A recent Angus Reid poll shows plummeting support for the federal Liberals in urban districts. In Metro Vancouver, the Liberals have fallen from the front position in 2022 to a distant third.
Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives now lead with 40 per cent popular support, the NDP are in second place with 30 per cent, and Justin Trudeau’s Liberals trail at just 21 per cent.
The same scenario is playing out across the country. In Greater Montreal, support for the Liberals has fallen by 22 points over the past two years.
In Winnipeg, Liberal support has dropped 12 points.
In June, the party lost a key Toronto riding to the Conservatives, a seat the Liberals had held for 31 years. Across Greater Toronto, Liberal support has declined by 10 points.
While health care remains a concern countrywide, the two predominant issues in urban areas are escalating crime rates and the high cost of housing.
Statistics Canada reports that Victoria’s overall crime rate (calculated as the number of incidents per 100,000 population) increased by 40 per cent between 2013 and 2023.
While not all regions have recorded increases, crime is a concern in urban areas nationwide. Car thefts, break-ins and petty vandalism are part of that larger reality.
That house prices have risen is no secret. Across the country the average cost of a house nearly doubled over the past decade.
In Victoria this year, a single detached house is selling for an average of $1.3 million. The same homes are selling for $2 million in Vancouver.
Much the same trend is seen in apartment rents. In Victoria, an apartment that rented for an average of $898 a month 10 years ago cost $1,516 in 2023, a 69 per cent hike.
Clearly, affordability has become a huge concern in urban areas. The one-time dream of owning a home is quickly disappearing, even for middle-income families.
While for lower-income families, the chance of finding an affordable rental unit has likewise declined.
While there are no easy or quick solutions to the housing crisis, the political debate has focused on one obvious factor.
Over most of the past two decades, immigration levels remained roughly constant, at around 250,000 immigrants per year. But that changed dramatically in 2022 and 2023, when the number of immigrants each year came close to 500,000.
That played a part in driving up home prices.
Neither of these issues — rising crime rates or unaffordable house prices — are solely, or even largely, the fault of the federal government.
Yet it’s an unavoidable truth that governments own whatever happens on their watch.
And the Conservatives have found it effective to blame Ottawa for being soft on crime and blind to the effects of sharply rising immigration rates.
In essence, the Conservative line of attack has been that while the prime minister focuses on style, his attention to substance is lacking.
And indeed, the impression that an affluent country like Canada cannot keep its streets safe, or its housing affordable, is indeed troubling. These are, after all, the foundations of community well-being.
The good news for the Liberals, if there is any, is that the next election might not be due for a year, and that is a long time in politics.
The bad news is that any serious attempts to address those issues this late in their term must necessarily look like too little, too late.
Perhaps the only effective solution is for Trudeau to step down. So far, he has resolutely refused to consider that option.
How much longer he can maintain that stance, however, as support for his party plummets, is open to question.
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