Scrimshaw Spotlight: Nepean On My Mind
How The Seat Next Door Shows The PCs Path To Opposition
The first draft of this column – or, more accurately, the version I was writing in my head earlier – started with me talking about my lack of affection for places, and how I don’t really care for my hometown because of that lack of affection. The only problem is, that’s hilarious hogwash, as anyone who has ever heard me talk about Montreal would know. What it actually is is that I have no affection for Ottawa, and would much rather consider myself a son of my Montreal roots, and not the city that I’ve called home my entire life.
I say all this because in some ways, the most interesting seat in the Ontario election this spring is in my hometown, but it’s not just hometown bias or wanting it to be the case that makes me say it, it’s the fact that if Doug Ford loses Nepean, his government is for sure dead and buried. The Liberals can, with the NDP, deprive the PCs of majority government, but if the Liberals can win Nepean, then the Liberals will be having a very, very good night – and it’s the perfect seat to tell us about the rest of the province.
An old-city suburb, Nepean wasn’t added to the City of Ottawa in the Harris amalgamations like Kanata was, but it was still in the suburbs of the city – and most known to the denizens both downtown and further west for the hockey arena that would frequently host local tournaments. At the risk of being crass, there’s not a lot happening in Nepean (not that I’d say there’s much happening in Kanata, either) – the quirky neighbourhoods like Hintonburg are in Joel Harden’s domain of Ottawa Centre, and even the interesting, quaint Italian heavy areas are mostly in next door Ottawa West-Nepean, leaving a fairly non-descript suburb with a sports complex across from a school that hasn’t had students since 1999 as one of the main attractions.
The story of the riding is simple, and it’s the story of the suburbs generally. It’s a seat where Lisa MacLeod only did 2% better in 2018 than the 2014 notional result on the new lines on the same day the Tories went up 9% province wide. It’s a seat that the Liberals hold federally, and it’s a seat where the Liberals should be targeting hard this time – both for the added seat to their tally, but also because getting rid of MacLeod would be the kind of cherry on top of a victory that makes the victory so much sweeter. A bumbling incompetent, MacLeod should lose in any just result, but whether she will or not is entirely unclear right now.
My forecast has her winning by 2% as of right now, but that forecast is based on a polling average that still includes the December Leger poll where the PCs were at 38%, so if you were to reweight it, maybe she’s down a bit. It’s a fluid situation and it will change as the polls do, whether the polls get better for the PCs or worse from here. An NDP surge would also hurt the Liberal chances by more evenly splitting the anti-PC vote, but if you think I’m treating that as more than a banal curiosity right now, you haven’t been reading the work I’ve been putting out on the NDP.
Can the Liberals win it? They can, if they can ride the suburban realignment to their benefit. Unlike Kanata-Carleton, which stubbornly has Carp and the variety of population west out to Arnprior, this seat has none of that, making it a better pickup opportunity for the Liberals. Throw in the fact that MacLeod is a visible opponent, and the Liberals have a real and credible chance here in a way I honestly didn’t think they would when I started digging into the Ontario data.
Will the Liberals win it? That’s a harder question, but one where I’m pretty sure my answer. Yes, they will. The Tories are going to lose voters at this election, but they will lose many less in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke or Essex than they will in Nepean or Eglinton-Lawrence, because they will do relatively better with non-degree holding cultural conservatives than they will with well-off white social liberals. Hell, I’d bet a much more substantial amount of money than I should on the fact that the change in PC vote in Niagara Centre will be substantially different than in St. Catherines, one seat north. It’s how realignments work.
Here the realignment helps the Liberals, because the Tories will be much more on the nose for their problems in Nepean, and running a nurse is a pretty good strategy. I have no idea whether their candidate will actually be able to hold up to scrutiny in a campaign, but he’s facing a Conservative with no limit to her baggage, and he will be able to run the classic Liberal squeeze campaign on the NDP. Think it can’t be done just because the party came 3rd last time? It happened in 2015 in St. Catherines, a seat similar in many ways to Nepean. The NDP aren’t going to win Nepean, and the usual pattern of these kinds of situations is the NDP vote falls enough to let the Liberals win.
The last time I spent any real time in the seat was when I was in high school, because the abandoned high school opposite the hockey rink was where Ottawa would run their city championships for Reach For The Top, and in what will be a total shock to anyone who’s ever read anything I’ve ever written, I was the anchor of the team. I remember those days fondly, but what I really remember were the times I called my shot on an answer and was rewarded for it. In the same spirit of the day I ran over to the hockey rink to buy a hamburger between games, and then ate it as we won, I’m here to call my shot again.
Lisa MacLeod’s gonna lose, and the Liberals will flip Nepean, and the province, as a consequence.