Tories’ hold on the suburbs does not appear unshakeable

A couple of years ago, Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson wrote that Canada was in the midst of a “Big Shift.” Part of their argument was that the growing political strength of Ontario’s suburbs, fuelled largely by immigration, was moving Canadian politics toward the right. And they aren’t the only analysts who’ve suggested that the two solitudes of the 21st century in Canada would be, not French and English, but urban and suburban.

It is undeniable that the suburbs are key to this election. But the fact that the Liberals are in contention for so many of those seats, even while they go toeto-toe with the Tories on values questions and deficits, undermines the idea that the only way to win the suburbs is to out-conservative the Conservatives.

One of the many side effects of the first-past-the-post system is that it exaggerates geographical differences. Look at the map of Ottawa after the 2011 federal election, and you’ll see what appears to be a ring of suburban blue encircling an urban core of orange and red. The colours in Toronto are similar.

Under our electoral system, even the strongest win is likely to represent only about half of the voters in any riding.

The trend in American punditry to talk about red states and blue states has naturally crept into Canadian political discourse, bringing with it a dangerous temptation to see polarization where there is only a difference in aggregate tendency.

A year ago, the received wisdom was that the creation of new suburban ridings, especially in the Greater Toronto Area, would be a boost to Conservative electoral chances. It seemed that short of a unite-the-left movement, the Conservative hold on power was becoming unshakable, thanks to all the Tim Hortons drinkers in the burbs.

But the thing is, Glebites drive their kids to 5 a.m. hockey practice, too. Some of the people most vested in the future of public transit in this city live in Orléans. There are plenty of hunters in this city’s large rural fringe; there are environmentalists, too, and often they’re the same people. The culture gap between urbanites and suburbanites isn’t neat and tidy in Ottawa, and it seems the ideological one isn’t either.

It was in Ottawa’s new Nepean riding, on Monday, where a crowd of hundreds showed up outside a Barrhaven strip mall for a Justin Trudeau rally. This should be solid blue territory, according to the narrative, and it’s not. According to the latest numbers from Environics for Lead Now, the Liberals are leading in that riding. And this is a riding that’s likely to reflect the national campaign more than the local one: neither Liberal Chandra Arya nor Conservative Andy Wang is a star candidate. If those numbers are right — and if the even wider Liberal lead in Kanata-Carleton is something more than a polling blip — we’ll have a narrative or two to rethink.

A big part of the Conservative strategy in suburban ridings has been an appeal to immigrant communities, as Bricker and Ibbitson pointed out. The Conservative decision to emphasize cultural values and fear of terrorism in this campaign was a gamble; they seemed confident that many socially conservative immigrant voters would cheer them on, and they may well turn out to be right. But they run the risk of alienating other suburban-immigrant voters who worry about the direction Canada’s policies are taking. Ottawa-West Nepean candidate Abdul Abdi could have become a Conservative standard-bearer in the city’s Muslim community. The fact that he skipped a recent debate organized by the Muslim Association of Canada suggests he’s not interested in that role; instead, he’s emphasizing the fact that he’s a police officer on leave.

The NDP’s appeal to the middle class has also been squarely aimed at the suburbs, and one of its strongest candidates in Ottawa is Emilie Taman in Ottawa-Vanier. The party’s national platform suggests it’s going after the whole country; it hasn’t been content to shore up support in urban centres and Quebec. How well its plan succeeds may determine the party’s direction after the next election.

The Conservatives may still succeed in painting the suburbs blue. But the fact they’ve had to fight so hard for it is a reminder that reality is a lot messier than neatly coloured maps sometimes suggest.