Canada is heading toward an election outcome not witnessed in generations

Over the 40 years he spent in elected politics, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has seen it all.

Yet, the 91-year-old career politician admits the current federal election is unique among the many he’s observed in his lifetime.

While he’s been part of campaigns fought over important, country-defining issues – like free trade in 1988 – this one has a more existential quality about it, he says. That, of course, is the doing of U.S. President Donald Trump.

His tariffs have imperilled our economic security and his desire to make Canada the 51st state has threatened our sovereignty. Together, it’s created a crisis of uncertainty that is having an outsized impact on the election.

“Trump’s intervention into the existence of Canada has really traumatized the country,” Mr. Chrétien told The Globe and Mail in an interview. “And Canadians are deciding which of the two main parties can best represent our interests and make sure we remain a completely independent country.”

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It has been two generations since Canada held an election where more than 80 per cent of the vote was cast for one of the country’s two main political parties. Current polls suggest support for the Conservatives and Liberals, when combined, is likely to breach that mark again in what many consider the most consequential election of their lifetime.

According to the latest tracking by Nanos Research for The Globe and Mail, conducted between April 15 and April 17, the Liberals have the support of 45 per cent of decided voters, while the Conservatives have 37 per cent. Meantime, the NDP are at 8 per cent, the Bloc at 6 per cent, the Greens at 3 per cent and the Peoples Party of Canada at 1 per cent.

It’s been 25 years since the NDP’s share of the popular vote was less than 10 per cent in a general election; that was in 2000 when it got 8.5 per cent. The party’s dim fortunes would appear to be the result of both a large swath of supporters deciding to vote Liberal, in response to the Trump threat – and yet other, blue-collar union types being drawn to the populist appeal of Mr. Poilievre. For the Bloc, meantime, their current polling numbers aren’t out of line with what we’ve seen the party do in recent elections dating back to 2011, a period when their share of the vote has ranged from 4.7 per cent to 7.6 per cent.

If current polling data holds and leads to the binary choice Canadians appear poised to make, it poses questions about the fate of familiar voting patterns and whether they will return once Mr. Trump is no longer around.

Then again, maybe we are witnessing something more profound and longer lasting – an outward expression of the increasing polarity in our society. Perhaps it is not absurd to ponder whether we are slowly, or even rapidly, becoming a version of our southern neighbours, who largely consider the same stark choice between two political parties come election time – with all the flaws and drawbacks inherent in that arrangement.

Maybe most importantly: If Canadians are indeed galvanizing behind the two main parties, what does that say about where we are, just over a week before the election? What will a loss for one or the other main parties mean for the unity of the country at a time when it’s needed more than ever?

The last time more than 80 per cent of Canadians voted for one of the two main parties was 1958. That year, John Diefenbaker’s Tories won a massive majority, gaining 53.7 per cent of the vote. The Liberals got 33.4 per cent. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation primarily made up the balance. In that election, the Conservatives were aided mightily by the complete collapse of another party – Social Credit – whose supporters were drawn to Mr. Diefenbaker’s popularity at the time.

Before then, one had to go back to 1930 to find a time when Canadians mostly backed two parties: the Conservatives received 48.4 per cent of the vote in that election, and the Liberals received 43.8 per cent. And 1917 was the only time when just two parties had members represented in Parliament. Robert Borden’s Unionists had 153 members elected while Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals had 82.

Mr. Chrétien remembers the big Diefenbaker win in 1958, but it didn’t have any type of long-lasting effect on voting patterns. He saw Pierre Trudeau win majorities and work through minorities. And while Mr. Chrétien himself won three straight majorities, the former PM said there’s never really been any kind of predictable pattern to Canadian politics – it’s always been a bit of a scramble.

“You can’t say what is going to happen after this,” Mr. Chrétien said. “Things change. You can’t tell what the economic situation is going to be, the political situation. Then you have personalities to consider and Canadians are moderate people by mentality. They are most often comfortable with a nondoctrinaire centrist party. It’s too early to say what this all means.”

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Jean Charest, the former Quebec premier and federal Progressive Conservative cabinet minister in the Brian Mulroney governments, thinks Mr. Trump has had an impact on this election, but not in the way most people think. He believes the President has revealed problems in this country that people hadn’t previously considered. This, in turn, is having an impact on their voting decisions.

