Say hello to new Conservative Canada

An interesting poll, analyzing Canadians' political leanings, shows that Canadians, for the first time, are more "small c-conservative" than "small-l liberal".

In one round of polling in 2006, Graves measured 34 per cent who called themselves liberal and 23 per cent who called themselves conservative, while 39 per cent said they were neither. Earlier this year the number who identified with neither camp was up two points to 41 per cent, the conservative group was up five points to 28 per cent , and the liberal number down 10 points to 24 per cent.

It has also established that there

is a steady, marked shift in Canadians' political identification from liberal to conservative. That's obviously bad news for the federal Liberals. The other trend looks less menacing: the emergence of two broad cohorts of under-40 voters, one broadly left-leaning, the other more conservative. Since they're about the same size they should more or less balance out. Except both of these groups of younger voters have their own generational quirks, and so far Stephen Harper's Conservatives have had better luck reaching out to "their" young voters than the post-Paul Martin Liberals have to "theirs."

The poll also identifies a new group of young conservatives called "Continental Conservatives", defined by a high level of optimism and economic security.

It should be noted that the labels "small-c conservative" and "small-l liberal" are not necessarily attached to or associated with the eponymous political parties. In fact, for example, small-l liberal does not necessarily translate to voting for the Liberal Party, just as small-c conservative does not constitute an automatic vote for the Conservative Party.

Just recently, I read an article (sorry, no link or source – I read so much that I can't even recall the publication that printed that particular article) that observed a busy flow of traffic between the former Reform Party and the NDP. That is to say, when the Reform Party ceased to exist, many of its voters and supporters went straight to the NDP, bypassing the new Conservative party as well as the Liberals.

One source also describes movement in the opposite direction, with NDPers jumping on the Reform bandwagon when the party was still around.

So, while it is extremely positive to see Canadians (finally) moving towards small-c conservatism, Harper and his Conservatives should not feel too confident over these numbers, because they will not necessarily result in Conservative votes – in many, if not most, aspects, the Conservative Party is not really a small-c conservative party (e.g., government spending, Big Government, taxes, etc.). This upward trend will produce some increase in votes for the Conservative Party, but many of the small-c conservative votes will just as likely go to the Liberals and even the NDP (as well as the Green Party).

But the odds for Harper and the Conservative Party to benefit from this new trend are still better than those the Liberals are facing, for the small-l liberal vote will mostly go to the NDP and Greens, with some also, of course, to the Liberals. In other words, the pool of potential Liberal voters is becoming smaller and smaller, while the Conservatives' "catchment area" is growing.

Interesting times, interesting times ...