January 1st, 2025 | RYAN TYLER

Two By-Elections, One Story

One provincial by-election and one federal by-election tell a single story.

There are two specific by-elections from the past month that prove the left's growing weakness across Canada. One was provincial, the other was federal. As we talk about the ascendancy of the right and the great reckoning that is happening globally, we have to analyze the numbers to prove the breadth of this reckoning. And, those numbers, show powerful evidence of a left-wing collapse.

In Alberta, the provincial NDP went on a spinning spree following their victory in Lethbridge-West, which has been an NDP stronghold since 2015. Their new leader, Naheed Nenshi, was boastful about his party's defeat of the UCP. However, anyone who looks at the actual numbers sees a much different story.

After the retirement of Shannon Phillips, a disastrous candidate named Rob Miyashiro finally won a seat in Alberta's legislature—after trying and failing twice, once in 2012 as a Liberal and once in 2023 and as New Democrat. Despite the NDP's gloating, his victory wasn't anything to write home to mommy about.

With a 37% turnout, Miyashiro lost ground from where Phillips left off, while his UCP opponent gained. If these numbers are any indication of what a provincial election would look like, it would reflect a 2% gain for the UCP and a decline for the NDP under its new leader. This is in a riding the NDP has held with healthy margins since 2015.

Miyashiro's victory was anything but unpredictable. The UCP knew the NDP would win it—everyone knew the NDP would win it. The media, of course, beat the same drum as Nenshi in declaring the win a “big victory” for Nenshi and his NDP. Even though the NDP lost support and the UCP gained, everyone tried to ignore what the results were really saying.

The Alberta NDP under Naheed Nenshi are losing ground and slowly bleeding support. As provincial polls show, this is true. Most polls show the NDP losing support since his win, while others show no movement. The Lethbridge-West results have confirmed that the Alberta NDP are struggling under their new leader, who became incredibly unpopular as Calgary's mayor. I suspect that when Nenshi wins a seat and heads into the legislature, his mouth will make him even more unpopular. However, all of this will depend on the UCP's performance and the strength of the economy. If Danielle Smith starts to fail, Nenshi and his big mouth could become more popular by default.

A Canada-Wide Reckoning

In a recent federal by-election, the Conservative candidate obliterated the Liberals and NDP in what could easily be described as an earth-shaking blowout.

In Cloverdale-Langley City, which has been a coin toss between Liberals and Conservatives in a majority of the past few elections, went to Conservatives with more than 60% of the popular vote. In a follow-up to their last federal by-election victory in the heart of Toronto, the Conservatives flipped another seat in their favour. In 2021, Liberals won Cloverdale-Langley by 3%.

A deep dive into the numbers shows a catastrophic decline for Liberals and a dire indication of the NDP's inability to scoop up their support.

From 2021, the Liberals have lost 23% of the popular vote, while the NDP have declined by 8%. If this doesn't look like a massive shift in metro Vancouver, than what else would? In less than five years, both the Liberals and NDP have collapsed in another urban area. First it was Toronto—now it's Vancouver.

Things have changed, across the whole country, in a huge and undeniable way.

This could be attributed to the marriage made in hell between Trudeau and Singh, but it could also be a reflection of an overall distaste for left-wing policies and politics. Destructive urban policies in Vancouver and Toronto, which have put more drug addicts and homeless people on the streets, could be partially to blame. Secondly, federal policies and immigration could be putting a dent in what have been traditionally viewed as “Canadian” ideals.

Normally, left-wing ideas and policies work fine for Canadians when everyone is happy. Safe injection sites are usually out of sight and out of mind, until they're not. Homelessness is fine when there aren't too many homeless people setting up tents in places where wealthy Liberals like to buy and sip their lattes. Crime isn't an issue until it bleeds into white neighbourhoods. Immigration is great, until food banks and emergency rooms are overrun and housing becomes scarce.

Government spending is the greatest and most benevolent thing in the universe, until it finally leads to inflation and unsustainable debt.

