Canada election watch

[Jeff]

Snapshot from Trois-Rivières, which was not close to being a targeted riding before the wave (9% of the vote in 2008). The NDP candidate, a music teacher, leads with 42%.

Le candidat néo-démocrate Robert Aubin a maintenant pris les devants dans les intentions de votes à Trois-Rivières, et pourrait bien devenir le prochain député fédéral lors du vote, lundi soir.

Selon un sondage Cible-Recherche pour le compte de TVA Trois-Rivières, publié aujourd'hui, Robert Aubin récolterait 42% des votes, contre 28% pour sa plus proche rivale, la bloquiste et députée sortante Paule Brunelle. Le conservateur Pierre Lacroix récolte quant à lui 17% des intentions de votes, contre 8% pour le libéral Patrice Mangin. Le candidat du Parti vert, Louis Lacroix, récolte 5% des intentions, celui du Parti Rhinocéros, Francis Arseneault en récolte 2%.

Le candidat néo-démocrate a déclaré au Nouvelliste être agréablement surpris du résultat, mais que le vrai sondage se déroulerait lundi, comme quoi il restait beaucoup de travail à faire d'ici là, dont celui de faire sortir le vote.

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-nouvellist ... vieres.php

Still, I'm worried. The media is throwing everything at the NDP, and some of it is bound to stick for potential first-time voters. Glad for the record advance poll, but Monday seems a long way off right now.

[Canadian_watcher]

Well the way I look at it is this that the people most likely to vote NDP are the people least likely to trust the MSM or any of the corporate buffoons warning that the stock market will collapse if the NDP are elected. And don't forget the power of the royal wedding to dominate the airwaves between now and then.

Plus it's spring, we're all bustin' out our hope wardrobes. Anything is possible when the tulips are coming up!

[Canadian_watcher]

anyone watching "Connect with Mark Kelly" - I feel like we're back to day one of this campaign! It really seems like propaganda central.
"It's obvious the Conservatives are going to win"
"There's a strong chance they're going to get the majority"

they are talking to 'people at the market' and out of about 8 of them only ONE said they'd be okay with a minority. At least 4 specifically said they want a Harper majority. I have a hard time believing they showed a representative sample.

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffff............................

[Jeff]

Thankfully I missed that.

With Harper in Niagara Falls preaching like a sandwich-board man about the fires of Jackpocalypse, and Ignatieff parading Chretien around Toronto last night, it just feels like the wrong day for Layton to have gone to Yellowknife. Ontario's worrying me. I fear that some gains are going to be clawed back, or at least that things are still fluid enough to go any kind of crazy way. Glad for the record advance polls before the negative media started hitting. Can only hope now the motivated youth and women stay so. And the old white men think it's May 3.

The stars seem aligned, but the forces arrayed against this - I'm increasingly aware of how much this is unwelcome to them, and of their determination to turn it back.

'No hope' NDP will govern: 2008 WikiLeaks cable

Layton, NDP's election plan detailed in leaked U.S. document

A U.S. diplomat in Ottawa wrote in 2008 that the NDP has "no hope" in the foreseeable future of winning enough seats to form a government, according to a cable made public by the WikiLeaks website just days ahead of Monday's federal election.

...

In a document with the subject heading "NDP plans to run 'largest campaign' ever," the NDP's standings and future campaign plans are outlined. The document was written several months before the 2008 election was called.

"The NDP has no hope in the foreseeable future of winning enough seats to form a government, but may be able to hold on to its current level of support and even do better, given the persistently weak popularity of both Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and [Liberal Leader Stéphane] Dion," Breese writes.

Breese goes on to say the NDP "has carved out a niche among traditional leftist and working class Canadian voters, and will remain a minor force in the next election, although it needs to be watchful of the even smaller Green Party, which is attempting to garner support from the same pool of environmentally-minded liberal voters."

Whatever's going to happen, I mean to see it happen at the NDP election party at the Toronto Convention Centre. Any other RIers?

[norton ash]

Watching the National right now. Permission to treat the witness as hostile!

Bald slant against the NDP, trying like hell to delegitimize.

[Jeff]

Libby Davies was grilled on As It Happens tonight about the vacationing candidate. She replied, "Well to be fair, we can't find the Conservative candidate [in Vancouver East]." Every party running full slates will have the odd phantom candidate, but let's isolate the NDP on the matter and pronounce them unfit to govern.

