Trudeau may prove adage stats lie

OTTAWA— It’s always dangerous to be in front of a parade unless you’re leading it.

But before the Justin Trudeau parade — all floats, marching bands, fundraising prowess, stunning polling numbers and limitless media attention — steamrolls through the Liberal leadership field next week, it would be instructive to crunch some numbers. They don’t always add up. In fact, it is difficult to square the polling numbers — and they have been consistent — showing the juggernaut poised to remake the federal political scene in 2015 with the actual number of those who have participated in and are committed to voting in the Liberal leadership stroll.

There are two things we are about to learn as Liberals and their sup- porters begin voting for the leader of the third party.

One will be the margin of a Trudeau victory. How many of the 127,000 registered voters have been drawn to this process to back British Columbia MP Joyce Murray and her message of one-time political co-operation among “progressives” in 2015?

And, assuming that Trudeau victory, we will find whether one man can single-handedly breathe life into the party, because the numbers do not support the theory that his celebrity tour of Canada has invigorated the Liberal brand.

A month ago, the Liberals were trumpeting 294,002 potential voters in this contest, and Trudeau’s camp said it had signed up a combined 150,000 supporters and party members on its own.

But a lack of commitment by those supporters and a party culling of the list left the Liberals with the 127,000 number.

If half of them vote — and the party says the turnout will be over 50 per cent — at least 64,000 members and supporters will pick the new leader.

The party membership remains in the 45,000 to 50,000 range and has not grown during the course of the race. About three-quarters of those have registered to vote, so the most charitable breakdown of registered voters would include 37,500 party members and 89,500 supporters, who may also be hitch-hikers. Who are they? Well, nobody knows, but if many of them have been motivated by the Murray message, it is a fair bet that they would just walk away if their candidate loses because Trudeau (and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair) have both ruled out such co-operation. Some of those Murray supporters may indeed be Liberals, disaffected or otherwise. Others may be New Democrats or Green sympathizers, some may not have voted before or have remained on the political fringes, others could be categorized merely as the “anti-Harper” crowd whose flirtation with electoral politics is driven solely by a desire to unseat the Conservatives. The other question to be answered is where those supporters live. The way the voting is weighted, 100 points for each of the country’s 308 ridings, could hurt Trudeau in urban ridings in which he is popular. If he wins 900 of 1,000 votes cast in a suburban GTA riding, for example, he gets 90 points. If Murray wins nine of 10 votes in a riding south of Calgary, she gets 90 points. Last year, 65,108 New Democrats voted in the first ballot of their leadership. The party allowed advance and onsite voting, but that represented barely 50 per cent of 128,301 eligible voters. All were paid-up party members, paying a variable fee depending on age, province and employment status, which can be up to $25 in Ontario. The overwhelming number of Liberal voters will be from the supporter category the party created at its 2012 convention in a bid to build data on prospective voters and to create more interest. It cost nothing to be a supporter. It costs $10 to be a Liberal party member.

But maybe in 2013, party membership and affiliation don’t matter. Jack Layton proved in 2011 that a party can sweep a province with virtually no organization on the ground.

Quebec has swung, almost en masse, in successive federal elections. In Toronto, voters were comfortable voting for Layton at the federal level and Rob Ford at the local level.

Perhaps we are in an era in which lifelong commitment to a federal party is a thing of the past and party membership, the outlay of a few bucks or the commitment to actually vote in the leadership is irrelevant.

An estimated 127,00 eligible voters is not Trudeaumania redux, but maybe in 2015 Canadians will look at Trudeau, at that moment, and decide he merits their vote. He may be the right person at the right time of shifting political loyalties. We’re about to find out.