Blunt Objects

Angus Reid Poll of BC: 42-28-19

2012-02-01T18:15:00.001-05:00

As this Globe and Mail article points out (with a few inaccuracies, like 28% being the "lowest" poll number for the BC Liberals since Clark took office - that's actually 23%), this Angus Reid poll isn't good news for Premier Clark, who is now not only facing a vote split with the BC Conservatives lead by former MP John Cummins, but also the fact that NDP leader Adrian Dix now outpaces her on the "best Premier" question, and other approval/disapproval indicators.

Topline numbers, as said, are:

42% BC NDP
28% BC Liberal
19% BC Conservative
10% Green

In terms of seats, this would allow Dix a healthy majority government of 57 seats, compared to 16 seats for the Liberals and 10 for the Conservatives, plus two independents.

26% prefer Dix as Premier, compared to 22% for Clark and 8% for Cummins. In terms of approval/disapproval, it's 45/36 for Dix, 40/49 for Clark, 23/39 for Cummins.

That right there is actually good news for Clark - Cummins himself is unpopular in most respects, maybe thanks to their attempts to define him as a dangerous right-wing nutter, or just because he is a dangerous right-wing nutter. Either way, it leads to the conclusion that the BC Con vote is probably squishy, and that voters responding to these surveys are likely parking their votes with the Cons because of disenfranchisement with the Liberals. They could, however, easily come back in the right circumstances.

The biggest issues with BC voters are the economy (27% have it first in their minds) and healthcare (21%). Voters essentially trust both Clark and Dix with the economy, while Dix romps away with healthcare (33% to 20%). Take that as you will.

Something to note is the slight rise of the Green Party. From May to November, they were between 6-9%. Now they've been between 9-16%. Granted this has only been in a few polls, but it could be a sign of... something. I don't know what, but it's worth keeping an eye on. Green leader Jane Sterk isn't exactly popular, so its not her.

Oh Raj Sherman, Stop Trying to Get Into the News

2012-02-01T11:22:00.002-05:00

Attacking the federal Liberals and Bob Rae over the Northern Gateway Pipeline is not how you'll boost your poll numbers. You're flogging a dead horse, my friend.

And this comes from someone who agrees with you on the matter.

Oh, and media... seriously? Why do you even report this? If it's never been clear in the last three-to-four decades of its existence, the Alberta Liberals are not affiliated with the federal Party. This is far from the first or the last or even the most serious disagreement. 'Tis not newsworthy unless you're ignorant of politics in this country, or looking for a story to sensationalize. I'm guessing a mix of both...

CAQ Momentum Falling?

2012-01-30T16:06:00.000-05:00

While it's not a totally established trend yet, it appears that the Coalition pour l'Avenir du Québec and it's leader François Legault are facing an increasing downward trend in Quebec's provincial polling:

Three polls out in January all give he CAQ below 33% of the vote, with the Parti libéral and the Parti Québécois at varying levels, but all higher than before. Québec Solidaire is also seeing a slight rise.

This is down quite a bit from the previous year's polling, which usually put the CAQ above at least 34% of the vote. It's even more when you consider that the combined CAQ and ADQ polling of September to November 2011 amounted to over 40% of the decided vote.

Unfortunately, the polls done so far are only Léger and CROP polling. But they're out at regular enough intervals to give us a good view of the situation in Quebec. Both are usually reliable so we'll continue on with this.

This comes in the wake of the ADQ merger, so it's not hard to draw a correlation between that event and this apparent decline. Is it possible that Legault's new association with the old adequistes is giving the new party a smell? Or are the pequistes, who just recently had a rah-rah meeting, and les libéraux just benefitting from some wind in their sails for some reason?

Can the BC NDP Actually Win Chilliwack-Hope?

2012-01-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

According, at least, to the Globe and Mail, they've got the momentum:

For the first time in memory, political observers believe the NDP may have a chance of winning in Chilliwack. Certainly, Gwen O’Mahony, who won the nomination this weekend, will not be going into this by-election like NDP candidates have in the past. That is, with no hope.

In fact, she told party members on the weekend she is running to win. As we say, it doesn’t seem as farfetched as it once might have. There is certainly a scenario where it could happen, and if it does, it will confirm in stark terms the prevailing wisdom that the Liberal government is in big, big trouble in B.C.

Which is all true. BC's political winds are not very favourable to the Christy Clark Liberals right now, and despite an initial bump when she became Premier, it's pretty clear the Liberal's decade in power could be ending soon. This puts a riding like Chilliwack-Hope, which as you'll see just below is a moderately safe seat but could be easily prone to swings during by-elections, square in the sights of both the BC NDP, as well as the newly-invigorated BC Conservatives.

2009 Results - Chilliwack-Hope

Barry Penner (Lib) - 8,985 - 53.3%

Gwen O'Mahoney (NDP) - 5,638 - 33.4%

Hans Mulder (Con) - 1,198 - 7.1%

Guy Durnin (Grn) - 951 - 5.6%

Dorothy-Jean O'Donnell (Oth) - 93 - 0.6%

So could the NDP really win this riding? It's notoriously hard to predict how by-elections will go without proper polling, which I hope will happen, much like how they did polling in Quebec for their by-elections which were, surprisingly enough for riding-specific polls, very accurate (I have a theory about that, but I'll leave it for another time). But here's what I've got so far, first from my polling average of BC, and then with the most recent Forum poll, at the riding level for Chilliwack-Hope:

Polling Average of BC:

36% - BC Lib

30% - BC NDP

27% - BC Con

Forum Poll (Jan 23) of BC:

37% - BC Con

28% - BC NDP

28% - BC Lib

So in other words... I don't think its the NDP that should be getting the most attention. The BC Conservatives, led by former Delta MP John Cummins, is looking at a major boost, just based on the polls alone. And according to G&M, they also have a somewhat-star candidate to boot.

Now, again, don't take these numbers at face value - they're not meant for you to do so. But just based on how the polls have moved lately, sure, Adrian Dix and the NDP have a shot at the riding - but it's the Conservatives who look set to benefit the most.

In fact, my own gut feeling says that the Conservatives should actually be the favourite in this riding. I'm not kidding. Yes, there is a good chance of a vote split in the riding, but here are the facts: this is Conservative-friendly territory. The NDP have a good ground game but ideologically and historically, this is a riding that should shift to the Conservatives over the NDP, vote split be damned.

Take a trip back in time to the 1990's in this riding's predecessor (Chilliwack, which Penner used to represent before redistribution) and the point is made even clearer.

In 1991, when the NDP won government and the Liberals fought the Social Credits for the anti-Dipper vote (and won), one could assume that, based on the numbers in 1986 (59-30 split between SoCreds and Dippers, with the Libs at 8.5%), that a split in the right-wing vote would allow the NDP to ride up. Instead, in '91 the Liberals won with just under 39%, the SoCred incumbent second with 34%, and the NDP below 26%.

The next election in 1996, when the BC Lib incumbent ran as an independent and presumably would have allowed for the anti-NDP vote to split (that's generally how the NDP won the 1996 election), plus the existence of a right-wing third party called BC Reform, Barry Penner won the riding with 37.9%, compared to 24.9% for the NDP, 23.4% for the ex-Lib and 13.2% for Reform.

Chilliwack has never voted NDP nor has it actually come close, and this is all throughout the era of anti-NDP vote splitting between various parties, including when it first became an issue during the 1940's.

Can the NDP buck the trend? Absolutely, there's a giant opportunity for them to. But historically speaking, and even momentum-wise, I'm going to say that the NDP aren't going to win. If anything, it'll either continue BC Liberal or, more likely, it'll become the first Conservative riding since 1979.

Next I'll give a look at the Port Moody-Coquitlam riding, also up for a by-election soon.

ONDP Attacks!

2012-01-29T16:39:00.000-05:00

I went on to the Ontario NDP's website and on to their "Our Team" heading - essentially to see their MPPs, I wanted to look up biographical info on one of them - and my protective Firefox browser had this to say:

That's the webpage at ontariondp.com/en/about/mpps (don't go there, I've given you fair warning).

Dutifully, I got the heck out of dodge. Not because I'm worried about my computer catching something, but more because it's obviously right. I'll definitely stay away from the ONDP from now on.

Someone should really tell their webmaster that Firefox thinks they're an attack page.

Not Another Quirky Nanos Poll....

2012-01-29T14:09:00.000-05:00

I'm getting a bit sick of these odd Nanos polls which end up dropping the NDP lower than they should be and the Liberals higher than they should be.

The topline numbers are 35.7% Con, 27.6% Lib, 25.2% NDP, 5.6% Bloc, 4.5% Grn. While one could accept the Liberal result because it's more-or-less within a standard MOE's breadth of some other pollsters who peg the Liberals around 25%. However, no other recent pollster shows the NDP below 28% - yet once again, Nik Nanos and co. have pegged them there.

Now granted, the topline changes are pretty minor compared to Nanos' last numbers. But let's check this out anyways, because there's two results that show just how off the mark Nanos' numbers are this time:

Ontario: 42.1% Con, 35.1% Lib, 16.9% NDP
Quebec: 29.0% NDP, 26.5% Lib, 24.1% Bloc, 15.1% Con

The two results underlined are utterly out of whack with every other pollster in the country! Just to make the point, here's all of January's polls concerning these numbers:

There's clearly something wrong here. As I've said before, I like Nanos and he's usually accurate during elections but these numbers are too far outside the established trends, and this happens consistently with Nanos - one poll make sense, the next doesn't.

Anyways in case you're wondering, the seat totals off of this are pretty favourable to us: 128 Conservatives, 90 Liberals, 74 NDP, 15 Bloc, 1 Green. This is because of the unlikely high-and-close numbers in Quebec, and the higher numbers in Ontario. The NDP, unfortunately for them, can't retain many of their seats when they're at 29% of the vote - a lot of those seats bleed to the Bloc.

How the LPoC Can Win a Few Extra Voters of Inconsequential Value

2012-01-29T13:38:00.000-05:00

I hate to say it but I disagree with BCL over this post:

A formal ban would kill that cursed pipeline; an informal ban suggests opposition to it but plays about with semantics. Nevertheless, its a start.

Nevertheless, this should also lay down a marker for the other LPoC leadership potentials. The Libs should stand with B.C. and against Northern Gateway (and opposed to Alta., where they have no hope anyhow).

This stems from Rae saying he'd like an informal ban against tankers going up and down BC's northern coast. Then it sort of transfers over to the Northern Gateway pipeline.

I'd just like to say: BC voters and so on already have all of those qualities in the NDP, so why the heck would they want to split the vote with the LPC? Nevermind the fact that those ridings are already Conservative locks even with the NDP's stance on these issues. It won't win us many voters and it's of little strategic value overall.

Plus, and I don't know how well this will go over, it's bad policy in my opinion. You can raise legit concerns over tankers passing near the BC coast, but... meh, they've got to go somewhere.

Then again I am just a Toronto elite, so I probably shouldn't say such things without knowing what I'm really talking about on the policy front. But strategically, it's a dud. Might even allow more Cons in to be honest...

Mulcair Absent from Montréal Debate; People Realize He's on to Something

2012-01-27T15:24:00.002-05:00

Because while five of the eight Dipper leadership contenders are wasting their time in a little-watched debate that no one cares about aside from their own supporters, he's out shaking hands and getting votes in the East Island. To point out, so was Paul Dewar, except in St. John's.

Seriously, the only reason Topp and co. wanted Mulcair there was to throw a few barbs his way by attacking the "right-wing government" of Jean Charest (which Mulcair was a minister in). That's about the extent of the interest I think anyone had in the debate. To see that little spark.

These debates are stale, they're full of utter agreement, they're boring and there's too many of them. Lord knows I agree with the concept that the more the voters get to see of your candidate, the better the chance of getting your message across, but this is ridiculous. Who watches these things? I don't anymore.

Western Polls Gone Wild

2012-01-26T16:49:00.003-05:00

Three polls of the two largest Western provinces have come out this week - one for BC, two for Alberta; two done by Forum, one done by Léger - showing different fates for everyone involved right now.

One poll I already covered, and then argued with David Climenhaga over. Now there's two other polls to come out that are worth covering.

First, let's look at an Alberta poll done by Léger Marketing, which showed the following results:

53% PC

16% Wildrose

13% NDP

11% Liberal

2% Alberta Party

This kind of low Opposition vote allows for an amusing vote split in terms of seats. With this poll (87-seat legislature) I'd get 79 PC, 5 NDP, 3 Wildrose. That's right - an NDP Official Opposition with 13% of the vote. That's because they're all concentrated in Edmonton.

This is in contrast to Forum's poll of Alberta, which gave the Wildrosers 20 seats on 29% of the vote, and the PCs 57 seats on 38% of the vote. It's a big difference but unfortunately, we can't know who is right - Forum or Leger - until we see more polls come out. Both Leger and Forum have good track records in other provinces and federally, so it's tough to make the call. We'll see.

Speaking of Forum, their poll in BC showed the following:

39% BC NDP

26% BC Liberal

22% BC Conservative

9% Green

Fairly different from Forum's December poll of the province, which showed 34-23-23-15. So what's really happened here is the collapse of the Green vote, and minute shifts between the Libs and Cons. Anyways the seat results would be 57 NDP, 13 Lib, 13 Cons, 2 Independents.

Now, I'm still considering Forum's results in BC a bit of an outlier (which is not the situation in Alberta, at least not yet). There's been more polls out at regular intervals - though not like it is federally. I'm not going to get ahead of myself on that, and Forum could be right. There is, after all, a lot of lashing out against the Clark government.

Overall, however, these polls show steady trends - BC Liberal drop, BC Con gain, BC NDP steady; PC gain, Wildrose second, NDP steady at high end of what they'll get under Mason, ALP dying off.

Abacus Poll: 37-28-21, and the "Bump"

2012-01-25T20:58:00.001-05:00

Too many polls have come out this week, and I hope this will be the last one (oh, who am I kidding?).

Abacus Data shows an overhyped, within-the-margin-of-error rise for the Liberals that the Globe and Mail, in all its glory, is trying to make into a big story. Meanwhile, they decide not too pay attention to the fact that Abacus' Liberal poll results are below the most recent average, which shows the Liberals closer to 25%, not 21%, as I explained just before... oh nevermind.

In fairness, Abacus as I've seen tends to dumb down the Liberals a tad (it's part of my paranoia over online pollsters), so the three-point rise probably represents Abacus' answer to the "Liberal bump," which arguably has been occurring since mid-December or so (though one can also make that the four polls out in January, all post-convention, represent their own "bump"). Just like how EKOS' and Harris-Decima's super low Conservative numbers represent that party's decline trend.

Anyways, the topline seat numbers are 146 Cons, 98 NDP, 60 Liberals, 3 Bloc, 1 Greenie. That's not exactly fantastic, so the Globe should take a chill pill... or two, to be honest.

My one cavaet is that Abacus is showing 37% for the NDP in Quebec - which no other recent pollster, at least I think so, has shown at all. So, take that as you will.

HD Poll: 32-29-25

2012-01-25T16:26:00.001-05:00

This is the second poll now to show the federal Conservatives blow 35%, the other being the recent EKOS polling done last month, which had them at 31.4%. In fact, HD almost perfectly mirrors EKOS' 31.4-29.5-24.8 result.

What does this mean? Well... it does somewhat confirm EKOS. However, not since their poll in May of 2011 have they had the Conservatives above 34%, which is what their last polling showed. Take it as you will, but I don't think the Conservatives are as low as 32% - but there is definitely a trend to be followed.

What is confirmed, like EKOS shows, is the NDP and Liberal numbers. Nearly every poll since late September has had the NDP between 27% and 31% - or four percent, roughly an average MOE. The Liberals are a bit more erratic, but they generally settle between 20% and 25% - and recently several pollsters have given us the higher end of that scale, with four of the last five polls being close to 25%.

The topline projection is 115 Cons, 106 NDP, 81 Liberals, 6 Bloc, 1 Greenie. The NDP remain boosted for two reasons: they still hold nearly 50 seats in Quebec because of vote splitting, and they have 21 seats in BC due to HD's results there. However, it's clear that if this were the real result in a general election, who got the mandate would be muddied; it's clear the NDP and especially the Liberals pick up many Conservative seats, far outnumbering the 115 MPs they have... but the Cons still have a plurality of seats and votes. Unlike 2008, where it was clear the Conservatives received the largest and clearest mandate from voters, this is just confusing. It'd make for a stable Parliament at least (NDP-Lib wise).

For giggles, here's my rolling projection as it stands right now (including this poll):

Climenhaga's Wrong on Forum Polls

2012-01-24T13:30:00.001-05:00

This. This article by David Climenhaga on the recent Forum poll, who is an otherwise excellent writer out of Alberta, is another reason why I can't read Rabble.ca for any length of time without having a meltdown.

The entire premise by Climenhaga is that Forum's two recent polls - one in December and one out this month - are showing inconsistent results compared to the rest of Alberta's many pollsters, in mainly two ways: higher Wildrose support, and lower PC support, the latter being a special concern due to the fact that Redford should have had a honeymoon period which didn't show up in Forum's polling.

Let me dispel both of these misunderstandings right now.

Issue #1: Wildrose support too high

No. It isn't. Except for the January poll, Forum's results for the Wildrosers remain consistent with other pollsters when you allow for a margin of error and the fact that there will be about a 5% variance between pollsters. It's easy to see.

I think the fair spot to take from would be the polling done since September 2011, which is when the field for the PC leadership was fleshed out (Redford became leader on October 2nd). That gives us six polls to work with, which are the following:

As you can see, the only outlier that Forum shows is in the most recent poll. Their poll in December fit in snugly with the other four polls estimated Wildrose support. The problem Forum has now is whether or not that 29% they show this time will be confirmed by other pollsters. And frankly, 29% to my personally seems like a reasonable level of support.

So this sarcastic comment by Climenhaga - "Forum got it right and was simply the first to pick up on a dramatic developing trend of growing support for the Wildrose Party that appeared in December..." - is based on a misconception, since Forum did not show any "dramatically developing trend" of WRP support in December.

Only in January has WRP support peaked far above the other pollsters, and it's too early to say whether its an outlier or growing trend. However, it is dishonest to question Forum's result on the basis of supposedly outlier results in their December poll, which is simply not true.

Issue #2: PC Support is too low, other pollsters have it higher

In this respect, Climenhaga is indirectly right - 38% is on the low end of the scale for PC results since September, which usually have the PCs above 40%. However, it also isn't necessarily an outlier result; given the margin of error (MOE) in both polls, the PCs could truly be above 40%, just on the low end of the scale. So this argument, while slightly valid, is still not entirely sound.

But that's not exactly what Climenhaga said. This is what he said - "There's something wrong with Forum's sample that is producing wildly different results from those of most other polling companies, which have put support for Redford and the Conservatives at around 50 per cent or better." - which, unless Climenhaga has access to polls I don't (entirely possible, but unlikely) is just not true.

There's two ways to tackle this. One, there's just the raw numbers - only one pollster shows the PCs above 50% (Environics), and a second comes close with 48% and with the MOE could reach 50% or more (Lethbridge). The other two pollsters are below 45%, and Forum is below 40%. While saying "half of the pollsters show the PCs high" is a valid argument, we come to the second way to tackle it.

There's only six polls to chose from, and they're spread across six months! While it's one thing to say that pollsters show different results from other pollsters, the fact is that six polls - four polls, really, minus Forum's - spread across month-long periods is not a healthy base to compare to. There simply isn't enough up-to-date data to formulate specific trends on. You can say that Forum shows lower PC results than the other pollsters, which is true, but you have to admit two things while you say it: that some of the compared pollsters are old, and there's only four of them. Most of all, Forum is the only pollster to come out in December and January! There is no comparison to make because the other pollsters are from November and earlier. You can only speculate about a general trend, which Forum's results are perfectly normal to accept.

I do apologize for this wall of text but Climenhaga's article is just full of misconceptions and it annoys me. It's one thing to claim a pollster is showing outlier results or is a voodoo poll - I've said it a few times. But I do it on the basis of up-to-date results from other pollsters, and real proof that the numbers are truly outliers, much different from what any other pollster has shown. Most of all, I give pollsters the benefit of the doubt at first, because any poll that shows different results could be the start of a new trend.

Climenhaga, despite some of the cavaets he puts in his article, already seems set to conclude that Forum's polls are wrong. And here's this gem right here that shows you where some of the bias comes from:

If that poll's results return to the pattern of most voter intention surveys before Forum entered the field late last year, it will be strong evidence that the Conservatives are on their way to another huge majority, the NDP is the most likely party to form the opposition and that something is indeed wrong with Forum's sample.

As I have shown, Forum's polls are in line with the voter intention surveys of late last year - therefore you can't just up and conclude that another pollster which shows results similar to the other four pollsters contradicts Forum's polls. That is madness.

And what was that last part? Something about the NDP forming the Opposition? What? Only one poll - the Lethbridge College poll of October - gives the NDP enough seats to become the Official Opposition (7 compared to 3 for the WRP and 0 for the Liberals). No other poll ends up putting them in that position. And it seems, frankly, that the NDP are trending downwards anyways, whether you include Forum's polls or not.

Furthermore, Forum's results would be in line with the polling results before Stelmach resigned. That could easily point towards Redford losing her shine, though we'll see what happens. But that never gets mentioned, does it?

So that's it. I've shown and explained reasons why Climenhaga's article is a false premise and full of misconceptions. Ipso facto, I say.

New Forum Poll for Alberta

2012-01-24T12:38:00.002-05:00

The new poll done by Forum Research in the provincial scene in Alberta shows much what they did last December, with 38% PC (=), 29% Wildrose (+6), 14% Lib (+2), 13% NDP (=), and 3% Alberta Party (-3). Minor differences, all changes except one within the 3% MOE - that exception being the six-point gain for Danielle Smith and the Wildrose Party (I keep wanting to say Alliance).