I think for my emotional health I have to tune out the braying. Or maybe just tune to CPAC.

Challenge for the NDP: Getting its sudden new supporters to actually vote

His opponents are attacking, but Jack Layton is campaigning like the frontrunner now. The NDP Leader has already switched from trying to win over voters to a push to get supporters to the polls.

But Mr. Layton’s party now faces another challenge: Inflated by a gust of support that took even them by surprise, the New Democrats are scrambling to identify ridings they hadn’t expect to win but now have a shot at so they can divert stretched organizational resources there.

The NDP tracks ridings with local polls, but can follow only 50 or 60 at a time, not all 308. Public polls show the party making gains in many regions and far ahead in Quebec, but just two weeks ago, the party was tracking only a half-dozen Quebec ridings – and is now scrambling to determine which ridings are close races that now need extra attention. The party cannot be certain if it can win 14 seats or 50, and that makes it hard to dispatch volunteers. It doesn’t even have campaign offices in many ridings.

...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... le2003103/

[Jeff]

This gives me some courage, especially about Ontario, because it's the first poll (and with a big sample size) published since the media onslaught:

NDP still closing on Conservatives; Liberal declines continue: EKOS poll
Posted on Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 5:01 am by Kathleen Harris

The NDP’s spectacular rise continues, as does the Liberals nosedive. The Conservatives hang tight in front, a new national poll shows.

The EKOS-iPolitics survey, which was completed Thursday evening, finds the Conservatives clinging to a narrowing five-point lead, drawing 34.5 per cent support of decided voters as the NDP presses from behind at 29.7 per cent. The Liberal freefall leaves the party with a new low of 20 per cent support.

The Green Party is stuck at 6.9 per cent, the Bloc Quebecois at 6.3 per cent and other parties hold a collective 2.7 per cent support.

Pollster Frank Graves said the latest numbers suggest the Conservatives are out of reach of winning a majority. With the Bloc Quebecois on the verge of a significant defeat, any two parties, combined, would have the needed 155 seats to command the confidence of the House of Commons.

The NDP surge shows no signs of receding, and Graves believes the party still has room to grow.

“There’s no evidence this wave is spent,” Graves said.

While voting patterns in most regions across the country appear to be locking in before election day, Ontario remains the wild card that will determine the outcome of the dramatically changing federal landscape. Graves said critical Liberal votes could stay put or could still turn to the NDP or the Conservatives.

The poll puts the Conservatives at 38.9 per cent in Ontario, still ahead of where they finished the 2008 election. The Liberals and NDP are effectively tied, at 26.6 and 26.2 per cent respectively.

http://ipolitics.ca/2011/04/29/ndp-stil ... -continue/


Unless, Goddess willing, the NDP pulls off a majority, I'd prefer it to be a strong official opposition than a weak minority. Presuming the Liberals wouldn't prefer to continue propping up Harper (which I actually believe to be more likely), they would extract such concessions to soothe the markets - Finance Minister Ralph Goodale? - that the NDP would look sufficiently like the Liberals to turn off all these new voters who are looking for something better than the same old shit.

[justdrew]

another question: why would it not be assumed that the NDP, greens and/or bloc will form a coalition gov?

[Canadian_watcher]

This, from a piece called "Can Someone Please Explain What the Hell Is Going On?" in the National Post (!):

John Moore: I am not amongst those convinced the NDP surge is a flirtation. It’s an elopement. Sick to death of their sour “without me you’re nothing” Conservative Prime Minister, and Liberals who think that when they lose it’s because the voters made a mistake, the electorate is contemplating giving both establishment parties the spankings of their lives.

There isn’t a ballot question, because voters plan to deliver a statement. In a world where the elites have always arrogantly assumed we’re choosing between Coke and Pepsi, voters are opting for Mountain Dew.

Maybe it shouldn’t come as this big a surprise. More than a year ago polls showed that almost half of Canadians were unhappy with the performance of the Prime Minister. Michael Ignatieff scored little better. At the time Jack Layton had a 40% approval rating. Some 10 days ago another poll found that Canadians are not only fed up with the leaders, they’re sick of the process. Now they’ve figured out what they can do about it. They plan to punk the process by throwing as many comfortable career politicians out as they can.

