Quote:
Originally Posted by whatnext
The author makes some interesting points for those who see Freeland as the party saviour:
...Above all, a loss in the middle income inner-Toronto riding is a repudiation of both the redistributive tax measures announced in the budget and the class warfare rhetoric that Freeland has used to sell the tax hikes....
With a median household income of $70,655 — placing it smack-dab in the middle of both Ontario and the country socioeconomically — Toronto—St. Paul’s is as Main Street as it gets. The results from Monday’s byelection indicate that Freeland vastly overestimated the appetite for socking it to the rich among working class voters who are struggling to get by amidst a spiraling cost-of-living crisis.
Compounding Freeland’s problems is the fact that the (likely) losing Liberal candidate is a close ally of the flailing finance minister. Church spent three years working as a staffer under Freeland before making the jump to electoral politics, serving as her chief of staff for two of those years.
Freeland was a fixture in the riding throughout the campaign trail — calling the Conservatives “cold and cruel and small” on Monday — making the byelection loss as much hers to wear as Church’s...
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rah...iberal-no-more
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While I agree with the overall promise, I don't think this analysis is a very good assessment of St. Paul's demographics. While its median income might be right in the middle, it's anything but a middle-class riding - rather, it's quite polarized between a very wealthy eastern half, and a more working class western side. Overall, there are a pretty diverse range of neighbourhoods and communities within the district.
So, it doesn't necessarily follow that the middle or working-class
don't support redistributive tax measures - it was a close race, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Conservatives dominated the rich part while the Liberals did better in the poorer parts. It's also much more Jewish than the average riding, and so the Liberal's position on the Israel-Palestine conflict also played a uniquely outsized role.
Either way, this was supposed to be one of their safest ridings in the country. I'd still place a bet on it narrowly flipping back to the Liberals come federal election time; but it certainly demonstrates that nothing they're doing will work at this point - people are just tired of JT & the LPC.