PEI and Green areas of strength

A friend asked me earlier why the Green Party does better in the central portion of PEI. There are many reasons for this. I thought I'd go over them in today's post.

First, note this map:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xF_wVrDqe4EFZEINoEAu5JOGTUaHiZJO&usp=sharing

Also, check some PEI soil data

http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/publications/surveys/pe/pe1b/index.html

Why does this matter?

If you dig into soil data, you'll start to see patterns. For example, areas where the soils are "harder" to farm, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palliser%27s_Triangle have had a tendency to back more right-wing candidates, as seen here https://i.imgur.com/SiFZB1O.png

This has not been examined academically, and perhaps this is over-simplified, but my theory is that if you go to work every day, that if only hard work produces results, and that hard work does produce results, you are going to be more liable to think hard work always produces results, and less liable to believe that luck and randomness play roles in success. Compare with if you farm areas with good soils, where bad harvests will be determined by weather, cop disease, infestations, and other things far more "random" than "hard work".

The areas on the PEI map at the top are areas that are still wooded. Generally this is because they are not as productive at being farmland. This is, again, an oversimplification, but it should be noted that the central portion of PEI is more productive agriculturally than the eastern or western ends.

Additionally

you can drive to Charlottetown in about an hour from most of the Island. This is not true west of Summerside. It is even worse in the western portion of Prince county (places like Tignish, Alberton, and O'Leary) where such a drive would take even longer. West Prince has its own more insular political culture from that of the Island as a whole, and while they most certainly have voted for Conservatives in the past, and even for an NDP MLA, they have historically favoured the Liberal party. Having returned 13 non-Liberal MLAs in general elections in the past 100 years vs 52 Liberals.

Kings County meanwhile, is much more "rural" than the rest of the Island on the whole and even has a noticeably lower human footprint. It is thus harder to convince those in an already "green" area, that things need to be more "green"

Lastly

Peter Bevan-Baker, the party leader, lives in this 'central region' of PEI, who has ran for the Malpeque federal riding in the past. His dental practice in Hampton is located nearly halfway between Charlottetown and Summerside on PEI's southern coast. Simple natural friend networks would mean people there know him best.

Those factors, plus the fact that the Greens have been building up their support in the area, as, in large part, the area is more easily accessible than either the west or the east (due to literally being centrally located) help explain why rural areas between Charlottetown and Summerside support the Green Party more than those areas on the fringes.



Why are the Greens so strong in Charlottetown and Summerside?

That's a much simpler question to answer; urban voters, and their typical preference for progressive style policies. If anyone is going to give change a chance, it will be voters in urban areas.