Ontario politics with B.C. parties and B.C. with Ontario parties

[King of Kensington]

What would Ontario politics look like with a B.C. party system (a "free enterprise party" vs. NDP) and B.C. with an Ontario system (with a big center party tacking left and right).

Of course there are different issues and concerns:  B.C. doesn't have a "rust belt" and Ontario doesn't have the "environment vs. economy" wedge issue to nearly the degree B.C. has.

[Hatman 🍁]

In Ontario, more urban Liberal seats would go NDP, while suburban ones would go for the free enterprise party. Some Tory held seats might go NDP too, like Sarnia-Lambton.

[Hatman 🍁]

I see the NDP sweeping the north (save Nipissing, but that could be a possibility!)
Ottawa Centre, Ottawa-Vanier
Kingston and the Islands, Peterborough
Oshawa
Bramalea-Gore-Malton, Brampton-Springdale
Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Welland
All 3 Hamilton seats
Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Brant, Kitchener Centre
Sweeping London & Essex, maybe even Chatham-Kent-Essex and Sarnia-Lambton
Usual suspects in Toronto, but also Toronto Centre, St. Paul's, Don Valley East, York West, Etobicoke North, Scarborough RR, Centre, SW and Guildwood

[Citizen Hats]

In Ontario, more urban Liberal seats would go NDP, while suburban ones would go for the free enterprise party. Some Tory held seats might go NDP too, like Sarnia-Lambton.

I wouldn't be so sure. The BC Liberals have never had any trouble being competitive in urban seats. In fact, the plurality of the Vancouver City vote went to the BC Liberals in 1996, 2001, 2005 and 2009.  As a party which does not play the cultural cues of the Right in the way that the Tories do, a BC Liberal Party would be competitive in places the Tories are not.  

Furthermore, BC does have a rust belt of sort- the rusting sites of old mill towns which sponsor their own industrial-radical traditions. It's these sorts of voters who provide NDP votes outside the Coast and Kooteneys. I suspect Southwest Ontario would certainly behave the same way

[King of Kensington]

Thinking of the most recent elections, interesting to think of one where the  NDP that repelled the sort of the post-materialist educated urban middle classes (Andrea Horwath) and one that actually appealed to them while underperforming among the working class (Adrian Dix).

[King of Kensington]

I wouldn't be so sure. The BC Liberals have never had any trouble being competitive in urban seats. In fact, the plurality of the Vancouver City vote went to the BC Liberals in 1996, 2001, 2005 and 2009.  As a party which does not play the cultural cues of the Right in the way that the Tories do, a BC Liberal Party would be competitive in places the Tories are not.

Agreed.  I think St. Paul's would be likely be a Fairview or Point Grey type riding.

Though it's hard to think of a Toronto equivalent of these ridings.  It's almost like a mix of the Annex and St. Paul's with the Beaches thrown in.

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It seems more akin to Northern Ontario.

[Citizen Hats]

Sure, but the Interior is competitive-to-right-leaning in a way that Northern Ontario really isn't

In fact, a rather startling feature of BC Politics is that there isn't really any density-polarization. In much of the English speaking world one can make rather clear generalizations about the politics of urban-suburban-rural-frontier politics. This is not true, and there are strongholds of the Liberals and the NDP in all these places in BC.

[King of Kensington]

How would a Wynne/Hudak/Horwath-type scenario: i.e. an upscale urban left-liberal, a hard-right conservative and a working class populist with little appeal to the urbane and cultured - have gone in BC?

I'm thinking that the Tories would be limited to the Fraser Valley, Kelowna and the Okanagan, but given B.C.'s smaller ridings it would likely have amounted to West Vancouver-Capilano and Vancouver-Quilchena as well (just as under pre-1999 boundaries, I'm pretty sure the Tories would have gotten 1 seat in Toronto - York Mills).

A "Horwath" type NDP would have bombed in Vancouver and Victoria, probably limited to Vancouver Mount Pleasant and Hastings, but picked up seats in Surrey, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and through a lot of the Interior including conservative-populist working class seats.