Liberal and socialist policies work fine until rich white people start to notice their consequences. Once the chickens come home to roost, legalized drugs and endless immigration lose their appeal. When the cheap slave labour, peddled by corporations as virtue and diversity, starts to have a negative impact on a majority of the population, it becomes a political problem for the very white Liberals that supported it.

Welcome to Canada in 2025.

Caveats And Warnings

At this point, the cultural shift is almost undeniable. Although it appears to be happening quickly, there are still some caveats to consider. If more right-wing policies haven't made a considerable difference by 2029, this whole thing could go into reverse. Just like most left-wing fixes, some right-wing fixes don't work either. Most of them do, but they can take a lot of time to make a real impact.

Deregulation and tax cuts could take years to trickle down and improve the economy for normal, working class Canadians. If it doesn't happen fast enough, voters could get impatient and re-elect a left-wing government. When these right-wing policies finally start to positively impact the economy, a new left-wing government could be in charge to take the credit. This has the potential to create the illusion that the younger, left-wing government is either safe, or outright responsible for the fruits of a strong economy.

Even if a new left-wing government reverses all the right-wing policies, the positive impacts of those right-wing policies could still be felt for years—leading to a greater illusion that reversing those policies is what spurned their positive results.

This is how democracy has worked since it became a thing. We saw Trudeau take credit for much of the post-recession strength from the Harper era, only to see him squander and destroy it—and then blame Stephen Harper for the resulting Liberal failures. Trudeau did this last year, when housing began to spiral out of control. Somehow, he managed to blame Canada's dwindling housing supplies on Harper's failure to fund homebuilding initiatives. Today, we know Canada's housing supply has been decimated by mass immigration. This has been confirmed by experts from Canada's biggest banks and members of the federal service sector—who have been sounding the alarm since 2022. The CBC and Canadian Press reported this fact here.

Cracking open and deregulating Canada's grocery and telecommunications industries would benefit every Canadian's pocketbook, but take years to fully manifest as something positive. Abolishing or reforming the CRTC would open the door to stiff foreign competition that could significantly lower the costs of our utility bills and internet services within a decade.

Building more pipelines and revitalizing our energy sectors would take years. Even after a new right-wing government cuts the environmental red tape, the pipelines would take years to build and even longer to produce noticeably large economic benefits. Oil and gas companies would take years to build up their infrastructure.

All of this means that a new right-wing government would have time working against it.

This could compel the next Conservative government to act quickly, but hopefully not too irrationally. Austerity is basically mandatory at this point, so it will need to start happening immediately. Alternatively, as a short-term fix, a Conservative government might throw money at certain things—which would result in some typically liberal consequences down the road. Austerity will be painful and take years to pay off, but a smart Conservative government will make it their first order of business.

As with any government that has a 4-year window to prove itself, Conservatives will have to initiate their most painful and unpopular policies within the first year.

As I've said before, the liberal Senate will pose the biggest threat to Pierre Poilievre's agenda. Since his party isn't doing anything to prepare for this, I can only assume they're going to be ill-equipped to deal with it. Privatizing the CBC and axing the carbon tax sound like great ideas, until the Senate blocks them and makes Poilievre look like an absolute failure through the eyes of low-info voters.

So far, Poilievre is ignoring the problem. When he takes office, he'll realize what a mistake it was—but it will be too late. Failing to build a movement against an unelected Senate will have been his downfall.

By 2029, Poilievre will look like a whiney, meandering fool. His promise to privatize the CBC and axe the tax will have been left empty and unfulfilled. He'll be relegated to being a big, ineffective crybaby who bawls publicly about how the Senate cock-blocked him for four years. By the time the next election rolls around, Canadians will be sick of him, and someone like Mark Carney will be leading the Liberals. Voters will view Poilievre as an insufferable loud-mouth who couldn't get anything done—and they will put him in the history books as a one-term failure.

So much for that cultural shift, unless conservatives start getting louder right now.