Provincial Blues

October 31, 2026

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HERE'S MY TAKE

Last week’s British Columbia election is worth paying attention to for several reasons. The timing of the election was the height of political cynicism. With two years remaining in his mandate, NDP Premier David Eby called an election just as the opposition Conservatives were in disarray, having lost a significant portion of their caucus and their leader. Eby argued that President Trump’s hostility to Canada warranted a fresh mandate, echoing the argument for an early election that Ontario Premier Doug Ford successfully used in 2025. He also cited the difficulties of governing with a narrow legislative majority. British Columbians didn’t buy it. They handed the Conservatives a commanding majority.

The new premier-designate, Lorne Doerkson, was virtually unknown five weeks ago. Described as a down-to-earth, unflashy management type, he was first elected to the legislature in 2020 after a twenty-year career in community newspaper publishing, followed by stints in automobile sales and financial services. His political résumé wasn't particularly distinguished, but this was hardly his first rodeo. He literally competed as a bareback bronc rider in his younger years, collecting a resume of injuries but also a particular type of toughness from the experience. Recruited as interim leader just two days before the election call, he managed to reunite much of a fractured caucus and skillfully navigated a five-week campaign with remarkably little preparation.

A peculiar legal complication remains to be resolved. The BC Conservative constitution prohibits an interim leader from seeking the permanent leadership, meaning that the man who just won a commanding majority may be ineligible to lead the party permanently. I suspect the lawyers and party members will find a way to resolve a situation the rules were hardly designed to anticipate.

The Conservative platform emphasized economic development, reducing red tape, controlling spending, and removing obstacles to major infrastructure projects. Whether the new government can deliver is another matter, but the election represents a significant change in the direction of Canada's third-largest province.

It also adds another blue shade to Canada's provincial political map. With the federal government still in Liberal hands, seven of Canada's ten provinces are now governed by parties representing the more conservative mainstream option available to voters. Manitoba's NDP, Quebec's Parti Québécois, and New Brunswick's Liberals are the exceptions.  Monday’s provincial election in PEI – if the polls are to be trusted – may elect a government with a Green Party hue.

One might be tempted to interpret this as a sweeping conservative realignment. That would be premature. Elections are fought in particular circumstances, and conservatism means rather different things in different provinces. A Quebec nationalist, an Alberta populist, an Ontario Progressive Conservative, and an Atlantic Canadian Red Tory might agree on the colour of their campaign signs while disagreeing on significant questions of public policy.

Twenty years ago, Michael Van Pelt and I wrote a Policy Options essay entitled “Replacing the Pan-Canadian Consensus,” arguing that Stephen Harper's electoral success at that time depended on holding together six distinct streams of conservatism rather than mobilizing a unified ideological movement. Two decades later the challenge remains, although the categories have shifted. The free-market, free-trade consensus that once helped unite economic conservatives has weakened, while cultural conservatism, populism, and nationalism of various stripes have become more prominent. Translating provincial conservative success into a federal Conservative coalition is anything but straightforward.

Still, we shouldn't explain away the electoral pattern either. In each province, voters have had more progressive alternatives available to them. The fact that so many have chosen the relatively conservative option must mean something, even if precisely what it means varies from one jurisdiction to another. A certain type of conservative ascendancy seems real; a coherent national conservative consensus is much less evident. Absent such a consensus, federal politics ends up more focused on personality, with the personalities of the Prime Minister and the U.S. President – neither of whom would be easily mistaken for a conservative philosophically – being outsized factors in present polling voting preferences.
But an equally important point may be what this provincial electoral map reveals about the way Canada actually works.

Provincial governments exercise enormous authority over matters that shape everyday life, and their financial significance is easily underestimated. According to Statistics Canada, provincial and territorial governments collectively spent the equivalent of 23.5 percent of Canada's GDP in 2024, compared with 17.2 percent for Ottawa. Add municipal governments, which are constitutionally creatures of the provinces, and the scale of subnational government grows further. These figures include transfers between governments, but the central point remains: provincial politics is hardly a junior league to the federal game.

