By Promit Mukherjee and Rod Nickel
VICTORIA, British Columbia (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, riding high in polls, looked for support on Wednesday in British Columbia, one of a few fiercely competitive areas that will help determine the outcome of Monday’s national election.
Carney’s Liberals are leading in the most populous provinces of Ontario and Quebec, after running a campaign focused on countering U.S. President Donald Trump, while the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, dominate the Prairie provinces.
British Columbia’s 43 electoral districts, on the other hand, are among the country’s most closely contested battlegrounds.
"B.C. is important in a way that’s kind of similar to the 905, in Ontario, and it’s no accident that the leaders are spending time out here this week," said Richard Johnston, a retired political science professor at University of British Columbia. The 905 refers to the greater Toronto area.
Johnston added that the larger number of districts in Ontario and Quebec makes those provinces the most critical to winning the election. B.C.’s Lower Mainland and parts of the two larger provinces could determine whether Carney wins a majority government or one that relies on other parties to govern, said Johnston, who doubts the Conservatives’ chances of winning.
"I’m asking you to vote with me for positive reasons, regardless of which party you voted for in the past," Carney told a crowd in Victoria, a part of B.C. where the New Democrats have traditionally been strongest.
The Conservatives’ tough on crime message appeals to some in British Columbia, which saw rising voter concerns about crime and public safety in last year’s provincial election, including the province’s pilot project to allow open use of some illegal drugs.
Poilievre was in southern Ontario on Wednesday, where he thanked the Toronto Police Association for its endorsement and announced a plan to dismantle tent cities.
A rolling three-day Nanos poll released on Tuesday put the Liberals at 44.1% public support nationally, with the Conservatives at 38.5%. The left-leaning New Democrats trailed at 7.7%.
If repeated on election day, the Liberals would cap a dramatic comeback and secure a majority of the House of Commons’ 343 seats. The Nanos poll of 1,313 people was carried out from April 20 to 22 and is considered accurate to within 2.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The poll placed the Liberals and Conservatives even in B.C. support.
The decline of support for the third-place NDP could benefit both the Conservatives where they are competitive, such as on Vancouver Island, and the Liberals, in Vancouver’s eastern and southeastern suburbs, Johnston said.
"What’s interesting about B.C. is that it’s the most difficult province to understand in terms of the polls, of how we’ve converged on sort of a statistical tie between the Conservatives and Liberals," said Sanjay Jeram, senior lecturer in political science at Simon Fraser University.
"We also see a lot of toss-up ridings."
British Columbians, like Canadians broadly, have focused on worries about Trump’s tariffs and threats of annexation, Jeram said.