Through my projections I would get 57 PCs, 20 Wildrosers, 7 NDP, and 3 Liberals (Forum's own projections showed 57-17-5-4, but that's with the current legislature - mine have the new boundaries). So, still a PC majority, but Forum is showing a trend upward for the Wildrosers.

Interestingly enough, Forum also asked whether people approved of the jobs being done by Premier Redford, WP leader Danielle Smith, and ALP leader Raj Sherman, apparently not concerned about NDP leader Brian Mason or Alberta Party leader Glenn Taylor for odd reasons that, well, we have no rhyme or reason for... but I digress. Smith is the most-approved-of leader with 40%, Redford second with 39%, and Sherman with just 24%. A bit of scrolling reveals that Redford's approval/disapproval is almost even; nearly 40% of respondents don't have an opinion of Sherman; and 27% of people don't think Danielle Smith is hot. So you can imagine how the scales tip here.

WTF Polling: Trudeau-led LPC would Tie with Cons, NDP?

2012-01-24T00:17:00.001-05:00

I heard it mentioned first in this Toronto Star article. It's apparently a poll done by a firm called Robbins SCE back in December. I remember Robbins doing a series of BC polls late last year (which were removed from Wikipedia due to not being considered a major pollster), but never heard of them outside of that province.

This poll assumed two things: that Papineau MP Justin Trudeau was the Liberal Leader, and Brian Topp was the NDP leader. And here's the results that followed:

Well that's.... not really much better than where we're currently at.

The biggest warning sign that this scenario might not be all it's cracked up to be is the result in Ontario and Quebec; while they're better than where we stand right now in general polling, it doesn't really seem like enough does it? The NDP and the Conservatives still hold wide leads in all but Atlantic Canada.

It's a bit disappointing that Trudeau gets low results in Quebec too (historically speaking). However, at least this proves that simply getting a big-ticket name to run as Liberal Leader won't do the trick either.

End of the Sovereigntist Option?

2012-01-23T20:48:00.002-05:00

Yessir I do believe it is, especially if certain allegations are proven true:

Former BQ MP Michel Guimond contends that someone close to the Bloc leaked the information.

“It has to be someone close to the party,” Mr. Guimond told Montreal radio station FM 98.5. “It is someone who wants to harm Mr. Duceppe and sabotage efforts by those who want him to become PQ Leader."

... Former PQ leader Bernard Landry will publish a letter in Quebec newspapers on Tuesday in which he is expected to question Ms. Marois’s leadership credentials.

First comes the collapse in the polls... then comes the defections... now we see the infighting coming out to the surface, in a possible career assassination from an internal source. And I can't wait to see this Landry letter.

And I agree with Michel Guimond, I feel like it's more than likely an internal leak rather than someone from the outside. Especially considering that if it was true that Duceppe put that staffer on the public dime, you don't think the federal Conservatives would've jumped on it the first chance they got?

Let me just remind you the current state of political affairs in Quebec:

Unless there is a miracle turnaround in the next year, the pequistes are done. Simple as.

Is It Just Me Or Are There a Lot of Federal Liberals in the CAQ?

2012-01-23T01:29:00.001-05:00

I don't think its just me. To date we've heard rumours of Marlene Jennings possibly running for Legault's party in the next provincial election, and someone named Dominique Anglade - who according to the G & M has "spoken" at Liberal conferences before - will be named caquiste president soon. I've also heard personal rumours that floated around the Ottawa convention and from some of my Quebec sources that quite a few federal Liberal strategists are deeply involved in the CAQ, passing completely by the Charest Liberals.

Why would this be? Is Charest truly that ba- nevermind, don't answer that question.

Two Candidates Declared For Toronto-Danforth Liberals

2012-01-22T14:21:00.004-05:00

According to the T-D Liberals, Grant Gordon and Trifon Haitas have been officially declared as candidates for the Liberal nomination in the upcoming Toronto-Danforth by-election to replace Jack Layton. They'll be going up against rookie Dipper candidate Craig Scott. 2008 and 2011 candidate Andrew Lang also seems confirmed to be running, just not officially yet.

So we know who Lang is, but who are the other two?

Trifon Haitas is the former Green candidate up in Oak Ridges-Markham who seems to have become a Liberal. He's apparently a videojournalist who runs a small A/V company. Not sure what to say beyond that, you can guess what he's all about though. Seems credible.

Grant Gordon is another local CEO according to his LinkedIn profile, again another communications company. His style to getting the nomination is... well, not very effective. Can you imagine if you put this on an actual mailout? I get the idea that you want to inject some sardonic humour into politics, but there's a line. I don't know, my personal opinion. We'll see how it plays out.

Gingrinch Just Stuck a Fork in the GOP

2012-01-22T13:57:00.004-05:00

And here's the perfect quote to explain why:

"... the Establishment will be staring down the barrel of two utterly unpalatable choices. On the one hand, Gingrich's national favorable-unfavorable ratings of 26.5 and 58.6 percent, respectively make him not just unelectable against Obama but also mean that he would likely be a ten-ton millstone around the necks of down-ballot Republican candidates across the country. And on the other, Romney has shown in two successive contests -- one in a bellwether Republican state, the other in a key swing state -- an inability to beat his deeply unpopular rival. If this scenario unfolds, the sound of GOP grandees whispering calls for a white knight... will be deafening."

Except I would take it a step farther and say that Gingrich has already proven that Romney, for better or for worse, is unable to rally voters to his cause. Despite the Gingrinch Surge 2.0, Romney should have been able to rally enough voters around him as the supposedly credible, capable candidate he says he is. Instead, he dropped below what he was polling before (above 30%) and allowed Gingrich to become the "anti-Romney" without effectively combating it. And this is with overwhelming leads in terms of organization, fundraising, and simple strategy. He's incompetent.

The two prohibitive frontrunners are now both tainted, both unpalatable, and both going to lose in the general election. The GOP is done.

Two Quick Polls

2012-01-21T14:31:00.000-05:00

The first is the somewhat talked about Forum poll which showed everyone gaining a bit after the Green collapse of the last Forum poll. Topline numbers were 35-28-25, which in the projection system gives the Conservatives 134 seats, the NDP 89, the Liberals 71, the Bloc 13, and the Greens get Lizzy May again.

The drop for the NDP comes from the fact that they're at, according to this poll, 29% in Quebec. That gives them only 32 seats, while the other parties get between 13 and 16 seats each. However, the Liberal's highish number comes from the wonky results in BC which gives them 11 seats - if you drop that down to the two they have now, the low-to-mid 60's number seems a lot more plausible.

Second poll is one done just recently in Ontario for the provincial scene, also by Forum, and we're back to the summer of Hudak Tory majorities. The topline numbers are 41% PC, 33% Liberal, 20% NDP.

However, it's a bare majority - 54 seats for the PCs, 38 for the Liberals, and 15 for the NDP. And yes, this is with the results of the October election.

The reason is because due to the failure of the PCs to break into Toronto and the Liberal entrenchment there, Hudak's party can only manage to be in contention for one seat - York Centre - and only just. That puts him at a disadvantage, so while he can win a lot of seats outside of Toronto, he won't be winning any fantastic majorities.

Even Horwath is having problems. Despite being the most-approved of leader in Ontario (40%), her party has lost some ground (MOE, but still). McGuinty (33% approval) remains in contention, because Hudak (26% approval) is very vulnerable.

Don't Understand SOPA? Listen to This

2012-01-18T17:36:00.000-05:00

A few people don't understand exactly what the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and "Protect IP" Act (PIPA) is, and why Wikipedia is unusable because of their opposition to it. Well, if you have 20 minutes free, listen to this Youtuber (TotalBiscuit), a gamer and UK law graduate, explain:

Bob Rae - the Most Approved-Of Political Leader in Canada?

2012-01-18T16:33:00.000-05:00

I kid you not. Look at this:

Rae shows surprising strength for a caretaker... With 44-per-cent approval, he eclipses the prime minister’s rating and with only 25 per cent disapproval he has some receptivity from Canadians if he should decide to throw his hat in the ring again. One striking finding for those who caution about his Ontario record as an unshakable albatross: Rae fares better in Ontario than in the rest of the country and he has a very even distribution of approval across most regions.

That is absolutely un-fucking-believable. To see all the data tables you have to scroll down a bit, but it is.... odd.

In fact, 48% of Ontarians surveyed by Ekos approve of Bob Rae. 43% of Quebeckers feel the same way. Heck, even more Albertans approve of him than they disapprove.

That's better than Harper, better than McGuinty, much better than Turmel (except in QC)... it's Raemania.

Two Polls, Two Minorities

2012-01-16T13:02:00.000-05:00

Two polls have come to my attention which show that the situation federally and possibly in Quebec is further deteriorating towards minority governments and three-way races.

First, in Quebec, the latest Leger Marketing poll shows that Francois Legault's CAQ has dropped from the high 30's to 33%, with the Parti Liberal du Quebec jumped to 27% and the Parti Quebecois jumped up to 25%.

While most polls resulted in a hefty CAQ majority, this one resulted in a CAQ minority. They would win 53 seats, the PLQ would win 38 seats, the PQ 30 seats, and the QS 4 seats. So arguably, that would be a similar result to the 2006-2011 minorities federally, where no parties that truly like each other can form a stable government, leading to what would be a case-by-case basis of governing.

Eric Grenier over at 308.com had it as 47-38-37-3, so at least its close to a professional!

As side notes, the PLQ dominates non-francophones with over two-thirds support, while the race among francophones is close, with the CAQ on 38% and the PQ on 31%. The PLQ, however, only managed 17%. Really, Charest is only keeping his spot in whatever Quebec's equivalent of the OLO is due to overwhelming support among non-francophones - kind of like the federal Liberals in Quebec.

Speaking of the federal Liberals, we're still in third place according to an Ekos poll out last month that somehow slipped under the radar. The numbers - and my fun new graphics - are as follows:

As you can see, it's pretty clear that the Conservatives are not going to govern if this were the situation. With 176 seats combined, the NDP and Liberals would easily outnumber the Conservatives - and that would transfer easily over to a 338-seat house as well.

The big problem I have with this is not necessarily the Dipper-Liberal numbers, but the Conservative number. True to form, Frank Graves' firm polls the Cons a heck of a lot lower than any other pollster currently does. This throws suspect upon at least their numbers, and also the Green numbers, considering they seem just a tad high.

However Ekos has a good track record following trends, and this drop, while a bit much for my tastes, is in line with the general drop of support shown by other pollsters.

Ottawa 2012 - We Came, We Saw, We'll Win

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

Where to begin?

For all the 3000-3500 individuals who attended this biennial convention, you really don't need much in the way of a re-telling of what happened, what we accomplished, what we lost, and how important it is. And for the 30,000-some-odd people who watched online, and the many more who watched it through CPAC, CBC, are reading it in today's and tomorrow's columns, you also don't need to really know what's happen. It's all out there, and I invite you all to judge for yourselves what we did in Ottawa.

But for a second, let me give my view. I went to the convention with two major goals in mind: get the supporters amendment passed (including the staggered vote amendment), and support the person who I thought could lead this party as its next president.

Fulfilled And Thwarted Ambitions

Starting with the presidential race, we all know by now that former LPC(O) head Mike Crawley won by a narrow margin over Sheila Copps. I half-endorsed Crawley awhile back, on the basis that his platform was absolutely astounding. However, I didn't end up voting for him; instead, I support Ron Hartling, who we have to assume came in third, though we don't know how far back. I'm still convinced that we need a "Ron Hartling Revolution," and I only regret not getting involved in his campaign earlier.

Why did I not support Crawley? The simple fact is that he has already been in a position of power - and he didn't do very well. I know some will disagree, but the fact is that the evidence of our decline, of his management of that decline, is out there, for everyone to see. On that basis I couldn't support him.

But as I said before, he has a good platform. And we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. But we must keep him accountable. And furthermore, we must ensure all the presidential candidates - especially Ron Hartling - stay involved to provide balanced, nuanced leadership. This party is based on co-operation and collaboration, not unilateral decision making.

Speaking of, the other positions up for grabs this convention - the National Membership Chair, National Policy Chair, VPs for Francophone and Anglophone, and so on - I'm glad to say went very well for me. I'm glad to see Matt Certosimo, Chris MacInnes, and Imran Ahmad (though I didn't vote for him) all win their respective races.

I was not, however, pleased to see Zach Paikin lose to Maryanne Kampouris in the race for Policy Chair. We had a great opportunity to elect someone young and new to this party's executive, and goes to show that the old line still holds strong in this Party. But, c'est la vie. Next time Zach, next time.

Supporters, Primaries, and Pot

I'll try not to go too far into this, but thank God we passed the supporters amendment, and with a very healthy majority.

However, two key things did not get passed - supporters cannot vote in candidate nominations, and we are not doing what is called "staged" or staggered voting - and those things I think reflect the cautious streak of the party.

Nevermind the fact that both passed with majorities - they didn't reach the 66.6% threshold needed. But after some vicious attacks against the initial ideas of supporters, then against letting them vote in leadership races, those amendments passed. But I believe people wanted to both have protection in their local ridings, and not change to the supposedly "American" primary system because of various reasons which I had to argue against, including that it's not just Canadian enough (lol).

However, other major steps forward passed include a policy resolution on preferential ballot; a "recommendation" to the incoming Board of Directors and the Leader to allow open nominations including against incumbents; and of course, marijuana legalization, which Bob Rae seemingly endorsed during the convention closing speech.

Overall, the main move towards progress was passed - we now have supporters. And with other amazing ideas, I believe we've proven that we're being bold, exactly what we needed to do. We didn't get everything, but we damn well got a lot more than you'd expect from the supposedly demolished Liberal Party.

And in case he ever reads this, I want to say that without Alf Apps, this wouldn't have been possible. We all have our qualms with him, but after May he buckled down with the rest of the executive and got to work, producing that fantastic Roadmap - most of which passed - and bringing forward substantive, meaningful change to the Party. I salute you, Alf - we need more people like you around.

The Future is Bright

I believe that this convention proves one simple fact: Liberals are refusing to go down without a fight. I'm not going to say that this will solve all our problems, or that it'll even succeed, but I am glad to see we've at least taken the risk.

The tides of opportunity were high at this convention, as they have been for so many others. But this time, instead of standing and just letting the water lap at our feet as the opportunity ebbed away, we took the full plunge into the water and we did something. I haven't been a Liberal for long, but I've been one long enough to know that this doesn't happen often. I think we've done something important, and now it just requires action to follow our words.

This is why in my own riding of Burlington, with my executive and my friends, I'm going to ensure that this supporters amendment doesn't go to waste. I plan on thinking up fantastic, creative, and new ways to spread our message to this whole new world we've opened for ourselves. I implore every single Liberal to do the same, not just at a later date when the LPC finalized the logistics, but now. Start getting names, start brainstorming ideas, and start kicking this Party into gear. Don't let what we did at this convention go to waste, or else the tide is simply going to go out again, and the Liberals will another decade in the wilderness.

#Ott12 Post - Impressions of the Mood in Ottawa

2012-01-13T18:12:00.001-05:00

Hello fellow Liberals! After being among my own kind for a day and a bit now, I feel fully indoctrinated! Love for all! Let's create universal childcare! Let's create sustainability! I love Bob Rae!

The convention - my first, so everyone knows - is an interesting experience, and if anyone is involved in politics in whatever party, I recommend going to this gathering of like-minded and sometimes opposing individuals and groups. As a delegate, I get fawned over as well for votes and support (little do they know I just want to know where their hospitality suite is). Watch it all live here.

As a Liberal, I'm impressed by the numbers and by the passion of everyone here. Everyone has an idea, everyone seems willing to discuss those ideas, and best of all, everyone appears to listen. They may not agree, but they'll listen, and that's better than nothing. It's a great sight to see all these people from walks of life way outside my own come together and discuss how to reinvigorate the Liberal Party of Canada. And Bob Rae's speech wasn't that bad either.

However, as a change-oriented, primary-favouring, supporter-tier-loving Liberal, I'm a bit disheartened. I was sitting today in two q-and-a sessions on the Roadmap to Renewal, the set of amendments and clauses put forward by the National Executive, which takes the party towards the now-infamous "members" and "supporters" system, as well as the staged "primary" vote, and other important changes.

The amount of criticism from old party stalwarts - former MP Maria Minna one of the loudest - over this idea of "supporters" is just insane. Alf Apps has done a great job defending it so far, and honestly, I wish he was this stoked about changing the party and improving it when he first got the job, because the man as he is now would be my choice for President. Honestly, he has done amazing work and I commend him for it.

But a good portion of the party is against it. I'm a bit worried about the prospects of the supporters system going through - but we'll see. I'm going to try my best to change some minds in the meantime.

The "Critics Corner," where Liberal critics discussed issues and told delegates what they were doing in Ottawa, was consistently packed. I'm very impressed by the level of engagement here by convention-goers. I look forward to tomorrow, when even more of these sessions go on, and we get down to the nitty-gritty of constitutional plenaries and delegate discussions.

As Bob Rae said during his speech - there is no way this Party is dead.

Shorter Bob Rae

2012-01-11T19:49:00.001-05:00

I think this government sucks and the government I ran, which most people think sucked, doesn't suck as bad as this one does.

I kid, of course. His speech was actually very worthwhile to listen to and I enjoyed every moment of it. I have conflicted feelings over Rae - we've experienced his time in office, that experience is a liability, and frankly I don't want a coronation. On the other hand, the man really does deserve our support. He has steadied this ship and shown he can run the Liberals without total destruction.

Now, you can put this down to a number of factors, a majority of them not being of Rae's doing, but rather because of the political climate and, overall, the fact that the Conservatives aren't willing to pull out the rug until we have a permanent leader. After all, despite all the hints that Rae may run, and the clearing of the way for him to run by Alf Apps, he is still an interim leader and there is no guarantee he'll actually run. While the Cons have loads of money, there's no reason to waste it on the uncertainty that is Rae.

But, regardless, he's a good leader. I say he should run - just step down sooner rather than later as interim leader. If he doesn't, then we're just repeating history.

Alberta in 2012

2012-01-10T16:47:00.000-05:00

Following my Quebec projection a couple days ago, I thought I'd throw out my current projection for the province of Alberta, given that it is most definitely going to have an election called this year.

So as you can see, it's an easy PC victory under new Premier Alison Redford. 72 seats by sweeping every region, with only Edmonton, as per usual, being he largest concentration of the Opposition vote.

This as well at only 44% of the vote, down nearly 10% from 2008 when Ed Stelmach won the same number of seats. However, Alberta has new districts and my projection takes all of that into account, including in the map to the right here. Still, it's an overwhelming majority.

The Official Opposition is formed by Danielle Smith's Wildrose Party with 7 seats, all but one based in rural Alberta. Smith, according to my projection, is unable to win her own chosen seat of Highwood, while only two of the current four MLAs are defeated (Paul Hinman and Rob Anderson survive). They're so low because polls have only given the Wildrosers roughly 20% of the vote, which simply isn't enough to take them far against the PCs, even when they're below 50% of the vote.

The third party is, once again, the NDP, but with five seats instead of their current two. All of them are in Edmonton, and all of them were close seats in 2008 - Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood, Edmonton-Strathcona (they hold these seats), Edmonton-Beverley-Clearview (37% in 2008), Edmonton-Calder (31% in 2008), and Edmonton-Centre (19% in 2008). This is all won on just 13% of the vote.

The Liberals, who meanwhile still have 17% of the vote, drop down to 3 seats from the current eight they hold, all of them marginal. It's safe to say that the Liberals are in deep trouble in this province, and have to turn around their position in the polls if they expect to keep any seats come the election this year.

Did Warren Kinsella Just Shoot Our Foot?

2012-01-09T10:47:00.002-05:00

I like Kinsella on a general scale, but if you need proof that the man operates outside the bounds of normal, sane practices that will help the Liberals in the longer term, look no further than his website and his quoted bit in a Hill Times article:

Warren Kinsella, a Liberal pundit, was less optimistic about the outcome of the convention, however. “I think a lot of people hope it’ll help renew the party, but I’m skeptical as to whether that’ll happen. I’ve been hearing about renewal in the LPC since I was in diapers, but I wish them luck,” he told The Hill Times in an email last week.

.... "Crawley is the unilingual Turner-Martin guy, and Copps is the multilingual Trudeau-Chrétien person. That’s why it’s attracting a lot of attention, at least among Liberals,” said Mr. Kinsella, a former adviser to Mr. Chrétien and a former Cabinet ministerial staffer. “If Crawley wins, it’ll signal a return of many of the folks who consigned us to opposition status in the first place. But don’t take that to mean I support Copps holus-bolus: her statements about Rae and the leadership have done her a lot of damage, and she was wrong to say what she said. If she loses, it’ll be because of that"

Oh for the love of God... can't once in this goddamn party we don't have these stalking ghosts of Liberal past coming back to maliciously dump a truckload into the machinery? Just once?!?

I'm aware, sort of, of the ties of each of the various candidates to before-my-era party leaders, but I didn't make my decision based on that, I did it based on merit. I was attracted to the race because it was a race of IDEAS and ABILITIES and EXPERIENCE, not who threw who's mud during the effing 1980's and 1990's.

Sigh.

Quebec a la post-2011 and Equipe Autonomiste

2012-01-08T16:36:00.001-05:00

Here at Blunt Objects we seek to provide lovely graphics wherever possible, such as now. Here's what I've culminated so far for Quebec's rapidly changing political environment (which now includes yet ANOTHER party, which I'll get to in a bit here).

Here's where the parties stand at right now:

You can click on the map to the right to see how crazy the CAQ wave sweeps over almost every part of the province - 10 times the current seats they have (if you include the ADQ rump).