Liberals would have dominated Greater Vancouver and even winning outer-suburban to exurban seats, though would be fighting with the NDP in Surrey.  Even the West Vancouver-Sea to Sky would be Liberal due to strategic voting outside West Van.

Greens would also do well under this scenario, maybe picking up a few Victoria seats, as there's a lot more of a base for the Greens than in Ontario.

[Citizen Hats]

I reckon it would look like some of those Forum Polls with the LPC up in the 40s in BC.  One of the problems is that a lot of the cultural baggage of Eastern elections simply doesn't map in BC

[Citizen Hats]

This is simply plugging BC headline results into the 2011 Ontario election. I think it forms a good place to start from.  I would imagine that places like Simcoe, Renfrew, and Muskoka would likely go Liberal, while the NDP would pick up seats in London, Brant, and Brampton

[King of Kensington]

How do you simply "plug in" these results?

Dufferin-Caledon would be solidly Liberal.

[Citizen Hats]

How do you simply "plug in" these results?

Dufferin-Caledon would be solidly Liberal.

1 region proportional swing model.

[Citizen Hats]

though, interestingly, the reverse would seem to me to be a far more farcical result

[King of Kensington]

Yeah, the NDP strength in rural eastern Ontario makes no sense.

[King of Kensington]

Ontario with a BC system:

Agree that Northern Ontario would be dominated by the NDP, with the exception of Nipissing and, if counts as "north", Parry Sound-Muskoka.

For Toronto, most of the inner city seats would be NDP, with the exception of St. Paul's, which would be more kind of a Point Grey or Fairview type seat.

Outer Toronto: Etobicoke North, York South-Weston and York West would be solidly NDP.  Scarborough - the Pickering-Scarborough East and Agincourt seats would be solidly Liberal, the rest would lean NDP.  Etobicoke-Lakeshore would lean Liberal but with an NDP-leaning history.
Don Valley East would be a swing seat.

In the 905, Brampton would lean NDP.  NDP may also have a shot at Mississauga East-Cooksville and Ajax-Pickering though they would lean Liberal.  Oshawa would have an NDP history but have emerged into more of a swing seat.

In the southwest and "rust belt", NDP would dominate Hamilton and Welland, as well as Windsor.  A lot of the southwestern cities would be swing (since they're usually pretty mixed urban to suburban with some industry), this includes Essex, Sarnia, the three London seats, Kitchener-Waterloo, Kitchener Centre, Cambridge, Brant, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls.  Guelph is a bit of a wild card with the strong Green showing but it may prove stronger for the NDP given the weakness of the Tories there (fewer Harper/Horwath populists).

In eastern and central Ontario, the NDP would be weakest in these regions, as they are in Ontario politics.  I agree that Ottawa Centre, Ottawa-Vanier and Kingston and the Islands would be NDP seats.  Peterborough would swing and Ottawa South could be a possibility too.

Other possibilities in the right swing: Chatham, Elgin-Middlesex-London, Oxford, Barrie.

[Hatman 🍁]

Ottawa South wouldn't be a swing seat, it would be solidly Liberal under a BC political alignment.

[King of Kensington]

Yeah I don't know why I put that in there.

It's interesting to look back at old Ontario results.  The CCF came within 4 points in 1943 under the leadership of Ted Joliffe and they got second again during a Tory landslide a few years later.  Until the 1980s the Liberals were mostly a rural-based southwestern party while the PC's were a modern party with an urban base particularly under Bill Davis.

The PC's went on the decline after the right-wing Frank Miller became leader and in 1987 the NDP was the official opposition and the PC reduced to 16 seats.  In 1990 when the NDP won, the PC's didn't make any significant gains either (under none other than Mike Harris).  So in the late 1980s and early 1990s it kind of looked like Ontario was headed toward an NDP vs. Liberal polarization.  But then the PCs surged ahead with the Common Sense Revolution, the Liberals ran a disatrous campaign but still came in second, and the NDP was reduced to third place again, and the rest is history...

In an alternate scenario, perhaps a competent center-right Liberal takes over and the PC's continue their slide, bringing a "BC system" to Ontario.  Or the PC's dumped Harris after1990 and pick a more moderate leader who resonates in urban areas.