The Fall election
season kicks off today with a provincial by-election in the
Saskatchewan riding of Saskatoon Fairview. The seat was vacated in
July when its MLA, Jennifer Campeau of the governing Saskatchewan
Party, accepted a job with a mining company in British Columbia.
Campeau was a former cabinet minister in the government of Premier
Brad Wall (who will also be resigning soon). This will be the second
provincial by-election in the province since the last provincial
election in 2016. The first by-election was held in March in
Saskatoon Meewasin, and saw the NDP's Ryan Meili win the seat which
was previously held by the Saskatchewan Party on an 11-point
two-party average swing. Saskatoon Fairview is an even lower hanging
fruit for the NDP, as Campeau won the seat in 2016 by just three
points over her New Democratic opponent (compared to the eight point
difference between the two parties in Meewasin).
The once immensely
popular conservative Saskatchewan Party government has been becoming
more and more unpopular in recent months, with polls showing them and
the NDP in a dead heat. It looks like the province may be heading
toward the urban/rural polarization last seen in the early 2000s,
which had the NDP gobble up nearly all of the urban seats and the
Saskatchewan Party win most of the rural ridings. Since Wall's first
victory in 2007, the Saskatchewan Party has been able to win ever
increasing majority governments by winning suburban seats in Regina
and Saskatoon and ridings in some of the smaller cities. Saskatoon
Fairview as one of those suburban seats the Saskatchewan Party
wrested away from the NDP.
For now, both
parties are effectively leaderless, with Wall announcing last month
his plans on resigning the province's premiership, and with the NDP
in the midst of a leadership election which will culminate next
Spring.
Profile
Saskatoon Fairview is a middle class suburban riding on the west-side
of Saskatoon. Most the riding was built up in the 1960s and 1970s
following the area being annexed by the city. It continues to grow to
this day with new developments being built in the Kensington and
Blairmore neighbourhoods. Its older, core neighbourhoods are (from
north to south) Confederation Park, Pacific Heights and Parkridge.
The riding also contains part of the Massey Place neighbourhood,
which was added to the riding before the last election after
redistribution.
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| Saskatoon MLA list since 1967 (previously Saskatoon was a multiple member seat) |
The riding is a traditional NDP seat, only voting for right wing
parties in landslide elections, specifically 1982, 2011 and 2016.
Even in 2011 and 2016 the race in Saskatoon Fairview was close, with
the Saskatchewan Party winning it by just five points and three
points respectively. With its current borders, the 2011 election
would've been just as close as in 2016 (three point difference). The
two-party swing between the elections was just 0.1% to the NDP, which
was the exact same as the province-wide swing between both elections.
The riding's main political cleavage runs down 22 Street, with the
area north of that street being more friendly to the NDP and the area
south of that street being more conservative leaning. The
socio-economic and political differences between both sides of the
street are fairly minimal, but large enough to have shown up in
recent elections due to how close they have been in the riding. Even
the last federal election was close, with my calculations showing the
NDP having narrowly won more votes in Fairview than the Conservatives
(37% to 36% respectively), with the Liberals winning 24% of the vote.
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| Results by neighbourhood (2016 provincial and 2015 federal elections) Click to enlarge |
In both the 2015 federal election and the 2016 provincial election,
both Confederation Park and Pacific Heights narrowly went NDP, while
Parkridge voted for the Conservatives and the Saskatchewan Party by
seven points and 10 points respectively. While only partly in the
riding, Massey Place is the most pro-NDP neighbourhood, perhaps owing
to the fact that it was it was in an NDP seat before being
redistributed into Saskatoon Fairview. The new Blaimore SC
development is becoming more NDP friendly as it grows, while the new
Kensington neighbourhood is attracting more conservative voters, but
was also the Liberal's best neighbourhood in both the last federal
and provincial elections.
The political difference between the northern and southern parts of
the riding is a result of its demographics. Massey Place has a median
income of $29,000 (according to the 2010 National Household Survey)
which is slightly below the provincial median, while Confederation
Park and Pacific Heights have median incomes of $30,000 and $31,000
respectively. However, Parkridge in the south of the riding has a
marginally higher median income of $34,000. Parkridge is also Whiter
than the rest of the riding; It is 75% White, while the rest of the
riding ranges from 60% to 66% White. Meanwhile, Confederation Park in
the north part of the riding is especially diverse, with Indigenous
Canadians making up 17% of the population and Filipinos making up 14%
of the population. One other difference about Parkridge is that it is
a newer neighbourhood, being built up in the 1980s and 1990s, while
the northern neighbourhoods were built in the 1960s and 1970s.
Outlook
The NDP looks to recapture this riding with their candidate, Vicki
Mowat who also ran there in 2016. She works as an executive assistant
at the University of Saskatchewan, and defeated two other candidates
for the nomination. Looking to retain the seat for the Saskatchewan
Party is school trustee Cameron Scott. The Liberals, Greens and the
somehow-not-dead-yet Progressive Conservatives are also running
candidates, but should not be a factor. Despite the fact the Liberals
got a quarter of the vote in the riding in the 2015 federal election,
their provincial counterparts are not well organized at the moment.
There have been no polls published of the by-election race, and there
has not been as much excitement as the Saskatoon Meewasin election in
the Spring. To me, this is a sign of a probable NDP victory. The
last election in Fairview may have been a close one, but it was only
won by the Saskatchewan Party because the province-wide result was a
landslide. With provincial polls suggesting the NDP is in a much
better position, they should have no problem winning the seat. We
will know for certain after polls close at 8pm (10pm Eastern).
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