The major area the caquistes and Francois Legault have trouble in is Montreal, the ADQ's 2007 problem area as well. They manage to win one seat on the island - Bourget, due to a funny vote split and just barely - though they are in contention to take several of the Laval ridings, as the ADQ was also during their wave in '07. The Liberals really do have a lock on both the allophone and anglophone vote in Montreal, which makes it a nearly impenetrable fortress for a somewhat-sovereigntist right-wing party like the CAQ.

However, it seems Legault is actively trying to solve that problem, shown by the attempted recruitment of former Notre-Dame-de-Grace--Lachine MP Marlene Jennings.

The CAQ claims nearly all of the north and south shore ridings around Montreal; Montégérie and Estrie; and of course, the Beauce and a good chunk of the Québec CMA. This easily cobbles together a coalition of voters that, frankly, resembles the Bloc's pattern federally before their crash.

The PQ, meanwhile, are being nicely minced down to nothingness except really the East Island. However, they face competition from Quebec Solidaire there. Really, at these levels the PQ would be lucky to win any seats at all. For the pequistes to be viable, they need to be above at least 25%, and the closer to 30% the better.

In my opinion, I may give the Liberals a bit too much credit - unfortunately, the bounce between CROP's high-20's and Leger's low-20's for the PLQ kind of throws muck into the system a bit, so they retain a bit more support than they really should (though 29% is still horrible). However, even at just 25% of the vote, they retain 25 seats. I think its safe to say that the Liberals are still slated as the, erm, "main opposition" to a Francois Legault government. Ironic considering their current majority situation, no?

Anyways, on to slightly more interesting news - another new party! Wow, that's what, the third, not counting the dozens of minor parties still floating about?

This time it's a party calling itself "Equipe Autonomiste," and is apparently started by a disgruntled adequiste EDA president, who doesn't like Legault's coalition. Fair enough, really. I actually expected this to happen, or at least for this tiny rump to move to the Liberals. It won't gain any traction, and it won't gum up the works too much, though could play an important spoiler vote if it received enough support (1-3%, just the same as Option Nationale would). It's fun to watch the breakdown of these electoral coalitions though, no?

Zach Paikin - the Evil Conservative Conspiracist Of Evil

2012-01-08T05:30:00.000-05:00

That's right, folks - Zach Paikin, who is running to become the LPC's national policy chair, is a closet conservative! At least, according to fellow Liblogger Happy Wanderer and Max Naylor.

Now, this feud is what caused Bob Rae's "BS" tweet earlier last month. And it's true, it is bullshit. It's utter, utter, bullshit.

Is Zach Paikin a far right-winger? Probably not. If Naylor or HW believe he is, they've clearly never met one. He has a hawkish foreign policy stance and he probably tilts to the right a tad, but so what? He's not necessarily wrong on every count and if he can justify is reasons with fact-based and reasoned evidence, unlike most right-wingers, then why do we go after him and judge him as "not a Liberal?"

I joined the Liberal Party because I see a party devoted not just to the respectable ideology of liberalism, but because more than the Cons and Dips, we take in evidence and pragmatic reasoning into account. We're the party of intellect because we believe in looking at the facts and then reacting, not just being reactionary or revolutionary as a permanent state of being.

I say if Zach Paikin bases his opinions as I hope the rest of us free-thinking individuals do, I couldn't give a rat's ass what he believes. If he's open to consultation, open to new ideas, open to changing his tract, and open to moving forward, that's good enough for me. Believe what you will, just don't deny the facts, I say.

I see no evidence that Paikin doesn't do this. I've met him. He's intelligent, he's reasonable, and he's open. He wouldn't get the endorsement of someone like Irwin Cotler or Marc Garneau otherwise. Stop with the ideological bickering - we're not those other two parties. If Zach offers solutions, it's good enough for me, and it should be good enough for the rest of us.

Ron Hartling and Mike Crawley - My Choices for LPC President

2012-01-07T10:00:00.000-05:00

With the Biennial Convention rapidly approaching, I've had to narrow down the field for the Liberal presidents. There are five outstanding candidates - former cabinet member and local gal Sheila Copps, former LPC(O) President Mike Crawley, Kingston and the Islands president Ron Hartling, former MP Alexandra Mendès, and Charles Ward. Each of them has good ideas and I'd be comfortable with any of them as President. However, I did have to narrow the field down quite a bit.

Ron Hartling, the association president for Kingston and the Islands, which had the great distinction of being one of two ridings in the country we managed to get a rookie candidate elected, especially hard considering the loss of Peter Milliken and, as often happens in these incumbent-held ridings, a dormant EDA. He has cut his chops on the ground, showing that he can organize, strategize, and win. In other words, he just isn't about saying the right words - he took action, and was successful. I respect that, and we need someone like him running this party.

Mike Crawley, the former Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario) president, has shown great enthusiasm for the job he's running for, and it shows in his platform. He has been in this party for a long time, and he's been involved in not just the grander governance of Ontario, but also the Young Liberals, which I believe is key experience as we move towards rebuilding. He has the charisma, the passion, and the ideas. That's what we need as well.

If I could combine them both into "Miron Hartley," I would. Both are impressive, intelligent candidates, and most of all, they espouse the change of direction we need more than any of the other candidates. They both propose greater inclusion, greater accountability, and greater priority towards communications and reshaping the current top-down structure of LPC governance. They both have platforms detailing those changes, and they're impressive, to say the least.

I suppose my biggest problems lay with Crawley - as LPC(O) president, I haven't seen the benefits of his time in charge, not really. Our provincial wing is horribly top-down and that is his legacy more than any others. The only reason I've chosen him as one of two possible presidents is because of the strength of his ideas. Otherwise, Hartling, who doesn't have that associated baggage, would be my premier choice. Come the convention, he may end up still being so.

But I would be impressed with these two gentlemen as President more than I would be with either Copps, Mendés, or Ward. I would suggest all invested readers of this blog to consider one of these two individuals to lead the party as we enter the renewal period. See for yourselves, I've provided all candidate websites - no others really compete, in my opinion. Mike and Ron have what it takes, and both of them deserve the job.

Quickie BC projection

2012-01-07T03:50:00.002-05:00

Teddy here. I've been working on an updated projection table for British Columbia, using data from past provincial elections where a party has existed to the right of the BCLiberals. I'd like some feedback on the projection that I have here, in map form.

Note that I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to use federal results as a guideline. I'm curious if anyone has any input, suggestions, or ideas, so that by the time of the BC Election we can present you with the most accurate projections possible.

And so the Primaries Idea Goes Out With a Whimper

2012-01-06T19:15:00.001-05:00

That makes me sad. I was looking forward to voting in the primaries-style system that was proposed before. Is is so wrong to move towards a system that, yes, is driven a lot by media attention, but is utterly more interesting than the races we have up here? There's a reason why time and time again, primaries in the United States among both Democrats and Republicans help winnow down the field, toss out those with no chance, and do select qualified candidates for the nomination. (And yes, I even include George W. in this group.)

It was interesting and I liked it. But, c'est la vie.

What's replaced it is something spuriously similar to what the Conservatives currently use. Allow me to copypasta it here:

for each electoral district, the first preference votes recorded in favour of leadership contestants on the ballots cast by the supporters of the Party who live in that electoral district are counted and then the 100 points allocated to the electoral district are allocated to each leadership contestant on the basis of the ratio the number of the first preference votes received by that leadership contestant bears to the total number of votes counted;

Not only is it similar, it is, in fact, the same thing the Conservatives use, with a few tweaks here and there. I have no general problem with it - it does the job, after all - but now the "official" course has not only moved away from the primaries but also from OMOV. If we keep this up, soon we'll be deciding by coin flip.

The benefits of this? Well, Westerners and Quebeckers will get a bigger say. However, to me it offers up the chance for greater abuse than a primary system would allow. As I said, I have no general issue with the system, I just think they need to really watch who is organizing what.

Not very clear on the timing either. Is it by stages or is it all at once? HuffPo says stages, but I can't find reference to it in the document. Ah well.

The Monarchy Question as a Novelty

2012-01-06T13:38:00.002-05:00

The media is a bit abuzz over the proposed resolution proposed by the Young Liberals coming up this January at the Biennial Convention to sever Canada's ties with the monarchy.

Now, this is mostly an abstract question because, let's face it, the monarchy is never a big part of our lives. Most Canadians either don't care or don't invest too much of their time in the antiquated traditions of our political system relating back to the authority of the British Crown. Unlike similar countries to ours, such as Australia, none of our major political parties since the early 20th Century has invested itself in the question of whether or not our ties to the monarchy should stay. Indeed, in Australia all major parties - Labor, the Liberal/National Coalition, and the Greens - have either the entire party or influential figures within the party supporting republicanism, which culminated in the 1999 referendum. It's somewhat similar in close-by New Zealand.

In Canada, we've done some polling on the subject. The HuffPo article even points towards an Angus Reid poll which stated that some third of Canadians feel we should sever ties to the monarchy (58% disagree), granted just on the even of the visit by William and Kate. The better question (in my opinion) is whether to replace the positions of Governor General and so, which the split is 40% agree and 48% disagree.

But even so, 44% of respondents to that poll stated they were "indifferent." And here we come up against a wall as we move towards this resolution. Not only does it seem that, in general, mostly Canadians are against the proposed change, but that right now they don't really care.

The question for Liberals is, are we prepared to draw attention to the issue of the monarchy, by which if that resolution passed we'd probably be on the wrong side of the tracks at the outset, and potentially make ourselves vulnerable? In other words, is it really something that we want to present to Canadians, wake them up on the issue, and face a probable blow back as people who may otherwise consider voting Liberal decide not to because we inexplicably became anti-monarchists?

Don't get me wrong, I think there is a debate worth having on the issue. I'm more or less a status-quo, as most Canadians seem to be. But is it worth the risk to throw the issue out at Canadians when they don't care? We can't become a novelty party, like the Bloc and its separatism. And this, frankly, is just a novelty issue in our political system.

Canada at the End of 2011

2012-01-05T14:07:00.000-05:00

We saw quite a lot of shifts this year, and I opted against doing a full polling round-up federally for 2011 since, frankly, it's been done to death and there are a lot of polls to input. If I had that sort of time, I would. However, I will be doing trend lines from this point onward, to be included soon fully on this blog which you can view and I'll update regularly.

However, here's where we stand at the end of 2011:

So by the end of the year, the Conservatives have, at least according to pollsters, lost their majority government in the 308-seat House of Commons. The NDP, as well, have lost some seats. That makes the Liberals the, erm, "big winners," though being stuck in third isn't much of a win in the larger context of things, is it?

Most of the drop has come from the shifts in Ontario, with the Liberals climbing up to 29% and the Cons dropping to just below 40%. However, the NDP have mostly stayed where they were back in May.

Quebec is slightly more interesting, with the NDP dropping 6% or so since May. Most of that has benefitted the Conservatives and Liberals, while the Bloc gain a seat though drop a tiny bit below their May mark.

The western provinces are more or less static. Continued domination of the Conservatives in Alberta and the Prairies (though the NDP "win" seats in Saskatchewan in my projection), and a healthy level of support in BC ahead of the Dippers keeps most of their seats their safe. The Liberals have seen very slight improvement but they always do between elections.

Atlantic Canada is both the wonkiest and the closest race. Polls consistently show a close race between all three parties, though it's closer between the Conservatives and NDP. The Liberals remain steady at 29% while the NDP and Conservatives swap some percentage points, but really it seems the benefit the Liberals more at this point, as they're better positioned in certain close races to take advantage of a split.

Overall however, the fact remains that the Conservatives maintain a lock on at least a plurality of votes and seats. That's a powerful argument for continued governance, no matter what you or I think, and it shows that they're continuing to outmaneuver the Opposition. And I suspect it'll be this way for a long while yet, folks.

Civil Libertarian MP Peter Goldring

2012-01-03T14:32:00.003-05:00

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but he was elected as a Conservative, not a Civil Libertarian, right? While I know its essentially just another label for an "independent MP," it's still highly amusing.

What isn't highly amusing is drunk driving, and then blatantly refusing to take the breathilizer test. Goldring says he doesn't want to do it because it goes against his civil liberties.

Maybe someone should ask Peter Goldring, the "Civil Libertarian," why he should be allowed to violate the civil liberties of others on the road who don't wish to be killed by his reckless actions.

The guy is a joke, and he needs to be gone next election, no matter his affiliation. Simple as.

Proof That Iggy Deserved Better

2012-01-01T12:07:00.002-05:00

The man chided as aloof, elitist, and "unCanadian" wrote a beautiful article that summed up what's going on in our recession wrecked world, how inequality is continuing to spread even if we rich Canadians don't see or feel it, and why politics must change.

Read for yourself, and tell me that Michael Ignatieff wouldn't have made an awesome Prime Minister. Better than what we currently have and, yes, even better than Salesman Jack, may his soul rest in peace.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T00:14:00.003-05:00

We here at Blunt Objects wish you and yours a happy new year, 2012. Here are some things to look forward to in the new year.

Minority in Ontario.
Minorities mean that an election can be called at any time, but probably wont. Expect to see frequent speculation in the media about weather or not we are about to head into an election. So far both opposition parties have shown no desire to trigger one, and personally, I don't see that changing for the spring, and likely, also the fall.

Fun in Quebec.
Hard to describe what's going in Quebec, chaotic perhaps, but fun for us politics watchers. Will there be an election? It's possible, but I have my doubts that Charest would take the plunge while in second place in the polls. There is always the chance that the CAQ, bolstered by a merger with the ADQ, could steal a few MNA's from the PLQ, and if they take enough, they could force the government into a minority situation. Would the official opposition, with polls saying they would lose the overwhelming majority of their seats, back such a move? The ADQ did in 2007, so anything is possible.

Alberta Election.
Alison Redford is running for Premier sometime between March 1st and May 31st. This is a job she already has, but she wants to win it in a general election for the first time. Her main opponent is Danielle Smith from Wildrose, who takes a much more right-wing and lean government approach compared to Redford's truly progressive conservatism. The Liberals in the province are in some trouble sadly. Redford, in any other province, would be a Liberal, and fighting such a challenge will not be easy.

Other Possibilities.
Harper's majority was seen as the end of excitement from Ottawa by some, but scandals have bridged the gap to the NDP leadership race, and if Harper keeps to his patterns, there will be some more unexpected controversy to discuss between the end of the NDP race and the Liberal race in '13. In addition, there is the (very small) chance of an election in BC (unlikely given the polls), and a (very) slightly higher chance of an election in Nova Scotia. I personally am keeping on eye on the latter, as Dexter's numbers have been trending up, and if I was Dexter, I'd go sooner rather than later.

Bob Rae and "Iffy Questions"

2011-12-31T16:28:00.000-05:00

I can't believe that anyone fell for it when he said he wasn't going to run, and now its come back pretty definitively in this Globe article:

“Now you’re asking what President [Franklin] Roosevelt used to call iffy questions,” said Mr. Rae at a news conference Friday. “And I don’t answer iffy questions."

Granted, he says he is committed to the rules as they were stated by the National Executive back in May when he was chosen as the interim successor to Iggy. And you know what, I believe that if those rules were in place after the selection of a new president in January, I think he'll likely stick to them.

But, there seems to me little guarantee those rules will be in place. Both main contenders for the presidency I've seen - Sheila Copps and Ron Hartling - have stated they'll allow Rae to run if he wants to. The difference being, Copps says so unconditionally (as far as I can tell, I'm happy to be contradicted on it) while Hartling, with a good head on his shoulders, says he would need to declare his intentions and step down from the interim leadership.

I have no problem with the latter, and a big problem with the former, but whatever happens, happens. I simply feel justified knowing deep down, he wasn't going to give up the chance at the crown if he didn't have to.

Is This Actually BC? Part Deux

2011-12-30T15:54:00.000-05:00

Thanks to commenter bobljeffries who pointed me in the direction of this NRG Research poll conducted just awhile back, after the Forum poll, which gave these numbers:

36% BC NDP
32% BC Liberal
19% BC Conservative
13% "Other"

They also give a wrongly colour-coded chart which breaks down the numbers for three regions of BC. In the Lower Mainland, the Liberals lead with 36% to the NDP's 33% and the Con's 18%; in the Interior, the NDP lead with 40% to 28% for the Cons and 20% for the Liberals; and on the Island and North Coast, the NDP lead with 39% to the Liberal's 31% and the Conservative's 19%.

What does this mean in terms of seats? It still means an NDP majority and Premier Adrian Dix. The BC NDP would win 46 seats, the Liberals 28, and the Conservatives 9, with 2 Independents in the mix. But that is a heck of a lot better than the 54-16-12-4 split of Forum's poll.

Is This Actually BC? Eh?

2011-12-29T17:31:00.000-05:00

I know the news is now somewhat old, but there was a funky Forum Research poll out on December 15th that showed the situation in British Columbia is a whole lot more complicated than first glance.

The numbers show:
34% BC NDP
23% BC Liberal
23% BC Conservative
15% Green

Wha... who... huh? That's an absolute shocker, given that the average race so far is roughly 40% NDP, 35% Liberal, and 15% Con. I didn't think Christy Clark was doing that badly.

What would happen if these numbers were true? According to my sort of roughshod projection (not at home, so I have the base system, not the refined one), you'd get 54 NDP, 16 Conservatives, 12 Liberals, 1 Green, and 2 Independents (from the 5% "others").

Now, that's a tad insane, and Adrian Dix's majority is only because of heavy, massive vote-splitting between Clark and Con leader John Cummins. The Green comes from West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, one of their stronger seats provincially.

But yeah, who can say what this is? Granted, it is Forum's first foray into BC provincial polling, and the Green number is nearly twice as high as other pollsters have shown over the year. You could, more or less, say this is an outlier and be comfortably backed up.

But let's make this clear - the BC Conservatives are not to be taken as a joke party they were before. They're a protest vote, and as we've seen federally, all it takes is one misstep and the protest party is ahead of you in the game.

Last Poll of 2011 - 36.5% Con, 28.7% NDP, 25.6% Lib

2011-12-29T15:26:00.001-05:00

This is, of course, a lovely Nanos poll which shows the Liberals somewhat dropping from heights we shouldn't be at in our current state to more-or-less reasonable levels, though as we'll see, there are still some questions remaining.

The topline numbers are as shown, and in terms of seats that would give the Conservatives 140, the NDP 92, the Liberals 72, the Bloc 3, and Lizzy May.

Key things here are, once again, Ontario and Quebec, with BC playing a side role here.

Unlike last time, Ontario's numbers look a lot less weird. Nanos has the Cons at 34.5% (down from 37.2%), the Liberals at 31.8% (down from 38.8%), and the NDP at 29.5% (up from 19.6%). The higher NDP number makes general sense to me, and these results are similar to what Harris-Decima showed not too long ago (36-31-27). All in all, the November Nanos poll was, and will remain, a likely bad sample/voodoo poll, especially for Ontario.

Quebec, however, is another story. There, the NDP lead with 33.4% (down from 37.7%), the Liberals are again second with 22.9% (barely down from 23.6%), the Cons third with 20.8% (up from 20.1%), and the Bloc languishing, as they do in every Nanos poll, with just 19.9% (though that's up from 15.9%).

Like other pollsters, Nanos is now showing the NDP decreasing in Quebec to about 30-35%, with the Liberals and Conservatives battling each other closer towards the 15-20% mark. However, unlike others, Nanos continues to show the Bloc below 20%, compared to 26% in the three polls to come out in December for Quebec, which all showed the Bloc at 26% (those polls being Abacus, Harris-Decima, and Leger). Even a CROP poll from November had them at 21%.

Coming to our side show, BC shows a very tight race with 34.4% Con, 33.2% NDP, and 22.8% Liberal. The numbers are not entirely crazy, but both other pollsters out this month have shown a wider gap and a lower Liberal number (Abacus had us at 7%!).

So, I don't know. Nanos has a good reputation and Nik did an excellent job during the federal and provincial elections, but once we get out into the interim periods here, his numbers tend to break trends, then come back, then break trends again. But, they are our final numbers for the year, and overall, pollsters are showing us being higher than May 2nd. That's good news as we head into a convention, and bad news for the NDP, who face a trending loss in Quebec that, unless they move up higher in the Rest of Canada, means they're in trouble.

And the Conservatives? Well, they're just laughing. Smug bastards.

When I get back from my trip next week, I'll be doing a total round-up for 2011, including some fancy trend charts, for all those interested.

Why do you read Blunt Objects?

2011-12-27T18:18:00.001-05:00

If you'd be so kind to take a simple minute out of your day, there's a poll to the left that will help me decide the future of this blog and what's written in it.

It's pretty simple: why do you come and read this blog? There are five options there, plus a "none of the above" option, for those who are feeling picky. You can pick which options you feel most represent why you read this blog (try not to click ALL, thanks), and if you have any comments, suggestions, and whatnot, please just post below. Any commentary is welcome, feel free to cuss me out if that's your thing.

Just to quickly go over the options:

Why do you read the blog Blunt Objects?

1. For the commentary by the authors (personal opinions expressed)
2. For updates on polls, including projections, seat changes, by-elections, and so on (federal and provincial)
3. For updates on relevant news for federal political watchers, with the Liberal focus
4. For the news on international elections and politics, including the US, UK, and other countries
5. For information relating to provincial politics, including Ontario and Quebec politics
6. None of the above (please comment why in the post "Why do you read Blunt Objects?")

Poll is open until January 7th at 6:00 PM. Your help is greatly appreciated, and I hope everyone has a lovely new year!

Weapons Grade Uranium Going to the U.S.? Quel surprise.

2011-12-27T17:45:00.002-05:00

Yep, that's right folks - Canada, one of the largest uranium producers (if not, really, the best) is shipping weapons-grade uranium, apparently enough to make more than a few Hiroshima-size bombs, to the United States, travelling throughout our fair land in collision-resistant, anti-theft, super-duper-controlled containers that you just know are going to fail and poison/kill/mutate us all.