More revealing than the dollars is what they purchase. Provincial, territorial, and local governments spend more than twelve times as much as Ottawa directly on education, almost eight times as much on transportation, and nearly twice as much on public order and safety. Hospital services are almost entirely a subnational expenditure. Ottawa writes the criminal law, but the administration of justice, most policing, and the safety conditions on our streets depend heavily on provincial and municipal decisions. Add social services, housing, natural resources, and the regulation of much of our economic activity, and the point becomes unmistakable. Yet we obsess over parliamentary theatrics in Ottawa while paying comparatively little attention to the governments responsible for our hospitals, classrooms, highways, and neighbourhood safety.

Canada is not simply a country with regional administrative offices. Sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution divide legislative responsibilities between two orders of government, neither subordinate to the other. The practical arrangements, however, are considerably messier than the constitutional theory.

Ottawa uses its spending power and national regulatory ambitions to influence areas of provincial responsibility. Premiers complain about federal interference while simultaneously seeking federal funding. Provinces fiercely defend their autonomy but are often less enthusiastic about removing their own barriers to interprovincial trade and labour mobility. Equalization adds another layer of regional resentment, with provinces understanding its fairness differently depending on their circumstances. Provincial autonomy is a constitutional principle; provincial self-interest is not necessarily a recipe for the national common good.

Our institutions have not proved especially effective at reconciling these tensions. The Senate was intended, in part, to provide regional representation, but has never developed into an effective institutional voice for either the regions or provincial governments (not always the same thing). Instead, we've come to rely on executive federalism—negotiations among first ministers, supplemented by the Council of the Federation. These arrangements have their uses, but too often reduce substantive constitutional disagreements to contests over money, jurisdiction, and political advantage. When they fail, we return to familiar arguments about sections 91 and 92 (often detouring through the courts to settle what should be political determinations), as if a century and a half of constitutional experience had settled remarkably little.

It would seem a mistake not to include the record-low voter turnout in the analysis. Official numbers will take a bit, but 48.2% is the unofficial number, down almost 10% from two years ago and the lowest going back at least until 1928. The Conservatives won their commanding majority with approximately 49,000 fewer votes than they received two years ago, while the NDP lost more than 273,000 votes. It’s a bit unusual in that voters typically show up in larger proportions in “change elections” as well as one in which a policy proposal dominates. So what does this mean? A growing cynicism about politics on both sides of the aisle, with the Conservatives only managing to put aside their infighting in the context of a snap election and the NDP cynically playing political games in calling that election?

Canadians are noting British Columbia's election in part because another province has turned blue and in part because a political unknown has pulled off a remarkable victory. However, it is actually way more significant. Provincial governments are central actors in determining Canada's economic prospects, institutional health, and national cohesion. Their competing priorities and the difficulty of reconciling them are not incidental features of Canadian politics. They are among its defining characteristics.

Perhaps the real provincial blues are not about the parties that win or lose, but about a political culture in which governments exercising so much authority over our daily lives command so little attention. Here’s hoping BC’s blue team will steward this new opportunity not just to implement good policy, but to contribute to a healthier political culture so Canadians, regardless of their political colours, will better engage in and steward their political process.

Last week we teased the trailer for the new podcast, Proverbs & Policy, that I am co-hosting with my colleague Andreae Sennyah. This past Thursday, the first two episodes dropped. Having Atlantic writer Christine Emba, author of Rethinking Sex: A Provocation, as a guest seemed a good way to get into fertility rate questions (and the relationships ideally required to promote it), and Cardus Canadian President Brian Dijkema helped us kick off with a reflection on what the connection between proverbs and policy is really about.

We’d love to hear your feedback. Like and subscribe via the podcast app of your choice. If you are inclined to say nice things about us in a review (or just hit the relevant stars), I am told that these really do make a difference in spreading the word. The plan is to drop a new episode every other Thursday. 

