
The simpler solution is for the three progressive parties on Vancouver Island to embrace the greater good of sustaining and expanding progressive ideals by fielding a single candidate in the next election.
In short, stop fighting among ourselves.
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thanks for the clear analysis post election…the push for proportional representation is an ongoing
movement and is in many ways the way forward. Yet change is slow and one can only hope that
witnessing the unfolding dismantling of democracy south of the border might alert the electorate’s
intentions to shift and change the political landscape here in B.C. and Canada altogether.
Keep up the good work George,much appreciate you work and intentions.
GReat article once again. I was astounded at how many people threw their vote away on a candidate that couldn’t possibly get elected in this riding AND elected a private healthcare promoting, genocide denying candidate by a vote that saw progressives split the vote. There was a website that showed how the vote was splitting! I have to admit I believed Arzeena could win for the Greens in this provincial election. I wonder if there was a vote splitting website in the provincial election. If I had known about it I would have voted for Ronna Rae to keep the conservatives out. The thing is no political party would elect a leader based on first past the post –In a field of 5 leadership candidates the party could elect a leader who has 21% support.
“…The simpler solution is for the three progressive parties on Vancouver Island to embrace the greater good…by fielding a single candidate in the next election.” Sounds simple — but how exactly could that work? In the three ridings with a new Con MP, would the next nomination automatically go to the second-place candidate and party? In those four ridings that saw a progressive candidate win (two Lib, one NDP, one Green), the other two parties, voluntarily, would not run against this year’s winner? Both situations would in fact be the antithesis of party politics and would make many voters very unhappy, not willing to simply support the ‘chosen’ on the ballot, even if it meant losing the seat to a vote-split.
We’re left with trying to vote strategically. Yes, proportional rep is indeed a noble goal but it seems that neither the two big federal parties will be changing the current first-past-the-post system any time soon, it being so favourable to them both.
Nice summation, George . . . and exactly as you predicted. I’m a supporter of proportional representation because it’s common sense and fair. Unfortunately, it’s a bit tricky to explain to folks which is why it didn’t get accepted first time around. So here we are with a ‘lame duck’ MLA representing a minority of residents in our riding (what on earth is he going to say or do in Ottawa?) and an opposition ‘leader’ who has been sent to the penalty box for bad behaviour. There are some lessons to be learned from all this and it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
I couldn’t agree more and it was obvious that we were going to elect a conservative in this riding from the get go. As was true in the provincial election. It’s not a very democratic process when two thirds of voters are unhappy with the result of the election and leads to voters disengaging from the process.
Democracy is the worst system in the world…except for all the rest.
Hi George,
Again, a great article.
My choice for affordability, access to health care, relief of Government debt interest payments for my Grandchildren, individual rights over the best interests of our community, uncontrolled immigration and the extreme taxation that does little to reduce the impact of climate change. The sad response to wild fires and accountability for those human caused fires that are preventable. My choice for a party that may adress these and many other issues , was not elected.
The issue, I suggest is not left or right, but compromise on the best solutions to the issues facing our Country and Communities. Extreme views need to be moderated, no matter the process for electing representatives.
This is what citizens of this once great Country should demand. Politicians working for the better good of all taxpayers, with compassion and guidance for those who are unable to cope in our society
Yes!!
I understood that the parties are required to run candidates in a set # of ridings? So, can they even consider your suggestion?
Agreed. We need Proportional Representation! The devastating results speak for themselves.