I'm not shocked in the least by this revelation, nor do I really have a problem with it. I mean, we have both the capability to make it and we have the stockpile that, frankly, we are not going to use. Shipping it to the United States which has both the capacity to utilize it (heh) and/or safely store it is not a bad idea, especially if we are paid for these shipments.

The supposed "reason" - that terrorists might catch us Canucks off guard - is kind of bullshitty. Maybe not, as I can see the Americans being that paranoid for sure, but there's probably another reason why this uranium is being shipped to the US. I don't necessarily think its for weapons as the term "weapons-grade" automatically connotes in the minds of the public (thank you, media), but it could be going there for processing, storing, utilization in testing or other some such purposes that, frankly, once it leaves our hands into the capable hold of the Americans, is not really our concern.

(That isn't to say we should ask for some accountability - after all, look what happened when we gave India some reactors.)

The problem, of course, arises from the fact that the Harper government felt the need to hide it from the rest of us. What the effing heck for? It's just uranium for God's sake. Not only do I guarantee it wouldn't have been an election issue, but that anyone truly concerned about it - mostly Greenies and Dippers - weren't going to vote Conservative anyways.

This government's secrecy has now allowed it to seem like we needed to hide it for some weird reason, when we never did at all. Every time you shoot another hole in your boat, Cons, the greater the chance of sinking it is.

Garneau Takes One Step Forward for Liberalkind....

2011-12-26T12:51:00.000-05:00

(Sorry for my lack of posting, but I'm currently on vacation in the south.)

Marc Garneau, MP for Westmount-Ville-Marie since 2008 and the first Canadian in space, has admitted that he is seriously considering a run for the top job of the current pile that makes up the Liberal brand.

Garneau also wanted to become interim head of the Liberals before stepping aside in favour of Bob Rae to be acclaimed by the executive.

So what does it mean? Well.... nothing, not so far out from the leadership convention slated for mid-2013. But it does give us at least one face to compare to the field of NDP leader wannabes so far (minus one, poor unilingual Chisholm). It also lends some credence to the idea that someone wants the job other than Rae.

That actually knocks one individual off my list of "people who I expect to run" - that being LeBlanc, Garneau, Kennedy, David McGuinty, Brison, and Rae. It also takes him off the list of "people who I want to run" - or Wrzesneyskyj, Garneau, Brison, Hall Findlay, and some little-known young politician who takes the status-quo as it is and faceplants it into a wall (which, evidently, Garneau is waiting for as well).

Who's next to announce their intentions?

Harper Government Chose to "Unilaterally" Move to Reshape Canadian Healthcare

2011-12-20T23:24:00.003-05:00

If there is one thing terribly wrong with the Harper government, it is it's tendency to move on policy and legislation without consulting or asking anyone else what they think - it's got to be done the way they want it to be done. The rest of those guys are just suckers.

They've acted this way throughout their entire time in government, even through the minority parliaments of 2006-2011, where a weak-willed opposition in the Liberals, Bloc, and yes, even the NDP, gave Harper all the breathing room he needed.

And now that he's got his majority, we've seen this in practice in a much more severe way. The closure of debates, the forcing of committees in camera, and the insistence that only they can legislate, even if they steal ideas from other parties, is just a small taste of what is going to happen.

The bigger taste will come from the 2014 health accord negotiations, which we are just starting to get into now. Already we're seeing evidence that not only is the Harper government going to push through their own plans, they don't seem entirely willing to bend to the positions of other provinces, even friendly ones like Premier Alward's, let alone Charest's and McGuinty's positions.

This idea of the Con government's - tying healthcare transfers to economic growth and inflation after 2017, instead of the set percentage usually negotiated - may very well have some merits. It seems to please the Western provinces a lot more than it pleases Eastern provinces, due to some obvious reasons. Honestly though, I don't know. Is it a good idea?

But the grander point really is the fact that the government had decided this in advance - didn't tell any of us about it during the election, to note - without consultations with the provinces. That's going to not just make these negotiations in 2014 a prickly affair, but it could very well threaten the stability of our healthcare system. After all, if the Harper government is committed to this "unilateral approach" to doing things, a.k.a. our way or the highway, you can sure as hell bet the premiers of the provinces in opposition to the deal aren't going to budge either.

And if we have the governments of this federation stuck at opposite poles, then we're going to be stuck with nothing while they bicker. In that scenario, I'd be more than a little worried about the future of the system itself, given the unsustainability of what we currently have.

When dealing with something as serious as our healthcare, intransigence is not a virtue. It's dangerous. And that's the road we seem to be heading down, folks.

Merry Christmas.

Four MNAs Become Caquistes; New By-Election for 2012

2011-12-20T12:42:00.001-05:00

I love that title - "caquiste." It works, doesn't it?

So four independent MNAs have joined François Legault's Coaltion and have become its first sitting deputies before the merger deal with the ADQ is finalized.

The four MNAs are former pequistes Daniel Ratthé and Benoît Charette, and former adequistes Éric Caire and Marc Picard.

From my little list the other week, I was right about Ratthé and Charette, who I thought were very likely to shack up with Legault. I was also very sure that Picard would also join, and less sure about Caire, but he joined anyways.

So now the CAQ has actual faces within the National Assembly to fight for it. Should make things interesting, and assuming the ADQ deal goes through, that means Legault's party will have eight MNAs, more than enough to make it a small force to be reckoned with. Cool.

Moving on, Liberal MNA David Whissell resigned his seat of Argenteuil four days ago, which will trigger yet another provincial by-election. Argenteuil is an interesting riding as is not necessarily as Liberal as it seems, despite the fact that it has been Liberal since the 1920's. Whissell hung on during the 2007 adequiste wave, winning 37.6% to an adequiste's 29.7%, while winning by a much larger margin in 2008, 49.6% to a pequiste's 33.6%.

That makes it a safe seat, but not so safe that another party would be unable to take it from the Liberals on a drop. Indeed, if the most recent Léger poll were true, a caquiste candidate would win the riding handily, 40% compared to 25% for the Liberals.

Now that the CAQ has actual deputies, they will need an actual candidate for whenever this by-election is called. While they had a relatively OK excuse for not running a candidate in the Bonaventure by-election this month, Legault has zero reason to not run a candidate in Argenteuil. If he doesn't, then you know someone over there isn't as sure about their chances as they'd like us all to think.

It would also be important for the PQ to show off their strength - if they have any - in this by-election. In fact, if Marois lost the Argenteuil by-election, somewhere with a much better chance of winning than Bonaventure ever was, then I would say her chances of staying on are slim to none.

How to Project Quebec?

2011-12-16T15:30:00.000-05:00

I'm coming across a bit of a quandry when attempting to project the province of Quebec's seats that takes into account a proper, regional balance of the Coalition Avenir du Quebec's new-found success.

My original model followed a basic average of the amount of voter drift between the older parties and the CAQ in three "super-regions" - Montreal, Capitale-Nationale, and the rest of Quebec - which of course broke down further in the smaller regions which make up those regions, modeled somewhat after the patterns of the electorate following Action Democratique's breakthrough success in 2007 (since it follows that the CAQ and ADQ, essentially the same parties both ideologically and now physically, would see breakthroughs in similar fashions as the ADQ did in 2007).

This, of course, lead to a somewhat patchwork-quilt style projection system that gave the CAQ huge victories of 90 to over 100 seats. Something of a probable conclusion when you're leading 35% to 22%, but still, given how abstract the calculation actually was, it was essentially theoretical and nothing more.

Now, with the ADQ merger/subversion, I have the opportunity to basically use the ADQ's 2008 base of support as the CAQ's base, which gives the model something of a more reality-based calculation to go off of. After all, what better way to model regional patterns of vote except through the results of an election? And given the CAQ's lack of existence in 2007/2008, that's kind of hard to do.

However, the difference was, to say the least, fairly noticeable when I put in the newest CROP poll (39-28-18-9, just fyi) into the models:

I probably don't need to point out how much of a discrepancy the difference is. For one, it's the difference between partial, if horrible, existence for the PQ, and nothingness.

Now you might be wondering - why such the big difference? Its come the fact that the regional "vote drifting" is not uniform in the province of Quebec, at least according the polls I've seen. According to this model, essentially there are a lot more votes in Montreal that will go to the CAQ than you'd expect if the old ADQ base simply rose up (about an 8% difference), which makes a big difference. Meanwhile, voters in the Capitale-Nationale region are supposedly more willing to stick with the Liberals and the PQ according to the polls, than they would if the ADQ rose again (a 10% difference for the PLQ). Then, if course, in the rest of Quebec, though there isn't a hilarious difference in terms of actual vote levels, vote drift is enough to hand the CAQ a huge amount of seats.

So, I'm not really sure what to do here. The ADQ model is based somewhat in reality, but to me, it would just penalize the CAQ too much in Montreal if there truly was some sort of shift between pequistes and caquistes on the magnitude that the polls keep showing.

And given the overbearing results that the federal election showed when Bloquiste and Liberal support shifted to the NDP in Quebec, I'm not convinced that an ADQ based model is the right way to go.

Anyone else have an opinion on this? Not being from Quebec (despite being an avid fan), I don't know the regional intricacies and local voting patterns. I think both models would predict well, but who knows right?

The Most Disappointing Opposition Since Michael Ignatieff's

2011-12-15T13:36:00.000-05:00

That's about how I would describe the NDP - or the Official Opposition, as they're officially styled - and its career in the first session of the 41st Parliament.

The New Democratic opposition has really failed to uphold the standard that came with its amazing breakthrough victory in May of this year. Everyone expected this principled, "new" Opposition that would change the way politics were done in Canada through a substantive change in attitude in the Opposition Leader's Office.

But, can anyone actually point out where the NDP has changed the way anything has been done, whether it was under Layton or Turmel?

I can point out a few things they've done that's just wasted our time, like that whole Canada Post debacle earlier in the year before Layton's passing. Or how about the failure to uphold decorum in the House that, despite what Joe Comartin says, is just as bad on their side as the rest?

What about this continuing mess? Not only has Nycole Turmel failed to represent any coherent sort of force in the House, she actually goes against former NDP policies like allowing free votes on matters of conscience such as the gun registry, which Layton allowed (then again, they did essentially kick out Dejarlais when she opposed SSM, didn't they?). Let's also not forget the fact that as party leader, she is seriously failing at her job of expanding the party's base and getting it ready in time for a leadership convention.

And overall, the NDP's performance in the House, during QP, during debate, during committee, and during media scrums, just seems disappointing. Almost depressing. Only a couple faces actually make any of it interesting to watch.

Not all of this is necessarily the NDP's fault. Turmel is just an interim leader, probably one that would not have gotten the job if Layton hadn't picked her. Seven of their most experienced and respected MPs, plus Brian Topp, the party's just recently elected president, are out attempting to drum up votes for a leadership race. Add on to this a Conservative government that is stepping way over too many lines, and really, what can you do?

But I did expect something more. Really, the NDP's opposition is about as inspiring as Michael Ignatieff's was during those long two years. Sure, here and there you scored a few victories, but overall, you know you were just losing the war.

And it's not a surprise that the polls are representing that well, because despite the damage Harper's Conservatives have managed to do in this short session, they still lead by an average of 6-9%.

So much for that experiment. Back to politics as usual, I suppose?

NDP Collapse in Quebec?

2011-12-14T18:43:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the triple post, but I can't help myself - has anyone seen this?

The Harris-Decima survey conducted for The Canadian Press indicates the New Democratic Party’s support in the province has plunged to 26 per cent – tied with the Bloc Québécois and down 16 points since the NDP swept 59 of Quebec's 75 seats in last May's election.

Twenty-six percent!? What??? That's an amazing drop, and one of 10% since the last HD poll in November.

While the NDP has gone down, other parties have gone up. The Bloc is up three points since May to 26 per cent in the province, the Liberals are up six points to 20 per cent, the Tories up just over one point to 17 per cent and the Greens up five points to seven per cent.

Wow, just.. what? How?

I haven't seen the full release yet (apparently the national numbers are 34% Con, 28% NDP, 22% Lib), but those Quebec numbers are enough right there to throw into doubt the NDP's ability to remain the Official Opposition, if they're true.

In terms of seats, the NDP would drop to only 14 seats in Quebec, scattered essentially to the winds, while the Bloc would take 32, the Liberals 17, and the Conservatives 10, while two independents take up the rest.

Overall, in my average projection, it would bring the NDP below the Liberals across-the-board, 62 to 67. That's amazing.

Harris-Decima usually has a good track record (usually), so I don't know what to think. It desperately needs to be confirmed by another pollster. Even Nanos had the NDP at 36% in Quebec. I'm trying to think of a conceivable reason why its happened but I can't.

What is going on in that province?

Exit Polling Galore

2011-12-14T18:14:00.000-05:00

The Vote Compass, which CBC ran during the federal election, has definitely proven itself useful as the accumulated data of roughly 2,000,000 Canadians gave their vote intentions and views on specific issues during the entire election. All of it now compiled down to riding-by-riding data that shows the huge disparities between different regions of Canada that any politico worth their salt must see, as its something we rarely get to see done in this country.

Here's just a few results to wet your appetites:

Go now, you know you want to.

Oh, Get the Fuck Over Yourselves Media

2011-12-14T17:50:00.000-05:00

So Trudeau lets a few shits go and Bob Rae rightly asks what BS is occurring among the Liberals. Who the fuck cares?

Cuss words are, yes, unparliamentary and they are disrespectful. But why is it news? It shouldn't be, because Canadians have seen more than their fair share of reasons to call Minister Kent a piece of shit, not to mention the other 90% of Stephen Harper's caucus which act like they truly are, including Harper himself.

We all let a few cuss words go now and again. It's not news. Especially among my generation. Just stfu and go on to actual noteworthy news, like the crap that caused Trudeau to say what he did in the first place. Jeesh.

No Prima Facie Breach of Cotler's Privilege - Speaker Scheer

2011-12-13T17:06:00.001-05:00

And unlike Warren Kinsella, I tend to agree with Scheer's ruling.

The fact is that there's little in the way of any sort of precedent that I can find with a small cursory glance to prove Cotler's face of a breach of his parliamentary privilege. Granted, I'm not in any way qualified to say what is and is not a breach of parliamentary privilege, but I know enough that Scheer isn't lying through his teeth as Kinsella assumes.

Parliamentary privilege is breached when an MP is unable to perform the duties of his or her office due to some existential situation or body (or another MP). Unfortunately for Cotler, there's no real proof that his office has been affected in such a way that he can't perform his duties in the House or in his constituency due to these overwhelming amounts of calls and so on. He's obviously been active on committee and working hard to provide real opposition to the Conservative government, so really, how much could this be affecting him?

Granted it's a huge disservice to Cotler for this to go on, and Scheer noted that in his ruling. It is absolutely disgraceful. Almost disgusting, really, for the Conservatives to pull this crap. But there's no case to be made. Sorry Irwin.

Luckily for Cotler though, its news that sure isn't to escape the ears of Mount Royal residents. It's possible that they even shot themselves in the foot on this one, with their arrogant excuses for these tactics. I suspect in the end that Cotler really pushed the issue to bump it up in the news, rather than expecting a favourable ruling. I think it worked in that regard for sure.

CAQ-ADQ Merger Imminent?

2011-12-12T07:56:00.001-05:00

Apparently it is. If so, that would hand the CAQ (or whatever acronym will come out of this merger) at least four seats in the National Assembly. The two independent adequistes - Marc Picard and Éric Caire - would likely be next, though Caire left because he failed to win the party's leadership from current leader Gerard Deltell. Not sure how he would feel about a Legault-led party.

That leaves us with the eight other independents who came from Legault's original party, the Parti Québécois. The relationship, I imagine, is strained between some of these members and Legault, who's party is essentially a centre-right coalition a là Mario Dumont, which focuses more on the bread-and-butter issues than questions of sovereignty (though it is still a sovereigntist-led party, don't ever forget that).

Two of the independent members are already signed up for a "new" sovereigntist party called Option Nationale. Jean-Martin Aussant is its leader, and Jacques Parizeau's wife Lisette Lapointe is essentially an associate member. Lapointe, at the very least, is very unlikely to join up with the new party. Aussant isn't likely to either, though I know less about him.

Two others who left with Lapointe in the first round of defections from the PQ are Pierre Curzi and Louise Beaudoin. Curzi is essentially waiting for Marois to get out of the spotlight, while Beaudoin is... I don't know. I don't think either are likely to join the Legault grouping.

That leaves four other independent members. One, René Gauvreau, was kicked out of the PQ caucus because of some matter concerning his riding association's finances, not due to ideological squabbles with the PQ. He's not going to jump ship. The same goes with former Liberal MNA Tony Tomassi.

The other two are more interesting. Daniel Ratthé is one of the twelve members that asked Parizeau to essentially shut the heck up, but when that didn't get a nice reaction from the pequiste HQ, he had to leave the party. He's a definite candidate to jump over to the CAQ.

Benoit Charette left because he wanted the PQ to promise not to hold a sovereignty referendum if they were elected, at least not within the first mandate. That puts him square into Legault's category of sovereigntist-but-let's-wait-a-little-while. If he doesn't shack up with the new party sooner rather than later, then I'll be very surprised.

So, by the end of the year I wouldn't be surprised to see at least eight CAQ-ADQ members in the National Assembly. It's way too early to tell if the association with the ADQ is a good idea or not for Legault. After all, Dumont's leadership was the main factor in bringing the ADQ up, but the party itself caused its crash a year later. Interesting to see how Quebeckers view the new party when some actual, tangible faces are put under its roster.

MacKay's Obviously Got Nothing to Hide

2011-12-08T07:46:00.001-05:00

That's why he's threatening to sue any MPs that question his version of events surrounding the use of Armed Forces choppers to shuttle himself to events in his riding, versus the actual facts.

That's a nice lesson to teach kids, isn't it? If you refuse even question my story, despite all evidence to prove it wrong, I'm going to sue you, you bastards.

I've tried to avoid getting too much into these Conservative mini-scandals because its proven fairly ineffective in dealing with the larger Conservative problem we have. However, the incredible arrogance of this statement by MacKay strikes me as what is terribly wrong with the governing party, similar to what happened to the Liberals once we got too cozy. These guys need to be sent some sort of message or else it's not just this horrible policy that will be shoved down our throats, but the arrogance as well.

And sadly, comparisons to the old 80's and early 2000's Liberal Party can be drawn very directly. After all, we have a governing party which has won three elections in a row, now sits with a comfortable majority, and has an organizational and monetary advantage over their opposition. It's not a surprise we've got people like MacKay letting things go to his head.

You may want to expect a few more MacKay's on this ride, Canada. He's just the beginning.

An even worse consideration? MacKay could have, realistically, been something of an opposite pole to Harper within the Conservative Party - we've seen him act as one before - but this scandal just distracts him from doing his job. Harper is probably smiling right now.

Voodoo Polls Cont'd

2011-12-07T10:52:00.001-05:00

Since last post, Abacus Data has come out with a new poll that gives the opposite of what Nik Nanos is showing, with a healthy second place position for the New Democrats, well ahead of the Liberals.

Abacus' numbers are 40-31-18, compared to Nanos' 35.6-27.3-28.1 the other week that I wrote about here which we couldn't really take at face value, unfortunately. The key numbers - Ontario and Quebec - show different stories as well.

In Ontario, Abacus found 43% would vote Conservative, compared to 28% NDP and 26% Liberal. Last week's Nanos has those numbers as 37.2% Conservative, 38.8% Liberal, and 19.6% NDP.

The consequence here is plainly obvious. Under Abacus, the Liberals would win just 16 seats (compared to 60 for the Conservatives and 24 for the NDP), while Nanos' numbers would give the Liberals 46 seats to 45 Cons and 15 Dippers. A 30-seat difference is of course huge, and if these numbers played out in an election the Nanos numbers would give the Liberals legitimacy again, while Abacus would keep us going nowhere.

In Quebec, Abacus gives the NDP a relatively paltry 36% of the vote (down from 42%). In second place remains the Bloc with 26%, then the Conservatives with 21%, and the Liberals way down at just 13%. Nanos gives the NDP 37.7%, the Liberals in second with 23.6%, the Cons with 20.1%, and the Bloc with just 15.9%.

The difference for the Liberals is nearly 10 seats, as we'd only manage 5 under Abacus, but 14 under Nanos.

I've got to say, despite some of Abacus' weird past moves, I'm leaning a lot more towards their numbers than Nanos'. I think they might be bumping up the NDP a tad in Ontario and BC, but overall their regional splits make a heck of a lot more sense given the current political climate. Bob Rae might be Parliamentarian of the Year, but the average Canadian doesn't really care. In the absence of corroborating polling, there's no support for the Liberal bump. Maybe Nanos just hit a Liberal-rich vein of voters somewhere, who knows. But there's something wrong with their polling, and if they want to continue being taken seriously, they need to fix it.

Before you get too into Russia's electoral results...

2011-12-06T17:05:00.001-05:00

Look at the political players who benefited from United Russia's drop:

The Communist Party, lead by Gennady Zhuganov, is a proto-fascist Marxist nationalist party that wants to essentially recreate the Soviet Union except with a more Russian focus. Gennady is known for wanting to "re-Stalinize" Russia and laying carnations for the Soviet psychopath/dictator/President. His party gained 7.6% and 35 seats, the most of all opposition parties.

A Just Russia is lead by Nikolai Levichev is like a more left-wing version of the NDP, promising a "New Socialism" and general social democratic principles as part of its platform. It actually sounds like a nice, promising party, and the 2007-2011 Duma (that's the Russian legislature, just fyi) they heavily opposed Putin's government. That being said, they were extremely supportive of President Dmitri Medvedev, and even nominated him as their candidate alongside United Russia. That makes it slightly confusing. A Just Russia gained 26 seats and 5.5% in the popular vote.