In Quebec, for instance, he thinks many people are considering, perhaps for the first time, that “maybe we are better protected by being in Canada.”

And Mr. Charest believes Mr. Trump has forced us to confront bigger questions. “Many are now understanding that we are a country born out of two major civilizations of francophones and anglophones, who have for the most part been able to accommodate one another. Before Trump, no one was discussing this a lot inside Quebec.”

Mr. Charest said Mr. Trump has “shed light” on our defence liabilities, on our economic vulnerabilities, on our international trade shortcomings, and fostered a sense of urgency about addressing them. “And I think this partially explains why you’re seeing people coalesce around the two main parties,” he said. “This is people feeling strongly about finding the party that is best able to do something about these matters. And voting for a third party to maybe keep someone honest is a luxury we don’t have at the moment.”

Perrin Beatty, another former cabinet minister in Mr. Mulroney’s two majority governments, said he thinks the level of support the two main parties are drawing – according to polls – is a statement about what Canadians believe is the best situation in which to put the next government.

“I think most Canadians believe a majority situation is best for whomever is forming government,” Mr. Beatty said. “If you’re sitting across from Donald Trump, he knows weakness, he exploits weakness and that is why whoever is representing us needs a very solid mandate.”

That, he said, is what is playing out in the polls. “Also, a majority allows governments to think long-term,” he added. “You can address issues in meaningful ways, as opposed to putting Band-Aids on problems because you don’t have the political power to do something more long-term. And a lot of our problems are not amenable to quick fixes.”

Mr. Beatty said he also believes Canadians understand the gravity of the situation the country faces: that we must make choices and none of them are easy or without consequences. “I think people inherently understand that there is really no way out of this that doesn’t involve some degree of pain,” he said. “And it’s not going to be short-term. The fact is, Trump shattered many comfortable assumptions we had until now. We’ll never go back to where things were.”

Pollster Nik Nanos, chief data scientist at Nanos Research, says this is one of the more fascinating elections he’s followed. Yes, Mr. Trump looms large over much of it. But it’s noteworthy in other respects.

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Support for Mr. Poilievre and the Conservatives is mostly the result of a populist agenda and the leader’s pledges on a number of different policy fronts, including housing and crime. The level of support he currently has – around 37 per cent – would normally be enough to form government. Stephen Harper won a majority with 39 per cent of the vote in 2011. But this election is different.

The collapse of the NDP and Bloc vote has helped the Liberals to an extraordinary degree. And people are backing leader Mark Carney because his resume has convinced them he’s best able to deal with the Trump White House. So, the two leaders are not being evaluated in the same way – that is, in how they would approach a common set of issues.

That said, Mr. Nanos believes we could be “on the path” toward a more American, two-party system of government. “We’ve been adapting American-style techniques, from voter targeting and messaging to social media and all sorts of stuff like that,” Mr. Nanos said in an interview. “So it’s fair to say we’re already acting like Americans when it comes to how we’re conducting our politics.”

He doesn’t think moving to a two-party system in Canada would necessarily happen in one election, however. “We’re on a path that could lead to a two-party system, which would basically unravel 50 years or more of a multi-party structure. We’ve had decades of a multi-party reality. The parties have been splintering and remaking themselves and re-emerging as a different entity. So maybe it shouldn’t surprise us if we now enter a consolidation phase.”

He can also see both Mr. Carney and Mr. Poilievre asking for majorities in the last week of the campaign, which could solidify the vote around the two parties even more.

Of course, two-party politics is not a completely foreign concept in Canada, at least provincially – and specifically in the West.

In B.C., elections now are primarily a battle between the NDP and Conservatives (and before them, the Liberals). In Alberta, it’s the NDP versus the United Conservative Party. In Saskatchewan, it’s the Saskatchewan Party versus the NDP. In Manitoba, it’s the Progressive Conservatives against the NDP. It shouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility, therefore, that it could become a phenomenon, eventually, at the federal level.

Another feature of this campaign that has caught Mr. Nanos’s attention is the low number of undecided voters. He’s used to seeing anywhere from 10 to 15 per cent undecided 10-plus days out from the end of an election campaign. The latest Nanos tracking as of Thursday evening has the undecided vote at 7 per cent.

