In B.C.'s Nanaimo—Ladysmith riding, a rare four-way race takes shape

NANAIMO, B.C. — In a Vancouver Island city best known for a three-tiered dessert bar that bears its name, three progressive campaigns are similarly sandwiched together, with each vying to be the “anybody but Conservative” vote. But unlike the ooey-gooey custard filling at the centre of a Nanaimo bar, Nanaimo—Ladysmith’s three-layered progressive logjam is filled only with anxiety and dread. “Nanaimo—Ladysmith is definitely a bit of an anomaly,” said Bruce Cameron, a pollster based in Vancouver Island. Aggregator 338Canada shows the riding’s Liberal, NDP and Green campaigns in a virtual dead-heat, with about 20 per cent of the vote apiece , which may present a path to victory for Conservative candidate Tamara Kronis. Cameron said on Wednesday that he’s wary of these numbers, but agrees that the strength of the riding’s NDP and Green candidates — incumbent Lisa Marie Barron and ex-MP Paul Manly — makes each a factor in the riding, despite both federal and provincial polls showing a two-horse race between the Liberals and Conservatives. “Lisa Marie (Barron) and Paul (Manly) are both seasoned campaigners who know how to build an effective ground game,” said Cameron. “So I guess the big question is, does ground game matter anymore in elections? I tend to think it does.” There are noticeably more green and orange signs — and, for that matter, Conservative blue ones — along Nanaimo’s main thoroughfare than red ones, indicating that Liberal candidate Michelle Corfield has some catching up to do in terms of visibility. Interestingly, the same four candidates squared off in a tight 2021 race. Just over 2,000 votes separated the top three finishers, with Barron narrowly edging out Kronis and Manly. Corfield finished well behind, raking in a still respectable 13 per cent of the vote. Nanaimo—Ladysmith was the last riding called in the country, with a final count released two days after election night. Cameron says he expects to see Corfield get a substantial boost the time around, with the campaign dominated by the threat of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and economic aggression toward Canada. “Since the start of the campaign, Liberal, NDP and Green voters have been almost entirely focused on the Trump threat, and who’s the best prime minister to deal with that,” said Cameron. “And on that question, Carney is well ahead of the other leaders.” Cameron said that, even with the advantage of incumbency, it will be hard for Barron to swim against the national tide of the NDP bleeding support to the Liberals. “All the polls, and I’ve watched them religiously every day, are indicating that support for (the NDP) is melting away… They’re down below 9 per cent nationally.” Barron, for her part, points to longer historical trends. “Nanaimo-Ladysmith traditionally swings between orange and blue. The last time we had a Liberal MP was in the 1940s,” Barron told the National Post on Wednesday. Barron also pointed out that she’s undefeated in the riding, while the Liberal and Green nominees have both lost multiple times. “The current Liberal candidate is running for the seat for the fourth consecutive time, and in each prior race, she never attained more than 14 per cent of the vote. The current Green party candidate is also running for a fourth time.” “(I)n the critical 2025 race, it’s clear in Nanaimo-Ladysmith we vote NDP to stop the Conservatives.” Manly says that Barron is wrong, and he has the data to prove it. “The polls we’ve done shows that I am the strategic vote here,” says Manly, speaking from his campaign office near the city’s waterfront on Monday. Manly says that while the last two internal polls he ran, including one just before the late March election call, both show him running in second behind Kronis, a big challenge he’s already facing is convincing potential supporters not to put too much stock in poll aggregators like 338Canada. “It’s just getting people to understand that 338 is not a poll. It’s a prediction, based on an algorithm, based on a national poll,” said Manly. Manly, who first won the seat in a May 2019 byelection, said that 338 also undercounted his support in that fall’s federal election, where he won by an 8.5 point margin. He lost the seat in 2021 but was elected to Nanaimo’s city council in 2022 with the most votes of any candidate in the race. Manly said that the NDP doesn’t deserve the support of the city’s voters, after failing to deliver on climate change, affordability and electoral reform, despite being given a seat at the governing table by the Trudeau Liberals. “The confidence and supply agreement didn’t mention climate change. It didn’t mention a fair taxation system and it didn’t mention proportional representation,” said Manly. “What we need is good strong voices in the House of Commons, for opposition to hold the government to account (and) be the conscience of Parliament,” he added. Corfield told the National Post Thursday that the voters of Nanaimo deserved more than a voice of dissent in the halls of government. “This election isn’t about protest. It’s about solutions — especially on housing, health care, and forestry,” said Corfield. “I’m running to get things done for the people who live here, not just make a point in Ottawa.” Kronis said that it isn’t just the split on the centre-left that’s given her the inside lane, but also the fact that the Conservatives are attuned to concerns in Nanaimo, and growing cities like it, about public safety and the cost of living. “What I’m hearing at the doors is that people just feel that they can’t afford a fourth Liberal term of rising costs and crime,” said Kronis on Monday. “It’s pretty much as simple as that.” Nanaimo has been one of Western Canada’s fastest-growing cities in recent years, hitting 100,000 residents for the first time in the 2021 census . It’s also feeling some major growing pains. StatsCan pegged Nanaimo as Canada’s sixth-worst municipality for crime severity in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, citing increases in property crimes like shoplifting and auto theft. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre notably visited Nanaimo in the campaign’s opening days to roll out his tough-on-crime platform, announcing life sentences for aggravated human and gun trafficking convictions. Nanaimo has also been hit hard by the opioid crisis, seeing a 400 per cent increase in overdose deaths between 2019 and 2023. Kronis said that Poilievre’s promise last week to fund 50,000 residential treatment spaces , if he becomes prime minister, was well-received in the community. “Our announcement of 50,000 new recovery spaces has spread like wildfire across the community,” said Kronis. “(People) are particularly happy that we’re focused on recovery, and finding a balance with enforcement and prevention.” “They want to be compassionate, but also practical.” National Post rmohamed@postmedia.com Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.