The Liberal Democratic Party, lead by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, is another proto-fascist nationalist party with a conservative bent - don't believe its name - that is generally considered a front for ex-KGB interests. In his presidential campaign in 2008, he promised to flood Great Britian and proclaim a police state. Mhm. His party gained 16 seats and 3.5% in the popular vote.

Finally, the best party is Yabloko, lead by Sergei Mitrokhin, which gained just 3.8% of the overall popular vote and no seats. It's the little social liberal party that tried, and failed, but gains an honourable mention because they represent the views I most agree with.

Just remember that none of these parties rose above 20% in the popular vote, and the one that came close enough is just wrong.

OK, continue on.

And the winner of the first NDP debate is....

2011-12-05T08:32:00.001-05:00

The Conservatives, because of the massive wealth of soundbites gained from the debate which will paint the new NDP leader as wanting to raise taxes, put through a carbon tax, destroy Canada's resource extraction sector, and cripple free trade.

What's worse is that pretty much every candidate said those exact things, including the frontrunner troika of Topp, Mulcair, and Nash. Yes, right now the Conservatives are probably plotting away to destroy the next Dipper leader the same way they destroyed Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. But of course, that was expected, wasn't it?

If you actually missed the debate, don't worry - I'll recap all the important parts below for each of the nine candidates, or you can just watch it online too (eventually). Don't expect policy points - I tuned out during that - but this debate was never about distinguishing the viable candidates on ideas (remember: the candidates with no hope are the candidates with the best ideas), but instead it was how they came across. Do they look capable of going up against Stephen Harper in a contest of personalities that even Jack Layton only had fleeting success at? Those were the questions asked last night.

It's a long post, so bear with me, but here's my opinion on what happened last night:

Thomas Mulcair: If you really need to know who "won" the overall debate, it would be Tom Mulcair for sure. The Outremont MP was the only one who gave his opening statements in both French and English and demonstrated the most consistency in both languages. Throughout the debate he was calm (notable given his reputation), fairly poised, and hammered home quite a few policy points the way an experienced politician knows how to. He also didn't say anything controversial in terms of policy or attitudes. His general direction was to keep the debate (on the economy, just fyi) focused on how an NDP leader could take on Harper tête-à-tête, as opposed to the policy wonks beside him. It seems fairly effective but he still rubbed against the other candidates a bit on policy points and despite his overuse of the words "social democratic," came off as the less left-of-centre candidate as compared to others. Not sure how that will play over.
Conservative attack tagline: Tom Mulcair, he's really a Liberal.

Brian Topp: Topp, the presumed "frontrunner" in the race based on the number of big endorsements he's had so far, had a pretty mixed night in my opinion. There's numerous issues to point out: he's not as well refined of a debater as some of the others (especially compared to Mulcair); he couldn't translate his tax plan well into the debate or for viewers; his body language gave off weird signals (some say he looked arrogant, I think he seemed like a bureaucrat); and because of the format and the number of candidates, he was really drowned out. Had Topp been more impressive of a debater he might've stood out but really he seemed part of the woodwork. Not a good night for him, but it's the first debate so its not a huge issue. His policy points seemed standard centre-left, though other candidates questioned him anyways. He was good in both French and English so no problem there. Overall it was an OK performance but I don't think it will gain him more support than he already has.
Conservative attack tagline: The NDP wants to raise your taxes to the Topp.

Peggy Nash: Now we're into someone who definitely gained from last night. Personally, as leader she would never get my vote, but centre-left ideologues would love her. She hit all major points that matter in a debate on the economy: trade, green economy, jobs, and even unions. She really could be the Iron Lady of the left, not kidding. She came across as genuine, likable, very noticeable, but maybe a bit haughty (is that the right word?). Definitely distinguishable as a candidate but such an easy target too. If you had to frame the race as a choice between Nash and Mulcair, ideological lines within the NDP would become very apparent. I'm unsure of Nash is the candidate that's the "either you love her or you hate her" type yet, but it wouldn't surprise me. However the exposure she gained from last night and her command of policy points can only help right now. I think her French was a bit off but not too bad. She'll make the race interesting, and I could see her winning it.
Conservative attack tagline: Nash smash!

Paul Dewar: Rounding out the higher bracket is Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar. Now, Dewar had major issues with the French debate but Eric Grenier pointed out it's as good as Harper's was a few years ago. He has a while to improve though. Outside of that glaring issue, Dewar performed fairly strongly. He went after Topp quite a bit on some issues and seemed credible with his own policy points, especially on the issue of jobs. His debating style was good - another experienced politician - and his ideology seems pretty standard NDP. However, maybe that's the problem, as Dewar seemed too cookie-cutter to me. The man is clearly competent, but is that enough to beat Harper? Jack had something special, and the NDP need to find someone that can put them over the top in 2015. That, to me, requires more than just competence. Dewar needs to find the "wow" factor or he's not going to make the troika into a quartet.
Conservative attack tagline: Paul Dewar: Il ne peut pas vraiment parler français.

Nathan Cullen: Getting into the small fry now, Cullen had an interesting night. He definitely came off well and like Nash, the exposure will only help him as the race continues on. However, he's an ideas man and he seems almost... meek, if you get what I mean. Watch the debate and you'll understand what I mean. His general appearance reminds me of your local accountant. Does he really look like he can go up against Stephen Harper? My impression - based off looks, debating style, and general impression - is no, but that's just me. He did however get a good amount of policy points in and his debate with Romeo Saganash in northern/rural issues was interesting as heck. Didn't hear a whole lot about the co-operation idea but maybe I tuned it out at some point. Unlike Dewar he was good in French too. I could see him outpacing Dewar, actually. Well, as much as you can outpace fourth place.
Conservative attack tagline: He'll Do Your Taxes... Horribly!

Niki Ashton: The Churchill MP who is the youngest candidate by far at 29 seemed so full of energy I half expected some sort of nuclear event, given the level of excitement nearby molecules must've felt (physics ftw). Very charismatic, very interesting to listen to on policy points, and I'll be blunt, she looked, in a physical sense, the best out of all nine of them up there. However, she had hilariously pie-in-the-sky ideas which she failed to really expand upon, which disappointed me a lot. I also don't know how her age would play out among a voting base that is frankly a lot older - and no, her youth isn't going to bring out 18-25 voters. Why people believe that is beyond me. Anyways, she gets kudos points for lots of charisma. That will play well for her. Good in French, good in English.
Conservative attack tagline: Do you really want a hipster Prime Minister?

Martin Singh: The Nova Scotia businessman really surprised me last night. He was reasonable, he was credible, and he was consistent in tone across both English and French. He seemed like a leader that, based on policy and attitude, the majority of Canada would feel comfortable with. He hit major points on how he's an entrepreneur and that he understands the business community and the economy (major points), and made some headway against Topp and other candidates on issues like taxes and jobs, as well as an interesting three-way debate on the urban-rural divide with him, Nash, and Ashton where he really stood out in my opinion. Exposure in this race can only help him but he has a very, very large hill to climb with no elected experience and little name recognition. He was also very, very technical in his policy
Conservative attack tagline: Who?

Romeo Saganash: Poor Romeo Saganash had a horrible start last night as he wasn't very good in English. He seemed tense, hesitant, and over-scripted. In the French portion of the debate he was a lot better, but still not that impressive. Interesting man, but not the charismatic wunderkid he was built up to be by some. I don't see him going very far, though he could definitely take away votes in Quebec from Mulcair and other candidates. Can't say much else unfortunately. Can't even think of an attack line.

Robert Chisholm: Poor Robert Chisholm was the biggest disappointment last night. Like Mulcair, he went after the leadership angle and played up his experience as a former NDP leader provincially. Had excellent ideas, came off OK in terms of presentation style - not great, but OK - and like Dewar he seemed credible and competent. I would like to have seen him talk more. However, in the French portion of the debate he didn't even bother trying to speak French, and answered all questions from the moderators or other candidates in English the entire time. That's just a disappointment and it probably disqualifies him from going much farther. At least Dewar tried.
Conservative attack tagline: At least Dewar tried.

Phew, there we are. Hopefully that wasn't too much.

Feel free to comment or say your own tidbits, I'm interested in others opinions about the debate. Who won, who lost, who impressed, and who depressed?

#NDPldr Debate #1: The Economy

2011-12-04T12:37:00.001-05:00

Today's Dipper leadership debate takes place in Ottawa at 2pm EST til 4pm, and apparently will focus on the economy.

Now what, you make ask, does a Dipper have to say about the economy that isn't anything but tax rises? Well, there's nine of them there to tell you what's what. And it's going to be a bit of a clash I think.

Here's five things you need to look for as the debate goes on:

1. Peggy Nash's campaign is centered on the economy and her perceived ability to competently manage it, so this being the first debate, the major theme of these dire times, and a fairly distinguishing factor among the NDP, plays right into her hands. In order for Nash to come out of this, she needs to look on the same level (if not better than) as both Mulcair and Topp, the two perceived frontrunners.

2. The Topp-Mulcair dichotomy is bound to become diluted as nine candidates, the majority of them without a chance in hell, all get the same amount of time to talk. However, the sparks will fly between Topp and Mulcair; they need to in order for the debate to remain interesting.

3. Topp's tax-the-rich schemes are a prime target for some of the more intrepid NDP candidates to go after - I'm thinking that Mulcair and Martin Singh, the "business friendly" candidate, will attempt to make stacks out of that hay pile.

4. Paul Dewar, sitting at roughly third or fourth in most estimations, needs to pull off a strong showing here. His cities plan is something he can point to as reasonable and well thought out policy that can boost the economy in a way while fixing our crumbling infrastructure. If he gains credibility, then he'll be in the running.

5. The other five candidates - Niki Ashton, Romeo Saganash, Nathan Cullen, Martin Singh, and Robert Chisholm - don't really have any traction to gain from the first debate outside of doing well and maybe you'll get a boost. However, each of these candidates are the "minor five" (as I like to call them) for a reason - too regional, too inexperienced, too unknown - and unless they come out with compelling ideas that can appeal to voters, they're just spoilers.

It'll be interesting to see how this debate turns. Expect a lot of attacks against Harper and a lot of focus on job creation through government action. Don't expect actual "debate" or knock-out punches. And keep an eye on the "frontrunner troika" - Nash, Topp, Mulcair - and keep an eye out for someone unexpected to steal a spotlight or two. Standard debate stuff, you know.

Link to online viewing here at CPAC - or just watch it on your TV if you have cable. I may or may not post things on Twitter if something comes up, otherwise I'll follow up this post later on tonight if I get the chance.

Someone's Pushpolling Against the BC Liberals...

2011-12-01T00:39:00.001-05:00

This ironically titled "Integrity BC" poll done by Oracle Research (they did all those riding-by-riding polls for Project Democracy) is just so overtly a push poll it hurts.

First, we have this question:
“In May this year Christy Clark ran in a by-election in Vancouver-Point Grey but did not attend any all candidates’ meetings saying that she was busy doing other things.”
“Please rate your level of agreement with the following statement using a scale from one strongly disagree to five strongly agree.”
"Knowing this makes me have a more unfavourable opinion of Christy Clark?"

That's not exactly a proper, unbiased question. The results had 70% having a lesser opinion of her.

Then:

"Despite making the promise not to sell BC Rail, the Liberal government leased it to Canaidan National Railway for 990 years. In your opinion, is this an example of a broken promise?"

And then:

‘While the Basi and Virk criminal charges were before the courts the BC Liberals refused to answer any questions about BC Rail whether they related to Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk or otherwise. The NDP have tabled 100 questions in the legislature which remain unanswered.’

I was going to give Adrian Dix and co. a break here, but that last bit kind of gives it away in my opinion. After all, why would John Cummins' Conservatives say that if they didn't need to? They wouldn't.

What do you think? It's obviously push polling against Christy Clark and the BC Liberals - one doesn't ask and phrase questions like that if they're not intending to cast a negative opinion about the individual in question. But who commissioned it? And what is Integrity BC's true intentions? Is it maybe an NDP front? Hmm.

If you care, the vote intention results have the BC NDP at 44%, the BC Liberals at 25%, the Greens at 16%, and the BC Conservatives at 15%. Even if this poll wasn't terribly biased, it's be very questionable, given that they have the Greens about 10% higher than any other pollster since a year ago. Those votes apparently were taken from the Liberals, who are roughly down 10%. Kind of a major issue, no?

Today in Pointless Ideas from Nathan Cullen

2011-11-30T18:58:00.001-05:00

Putting the monarchy to a vote appears to be Skeena-Bulkley Valley NDP MP Nathan Cullen's most recent suggestion.

This comes off the heels of his last headline capturing moment with the suggestion of a "progressive primary" vote that he himself admitted would never be a reality.

While other candidates like Brian Topp offer up taxing proposals (silly as they are) and take issues seriously, Nathan Cullen's support seems to be focusing on inane things that don't really matter to the future of the country or of the NDP itself.

Cullen's "democratic reform" principles also go on about moving to an MMP system similar to New Zealand (which just have its conservative party an essential majority of seats without the majority of votes, just fyi) and restoring public party subsidies. Real bread and butter issues like that.

I don't see Cullen's chances improving any time soon.

Nanos = Voodoo Poll?

2011-11-28T13:02:00.001-05:00

I have huge respect for Nik Nanos and his firm, but this recent poll is just a bit much, even for a die-hard Liberal:

Con - 35.6% (-1.1%)
Lib - 28.1% (+4.7%)
NDP - 27.3% (-2.7%)

So, somehow the Liberals have managed to claw their way back up to second place in the popular vote (though really, its within the margin of error between us and the Dippers), coming in first in Ontario (38.8% to the Con's 37.2%), and coming into Dion-level territory in Quebec (23.6% vs. 37.7% for the NDP, and 20.1% for the Cons). This is not a fantastic poll in historical circumstances, but it's better than usual for us.

Putting it through the projection system, we'd get 129 Conservatives, 92 New Democrats, 86 Liberals, and Lizzy May. Easily enough for a coalition government that might be slightly confusing (both parties have similar percentages of seats).

But wait, why are the NDP still in second place in terms of seats? Well, even with their low numbers in Ontario (19%) and comparatively to 2011 in Quebec, they still maintain 52 of their 59 seats in Quebec, and 15 of their 22 seats in Ontario. Considering their general stability in the smaller parts of the country, this is enough to keep them afloat. The Liberals, meanwhile, need to have greater distance between themselves and the NDP in order to come out second (or first) again.

But we've seen this before. In early August Nanos had a similar poll that was promptly turned around next month. Their August 2nd poll was never supported by any other polling company, though their subsequent polls (until now) fell back in line. I would say this poll is likely the same - unless other polls show the same thing.

However, what event in Ontario could have possibly boosted the Liberals that well? One might say the October election, which saw the McGuinty Liberals re-elected to a near-miss minority, could have prompted the huge rise in Liberal fortunes (they would win 46 seats in Ontario with the Nanos poll)? However, Nanos' previous October poll showed no "McGuinty bump."

Considering that Ontario accounts for the Liberal's random rise, and considering the lack of obvious stimuli which prompted this rise... you know where I'm going with this.

The poll does confirm a few things us, however. The NDP are facing a bit of a pinch in Quebec that's dropping them from +40% to 35-40%. None of the polls can decide who is actually benefiting from this cause, with Nanos giving the Liberals and Conservatives the rise, Leger giving it to the Bloc, and CROP giving it to the Conservatives and the Bloc. Overall, however, the trend seems fairly strong - the NDP are slightly down, with the Conservatives and Bloc being the main beneficiaries, and the Liberals probably strong again among non-francophones.

What do you think? I'm giving Nanos a chance in my aggregate projection, though with less weight than usual given the funky results of the poll. It's got some legitimate trends (i.e. Quebec, Atlantic, etc.), but the Ontario numbers are just so out of step with other polls so far. It'll be interesting to see what happens, but for now, I think its a bit of a voodoo poll.

Rob Ford - Feeding the Gravy Train?

2011-11-28T12:56:00.001-05:00

The fact that Ford is going to hike taxes on Torontonians by two-and-a-half percent probably doesn't strike anyone as surprising, since we knew where all of his populist rhetoric that brother Doug Ford and puppet Comrade Gorgio Mammoliti were pushing was going in the end - disaster.

I do find it hilariously ironic however, given that Ford's entire platform revolved around attacking the supposedly high-tax Miller administration by promising to "stop the gravy train" while saving services.

Well, Mayor Ford, you'd figure that anyone promising to halt excessive and frivolous spending would not raise taxes which directly feed such spending. Just sayin'. You're clearly not going to save city jobs or services, so whats with the tax hike?

Minority Governments, How We Missed You...

2011-11-25T14:58:00.001-05:00

Today marks the first defeat of the Ontario Liberals in the legislature on any bill since they came to power in 2003. The Opposition parties lead by Tim Hudak (PC) and Andrea Horwath (NDP) forced through a wrong-headed bill on cutting back the provincial portion of the HST on home heating bills (why is this wrong-headed, you ask? For low-income individuals who live in smaller housing which requires less heat, it makes a minor difference; for high-income individuals who live in big housing that requires lot of heat, it makes a big difference).

The vote was lost 54 to 50, or all Opposition members versus 50 government members minus two who didn't show up for whatever reason (one is away, the other said he supported it - but they weren't going to win anyways). Expect to see quite a few of these numbers over the next year or so as the Opposition flexes its discordant muscle together.

The McGuinty government's reaction is pretty typical - they're the government, therefore they don't have to allow to bill to go to third reading. It might seem like an anti-democratic and backroom tactic, and it is; however, it is a right of any government. So long as its something they're allowed to do, moral qualms about it aren't going to get you far, especially considering its a policy that's been around forever, under all three parties.

Dipper reaction is also pretty typical - corporations are getting tax giveaways, why not teh people?

PC reaction is... well, it's not very well known yet. My guess is that Hudak doesn't necessarily care/isn't paying attention while he goes about pumping his public sector wage freeze which he'll never, ever get.

Overall, it's not going to really matter. The Opposition will allow the Throne Speech to pass (unless they're very, very stupid), and it's likely that the Liberals will get their Home Renovation Tax Credit passed as well. Kind of like the old minority parliaments of yesteryear in Ottawa, there's going to be a lot of huffin' and puffin', but in the end there's little to really be done.

The End of the Alberta Liberal Party.... Again

2011-11-21T20:38:00.001-05:00

So, despite the election of a new leader who leads in opinion polls on the biggest issue in the province as the "most trusted" to handle the issue, the Alberta Liberals have now lost two members (of the nine they originally elected), been through two leadership elections since the last election, and sit barely above the wandering New Democrats, behind the powerful Progressive Conservatives they've failed to challenge since 1993 and the Wildrose Party led by a telegenic libertarian. Meanwhile, their membership drive schemes have failed and they're in no shape to challenge anyone.

The latest things prompting me to write this was the floor crossing of Bridget Pastoor, the Alberta Liberal's only MLA outside of Edmonton or Calgary, to the governing PCs. Pastoor has likely left for two reasons: new PC Premier Alison Redford is apparently and "old friend," and the ALP's dwindling popularity would likely spell the end of her career in her Lethbridge East constituency, where she won by less than 1,000 votes in 2008. Indeed, in my rolling projections for Alberta, Lethbridge East is lost for the ALP, though close. It doesn't help that a three other incumbents are retiring come the next election, either.

Another poor prospect for the future is the ALP's downward trend of support. Adding in the latest numbers from Environics, the ALP stands at an average of 17.8% of the vote, just good enough for three seats. The NDP at just 13.1% support would win more seats.

What does this all say? It says that the Alberta Liberals are facing a crisis like every other Liberal party across Canada. Their neat tricks, their new leader, and all the ads in the world won't be much of a distraction from the lack of candidates, the lack of money, and dwindling support.

My guess is that like the Saskatchewan Liberals, the ALP is on a fairly downward trajectory that's going to take quite a bit to get out of. There's still time to avoid the Bater Crater, but it's going to take all the ALP has to avoid a repeat of the 1970's and early 1980's, when the part couldn't breach 10% of the vote until 1986.

Last Week on As Quebec Turns....

2011-11-21T19:40:00.001-05:00

The political drama in the province of Quebec these days is probably some of the most complicated in the world, involving prickly voters with nationalist sentiments who are tired of nationalist vs. federalist arguments and will seemingly vote for any party that offers something new, whether left or right of centre, but also depending upon whether or not they have a popular leader at the same time (and old parties still banging the nationalist drum can pick up major support with a popular leader that was just recently handed the worst electoral defeat of his career). All this is in tune with the fact that individual candidates in Quebec, outside of a few key areas, mean absolutely zero, demonstrated by not just one but two waves of political change.

Phew. Anyways, last week saw the official entrance after months of unofficial existence by the Coalition pour l'avenir du Québec, formerly known as the Francois Legault Mystery Party, led by little-known former rightist pequiste cabinet minister Francois Legault. The CAQ (known as caquistes) is the provincial version of the NDP if the NDP came to terms with its sovereigntist association and shifted over to the right. However, the caquiste's appeal is not in its ideology but its mere existence as something other than the Parti libéral or the Parti Québécois.

It's the similar sentiment to what propelled the old Action democratique du Québec and former leader Mario Dumont to near-government heights in 2007 - as well as its amazingly fast downfall a year later.

Speaking of the adequistes, rumour is that they're looking for a merger with their ideological kinsmen in the caquistes. Go figure.

The other big news in la belle province (sort of) is the increasing stature of Option nationale, the small one-man sovereigntist party lead by another former pequiste member named Jean-Martin Aussant, who I seriously doubt will hold on to his seat in Nicolet-Yamaska. I say increasing stature because Lisette Lapointe, the wife of former premier and pequiste elder Jacques Parizeau, took out a membership.

