I am going to be presenting some new research at conference this week . It will show that an 'ordered/authoritarian " outlook was the strongest predictor of voting Conservative last month. It will also show that this is a new phenomenon in Canada

In a multiple regression the impact of an index based on child-rearing preferences was by far the strongest predictor of voting CPC and it also explained shifts across progressive and conservative voters. Relatively less 'ordered' conservative voters from 2015 went LPC

One of the most striking findings is that the effects of being in Alberta and Sask. became insignificant in a logistic regression predicting Conservative vote once the open-ordered index was entered into the model . This is very interesting in my opinion

Suggests that the current tensions between Alta. /Sask and federalism are not 'western alienation' but rather an expression of ordered populist outlook . The same index predicted CPC vote in other regions and regional effects became insignificant when it was in entered in model

The research suggests that this poorly understood force may be at the heart of much of the heightened polarization we see in Canada today and this mimics patterns evident in the USA and elsewhere (with some notable differences in our northern populism )