By Populist Demand

On the surface, the 2021 federal election changed almost nothing. Going into that contest, the Liberals and Conservatives held 155 and 119 seats, respectively. Coming out, they had 160 and 119. Justin Trudeau started the campaign with a minority government, and he finished with a minority government. Each party’s share of the popular vote barely budged from its numbers in the previous election. A pandemic had upended every facet of Canadian life, but federal politics ended up right where it had been. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

As it turns out, though, 2021 did break new ground. Shortly after election night, a team of researchers reported that the split between urban and rural Canada was, at least by one measure, larger than ever before. Using their own yardstick of “urbanity”— a metric that includes more than simple population density — David Armstrong and Zack...