Lapointe, who is a MNA herself, left the PQ a few months back if you'll recall, and Assaunt left just after her. Though Lapointe isn't sitting as an Option member, the fact that she's opted to take out the membership in the small one-man party lends some legitimacy to Assaunt's crusade, and further harms Pauline Marois' standing.

Thrown into this pile is the increasing but still massively under-represented Quebec portion of the NDP membership, who number just over 5,000 within a party membership of over 95,000 - or just 5%. There's a problem there.

Finally, the most recent provincial polling has the caquistes leading the Liberals 35-22, with the pequistes at 21%. That would lead to a majority government of 104 seats for the CAQ, 19 seats for the Liberals, and 2 for Québec solidaire (don't get me started on them). The pequistes, adequistes, and Option nationale are all left out.

And the drama goes on....

Blunt Object's Projections: Did I Do Well, At All?

2011-11-19T16:32:00.001-05:00

This is a quick post, modeled somewhat after how Eric Grenier does it, for each of my projections this past provincial election season. First up, Ontario:

Ontario
Projection - 58 Lib, 29 PC, 20 NDP (38.5% Lib, 33.9% PC, 23.5% NDP, 3.0% Grn)
Actual - 53 Lib, 37 PC, 17 NDP (37.6% Lib, 35.4% PC, 22.7% NDP, 2.9% Grn)
Actual w/ Projection - 56 Lib, 31 PC, 20 NDP

Well, clearly it wasn't perfect, but including my ranges, it was pretty good. Even with the actual results inputted into the projection system, it still gave the Liberals a majority - but a difference of 3 seats for the governing party, and 6 seats for the main Opposition, I'm not too worried. And except for the PCs who were underestimated a tad by polls, the popular vote was kept within 1%. I consider that fairly impressive.

Next up, Newfoundland and Labrador:
Projection - 39 PC, 7 NDP, 2 Lib (54.0% PC, 29.6% NDP, 16.4% Lib)
Actual - 37 PC, 6 Lib, 5 NDP (56.1% PC, 24.6% NDP, 19.1% Lib)
Actual w/ Projection - 39 PC, 5 Lib, 4 NDP

This would have worked out really well, if not for most polls overestimating the NDP by upwards up 5-10%, and underestimating the Liberals by 5%. Had I the actual results, 39-5-4 is pretty close. Not the same ridings, however - I missed Humber Valley and Torngat Mountains for the Liberals, though both were very close, alongside some other mistakes - but the seat totals were close enough. The polls, however, had major issues.

Now on the stage, Manitoba:

Projection - 32 NDP, 24 PC, 1 Lib (45.9% PC, 42.6% NDP, 8.9% Lib, 2.3% Grn)
Actual - 37 NDP, 19 PC, 1 Lib (46% NDP, 43.9% PC, 7.5% Lib, 2.5% Grn)
Actual w/ Projection: 35 NDP, 21 PC, 1 Lib

My problem here was that I didn't let more recent polls in Manitoba carry better weight - so the old polls that showed the PCs with better leads meant the PCs ended up with a higher popular vote, and a higher seat count. However, as the actual results inputted through the projection show, had I gotten it closer to the mark I'd only challenge the NDP on 2 seats - St. Norbert and Southdale - which were close anyways.

Saskatchewan is last, but not least:

Projection: 44 Sask, 14 NDP (62.7% Sask, 32.6% NDP, 2.5% Grn, 1.7% Lib)
Actual - 49 Sask, 9 NDP (64.2% Sask, 32.0% NDP, 2.9% Grn, 0.6% Lib)
Actual w/ Projection - 44 Sask, 14 NDP

Well, I wasn't very good with this, missing the mark on 5 seats that were, frankly, all thought to be NDP strongholds. The popular vote was OK - the Liberals were over-estimated but not by a hilarious amount - so it was more just the previously-thought invulnerability of those five seats, which include Regina-Douglas Park, Saskatoon-Fairview, Regina-Coronation Park, Regina-Walsh Acres, and Prince Albert Northcote.

Overall, I'm happy with the results. A few tweaks here and there, and I'll get even better results. The worst practice was, obviously, the poor weighting on Manitoba; best was the ranges for Ontario. In the future I'll have to keep up on that, and my rolling average projection for Canada (which is currently 140-110-57-1, thanks for asking) does include better weighting on my part, and I'll make up ranges too.

No, Paul Dewar, the NDP Has the Most to Grow in Ontario

2011-11-19T15:42:00.001-05:00

Paul Dewar, NDP leadership candidate and MP for Ottawa Centre, has a very silly quote attributed to him:

"The orange wave stopped in Manitoba..."

No, the orange wave really stopped in Ontario, where the NDP's small 7-point rise but failure to capitalize upon those gains to provide counterbalance to the Conservatives allowed that party to earn a majority government.

Now, don't get me wrong, as the NDP's numbers in the West are historically weak - 32% in BC (vs. 37% high), 16% in AB (vs. 17% high), 32% in Saskatchewan (vs. 44% high), and 25% in Manitoba (vs. 33% high), which is roughly 28% in the Prairies (vs. a 38ish% high). There's definitely room to grow, and Dewar is right that the NDP need something of a "Western agenda," just as the Liberals do.

Let's get one thing clear here, though: the Conservatives have a lock on this region, and the NDP are unlikely to overturn it any time soon. Especially lead by a left-of-centre Ontarian. But I digress - let's do the math.

If we assume that the next election sees the NDP target at least its highs in each region, and we assume that most of those voters are taken from the Conservatives (which would need to happen, since the Liberal vote is, well, lol), here's what we'd get:

BC - 19 Con, 14 NDP, 2 Lib, 1 Grn
AB - 27 Con, 1 NDP
SK - 7 NDP, 6 Con, 1 Lib
MB - 9 Con, 4 NDP, 1 Lib
(PR - 15 Con, 11 NDP, 2 Lib)

In total, add on to their current numbers and you get 117 New Democrats.

Not exactly a surge of support, is it?

And let's be clear here that while a take over of Saskatchewan is entirely possible by the NDP, takeovers of Manitoba and BC are a lot harder than they seem, while Alberta will be impossible (said that about Quebec too, didn't we? Don't kid yourselves though - Alberta is nothing like Quebec).You'd be going up against entrenched conservatism and Conservative adherence that is simply not friendly towards the NDP, not like Quebec, with its quasi-federalist/nationalist social democratic population, something the NDP appealed to.

Here's a hint, NDP leadership candidates - especially ones from Ontario, like Dewar - focus on your home province. Ontario offers your best chance of picking up seats and effectively taking away from the Conservatives with less effort than is required to tackle the Western Conservative juggernaut.

Plus, let's face it - any successful non-Conservative coalition has been made up of Quebec and Ontario, not Quebec and Western Canada.

The NDP could easily win over 50 seats in Ontario if they applied themselves. So far, they haven't, and they're consistently behind the Liberals in polls in Canada's largest province. Twenty-two seats is not enough, Dippers - you need to at least double that.

So, Western agenda? Maybe. But how about an Ontario agenda as well? It's the place to grow.

Re: Liberal Seat Proposal, By the Numbers

2011-11-18T20:28:00.001-05:00

Following up on Riding-by-Riding/Teddy's post, here's a quick analysis of the Liberal's HoC representation plan:

- Ontario and BC are still under-represented
- NB, NS and PEI still has more seats than its population requires, despite seat losses
- Quebec and Alberta get fairly close-to-the-mark results
- The two Prairie provinces are closer to the mark but still over-represented

What is this? This is nothing. I'm horribly disappointed by this plan. Horribly so. It's downright silly.

And it proves two things in my mind. One, that it's pretty much impossible to give fair representation by population for Big Four (ON, QC, BC, AB) without increasing the total number of seats if you're not willing to cancel out the special causes for all the smaller provinces.

Two, the Liberals are just doing this for the publicity. There is no reason except populist pandering and too much time on your hands to pursue it.

Now, I have a healthy respect for Dion and Garneau and the rest of the Liberal caucus, and when push comes to shove I think rep-by-pop with the current number of seats (or at least a set amount) is an idea totally worth pursuing.

But if you're not willing to propose doing the tough things - i.e., stripping special clauses - in order to make the plan viable for everyone, especially Ontario and BC, then don't even bother. How can anyone believe we're serious if we're not at least willing to explore the idea?

Liberal seat proposal, by the numbers

2011-11-18T19:20:00.003-05:00

A follow up on an earlier post by Volkov. There is a new CBC News story outlining the number of seats in the Liberal proposal for seat redistribution. In short, this proposal would remove 1 seat from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and 2 seats each from Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Quebec would also lose 3 seats; but still remain above their population share. These seats would then go to Alberta (+3) BC (+2) and Ontario (+4)

Reason #1 Why You Should Follow Pat Martin on Twitter

2011-11-17T14:59:00.001-05:00

He doesn't take shit from no-one.

I know, people will say he should have controlled his anger. It's true, but Pat Martin is absolutely justified to lose his cool. When you deal with idiots like @LettingSmokeOut (and he is an idiot, just look at his tweet history), sometimes a profanity or two needs to be let out.

Here's another fact that some people miss: who cares? Maybe the older generations, but I'll tell you right now that when my generation hears a cuss word or two thrown around, we aren't very concerned. In fact, Pat Martin is something of a hero, at least to me (at least in this one situation).

Anyways, @LettingSmokeOut clearly doesn't understand the difference between a socialist or... anything, really. He's kind of your typical religious troll, and emphasis on troll. Who lets these people out of the crazy house?

Oh yeah and then there's all his tweets against the Conservatives. Less profanity but still important.

Liberals Come Out Against New MPs

2011-11-16T17:23:00.001-05:00

What?

I don't know about this folks...

I understand the idea - that the cost of extra MPs is too frivilous, and that by instead redistributing the current 308 seats between the provinces based on population representation, we can save costs while furthering the idea of democracy - but I just don't think its doable, and I question whether its actually the right thing to do.

The Liberals do a poor job explaining this idea fully (so far), and it's not any considered policy that I know of. There's no basis for it outside of the caucus' whims on any given day. Plus, as the third party, we're not going to get anywhere with it right now nor in the immediate future. So why are we coming out with it now?

Plus, securing Quebec's "special status" - and whether that means 25% or 24% or 75 seats or whatever - just contradicts the entire idea anyways. Really, if we're going to focus on rep-by-pop, why are we securing an unrepresentative amount for Quebec?

I'd have to think about it for a while longer, really, because I just saw it now and I don't know the details. But consider for a second what the Liberal "plan" entails:

1. Opening up the constitution and getting rid of the clause which ties seat count to Senate members
2. Adding in Quebec's "special status" which kind of contradicts the idea anyways
3. Dumbing down the Atlantic provinces and the Prairie provinces a whole bunch, including dropping PEI from 4 seats to 1
4. Bargaining with Premiers who each want a certain level like Quebec
5. Potentially risk creating an unstable level of representation - is 308 seats really enough?

Plus, let's face it - not doing it because of the cost is as ridiculous as the argument for not having an election because of the costs. It's a miniscule amount for a government's budget, and if it's needed, it's needed.

No one, except apparently the Liberals, can say a change in the seat totals aren't needed. I worry about this. I worry about it a lot.

Handicapping the NDP Leadership Race

2011-11-12T09:59:00.001-05:00

Eric Grenier over at 308.com has done something very fantastic this week with the conclusion of the provincial election bonanza that will be extremely helpful as the NDP leadership race moves along: an actual predictive method.

You'd have to read Grenier's entire post to get a good grasp of what he's done, but it's an extremely clever way of doing things given the lack of polling in Canadian leadership races (nothing like what goes on in the US).

The general idea is to use the endorsements of various NDP heads and representatives to attempt to handicap how much influence candidates may pull at the end of the day. It makes sense since one can say that a former party leader can influence a lot of individuals, while individual MPs and provincial representatives, as well as talking heads and other endorsers we've seen in the race, can pull on their own influence within the NDP to deliver votes to their chosen candidate.

Grenier has given each type of endorser seen (or expected to be seen) a set level of influence depending upon how many elections they've been in, what province they're representative of, and so on. You can see his entire list here. After adding up all the points of a candidate's endorsers, you get a total, and from that total being thrown into the soup with all the other candidate's totals, you'll get a percentage.

Grenier goes over how well such a system would have worked well with the 2006 Liberal leadership race (of course, using the benefit of hindsight). Just how accurate it is though is pretty amazing - no candidate strayed over 5% from his "predictions" as they were.

Of course, the main difference between the 2006 race and this NDP leadership race is that the Liberal's race was delegated and endorsements truly matter in a direct way - but in an OMOV race, the direct influence is less clear.

Even so, I think Grenier's sytem is fantastic because it can give you some sense of the way endorsers are moving. So while Mulcair may have a lot more endorsers than Topp in the end, they're just MPs. Topp meanwhile has the big guns on his side like Romanow and Broadbent, the latter who propels Topp into his first place position. And really, once you get those endorsements alongside those endorser's connections and pulling power, getting 43% of the membership's vote in a first ballot doesn't seem like a hard thing to do, does it?

Anyways, Grenier's endorsement ranking idea is going to take over my "NDP leadership" thing over on the side. The man knows what he's doing and I'd like to see how it fares in the end.

Here's an Awesome Way to Get People to Vote

2011-11-10T16:52:00.001-05:00

The Liberal Party is always in need of new ideas, and let this ad from Vladimir Putin's United Russia party show us how it's done:

And the tagline, you ask? "Let's Do It Together." I kid you not. Sex sells anything, apparently. Even political participation.

Oh LPC Exec, How You Fill Me With Hope

2011-11-10T14:13:00.001-05:00

If you haven't yet read "A Roadmap to Renewal," the document laid out and published by the National Board, you need to. Because it's important, it's intelligent, and above all, it makes perfect sense. Here's some key points:

the Liberals will no longer be protecting their incumbents, as all candidates for a seat in the House of Commons will be subjected to an open nomination battle - so now our incumbents, the good and the bad, will have to fight for the confidence of the average Liberal member
there will be a distinction between Members and a new class called Supporters; the former is what we have now. Supporters are non-fee paying registrees who have to affirm a "Declaration of Liberal Principles," confirm non-membership in other political organizations (I hope donations to other parties will be included in that as well), and can vote in riding nominations and leadership races, but cannot stand as a member of an executive, vote for Party Officers, nor stand as a riding candidate for an election. Only full Members will be allowed to do this
a focus on rebuilding EDAs in the country by pushing the PTAs (provncial-territorial associations, i.e. LPC(O), etc.) to prioritize EDA support
a huge push to centralize the LPC; this is key because the LPC acts like a federation of different PTAs who all have their heads and inter-party grievances. The document outlines pushes to centralize finance, integrate communications and volunteer bases, and expand the role of the central Party into the day-to-day operations in the PTAs
making the Council of Presidents more of a consultative body versus the policy/legislative body it currently is
a big push to change the Party's communications and technologies (and therefore fundraising) strategy; the key phrase is the LPC's recognition of the change we need to undertake from being a party of "brokerage politics" to a party of political activists

I love it. Who says the current Executive is useless? They have the right ideas, and they have the guts to challenge the established party attitude. I see the horizon folks, and it looks a heck of a lot brighter for us than it did before.

How're the Other Two Western Incumbents Doing?

2011-11-10T11:08:00.001-05:00

Since the elections in Manitoba and Saskatchewan reconfirmed the hegemonies of the Manitoba NDP and the SaskParty with massive wins, people have tended to forget that the two provinces immediately west have incumbents on shaky ground, especially so in the case of the BC Liberals and Premier Christy Clark, and the still-unknown position of the Alison Redford PC's in Alberta.

I've taken the liberty to run rolling averages/projections of these two provinces, and up to this date, here's what I've gotten so far, starting with Alberta:

Prog. Conservatives - 42.5% - 67 seats

Wildrose Party - 22.2% - 10 seats

Alberta Liberals - 18.5% - 5 seats

New Democrats - 13.1% - 4 seats

Alberta Party - 1.9% - 0 seats

Others - 1.8% - 1 seat (Ind. in Edmonton-Manning)

Obviously, as can be seen, the Redford PC's are handily ahead in both the popular vote and the seat count, though that's a drop from 2008. Polls have put the PCs consistently under 50% and the Wildrosers maintain a healthy advantage as the second choice, while the ALP is trending downwards, shedding four seats from it's current nine. The NDP, meanwhile, are trending upwards, gaining two seats since 2008.

Some notable riding-level results:

The Wildrose Party, which currently has four seats, gains six, including two in Calgary (Calgary-North West and Calgary-Hawkwood, on top of Calgary-Fish Creek and Calgary-Glenmore), three in southern Alberta (Cardston-Taber-Warner, Airdrie, Little Bow), one in central Alberta (Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills), and one in the north (Dunvegan-Central Peace). Their leader Danielle Smith falls short in Highwood (33.7% to the PC's 50.7%), but I didn't apply anything to her numbers, and I would otherwise give her the seat if I could. One of their incumbents, Guy Boutellier in Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo, loses his seat. It's notable that the Wildrosers are second in Calgary (29.0% to the PC's 36.1% and the ALP's 22.8%), but fourth in Edmonton (just 6.8%).

The Alberta Liberals hold on to only core seats - Edmonton-Centre, Edmonton-Riverview, Calgary-Buffalo, Calgary-Mountainview, and Calgary-Varsity. Only two of those - Mountainview and Buffalo - are "safe." Their current leader, Raj Sherman, who I did apply a vote booster to (since he's an incumbent, vs. Smith not being an incumbent), falls far short in Edmonton-Meadowlark with just 30% to the PC's 42%.

The New Democrats pick up two low-hanging fruit in Edmonton, Edmonton-Beverly-Clearview, and Edmonton-Calder. But they're surprisingly close in a few other ridings, including Edmonton-Centre, Edmonton-Ellerslie, Edmonton-Glenora, and Edmonton-Manning. Glenora would see former NDP leader Ray Martin elected, if the vote was just a bit higher. However, outside of Edmonton the NDP is a pointless entity, their only impressive result coming out of Peace River where they earn 31% to the Tory's 43%, and that's only because of the lack of a Liberal candidate in 2008.

Finally the Alberta Party, whose numbers I essentially grabbed from the Greens (who no longer exist in Alberta), with their only incumbemt - former Liberal MLA Dave Taylor in Calgary-Currie - losing horribly with just 9% of the vote, compared to 37% for the PCs, 26% for the ALP, and 19% for the Wildrosers.

What does it all mean? Well, Redford's victory - or at least the ejection of Ed Stelmach as Premier - has helped push the PCs back into the dominant position. Meanwhile the Opposition, made up of right-wingers, centrists, and left-wingers, is battling over each other to see who represents the best option against the PCs. It's a recipe for disaster for the Opposition.

Now, moving on to BC, where the BC Liberals and Premier Christy Clark are in big trouble:

BC New Democrats - 41.4% - 47 seats

BC Liberals - 35.9% - 35 seats

BC Conservatives - 12.6% - 2 seats

Greens - 6.3 % - 0 seats

Others - 3.8% - 1 seat (Vicki Huntington)

The presence of a heftier BC Conservative Party is definitely having an impact on BC politics as 10% that would have likely gone to the Liberals are instead bunched up with John Cummins' party. Case a point: the NDP, who have lost support since 2009 (they had 42.1%), would be losing 50-34 if that extra 10% shifted back to the Liberals.

The two seats the Conservatives would win are Boundary-Similkameen and Chilliwack. They're also competitive in in Kelowna-Mission, Kootenay East, and Penticton. Outside of the southern Interior region, they're not doing too well, but they take away enough votes to matter.

I expect that in the Surrey-Richmond-Delta region, where John Cummins hails from and the Conservatives are strong federally, will probably shift a little bluer than it currently is (10.5%, compared to 39% for both NDP and Libs), but the Conservatives are stuck until they move above 15% or so. Some polls show that, some don't, so who knows.

The Greens are pretty much dead in the province, despite Lizzy May's win federally. Their best riding is 19% of the vote.

Interesting ridings? None really. Clark's riding of Vancouver-Point Grey is tied (44-43), and several of Clark's ministers are losing (Kash Heed, for one).

It's pretty clear however that the shine has come off of Clark, who, while not trailing anywhere near as badly as Campbell was, is facing a bit of raiding on the part of the Conservatives. Really, if you take away the 10% from Cummins, the vote totals are remarkably similar to 2009 - 45.9% Libs if you add the 10% compare to 46% in 2009, 41.4% for the NDP to 42.1% in 2009, 6.3% for the Greens to 8% in 2009, 2.6% for the Cons to 2.1% in 2009, and so on. Clark needs to start taking away from the Conservatives or gobbling up the Green vote if she wants to position her party back on top and keep Adrian Dix away from the Premier's office.

There's Debate A-Stirrin'

2011-11-09T13:21:00.000-05:00

Both Warren Kinsella and Gritchik as (well, state in the latter): is the Sunshine girl offensive, or are people making a mountain out of a mole hill?

Obviously, that relates back to the wider point of whether or not our, as Gritchik calls it, "... hyper-sexualized society in which 3 year-olds are entering beauty pageants dressed as the Julia Roberts’ hooker character from Pretty Woman, complete with blonde wig and thigh high leather boots," should go through some changes in its thinking.

It's a debate well worth having.

Personally, as a social liberal I'd like to see things toned down a tad but, hey, if that's what you want to do, that's what you want to do. But, as a male, I'm not about to argue the point with any of the Sunshine models, if you know what I mean.

Fact is, there is a market out there for it, and there are people willing to fulfill the role needed. If it doesn't kill anyone, doesn't steal from anyone, and is something done voluntarily, you'd be hard pressed to find any sort of valid argument against it. Just sayin'.

