Many longstanding Liberal partisans appear to be planning a ticker tape parade to celebrate the huge majority that awaits the Carney government the next time it faces the electorate. Their overweening confidence may be premature to say the least. In their ecstasy about the huge lead that Carney and the party currently hold in public opinion polls, these Liberals blithely ignore – or are unaware of — several inconvenient truths that political scientists who follow electoral politics in Canada know only too well. Truths such as “a week is a long time in politics”, or “never take your base for granted.” In Mr. Carney’s case, a huge part of that Liberal base is the progressives within and outside his party. Nothing could be clearer than the need for his government’s ‘business Liberals’ to keep the large ‘social Liberal’ progressive wing of the party happy, or at least under control, to say nothing of their need to continue to attract the other progressive source of votes, those former NDP supporters who flocked to the Liberals in the last election.
The Carney Liberals do have a huge lead over their nearest challenger, the Conservatives, at the moment. Even better, the deeply unpopular Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, is the Liberals’ biggest ace in the hole. Meanwhile the NDP, which often splits the progressive vote and costs the Liberals many a seat, literally disintegrated during the last election. Having recently chosen an extremely problematic new leader in Avi Lewis, the NDP also does not appear likely to turn their fortunes around any time soon.
But time is on the side of the opposition parties. The ambitious agenda Mr. Carney has outlined will take years, not months, to really bear fruit, while Canadians continue to be pre-occupied with more immediate concerns like jobs and the cost of living. For those issues he has little to offer, and the longer he is in charge the more this inconvenient fact will sink in with those voters of all political persuasions who are enthusiastically supporting him now.
Even more reason, then, to steer clear of doing any damage to bedrock progressive concerns such as social programs and environmental protection in order to avoid upsetting those supporters when promoting the new and improved Liberal approach to economic restructuring. Yet, as not only academic experts but many prominent commentators in the media are now highlighting, this has not been the case. On the contrary, it seems as if the Carney Liberals are casually taking the progressive vote for granted.
Veteran journalist Susan Delacourt of the Toronto Star makes this point explicitly in a recent article, “Mark Carney’s Rightward Shift Makes Room for the New Democrats.”[i] Interestingly, her views are echoed by none other than economic policy columnist Tony Keller in the Globe and Mail, not someone who would normally see eye to eye with Delacourt. Keller focuses on the risk the Carney government is taking with its convoluted attempts to attract investment to the oil industry by removing many environmental guidelines, while offering a modest sop to progressives in the form of watered-down emission targets. “The promise of low-carbon oil production is probably a political necessity”, he writes, because “without it the Liberal electoral coalition would fall apart.” At the same time, however, he notes that “investing billions of dollars in new oil sands production, while holding on to progressive voters…won’t be easy,”[ii] because most progressives will not be fooled by Carney’s attempt to portray the government’s oil industry policies as environmentally responsible.
Meanwhile political commentator Althea Raj has stated that “one thing is clear from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s economic update this week – it’s that he’s taking progressive voters for granted.”[iii] Raj has outlined just how deep the cuts to many social programs will be if the Liberals’ spring budget update is implemented without any changes. And here too, like Keller on the environment, she highlights the government’s effort to convince voters black is white. “The government is protecting the essential social programs that give Canadians a fair chance to get ahead – childare, dental care and pharmacare,” the update states. But the reality is quite different, as Raj relentlessly points out. There is in fact “no new money for childcare”, despite the fact the program is frozen at less than half its intended objective. “Health care is being drastically cut”, she notes, while the completion of the national pharmacare plan promised by Carney in September will now be halted at the three provinces that currently have signed deals. Meanwhile “the federal government is also slashing billions from health care” including a decision not to renew annual transfers to the provinces for long term care, mental health and addiction services, while the Canada Health Transfer will see its annual scheduled increase reduced from 5 percent to 3 percent by 2028.
Raj, too, recognizes that the Liberals are hugely popular at the moment. But she cautions that their support comes disproportionally from women, who pay attention to social program issues, and concludes “the Liberals would be wise to remember…it is progressives that helped them win the last election.”[iv]
So why is the Carney government taking this political risk? First, because they think progressives have nowhere else to go. Left-leaning Liberal supporters will obviously not vote for the Poilievre Conservatives, they say, so there is nothing to worry about. But this ignores the very real scenario that has occurred several times in the past, where disenchanted progressive Liberals, unhappy with their own leader or party positions, but unwilling to go anywhere else, simply sat on their hands and did not vote at all. Experts can outline in detail the significant number of times this has happened in the past several decades, and the unfortunate consequences this has always had for the Liberals, who have lost many seats by narrow margins when this progressive vote stayed home, allowing the Conservatives to win by default.
Then there is the Conservative leadership issue. As long as Poilievre is in charge, (and he has just won a resounding vote of confidence at a leadership review) they reason that the hugely popular Mark Carney has absolutely nothing to worry about. Yet the longer the Liberals are in office, the more likely it is that even the most diehard Poilievre supporters will recognize they have no chance with him at the helm and will start to look elsewhere. Depending on who they pick to replace him, this could spell major trouble for the Liberals. An actual Progressive Conservative leader could even conceivably try to outflank Carney on the left.
Even more likely is the fact that many traditional NDP supporters who went to the Libs last time will refuse to do so again. New leader Avi Lewis is clearly far too extreme to be taken seriously, but frustrated NDP progressives may well decide to park their vote with his party because they think the Liberals are just another conservative party, a point Poilievre has inadvertently helped by insisting the Liberals have stolen most of his platform planks. If even some of this return to the NDP fold happens, the progressives will split the vote in many ridings and the Conservatives will come up the middle to win many close contests.
While there is very little positive that can be said about the last Progressive Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney, there is one thing he knew for sure, and it kept him and his party in power for ten years. “You dance with the ones that brung you.”
[i] https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/mark-carneys-rightward-shift-makes-room-for-the-battered-new-democrats/article_ac0eb556-d932-4a98-920a-2208142e6773.html?source=newsletter&utm_content=a01&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=369C527D09B473134EFE83E4A9A2FB6D&utm_campaign=top_36236
[ii] “Canada Should Maximize Returns from the Oil Sector. Why is this Controversial?” Globe and Mail. May 21, 2026.
[iii]https://click.thestar.com/t?r=37&c=35227&l=184&ctl=4017B:E4CEC6A0CE6B9667A66D4EAE10B15D4267ADE39EE60F83FA&utm_email=369C527D09B473134EFE83E4A9A2FB6D&utm_campaign=pol_35227
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[iv]<https://click.thestar.com/t?r=37&c=35227&l=184&ctl=4017B:E4CEC6A0CE6B9667A66D4EAE10B15D4267ADE39EE60F83FA&utm_email=369C527D09B473134EFE83E4A9A2FB6D&utm_campaign=pol_35227
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