Battle for Victoria pits national trends against local dynamics

Justin Trudeau’s 2015 red wave wasn’t strong enough to win Victoria, but Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s could be. 

If polling projections hold, the battle for Victoria in this federal election could end with the NDP losing its seat for the first time in nearly 20 years, reflecting the stunning Liberal surge of this election in microcosm. 

“British Columbia, I think so far, is the biggest enigma of this campaign because it's basically where we saw the biggest change,” Philippe Fournier, editor-in-chief of 338Canada, told Canada’s National Observer in an interview. In the last election, Liberals had 27 per cent of the vote in BC and won 15 seats, and are now poised to have 40 per cent of the vote.

On Wednesday, using existing polls, electoral history and demographic data, 338Canada projected the Liberal Party had an 81 per cent chance to win the seat, compared to just 19 per cent for the NDP. 

"So that's a massive increase in support — especially considering there are many regions in BC where the Liberals are nowhere to be found.”

Fournier said because Liberals are typically not competitive in BC’s interior or in Northern Vancouver Island, the dramatic surge in support is more likely to be found in places like Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria. He explained that 338Canada used demographic data across BC to identify potential Liberal voters, in combination with national polling data, to better understand how voter preferences are shifting. 

He said the NDP has polled better in recent days, but with about half the support the party had in the province last election, it will be a steep road to recover. However, an important caveat is that without specific local polling data, it’s difficult to predict with a high degree of confidence what could happen in Victoria, specifically. 

“There's always uncertainty in local dynamics that we miss in the modelling — and NDPers will remind you of that all the time … they have a point that we miss local dynamics,” he said. “It's just that strong local dynamics are the exception, not the rule.”

The national trend is clear. Since Justin Trudeau announced he would step down as prime minister and US President Donald Trump launched a trade war, support for the Liberals has skyrocketed, while it has almost entirely collapsed for the NDP. 

Fournier said pollsters began to see the trend at the end of January when politicians responded to Trump’s tariff and annexation threats. Trudeau said Canada wouldn’t stand for it, while Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s first response was to blame the Liberals for it, he said. Despite Poilievre changing his message to stand firmer against Trump, it was likely too late for the public. 

“A lot of voters were turned off by this, because we saw the numbers change at that point,” Fournier said. As for what happened to the NDP, he said that its leader, Jagmeet Singh, doesn’t enjoy great support from the public, and has perhaps, “overstayed his welcome.” 

“It was easier for NDP voters to say, 'You know what, we'll lend our votes to the Liberals this once,'” he said.

Local dynamics

Both the Liberal and NDP candidates for the Victoria riding have made climate change a major priority. 

Canada’s National Observer interviewed the two candidates, and while they represent parties with separate visions for the country, both spoke similarly of what their priorities would be if elected. Both described enthusiasm for their campaigns, acknowledged the Trump threat will likely mean a difficult few years ahead, and said if elected, they would push for stronger climate action from the government. 

Laurel Collins, the NDP’s environment critic, has held the seat since 2019, and says her party is focused on holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for its emissions and “corporate greed.” She said the government should be helping people cut their emissions and lowering their costs in an affordability crisis, but instead, Liberals have been focused on supporting oil and gas companies making record profits. 

“Those are the wrong priorities, and we know we can't trust Liberals to take on corporate greed, we know we can't trust the Liberals to stand up to oil and gas companies who are scaling back their climate commitments and increasing emissions while other sectors are reducing their emissions,” she said. 

Despite projections suggesting Liberals are likely to win in Victoria, Collins’ pitch to voters is that for nearly two decades, it has been the NDP defeating Conservatives in the riding. 

“People here are worried about what Pierre Poilievre would mean for our country, for health care, for the climate, for reconciliation, for the things that matter most to our community,” she said. “When you send New Democrats to Ottawa, you get someone who is going to fight for our communities but also deliver.”

For Collins, one of the most significant files she’s influenced is the country’s phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and international public financing. For years, the country handed billions of dollars to fossil fuel companies overseas and was one of the worst offenders. From 2018 to 2020, Canada provided more than any other country in the G20. 

“In the last Parliament, I led the negotiations on eliminating international fossil fuel subsidies,” she said. “This is something the Liberals would not have done if we didn't have New Democrats there pushing.”

Over in the red corner, Will Greaves is a first-time candidate. He is an associate professor at the University of Victoria with a focus on international relations, Arctic policies and climate change. He said he threw his hat in the ring to push harder on climate policies, and it’s been a major focus of his campaign. 

“Folks have concerns about lots of different things — housing, affordability, Donald Trump and the tariff war — but this is a region of the country that is acutely aware of climate change and climate-related hazards,” he said. 

“We've experienced them, we will continue to experience them going forward, and it's something that progressive voters, in particular, do really want assurances that climate won't be ignored or overlooked in the context of a campaign that has focused a lot on economic issues on the one hand, and I think questions of leadership and values on the other.”

Greaves said last year he hit a breaking point with the trajectory the country appeared to be on when Poilievre was riding 20 points ahead of the Liberals. 

“I thought that would be a really damaging outcome for the country, but I was really frustrated that in my own community of Victoria there wasn't a strong progressive alternative to the NDP,” he said. “Although there are some good things I could say about the NDP as well, both historically and in recent times, they're not able to contribute effective policy solutions because they don't form government.”

He said after nearly 20 years of the NDP representing the riding, there are longstanding, chronic challenges in the community, such as housing, mental health and addiction, that haven’t been adequately addressed and he wants to offer voters an alternative. 

Voters head to the polls April 28.