Open Primaries - A Primer

2011-11-09T10:12:00.000-05:00

With all the discussion and talk about the Liberal Party of Canada moving towards a primary system, and most of the talk being on the so-called "open primary" model, I thought it would be a good idea to quickly go over what exactly an open primary is.. Sort of a political nerd's Q&A. And yes, I asked all these questions to myself.

Q: What is a primary?
A: A primary is essentially the system by which a party selects their candidate for an upcoming election. We would call it a "nomination meeting" in the case of riding-level organizations, or a "leadership race" in the case of who leads the party. There are several different types of "primaries," but the main choices you have are a "closed" primaries, and "open" primaries, with other types littered in between. Primaries can also be sponsored by the government, or sponsored entirely by a party. But overall, there is no major difference between what we currently do to elect candidates and the leadership, versus what, say, American primaries do (except that American primaries have both parties participating, key fact).

Q: What's an "open primary"?
A: An open primary is when the process of selecting a candidate is open to everyone. Any person who is willing to take their time out to vote for a candidate is allowed to vote, whether or not they're registered party members. The idea is that the more you throw open the doors, the more you can claim there's been democracy at work.

Q: Doesn't that open the doors to abuse from other parties?
A: Why yes, it does. Or at the very least, it makes it a lot easier. Even closed primaries are subject to possible abuse from other party members, since all it takes is a small fee and you can vote in an one-member, one-vote system. In an open primary however, you don't need to even sign up. That's one of the main criticisms of the system.

Q: So, is there a way to stop abuse?
A: There are ways to cut down on possible abuse, mostly by excluding individuals that have held or currently hold other party memberships, and only allowing those who are party members or non-affiliated individuals to vote. However, this is a lot more effective in the United States, where American a huge chunk of American voters are classified as either "Democrat," "Republican," or "Independents." known as partisan registration, and primary systems can keep out Republican voters in Democratic primaries, though still have the doors open to Independents (which, by the way, is known as a semi-closed primary). Canada has nothing like this.

Q: Is partisan registration needed to stop abuse?
A: I would say that, no, it's not needed in an ideal situation, but Canada's situation is not ideal. The problem is - and correct me if I'm wrong - that Elections Canada doesn't keep track of party memberships, and even if they do, they don't seem to share it often (this is in personal experience). That is an aside fact because membership in parties in Canada is unlikely to reach above 600K at any given point, and that's being generous. Let's just note that there were +900K Con voters in Alberta alone in 2011. It would not be hard to slip through.

Q: So you're saying there's no way to make it accountable?
A: No, I'm saying that there is no way to give it a perfect level of accountability. But there are ways to decrease your risk. One way of keeping track of voters is to see who's been donating to which party, something that Elections Canada does keep track of and makes public, so long as it's over $200. It just requires that voters are registered at the door or in advanced, so we can check against a list. This and other ideas can keep raiding at a minimum. It requires foresight, however, and it's not perfect. The question is whether or not you want to take the risk.

Q: Do open primaries increase the likelihood of voters voting for a party in a general election?
A: I hate to say it, but there's no tangible evidence that it does. Outside of the US, very few parties or countries use the primary system. Some, like the Colombian Liberal Party, haven't had their outlook improve, though in the same country, the Green Party's primary elections may have helped it improve. One case where the Westminster system was subjected to an open primary, the selection of the Conservative candidate in Totnes, was acclaimed as a success - however, the problem is that Totnes was already a Conservative hold. There's no proof either way, since there are so many other mitigating factors.

Q: I heard the Alberta Liberal Party held an open primary, is this true?
A: In a very technical sense, no. The ALP held what was akin to a closed primary, since voting was available only to party members. However in practice, it was an open primary, because memberships were free and came with little to no strings attached.

Q: Is the ALP's system the correct way of doing things?
A: In my personal view, if you're going to hold an open primary, hold a real open primary, otherwise you risk embarrassment. Case and point is with the ALP, who despite signing up 28,000 members, failed to get 20,000 of them to vote. Another point as well is that maybe 4,000 actually donate to the ALP, meaning they held an expensive leadership election with little in the way of return.

Q: If the LPC moves to an open primary system, does it mean that the dues-paying membership has less say?
A: In a certain way, yes. While the donating member will always have a major role to play in the finance and structure of the LPC or any political organization, allowing non-members to vote on candidates and leadership contenders takes away from the weight of actual members in the Party. After all, if you're a candidate, you're going to appeal to where the votes are, and it's not too hard for a gaggle of non-members to easily outnumber an EDA membership (harder in a leadership race, but still a possibility). One way to combat this is by giving members more weight in votes than non-members - ie., a non-members vote is worth only half of a member's vote. It is discriminatory, but there's a valid reason for it.

Anyways that's all - if you have any further questions, ask in the comments below and I'll answer them the best I can.

Did You Know PEI Doesn't Allow Legal Abortions?

2011-11-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

I certainly didn't. But it's true - PEI's abortion laws are horribly behind the times.

Fact is, I doubt it's ever mattered too much to any Islander, given that it's a trip across the Confederation Bridge and you'll be in a province that does (nearest clinics are in Fredericton and Halifax, I gather), plus the province does accept that is has to fund the procedure. So if you're a woman who did need an abortion performed and you lived on the Island, I suppose it's an inconvenience (and a little stupid) but there's no PEI thought-police out to stop you from crossing the border.

Even so it's about time that the PEI government and Liberal Premier Robert Ghiz updated these laws to reflect modern society and Canada's progressive values - controversial or not (do you really want to be supported by LifeSite? Really?). Maybe it's not going to change a lot, but it's the principle of the thing.

So, if you're a progressive and pro-choice and out in PEI or nearby any time soon, help these people get the Ghiz government to change the law. No need for the Island to be stuck in the past.

Let Saskatchewan be a Lesson to Liberals

2011-11-08T14:07:00.000-05:00

Let the tale I'm about to explain in greater detail than before be a lesson to Liberals across Canada.

In 2007, the Saskatchewan Liberals attained 9.6% of the vote in a province-wide election, and came within 5% of winning one seat in Saskatoon, where their leader was running. Even though they did not win any seats for the second election in a row, they maintained a full slate of candidates who's vote totals ranged from meh to respectable to competitive, and considering the large vote squeeze occurring between the conservative Saskatchewan Party (a coalition of former Conservatives and Liberals) and the then-incumbent New Democratic government, they should have counted their blessings.

In 2009, the leader of the party, David Karwacki, stepped down and the ensuing race was won by a self-styled economist ouf the The Battlefords named Ryan Bater. Not much has ever been known about Bater, and no one really cared, but he was now leader of Saskatchewan's third party, and he could manage something if he tried, right? Even against the most popular of incumbents, like Premier Brad Wall, there was always room to grow.

So, without a seat in the legislature but enough gravitas to be somewhat relevent, people assumed that Bater would lead the slightly centre-right Liberals to something similar to Karwacki's numbers, maybe a bit lower, somewhere in the level of 1982 when the party only received 5% of votes. Even then, of course, the party ran a full slate.

But, it seems that instead of running a full slate, Bater and his crew decided to run only a handful of candidates in the election, and focus on winning Ryan Bater his seat in The Battlefords. Thus, after the party had gotten back into the legislature, they could rebuild and start again.

You can imagine what the consequences of this decision were.

The Saskatchewan Liberals were kicked out of the debate, and fundraising dried up. The party's candidates ended up being friends of the executive or executive members themselves. Only 9 of them were registered to run, a number on par with the defunct Progressive Conservatives in the province, who still probably have more money.

In the election, no candidate other than Bater received more than 3% of the vote, with that aforementioned Saskatoon riding that was so close last time becoming a wasteland where the candidate received less than 2% of the vote. In Bater's riding, he dropped 2% and ended up a sad third place. All the bunching of his resources into his riding meant nothing to the voters there, who while looking for change, saw nothing of relevence in an effectively dead party.

The moral of the story: don't settle for irrelevancy. For any party to survive, be it the BC Conservatives, the PEI New Democrats, or the Saskatchewan Liberals, you need to work to build up an organization to fight an election on the same turf as the big boys, or at least adapt a strategy to seem like you are. Do something that shows voters your serious, like running a full slate, or electing leaders who don't have rocks for brains. Don't elect yourselves a Ryan Bater, who cares nothing for your party clearly through his actions, by gutting it and focusing all resources on himself in what will end up being a failed bid for relevancy.

As the federal Liberal Party enters a new era of third-party status, we need to encourage ourselves. Yes, we need to accept the mandate Canadians have given us - we can't deny the reality of the situation. But it doesn't mean we have to accept it as final judgement, and it doesn't mean we need to cut ourselves into tinier and tinier pieces until we come to the point where any win, moral or tangible, becomes a miracle. It also doesn't mean we need to find get-elected-quick schemes, such as falling for the first leader with a silver tongue, our selling ourselves out to the NDP so we can score a few extra wins here and there.

It just means we have to keep up the energy and confidence in a Party that we all believe in. We don't need to become complacent fools willing to be taken over by some small-fry from The Battlefords who wouldn't know an effective electoral strategy if it smacked him upside the head.

We're Liberals, and we can do this.

Sask Liberals & Leader Ryan Bater

2011-11-07T23:06:00.001-05:00

What can I say? You fucked up.

Here's the results of tonight's vote in the 9 ridings the Liberals ran in, organized by vote totals:

That's right - 80% of voters were lost in those nine ridings since the 2007 election. Overall, 94% of Liberal voters in 2007 did not vote Liberal in 2011.

That's ridiculous, especially considering that Bater lost voters compared to 2007, when he got 13.36%. So much for the Lizzy May strategy.

Heads should start rolling. Now.

(PS: "Nathan Jeffries" should read "Saskatoon Meewasin", sorry about the mix-up.)

Why the The Leadership Needs the Power to Appoint Candidates

2011-11-07T11:20:00.000-05:00

Evil Incarnate

Of all the proposals I've heard floating around so far to change how democracy is done within the Liberal Party, the question of taking away a leader's power to appoint candidates is the worst. It's the only one that I cannot ever agree with, ever, because its so utterly stupid, it hurts me to think about it.

If you're unaware of who the guy above is, that's former Scarborough MP Tom Wappel, who in the 1980's took over the riding association in Scarborough Southwest with his group of pro-lifers, one of many that descended upon poor Scarborough during this time.

Wappel, who received support from Campaign Life and the Catholic Church for his pro-life views, is a prime example of why the power to appoint is sometimes necessary in certain ridings.

You can lament about democracy all you want, but a perfectly democratic system will produce results that will kill our chances in particular areas, or will saddle us with baggage we don't want. The fact is, the democratic process is easy to take over, especially so for a primary system which we seem to be moving towards (which I'm happy to support).

But let's be reasonable - we don't want another Tom Wappel, M.P., taking over a riding on the basis of a single issue campaign that we as Liberals are opposed to. We need some sort of trump card to pull on these people, and the ultimate trump card is candidate appointments by the leader, executive, or whatever.

Yes, I agree, people like Derek Lee or Jimmy K or John MacKay, who are all pro-life, are/were valued members of the Liberal caucus. No doubt about it. But they have and continue to prove their worth. Differences of opinion aside, these individuals have proven themselves to be credible.

But there will be the case when the difference of opinion is just too much. Again, we have Wappel. But what about Lesley Hughes, the Kildonan Truther candidate from 2008? What do we do when these highly organized and concentrated groups come together in one or two ridings, flood it with members, and take it over and nominate some unsuitable/unstable candidate? And this isn't only limited to the nutbars - riding associations should have a trump card to play against egotistical a-holes with designs on the riding. I know there's a few around Burlington in particular.

That's not democracy, that's an invasion. And I would sleep a lot better at night knowing that the leader and/or the executive had our backs and could do something.

Make it more restrictive, make it conditional, make it a democratic vote among the executive itself - I agree that the power needs to be curtailed. But please, please don't take it away. We'll be opening ourselves up to the Christine O'Donnells of the world if we do.

Garry Queale Says Video of Bus Driver Threatening Autistic Man Is "Inconclusive"

2011-11-07T10:48:00.000-05:00

If you have yet to see the video of an OC Transpo bus driver yelling at and threatening an autistic man named Matthew Taronno, you need to see it. It's posted at the end of this post.

This is, obviously, something that offends almost every person who ever sees it, because we know its wrong, and we know that the bus driver is a first-rate asshole who deserves to lose his job.

But, here's what OC Transpo's union head Garry Queale says:

"Well there is no sign of any driver being shown," said Queale. "There is a passenger standing beside the driver's area … from what I have seen it could be a person sitting over across yelling at somebody."

LOL. Really? Really? Just try listening to that video, and transcripting it. Particularly at 36 seconds in.

"... not a sound, or I open that fucking door, you get out, you don't say a fucking word, or I'm going to fucking kick your fucking ass."

You're telling me that's not the driver? The guy who controls the door? Who the Taronno is looking at and says sorry to as he runs out the back? Really?C'mon, that's utter bullshit. It's the driver, it's pretty clear it's the driver, the video is in no way "inconclusive."

Even if it was not the driver, guess what? The driver should have still done something. If a passenger is being threatened, why does the driver do nothing? That wouldn't inspire a lot of confidence in my safety on OC Transpo's buses.

Any way you cut it, the driver has failed to uphold any level of respect for OC Transpo. He needs to be held to account.But, no, the video is "inconclusive" according to Garry, who, I'm willing to bet here and now, will continue to stand up for this driver when he is found to be guilty.

And that's why I have a negative view of unions - they're apologists for the worst of us. Be it teachers, social workers, civil servants, or bus drivers, the union will always stick up for their members, even if they're utter incompetents. That not only punishes those who use and pay for these services, but those who do their job right as well. It's not fair, and Garry Queale has just reinforced that thought for me. Thanks Garry.

Sask Votes 2011 - With a Liberal twist

2011-11-07T10:20:00.000-05:00

I will be going over the Saskatchewan results tonight, and I also have a little projection running which, using all the polls so far, gives the following numbers:

SaskParty - 62.7%, 44 seats

NDP - 32.6%, 14 seats

Green - 2.5%

Liberal - 1.7%

Others - 0.4%

Nothing special, the same as 308.com's more or less. But here's something that this blog will be focusing on in particular - the fate of the Saskatchewan Liberals.

In alphabetical order, here are my projections for the vote totals in the 9 ridings the Liberals are running in:

As you can see, the only riding the Liberals are competitive in is Saskatoon Meewasin, and that's only because former leader David Karwacki ran there in 2007, and made it a three way race.

But since Karwacki is no longer running there, I suspect the numbers to drop pretty fast. I would actually say that 20% in more like 10%, if even that. We'll see what happens, because it could go either way - but more than 20% is an impossibility for Nathan Jeffries, currently running in the riding now.

Erstwhile Liberal leader Ryan Bater is running in The Battlefords, but based on swings from 2007, he should only get 8% this time. But because Bater is running there, and because that's the only place he's seen fit to be, it could get interesting - I would say Bater has a shot at maybe 20% in the riding (he got 12% in 2007), and could muddy the result in what would otherwise be an easy Sask Party pick-up. But the low visibility of the Liberals overall in the province will hurt them, and Bater's chances of picking the riding up are extremely low.

So tonight, I'll be watching the results come in and we'll see how things go. It won't be a livebog, but any interesting updates during the results will come through my Twitter, while at the end of the night I'll cover what it all actually means.

What Does Bob Rae Really Want to Do? We Need to Know.

2011-11-06T13:37:00.004-05:00

It's good, it's very good. It hits all key points that it needs to, and there's little in there I can find fault with. I especially like the primaries idea. It's a tad idealistic but, hey, that's the business we're in.

However, Paper Dynamite Online's Peter Wrightwater, I have concerns over Rae's game of footsie with the permanent leadership.

I'm not saying Bob Rae, if the executive changed the rules, shouldn't be allowed to run for permanent leader - I just know I wouldn't be voting for him, for a few reasons. But that's what the democratic process is about, and I'll get my chance to vote when the time comes.

But, think of it this way: Rae is our interim leader, someone who took up an extremely crappy job as leader of a demoralized third party in a majority parliament, basically with the intent to rebuild and re-energize the Liberals so we can get this thing chuggin' again. When he was chosen by the executive to head up the party in the interim (and for everyone's blathering, the executive did have a choice, and if they really wanted to keep Rae out they could have), he agreed not to run for the permanent leadership as a condition of the executive's support.

Now, if in 2012 the new executive decides to rescind this condition, does it really make it any less unscrupulous for Rae to then decide to run for the permanent leadership when he originally agreed he wouldn't?

Legally, there'd be nothing wrong with it. I would however consider it to be morally bankrupt. And from there, I would start to suspect what was going on in the backrooms of the 2012 convention, and wonder how key Rae supporters were positioned in the new executive to be able to change those rules. And you can't tell me that it didn't happen. Reality is simply never that favourable to one man.

Before you know it, we're away from the "Rae Revolution" and back into those old conspiracy games that characterise the modern LPC. Personally, I accept it as a natural cause-and-effect force within political organizations; for the majority, it's just the typical cynical politicians doing what they do, and we're back to square one.

So, you know what? Here's one way to step around this - Bob Rae must make his intentions clear sooner rather than later. If we get this out of the way now, we can avoid messy accusations later on. If Rae wants to run for the leadership, let him, but he must make it clear now, before the 2012 convention, when all of this comes to a head.

Furthermore, any candidates for the executive should also make clear their intentions, not just to the backroom boys, but to the entire Liberal Party. Call it a Rae Bloc, call it divisive, call it whatever - but Liberal Party members must be informed. If we are, then we can make the decision on Rae's ability to run for the permanent leadership maturely and honestly. Enough of hiding it.

If Rae and co. fail to make their intentions clear, then I think Liberals and Canadians in general are absolutely justified in whatever punishment they chose to put on Rae and the Party. If you want to change the way things are done, then pull backroom bullshit like that, let's not even pretend we have credibility anymore - it's clear no one will believe us anyways.

Capitulating to The Man - Romeo Saganash Flip Flops on Secession

2011-11-05T14:10:00.001-04:00

For a moment there, I thought that all the horror stories about Nycole Turmel and Alexandre Boulerice and the one to two dozen Quebec Dippers who have in the past or currently do openly support separatism (not to mention those who support the Sherbrooke Declaration, which makes them essentially apologists for pro-secessionists) were just that - horror stories, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel in the name of Romeo Saganash, who would step up to the plate, take on the NDP's entrenched forces, fight for a proper, law-abiding and sane position on secession in Canada, simultaneously taking away from Stephen Harper any shots he could fire towards the NDP as "soft on separatism," and wrap himself in the cloth of federalism ever so sweet. Romeo Saganash for NDP leadership! Nay - Romeo Saganash for Canada!!!

But, no. Like most politicians who a) have no spine, and b) are kidding themselves about their chances of winning, Saganash dumbed down his comments and stated he fully supported the Declaration, as apparently do Mulcair, Chisholm, and Dewar.

I know it's not a big issue these days, and I'm glad for it, but the NDP need to get serious about their policy on Quebec sovereignty, especially given their current position - which, I might add, should always be considered precarious, given that Quebec has a habit of throwing parties out once every decade or two.

Why does it matter, really? Because like it or not, the NDP are the best opposition party positioned to form a government. And when they do, I'd like to know that my government doesn't have positions at odds with legally binding court rulings and legislation, if and when separatists rise again. Or even if, let's say, one of our Western cousins starts letting things go to their heads.

Plus, it's always a good idea to question highly questionable policy. This is the big leagues, and every aspect of policy and every bit of ideology out of your party will be scrutinized, tested, and then nailed to a cross for everyone to see. And that's just what the media will do to you - you don't want to know what Stephen Harper's Conservatives have in store.

First Post-Three-Peat Poll

2011-11-04T20:43:00.000-04:00

Ontario News Watch has an Innovative Research poll that puts all parties within statistical margin of errors of the October 6th result, but Dalton McGuinty's Liberals have edged up ever so slightly, from the 37.6% of the election to 39%. The Hudak PCs are down from 35.4% to 34%, and the Horwath NDP are exactly where they were with 23% (they had 22.7% in the election).

In other words, same ol', same ol'.

One bit of polling, however, I have an issue with.

During the autumn election, the number of Ontarians who identified themselves as independent was higher than those who identified with any one of the other parties. Fully 26 per cent called themselves "independent" voters. Usually, 20 per cent or less give themselves that designation.

The Liberals seem to be the main losers here. Only 25 per cent of those asked identified themselves as Liberals, down from well over 30% in the last two campaigns, according to Mr. Lyle.

Just behind at 24 per cent were the Progressive Conservatives, and 16 per cent identified with the New Democratic Party.

This is such a useless bit of polling. Canadians as a general rule don't associate themselves with any particular party. We don't have party registration here. Voting patterns are too hilariously fluid for this to ever happen, as evident by the last two decades of parties rising and falling. Don't tell me "20% of voters call themselves 'independents'" - it's meaningless. It's voodoo.

Liberals Walk Out of AG Vote

2011-11-03T11:08:00.001-04:00

Good, because they're right to do so.

Originally I wouldn't support that position, since hey, I'm unilingual myself and I think Mr. Ferguson deserves a fair chance if he says he'll do what he says.

But listening to Bob Rae, you realize the Liberals have a point about something larger than just Ferguson - it's the violation of the process by the very thing that runs the process - the Harper government.

Croon all you want about official bilingualism in Canada Cons, but the fact is that the Harper gov't has violated its own legally-binding rules regarding such major civil service posts like the Auditor General by pushing through Ferguson's appointment. The government had a requirement that a candidate for AG must be bilingual. Lo and behold, the government violated its own rules - doesn't that make you question the integrity of this sham-wow government?