WHAT I’M READING

Don't Be Cowed by AI

In the National Review, Michael Brendan Dougherty rejects the notion that we are the "cows of the future" with our AI overlords set to supplant us. He notes our sense of justice and ability to plan as key distinguishing factors, and reminds us that politics and governance is never about who is 'smartest'. "Cows have no use for justice or political order. Humans do, and computers are not going to make this need obsolete."  

Faith in AI 

While we are on the topic of AI, this Washington Post essay helpfully engages the conversation about how faith might intersect with AI. Often this debate is framed in ethical terms, looking for the wisdom of faith traditions in dealing with essential questions as to what AI actually is and how humans might ethically use it (or not). The essay helpfully highlights other dimensions of the discussion, including how a large learning model deals with information that is inherently irreconcilable (as competing religious truth claims are) and how understandings of the transcendent which go beyond the immediacies of language are limited by machine functioning. 

Good News, Bad News on MAiD

The federal government unveiled its long-awaited legislation which would indefinitely ban 'MAiD for mental illness'. The same bill would also legalize advance requests. In our statement, we highlighted the need for more study of advance requests, and we previously noted that two separate bills were needed. The Toronto Star's Andrew Phillips concurred.

A Strategy for More Strategies

The Hub analyzed Canada’s new security plan concluding that in the five core themes the plan identifies, what we essentially are offered is “the government commit(ing) to “produce a plan,” so 22 years after the last strategy, Canadians have mostly been promised more strategies.” The conclusion is that by failing to address the real terrorism threats, including alarming increases in terrorism identified in a recent Globe and Mail piece, the government is simply not responding with appropriate seriousness of the present circumstance. “In a background briefing, officials from CSIS, the RCMP, Public Safety Canada, and the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre said the threat to Canada’s Jewish community is greater, in both severity and number, than anything they have seen, and that people are now being radicalized to the point of violence in less than a month.” 

Are We Getting Closer?

Hans Casteels, a Belgian national who has lived in Canada since 1979, offers a unique perspective on the “will they, won’t they” associate membership debacle. He says the disunited front and the lack of organization by the EU has greatly confused the discussions. “Put the obligations on the table. Decide what we can build, what we can buy from one another, and what each side is prepared to commit. If the arrangement is worthwhile, its title can survive being written after lunch.” 

MEANINGFUL METRICS

Not Everyone Got the Election Memo

Voter turnout makes it clear that issues involving the country as a whole rank higher on the priority list than provincial concerns. The Quebec referendums and 1991 Charlottetown Accord rank highest in voter turnout among recent elections, followed by the most recent federal election (this is based on data from the most recent federal and provincial elections alongside referendums held separately from general elections since 1970).

TAKE IT TO-GO

Fall Colours

With November arriving tomorrow, our annual fascination with fall colours will soon give way to frost advisories and snow warnings. While the political palette by no means matches nature's beauty, there is reason to consider the mix of political colours on display that emerges from election month in Canada. British Columbia has turned Conservative blue, while Prince Edward Island appears poised to go Green. Liberals must be seeing red at the prospect of their traditional colours fading, while New Democrats search for a little orange optimism. Municipal candidates across the country choose their own campaign colours based on hues of major party colours, sending subtle messages of alignment (or not). In the United States, red and blue mean the opposite of what they do in Canada, although the colours of US politics these days make it hard to know for certain what either colour really stands for.

But let’s not interfere—we return to considering the Canadian map. It does resemble an autumn forest, with familiar shades giving way to unexpected hues. Leaves change colour, governments fall, and even the most deeply rooted incumbents can find themselves out on a limb. Some politicians are turning over a new leaf; others are merely changing their colours. But a warning to politicians who spend too much time admiring their own colours. As some have learned the hard way, there does come a time when voters are ready to rake them up and put them out to the curb.

And with that, we sign off for another week, one that will include a federal budget as well as the US midterm elections—both of which will have significant implications. I expect to divide my week between Hamilton, San Antonio, and DC, and I have little doubt there will be plenty to reflect on when we are back in your inbox next Saturday morning.

Til then.