“So not only are we divided [between the two main parties] but we’re highly opinionated,” Mr. Nanos said. “We’re more likely to be fixed in our views and have made decisions perhaps earlier than in other elections. We’re in an election where a little more than one in 20 Canadians are truly persuadable. That’s not a lot. If only 6 per cent of Canadians are undecided it doesn’t make sense to change your strategy in the hopes of getting 4 per cent of that 6 per cent. That’s perhaps why you don’t see the front-runners changing their strategy. It’s too risky.”

Hamish Telford is an associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley. He looks at the polls coming out during this campaign and sees the results as a reflection of the burgeoning polarization in society writ large.

“We’re seeing this not just in Canada and the U.S. but across Western democracies,” Mr. Telford said in an interview. And in a polarized environment that tends to lead to binary choices – this side, that side – there is very little room for nuance.

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“I think we’re also seeing a sort of extreme case of strategic voting, and that’s related to that polarized binary choice, and in the process the lesser parties – the Greens, the NDP, the Bloc – are just getting hammered.”

This period of polarization has been coming for a while now and it’s showing no signs of slowing down, he said. It could well be with us after Mr. Trump is gone. The consequence of an extremely divided electorate, and a two-party House of Commons, is it freezes out alternative ideas.

“If the NDP fails to achieve party status [by electing 12 MPs] it will affect the impact it can have on social policies,” Mr. Telford said. “It will be weakened. Binary elections offer you Option A or Option B. Normal Canadian elections often offer the country a minority situation where the voices and opinions and policies of third parties can’t be ignored.”

But that would seem to be an outcome Canadians can live with, at least this time around. And perhaps for much longer.

Mr. Telford said there is another consequence of entering an age of polarization: it leads to a hardening of opinions by Canadians at large. You begin to see walls being constructed around people’s thoughts, which makes changing a person’s views more difficult.

“You’re seeing that now with Western separatists in the Prairies,” Mr. Telford said. “They simply don’t trust the Liberals to run the country any more. Nothing will change their minds.” A type of sclerosis sets in, which can often lead to anger and hostility, something we’re also seeing more of in our politics.

Alex Marland, professor of politics at Nova Scotia’s Acadia University, said the upcoming election could be one that fundamentally alters the multi-party system in Canada. This happens, from time to time, in countries around the world.

“Canadian political scientists classify our elections and political parties into what’s called party systems,” Mr. Marland said in an interview. “And so there are defining elections that mark the end of one party system and the start of a new one.”

Although there is not unanimity on this point, many believe the last time this happened in this country was 1993.

It wasn’t so much that the multi-party system was upended, but new political parties became a prominent part of the electoral system – one being the Bloc and the other being the Reform party. The Progressive Conservatives were reduced to two seats, which ultimately led to their demise. But it also precipitated a fundamental realignment on the conservative side of the electoral equation. Eventually, Reform would be gone and a new, stronger Conservative party would subsume other right-wing entities to become what it is today.

“So what I’m wondering,” Mr. Marland said, “is whether 2025 will be the end of the party system as we know it today? Will it produce a new normal? Or is this simply being an anomaly brought on by Trump?”

Mr. Marland is less unsure about the polarization that we see emerging in today’s politics. Technology allows political parties to bypass conventional filters like legacy media to speak to their bases directly. In this way, they get them fired up and make them feel like their opponents are the enemy, rather than simply another political institution with different ideas.

“What happens is you end up with groups of people who are very fanatical about their parties and leaders, almost to the detriment of democracy, because the ability to reach consensus becomes so, so difficult,” he said.

While the spectre of Donald Trump hangs heavily over this Canadian election, not everyone thinks this is a bad thing. Or at least, not all of the consequences are negative.

If nothing else, the U.S. President has incited many Canadians to think more deeply about their country, to ponder the questions of who we are and what do we stand for. Mr. Chrétien is working on the campaign and sometimes gives a speech in which he proposes Mr. Trump be nominated for the Order of Canada.

“Because,” Mr. Chrétien said over the phone on the road to Quebec City, “he has united Canada like never before. Even in Quebec, now they realize to keep their special identity they are much better in Canada than in a 51st state where they will not have a lot of chance to survive.”

“I think we will come out of this election stronger than ever,” he said. “I believe that.”

The poll by Nanos Research, conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV, surveyed 1,224 Canadians from April 15 to April 16. It has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Respondents were asked: “For those parties you would consider voting for federally, could you please rank your top two current local preferences?”

The full methodology for all surveys can be found at: tgam.ca/polls.