Yes, we know, Mr. Harper makes the rules. But that doesn't give the government the right to go back on its own rules just because they like the look of Ferguson. Maybe he is a good candidate, but he's not bilingual is he - and as Rae said, there's no chance that there isn't a single bilingual candidate just as good as Ferguson out there in the entirety of the country. It's ridiculous to assert as such.

Bottom line, the government has acted without integrity, and the Liberals have responded to that. Good on the Lib caucus, and I hope we really do explore further options to hit the government back for their arrogance. It's the least we can do for Canadians.

Dean Del Mastro - A History of a Huffin' and a Puffin'

2011-11-02T18:57:00.000-04:00

If you don't know who Dean Del Mastro is, you should - he's the perfect example of why Stephen Harper keeps the iron fist he does on the Conservative caucus.

First off, let's start with the most recent infraction - questioning the faith of Papineau Liberal MP Justin Trudeau, all because a local Catholic school in Del Mastro's Peterborough riding invited Trudeau to speak to students about youth and leadership. Not on any theological issue, but on leadership, something Del Mastro has no clue about, to be sure. And yes, I encourage everyone to go on Dean's "fan page" on Facebook and let him know just how much you appreciate those comments, as well as the continued attack by Del Mastro on various things involving Trudeau, because hey, he's just that bitter, for some odd reason.

Then we move to Dean's involvement on the attacks on the CBC, which Impolitical goes into so much better detail than I can.

Don't forget Del Mastro's wonderful decision to commission a poll because he didn't like another poll that showed his PC cousin behind in the provincial Peterborough riding this past September

There's a long line of things that apparently get Dean all in a huff, from apparently being called fat (get over it, Dean), to calling Jack Layton and the entire NDP caucus traitors, to saying the anti-proroguers were a media tool, and on it goes in this helpful collection of Dean-related articles in Maclean's.

I'm not sure how this one slipped past those super careful nutbar warning systems the Conservatives have, but I do know that the people of Peterborough deserve better representation that this guy.

Con Gov't Slashes UNESCO Funding Because Of Palestinian Membership

2011-11-02T09:53:00.000-04:00

At the same time, one wonders why exactly they promised, gave, and have protected Quebec's unwarranted seat at the same body?

Ridiculous pandering for votes - once for Quebec's, now for anti-Palestinian voters.

The United States administration is no better, given that they're pulling $60 million out of this much needed UN agency, all because UNESCO accepted Palestinian membership - and have threatened to pull more funding out of the UN as more and more agencies recognize Palestine as, well, something.

Whether or not you agree with the decision, anyone must see how naked of an act this by Baird and co. at Foreign Affairs, all part of the "lets suck up entirely to Israel" plan.

I'm a fan of Israel personally, but even I realize that the entire rational behind Canada's and the US' moves - that the UN shouldn't recognize Palestine in the absence of a peace deal - is entirely non-constructive. In no way does it help any side but Benjamin Netanyahu's and Avigdor Lieberman's - neither of which are very interested in peace in the region.

It's ridiculous, but that's how it is I guess. Is it any wonder that the peace process in the region can't even get off the ground these days?

Quebec's Just Looking For Love

2011-10-31T12:25:00.003-04:00

Sadly, in all the wrong places.

As the above graphic shows, the swings in provincial politics in Quebec are absolutely amazing. Given the option of Francoise Legault or Gilles Duceppe, Quebecois go wild and vote en masse (as much as 35%~ can be considered "en masse") for them, and will apparently vote in droves in this hypothetical polling.

As noted by 308.com and my own little projection system, Legault and his Mystery Party/CAQ would win over 100 seats in his scenario, while under Duceppe the PQ would win 80-90 in his. Yes, the federal leader whose party they just rejected massively in May would storm the provincial scene and win the PQ it's largest majority ever. Right.

We all knew that Quebec was hurtin' for leadership, but this borders on ridiculousness. What's worse is that I doubt Jean Charest and the PLQ can lose - the man is pretty much a permanent fixture in the National Assembly.

The poll didn't offer up any Liberal scenarios, but I assume if Nathalie Normandeau decided to stage a comeback, the Liberals would be polling at massive, nearly 40% heights in the province.

Speaking of Normandeau, the by-election in her vacated seat of Bonaventure (out on the Gaspé) will be coming up eventually. Should be interesting, especially if a Legault-backed candidate decides to run.

“Now we can confidently say there is trend in favour of Bob Rae at the current time”

2011-10-31T10:48:00.002-04:00

Lol, what?

“Nycole Turmel hasn’t really caught the imagination of voters. ... She is there minding the shop but her personal numbers are not necessarily moving.”

This means, however, that Mr. Rae is winning second place by “default,” Mr. Nanos added.

Asked to judge the leaders on trust, competence and vision for the country, 30.4 per cent of respondents said Mr. Harper was the most trustworthy leader, compared to 16.3 per cent for Mr. Rae and 11.2 per cent for Ms. Turmel. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is at 10.5 per cent.

On the competence, Mr. Harper leads with 37 per cent support compared to 18.3 per cent for Mr. Rae, 6.8 per cent for Ms. Turmel and 3.9 per cent for Ms. May.

Mr. Nanos also asked poll respondents about vision. He found that 29.8 per cent said Mr. Harper has the best vision for Canada’s future, followed by Mr. Rae with 15.3 per cent, Ms. Turmel with 13.3 per cent and Ms. May with 6.6 per cent.

Although, Mr. Harper is well ahead of his opponents on this front, the Nanos numbers show his score has dropped significantly since last month when 36.8 per cent said he had the best vision for Canada.

Let's not encourage Mr. Rae, now - he is just winning second place by default, after all.

But it speaks a lot about the sadness of the NDP's current situation when the third party leader hated by pretty much all of Ontario can beat out their much-touted interim leader in personal ratings and they end up a poor third in Ontario itself. Tells you something, don't it?

Speaking of the polling numbers, it's a standard post-Rapture poll, with the Conservatives at a healthy 37.7%, the NDP at 30%, and the Liberals at 23.4%. For a projection, this poll would give the Conservatives a minority gov't with 144 seats to the NDP's 100, the Liberal's 61, and Lizzy May.

Three notable trends out of Nanos:

1. This is the second poll in a row with the Liberals at a statistical tie with the NDP in BC, the last being 26.1 to the NDP's 22.3, this one being 26.2 to the NDP's 26.1, with the margin of error at about 8% in both. Is this the beginning of a trend in BC towards the Liberals, one that was witnessed in the early 2011 campaign before the Orange Wave emanated out of Quebec?

2. The Bloc is now struggling after being just above or under 20% in the last four polls for the province - Nanos' last poll had them at 14.4%, CROP has them at 15%, Leger at 21%, and Nanos' latest with 15.2%. I think it's safe to say that the Bloc is, at this time at least, dead in Quebec.

3. The NDP's Ontario numbers are always poor but there hasn't been a recent poll except for that one Ekos poll that has given the NDP a clear advantage over the Liberals (aka not outside of the margin of error), and only a couple that gave a second place finish at all. That's hard to manage with the supposed scourge Rae at the helm.

I guess there was news after all.

Slow week...

2011-10-31T10:23:00.002-04:00

So why not pick on Rick Perry?

"Rick Perry is going to go down in history for the all-time train wreck beginning. Because private polling in Iowa 40 days ago had him leading."

The Texas governor, former uber-star of the American tea partiers, is now at utter lows in key states leading up to the Republican primaries, sitting at just 7% in the most recent poll done in Iowa, the last time he broke 10% being at the beginning of October (11%). This is compared to the month of August, which had Perry between 20% and 29%, all first place finishes in the state. He follows July's GOP fling with Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who also sits below 10% in the majority of polls done in a state thought favourable to her since her decline.

The whole reason for this seems to be Perry's horrid performances whenever he's in front of a camera, and the shifting nature of the GOP's conservative base, jumping from Bachmann to Perry to Herman Cain, who barely anyone takes seriously (though maybe they should).

Perry is now so utterly irrelevant to the GOP field that he could drop out and I doubt anyone would care too much. The Bible-thumping, hard-right nature of this Texas governor was thought to be the winning concoction against the moderate Romney. Now it's gone down the same route as the folksy Alaskan red meat strategy, the common-sense Minnesotan backwoods mom strategy, and soon hopefully the libertarian CEO pizza guy strategy.

Nash, Chisholm Likely Round Out Dipper Field

2011-10-28T07:27:00.001-04:00

Both Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park) and Robert Chisholm (Dartmouth-Cole Harbour) have announced their intentions to enter into the increasingly crowded NDP leadership race, with Chisholm's announcement coming up this Sunday, and Nash's will be today (today being Friday).

I look at both candidates and wonder what their bases of support will actually end up being. And I gotta tell ya, it's hard.

Nash, a former union negotiator and the party's Finance Critic, is not in any way particularly impressive as a candidate, and probably shares a similar field to Dewar. I can't see anything outside of those union connections for her to build on. However, even those connections may not matter much if the unions see Brian Topp as the standard bearer in the race - as United Steelworkers already has. One could say that the women's vote might coalesce around Nash, but in a party where all major candidates support progressive attitudes towards women, it probably won't matter much (think Martha Hall Findlay).

Chisholm is a somewhat experienced hand, at least provincially, and has proven he can lead. He'll likely mop up the support of the NS NDP and Premier Darrell Dexter (his successor as NDP leader), and may or may not gain the support of the other Atlantic Dippers, minus the official groups in New Brunswick (as NB NDP leader Dominic Cardy supports Mulcair, and Acadie-Bathurst MP Yvon Godin supports Topp). Other than that, Chisholm's appeal is narrow and regionalized, appearing more like a Scott Brison regional candidate who, if all the other options really sucked, you could see yourself voting for, but in the end never will.

All this means is that Mulcair and Topp are the two likely frontrunners. I would not hedge any bets on Nash or Chisholm, and the same goes for Cullen and Saganash, as well as the utterly irrelevant Singh. Dynamics can and probably will change, but right now I see Mulcair-Topp with a Dewar spoiler as the likely climate right now and for the immediate future.

Ontario - Screwed Once Again By Harper?

2011-10-27T07:50:00.003-04:00

The most recent modification to the Harper government's seat redistribution plan will now give Ontario an extra 13 seats (to 119), Alberta 6 (to 34), British Columbia 5 (to 41), and Quebec 3 (to 78).

Now, this plan has gone through different variations, the first giving Ontario 18 extra seats, and that moved down as the Conservatives attempted to accommodate Quebec's desire to keep their MPs at a representative level (23% of the population - 23% of MPs). The second plan had moved to the 13-6-5 plan, with Quebec gaining 2, and now the actual tabled legislation will contain 3 extra seats for Quebec.

Consider these numbers, based off of Stats Can's quarterly population estimates:

Ontario - 119 seats - 112,378/seat
BC - 41 seats - 111,544/seat
Alberta - 34 seats - 111,157/seat
Quebec - 78 seats - 102,303/seat

Canada avg. pop./seat - 102,934

Now, I understand and have initially supported the idea behind pinning Quebec's HoC representation to its actual population, but am I missing something here? Why is it that the three provinces with the largest growth are given less room, just to accommodate Quebec?

Think of it this way. If Ontario had been granted the 124 seats. The average then? 107,847. This would have given Ontario ample room between now and the next redistribution to grow to the 125K it's around now that's apparently inconsiderable.

If Quebec had stayed at it's 75 seats, they'd have 106,395 citizens per riding - below the higher total if it had been given to Ontario. Yes, Quebec would not have had the 23 or so % of the population represented, but that's going down as Alberta, BC, and Ontario grow larger anyways. Eventually, Quebec will be at the 22% it would get under the alternate plan, and it would be surprising if that occurred between now and the next census.

So Ontario, BC, and Alberta, as they continue to grow, are per riding going to be squeezed again, while Quebec gets tonnes of room that it more than likely won't need.

And yet, nearly half the voters of these three provinces (well over half in AB) gave their votes to the guys perpetrating this in May, while under 20% gave their votes to the Conservatives in Quebec. At the very least you'd think the Conservatives would follow where their votes are.

**UPDATE**

The plan is actually now +6 seats for BC and Alberta, +15 for Ontario, and +3 for Quebec - but Ontario is still under-represented by the full numbers, and it's still ridiculous.

Note on the eventual Toronto-Danforth by-election...

2011-10-25T16:22:00.001-04:00

I agree with something posted awhile back by Globe and Mail columnist Robert Silver, that the upcoming by-election is a chance to do something different - specifically, the attempt at an "open primary" in the riding.

The concept is simple: anyone puts their name forward as a candidate for the nomination, and after being vetted by the local Liberal executives (and, I would argue, the national executive as well), a portion of those candidates are chosen by the local exec to be the "candidates" that they'd like to see become the candidate, based on either their own criteria or set criteria. After this, a ballot is sent out to every single voter in the riding, and they all have a chance to vote on who may become the next Liberal candidate.

Now, there are plentiful things wrong with this system - the chances for abuse are plentiful, and the federal exec is pretty much required to have the ability to override the democratic selection of a candidate, in case said candidate ends up being a total whackjob a là Lesley Hughes, Tom Wappel, and so on. And yes, these candidates can take over and abuse this process as easily as any other.

But, why the heck can't we at least try? It may not work out in the end; open primaries are a hassle, and you can be pretty embarrassed by the results. We'll never know if we don't try the system out, though. I'm personally a fan of a primary system - not necessarily "open," - and I'd like to try the system out. Who knows? The results may just surprise you, and we could make the by-election an interesting affair, whether we lose by another mile or not.

NDP Might Reconsider the Whole "Inheritance Tax" Thing...

2011-10-25T07:40:00.001-04:00

I wonder if this might be the reason why no one in the NDP has ever been passionate about death taxes:

An analysis of political contributions by The Canadian Press found the New Democrats have raised more money from estate donations than any other political party.

Fifteen people have bequeathed the party more than $400,000 in recent years.

Half that came from the estate of Ruth Millicent Hass. The long-time resident of the small town of Kaleden in British Columbia's Okanagan valley died in April 2010 at age 89 and left the NDP a staggering $210,000.

... The New Democrats also got big chunks of change from the estates of Anne Murray Powell, of Toronto, who left the party $85,000 this year, and Barbara Armitage, of Duncan, B.C., who bequeathed $39,000.

The article notes that the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, those of the big-money, richy-rich donor fame, collectively received $66,500 ($56,500 Con, $10,000 Lib) - not even 20% of the amount the NDP rake in. The Communists receive just under $23,000, and the Greens about $22,000.

Really? I mean, I don't care what you do with your money when you pass on, and leaving it to political parties you support makes a certain amount of sense. But $400K in total? Yeesh. Some people are obviously committed.

Re: Federal Tories need to do better

2011-10-24T00:03:00.001-04:00

Fellow Liblogger Gritchik did a post up further clarifying her position on the whole "It Gets Better" video done by the federal Conservatives, and giving my post earlier a bit of a cameo:

"I disagree with Volkov – I don’t think that those Tories who voted against same-sex marriage made this video to share an anti-homphobia message. I’ll bet that if you asked Rona Ambrose, Vic Toews, Joy Smith and Deepak Obhrai, they would tell you that the video was about bullying. And Senator Meredith who has said that “being gay is a choice.”"

Well, disagreements are fair. But, if you read what I wrote...

"... you can have opposing ideals to the LGBT community, and still support them living a bully-free, harassment-free life in this country"

... you'll note that I never said they did it because they love the LGBT community, but that they share the key ideal that bullying and homophobia is wrong - and yes, I believe they do think homophobia is wrong, since homophobia = bullying, and it's a bit of a disconnect being a raging homophobe while opposing the bullying of homosexuals. And as I said, if these folks were really all that bad, they wouldn't do the video. Even if they were all that, then an anti-bullying message still deserves awesome kudos.

Yes, it's pretty clear from the Tim Harper/Dan Savage article that the Conservatives must do more to highlight an anti-bullying/homophobe program in Canada. That's clear, and I hope they do. Will they? Well, maybe, maybe not... but let's look at this another way.

The individuals in the video should not necessarily be looked at as representatives of the Conservative Party of Canada or the Canadian government, but as individuals. The fact is, I have serious doubts they were ever authorized and directed by the PMO or ConHQ to do the video. I don't know what happened behind-the-scenes, but I would guess that this was done of their own volition. The video quality, the random individuals and locations, and the fact that it was sent to the local chapter of It Gets Better in Ottawa - that all points towards this being the initiative of one or a few people, who felt it was the right thing to do, especially in light of Jamie Hubley's tragic death.

If it was representative of the Conservative gov't, you'd suspect the video quality to be a lot better, that there would be a set location for filming, and that you'd get more prominent personalities than Mike Wallace, Lois Brown, Alice Wong, David Sweet, and the random individuals at the beginning there, in the space of three or so minutes.

So, let's give credit where credit is due - to all the people who appeared in the video to send out an extremely important message. Not to the Conservative Party, not to the government, but to those individuals in particular. That's only fair.

Take Off Your Partisan Hat For A Moment

2011-10-21T18:05:00.000-04:00

In theory, I have no problems with either BigCityLib and Gritchik, two wonderful Libloggers who you need to read, I find their reactions to this video to a little... petty:

Both BCL and Gritchik point out the quality of the video, and Gritchik in particular alludes to the hypocrisy of some of the individuals, considering that they've either made stupid statements or voted against a just bill.

That's fair, but... really? I get that, hey, they could have a better quality video, but I seriously doubt this was an initiative done by the PMO or Conservative Party officials. More than likely, a few of these individuals got together and decided that, hey, this would be a good idea, anyone got a cellphone handy?

And on the whole ideological point - you can have opposing ideals to the LGBT community, and still support them living a bully-free, harassment-free life in this country. Why nitpick over the ideology when we can at least agree on what is a very important message?

On issues like this, we really need to take off our partisan hats every once in awhile. You might not agree with them, but these are fundamentally good people, and they sit on the right side on a matter like this. Really, I think we should be grateful we even have conservative politicians in this country who are willing to stand for this kind of message. One short trip over the border, and it's a whole 'nother ballgame.

Personally, I'm going to send off an email to my MP, Mike Wallace, who stars in the video (I say stars because the thumbnail for it is him), and thank him for supporting this initiative, because he deserves it.

And I say this as a deeply partisan Liberal. Get past what party they represent, get past what the media has highlighted about them, and realize that they wouldn't do this video unless they actually supported the cause behind it. That's what really matters.

It would have been better had they managed to get PMSH to do it - but whatever. The fact is this video shows that not everyone in the Conservative Party are assholes. Kudos to them, I say.

Sean Casey Stages Veterans Affairs Coup

2011-10-20T17:01:00.000-04:00

The rookie MP for Charlottetown has just earned a special brownie point from me:

P.E.I. MP Sean Casey, who informed colleagues 48 hours beforehand he intended to bring forward a motion to study the effects of more than $200 million in cuts to a department mostly based in his province, told the chair Thursday he wasn't going to wait until the committee went in-camera at the end of the meeting to raise his point.

Instead, Casey, speaking in French, took the first opportunity he had to table his motion requesting the Committee suspend its current study on commemorating veterans and move instead to a study on the impact of the cuts.

The Veterans Affairs committee had quorum but the Tories were one MP shy of a majority at the early morning meeting so they lost the vote and the Liberal motion passed.

Can anyone say Rat Pack 2.0?

Notes on the New Ontario Cabinet

2011-10-19T23:18:00.001-04:00

First off, here's a list of the new cabinet members and their portfolios, via Liberal Scarf.

The cabinet consists of 22 members, down from the 27 positions in McGuinty's last cabinet. The five positions have not been eliminated per se, but there are now ministers who are taking over new portfolios. So, it's not necessarily a shrinking of the cabinet, as compared to more responsibility shoveled on top of certain members.

I won't go through the entire list, but here's some I've noted and would have liked to have seen:

Jim Bradley, the Dean of the Ontario Legislature, moves from Community Safety to Environment, a post he last held during the 1980's under David Peterson's government. In all honesty, I would have liked to have seen John Gerretsen, who gets the Attorney General portfolio, back in the post; yes, eco-fees were unpopular, but they were a new idea. This probably signals McGuinty deciding to slow down on the green file.
Kathleen Wynne takes over from Transportation to Municipal Affairs and Aboriginal Affairs. Wynne is a competent minister in whatever portfolio she's ever ended up in, and her move to these portfolios could signal a focus by McGuinty's government on the files, especially the former.
Michael Gravelle, one of the two Thunder Bay MPPs, gets Natural Resources. I get that Thunder Bay needs all the kudos possible for sticking Liberal, but I would have loved to have seen David Orazietti of Sault Ste. Marie getting this job, or any job really. He's a competent, young cabinet member, and he deserved something for holding on to a riding that trends NDP and Tory by a very large margin.
Agriculture, which went to Ted McMeekin, should have been the prime opportunity to hand something to Brant MPP Dave Levac, who direly needs to be in cabinet, but is seemingly never considered.
Glad to see Glen Murray with something. I like that guy. Same with Eric Hoskins.
I'm disappointed that no new faces were put into cabinet, and neither was Yasir Naqvi, Ottawa Centre MPP and OLP President, who has done a remarkable job keeping his seat and keeping the OLP from flying apart at the seams (which it is prone to do).

Overall, one can't help but notice that most of the cabinet members are from the urban areas of Ontario, which is unsurprising, but also signals a bit of a shift from the OLP's traditional rural roots, which it laid down during the Big Blue Machine era of the 1940's to 1980's. Yes, the OLP was more to the right in those days, but the continuing rural caucus was an asset to the OLP, and gave McGuinty good picks for cabinet, including the now-defeated Leona Dombrowsky. Now, the Liberals are facing a squeeze back into the urban core of Ontario, and the assets lost because of that are pretty disheartening.

Otherwise, great cabinet, and I look forward to seeing it in action over the next one/two/three/four years of McGuinty minority government!