Face of Nation : There’s an old adage in military planning: no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. It works just as well with election campaigns — certainly with any plans the parties might have drawn up when this election year began.
The Liberals and Conservatives have one target in October: 170. That’s the number of seats needed to form a majority government. But the paths of least resistance leading each party to that number look very different today than they did six months ago. In early February, the Liberals enjoyed a comfortable lead over the Conservatives in the polls. How that support broke down across the country put the party in a good position to be re-elected with a majority, even if it was reduced in size.
The thinking at the time was that the Liberals would be able to compensate for losses in places like Ontario, Atlantic Canada and British Columbia with gains in Quebec — at least enough to put them over the 170-seat mark.
But then the SNC-Lavalin affair blew those plans up. The Liberals have been trailing the Conservatives in the polls — and the seat projections — ever since. Both parties have had to draw up new plans as the front line has shifted. So what do the paths to a majority government look like now?
The CBC’s Canada Poll Tracker makes it possible to map out the path of least resistance for each party to reach 170 seats, and how that path has changed over the last six months. The seat projections currently put both the Liberals and Conservatives in minority territory — so to find the path to 170, we merely need to add seats in places where each party is estimated to be trailing by the smallest margins. In other words, this projection tells us which 170 seats are likely to be the easiest for each party to win, based on where they stand in the polls today.
In many cases, the Conservatives and Liberals are vying for the same seats that will decide which party wins and whether it will be a minority or majority government. Accordingly, Ontario has become less important for the Conservatives, while Quebec and Atlantic Canada have become more important.
Back in February, when the Conservatives were trailing in the polls and a majority government seemed out of reach, the path to 170 looked tough. Their easiest path included 72 seats in Ontario, 55 seats in Alberta and the Prairies, 23 in B.C., 14 in Quebec and just six in Atlantic Canada.
With the exception of more seats in Quebec and fewer out east, it was a map that looked very similar to the majority government Stephen Harper cobbled together in 2011 — with a heavy emphasis on Ontario and Western Canada. Now, however, the polls suggest the Conservatives might have an easier time winning seats east of Ontario than they would in making significant gains in the province itself.
