Voting the way your parents and grandparents did is a habit that has endured through decades of provincial and federal elections in some New Brunswick communities, but this could be fading, according to a political scientist.
With boundaries redrawn for some ridings because of population changes and the large number of newcomers to the province who bring their own political views, Mario Levesque said legacy voting is no longer a sure thing.
But the change won’t happen overnight.
“This shift is going to take a long time to continually change,” said Levesque, a professor of politics and public policy at Mount Allison University in Sackville.
“So you have technology and connections, and our work patterns can change and take us outside of our riding and outside of our communities and expose us to newer ideas and newer ways of doing things. … That’s a long-term process.”
Lily Marrow will vote for the first time in a federal election when she casts a ballot April 28.
The NBCC student from Moncton said her parents used to influence her political views. That is, until she learned more on her own.
“If influence is anywhere, it’s probably me influencing my family,” the 20-year-old said. “I’m pretty strong-minded in what I know.”
Voting the way your parents and grandparents did is a habit some New Brunswick communities have kept for decades. Political scientist Mario Levesque says that could be fading. Ahead of the election, CBC New Brunswick asked voters in ridings across the southeast if their families influence their vote.
In Adrienne LeBlanc’s case, her father voted for the same party his entire life. As with many families in rural communities in the longtime Liberal riding of Beauséjour — formerly Westmorland-Kent — it was understood she would wave the same party flag.
“I think that is the way we were brought up — to follow our parents,” said LeBlanc, who lives in Cocagne, in the Beauséjour riding.
Levesque said this riding, which spans the southern part of the Acadian coastline, is likely to remain Liberal because most of the community cares about something Liberals have long defended: French-language rights.
For context, Levesque goes back to the Manitoba schools question, a political crisis that saw a series of laws abolish the teaching of French in schools in the late 1800s. It brought into question the rights of the linguistic minority into the next century.
Levesque said the Conservative-led move made lasting waves all the way to the East Coast.
“The Conservative prime ministers at the time were not willing to go and protect the francophone language outside of Quebec,” Levesque said.
“It showed that the Conservative party cannot be trusted to … protect the interest of francophones. We see this even to this day in the province of Quebec not willing to vote Conservative.”
Levesque said that once those and other historic lines are drawn, like-minded communities are acclimated to stick to the party they’ve trusted historically, despite modern issues they might also be invested in.
Federal minister and candidate Dominic LeBlanc has been MP for Beauséjour for 25 years.
LeBlanc followed the legacy of his father, Romeo LeBlanc, who represented the area from 1972 to 1984 and was a cabinet minister and later the Governor General of Canada.
in 1990, new Liberal leader Jean Chrétien won the riding in a byelection to get a seat in the House of Commons and was the MP for the area until the 1993 general election. Fernand Robichaud, who had stepped aside so Chrétien could run in a safe Liberal seat in the byelection, won the seat again in ’93.
The only exception to Liberal rule came in 1997, when the NDP’s Angela Vautour was voted in — the riding was at that time called Beauséjour-Petitcodiac.
Dominic LeBlanc is now running for re-election against Progressive Conservative Nathalie Vautour, Green candidate Josh Saddick, New Democrat Alex Gagne, People’s Party of Canada candidate Eddie Cornell and the Libertarian Party of Canada’s Donna Allen.
Younger generations with more access to information and newcomers who were not raised to be faithful to one party will inevitably change New Brunswick’s voting patterns, said Levesque.
“We know that newer people to the province, especially different ethnic minorities, tend to vote more conservative right now,” he said. “And so how is that going to impact [Moncton-Dieppe], which has attracted a lot of newcomers.”
There’s nothing wrong with following your family’s voting habits, he said, but he thinks people should not feel guilty if they do let the legacy fall.
“I think they’re making that choice of keeping the historical shackles on themselves … when there’s no need to.”