The result would be a government composed largely of MPs who, much like Robert Redford’s Bill McKay in The Candidate, will turn around on election night and say, “What do we do now?” Layton’s cabinet pool will consist of bartenders, actors and aging hippies — but is that really any worse than the current crop many of whom have never worked a day off the public teat?

Voters are in a mood for change. The mistake of analysts and political strategists was to assume that last October’s election of Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto was a barometer indicating a shift to the right. In fact, it was an attack on the status quo. Ford was not an unconventional candidate, he was unprecedented. Overweight, a lousy speaker, dogged by petty scandal and blissfully under-informed on matters of policy. His rival was a former deputy premier assumed by some even to the last day of the campaign to be the only man who could win. Voters backed Ford.

The NDP have been supporting players for so many years their leaders are constantly asked why they even bother campaigning for prime minister. Now we know. Jack Layton, the bilingual, smiling good time Charlie of Canadian politics, may really have something to grin about on Monday. — National Post

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/04/29/election-panel-can-someone-please-explain-what-the-hell-is-going-on/

[Canadian_watcher]

another question: why would it not be assumed that the NDP, greens and/or bloc will form a coalition gov?

The greens don't have any seats and the Bloc .. suddenly .. almost doesn't either!

Besides, there has been a coalition bogeyman in this election for whatever reason... "No to Coalitions!!!" WTF? Isn't that kind of what representative democracy is about?

[Jeff]

another question: why would it not be assumed that the NDP, greens and/or bloc will form a coalition gov?

The Greens don't hold any seats, and are seriously campaigning now only to elect their leader. The Bloc is going to be significantly reduced in number, maybe down to a dozen or even less, which is probably going to mean their support won't be enough.

Ontario is really volatile right now, and it has a third of the seats. Unlikely, tight results are possible when all three parties are polling like this, in this political climate.

[Jeff]

Yesterday was bad. Today feels like the good news is again getting ahead of the attack dogs.

Two Bloc members endorse NDP

In an unprecedented move coming on the heels of the NDP’s meteoric rise in Quebec, two Bloc Quebecois members are urging their fellow sovereigntists to vote orange.

In an open letter to La Presse newspaper, Maxime Bellerose, a former president of the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve riding association, and Benoit Demuy, a former adviser to Bloc MP Real Menard, say they will vote for the NDP and ask their political stablemates to do the same.

...

Bellerose and Dumont, who both claim they remain Bloc members, say that Quebecers should take advantage of the social democracy now knocking on Parliament’s door in the form of the NDP.

“It would be a shame if Quebecers did not take advantage of this opportunity to send to Ottawa MPs who loudly and proudly share Quebec’s values of justice and cooperation,” they write.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/poli ... ndorse-ndp

[hava1]

For those abroad , can anyone explain briefly the system in Canada ? Why are coalitions unacceptable ? and what if there is no majority party winning ? is there another round till there is one winner even if they dont hold a majority in the house ?

[Jeff]

For those abroad , can anyone explain briefly the system in Canada ? Why are coalitions unacceptable ? and what if there is no majority party winning ? is there another round till there is one winner even if they dont hold a majority in the house ?

It's a parliamentary system, not so different from how I understand the Knesset works. (Though we do also have an unelected, appointed Senate modeled on the UK's House of Lords. NDP policy is to abolish it.)

Coalitions are not unacceptable. They're constitutional, and polls say most Canadians approve. But it was the prospect of one that could have toppled the Conservatives in 2008 that set Harper and the right-wing media in motion, calling it "undemocratic." Harper the great democrat shut down parliament until the Liberals lost their nerve, and they selected a leader, Ignatieff, who was opposed to any accommodation with the NDP.

There's no second round of voting, and no proportional representation. (Another policy the NDP wants to institute.)

[hava1]

Thanks.
In our system coalition is the very goal, and is at the heart of the system.

rarely if ever was there a government without one. So I dont quite understand how the actual governing goes if the ruling party does not have a full majority in the house (more then 51 percent). do they have to solicit agreement for each and every decision/law ? that would be hard, and in the Knesset it would be impossible in practice.

But then I suppose in your house, the heat is not so high and many issues are not very polemic. or there';s something i totally miss.