Big Movements Beat Petty Politics

At the start of this week, the word from Ottawa's talking heads was that we were in for two more weeks of trench warfare: that none of Canada's political parties had any hope of moving the current polls or seat counts more than a couple of inches, and thus we could expect the campaign to get dirtier and less relevant as everybody struggled for marginal gains.

Fortunately, they've been proven wrong as to whether or not anything could change meaningfully. And it's well worth noting why.

Take, for example, the news surrounding star NDP candidate Francoise Boivin in Gatineau over the last week.

At the start of the week, Boivin found herself both publicly outed and smeared in the press - presumably the result of an opponent deciding that in what figured to be a close riding race, a misinformation campaign could well be enough to keep the seat in somebody else's hands.

Then, something happened.

The NDP started gaining momentum in Quebec, rising from the low 20s to the mid-20s to 36% in CROP's poll. And with those rising numbers, the situation in Gatineau also figures to have changed radically. One local poll taken some time ago showed Boivin ahead by a relatively small margin, but with the NDP's province-wide gains the seat looks to be on the verge of turning into a lock for Boivin. Which is why she found herself introducing the campaign's most exciting rally yet today - while her opponents have to be close to figuring their chances are evaporating.

And so, the effect of a positive province-wide movement looks to be dwarfing the damage done by dirtiest smear anybody has suffered so far this campaign.

So far, the phenomenon looks to be limited to Quebec. But for those lamenting the state of politics elsewhere in Canada, the answer looks to be much the same: a strong movement behind a party which is genuinely committed to positive change can overwhelm the marginal gains possible in a petty model of politics.

Now, the question is whether the NDP's momentum within Quebec will spread further - at best taking it into government, or offering the possibility a sharply increased seat total and/or official opposition status. Which would result in a radical realignment in Canadian politics on two fronts.

Yes, it would be a major gain for the NDP in the competition among parties. But equally significant would be the takeaway that it's worth a political party's time and effort to work on building mass movements, rather than merely sniping for swing votes on the margins. And the better the NDP is able to do at the polls by going big, the more that lesson figures to resonate in the rest of Canada's political scene.