HOW DID THE CONSERVATIVES LOSE?
David Parker
I spent most of today relaxing with family after paying far too much attention to polling and election news over the past ten days. Yet, I haven’t been able to shake the urge to write. To mark, in some small way, the significance of what just happened—and why it happened. How has Canada become a nation so comfortable with continuing down a path of decline? Is it all Donald Trump’s fault, or is there more to blame? How do we explain the most dramatic and rapid collapse in political momentum in Canadian history? The questions keep coming—and they don’t stop coming.
There is no single explanation. The more you understand a topic, the more you realize that causes are multivariate. You can’t reduce something as complex as an election to one factor. For instance, many people take credit for Danielle Smith’s narrow victory over Rachel Notley in 2023. Some have even built their entire identity around being the reason she won. The truth is, thousands o…
