Election 2011

[Edward Campbell]

By law, a Canadian federal election campaign must last for, at least, 36 days. (There is no upper limit but parliament must meet at least once in every 12 months so that is a practical limit.)

By custom (common sense) elections are avoided in winter and high summer – elections then annoy the voters.

Given that we are nearing mid November I suggest that a 2010 election is a practical impossibility – unless the coalition decides to defeat the Tories on Afghanistan and haul us to the polls in the week before Christmas.

Hence, a new Elections 2011 thread.

The “start state” is:

Source: The Globe and Mail

My guesstimate is that we go to the polls in mid to late April or even in early to mid May to make campaigning easier. That can be engineered by letting the budget go to committee and defeating it on second reading or even waiting and defeating the budget implementation bill or just by using a convenient (maybe mid March)  "opposition day" to move no confidence.

 

[Edward Campbell]

And so it begins, and, continuing with the theme of Harper making life difficult for Ignatieff, this is reproduced under the fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/pm-plans-cross-country-listening-tour-ahead-of-tough-love-budget/article1791727/

PM plans cross-country listening tour ahead of tough-love budget
JOHN IBBITSON

Globe and Mail Update
Posted on Tuesday, November 9, 2010 

In the run-up to what promises to be the most contentious federal budget in years, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is launching a round of national public consultations Tuesday in Winnipeg, asking Canadians to tell his government what should be cut and what should be saved.

The Prime Minister is sending his cabinet ministers and MPs out into ridings to solicit advice as the government prepares to end stimulus spending, curtail growth in federal spending and slash the deficit.

Such consultations are as much acts of political theatre as real pulse-taking. The Finance Department and the Prime Minister’s Office have sophisticated tools at hand, such as polls and focus groups, to gauge public attitudes. But political theatre has its uses.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is promising to make targeted investments in health care, education and other social policies, while also constraining federal spending. The Tories are offering a very different approach, focusing almost entirely on restraint.

The budget, expected in March, will highlight the policy cleavage between the two major parties. That budget, and the Liberal reaction to it, may well be the foundation of a federal election.

So the more the Conservatives are seen to consult in advance of that budget, the stronger becomes their argument that they are only carrying out the will of the people.

Or so the Prime Minister hopes, as he pauses in Winnipeg on his way to the G20 summit in Korea.

There are “real” pre-budget consultations at Finance where key players from business, industry, the banks, labour and academe meet with the Finance Minister's budget team to express concerns, offer suggestions and critique proposals. But these “public consultations,” while they are political theatre, can and will make life more difficult for Ignatieff. Harper will say: “we consulted with you, ordinary Canadians, coast to coast, and we're doing what most of you said we need to do. But Mr. Ignatieff and the Liberals have their own plans; they, not you, know best how to spend your money on their cronies.”

 

[a_majoor]

The "town hall" fiasco of 2009 led directly to the TEA party's rollover of the US House and gains in the Senate. IF any Canadian political party attempts to play at listening to the people while stonewalling or ignoring what is being said, then they risk igniting the same populist backlash.

Spouting empty rhetoric at town halls or cross country tours will be marginally better (people will simply tune you out, witness Mr Ignatieff's magical mystery tour), but have very little effect.

Someone, somewhere needs to grow a pair and start talking about practical real changes in direction (even if only to differentiate themselves from the other parties. Impractical suggestions come from the Rhinos, Pirate Party or Greens).

 

[Edward Campbell]

The problem with really listening to the 'people' and the even worse problem of doing what they ask is that takes you on the short route to fiscal disaster. The 'people' want more and more programme spending, especially on entitlements, including health care, and they want less taxes. The two goals are practically irreconcilable because in addition to the spending the 'people' want there is the spending they actually need, like national defence, just as an example. We cannot 'grow' the economy enough, through lower and smarter taxes, to pay for both wants and needs. The Americans will, probably within my (quite limited) lifetime, give us a demonstration of that.

 

[a_majoor]

The UK proposes some pretty heavy spending cuts. It is possible to speak of these things now, and even to do them (although action is always harder than words):

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/252836/lessons-london-piotr-brzezinski?page=1

Lessons from London

The British Tories have demonstrated how a newly elected party can deliver a program of radical spending cuts.

Deficit hawks are flying high in Washington.

With rediscovered virtue, Republicans are vowing to rein in government spending and cut the deficit. Incoming House speaker John Boehner argues that voters want “a smaller, less costly” government, while Republican senator-elect Pat Toomey says that “the government has overreached dramatically. . . . Spending has been wildly excessive.” Even Democrats are singing a new tune, with Senate majority whip Dick Durbin saying that his party will be looking for compromises: “We’re going to be giving on spending, I’m sure.”

But restoring fiscal sanity won’t come easily. The Republicans’ $100 billion in promised spending reductions will hardly make a dent in last year’s $1.29 trillion deficit. To make a difference, would-be cutters will have to convince a skeptical electorate — polls consistently show that most substantial, specific spending cuts are unpopular — and navigate a treacherous two-year electoral cycle.

Across the Atlantic, however, the British Tories have demonstrated how a newly elected party can deliver a program of radical spending cuts. The coalition government, led by Conservatives and supported by Liberal Democrats, aims to cut spending by £81 billion and departmental budgets by 19 percent over five years, eliminating the U.K.’s structural deficit. It is a strikingly bold plan: An estimated 500,000 public-sector jobs will be lost; higher-education spending will be reduced by 40 percent; and departments will be cut by up to 51 percent.

These dramatic cuts illustrate the kind of action the U.S. will eventually have to take. The U.K.’s fiscal context is roughly analogous to America’s: The current budget deficit totals 11 percent of GDP in the U.S and 10 percent in the U.K., while the national debt is 66 percent of GDP in the U.S. and 69 percent in the U.K. (2010 figures). In many ways, however, the Conservatives’ success at tackling the deficit illustrates the roadblocks that Republicans face en route to implementing such policies.

Throughout their recent election campaign, the Conservatives claimed that failure to deal with the deficit would lead to a Greek-style meltdown. They could credibly point to a nearby country with similar deficits and argue that a sudden spike in U.K. bond yields could cause a vicious spiral. In Prime Minister David Cameron’s words, “Greece stands as a warning to what happens if you don’t pay back your debts.”

This clear and present danger generated a broad consensus among political parties about the importance of fiscal consolidation. The leader of the traditionally left-leaning Liberal Democratic party acknowledged the need for “savage cuts” in public spending, and even the Labour government set out plans to reduce public spending (albeit slowly and with significant tax increases).

Republican deficit hawks, however, have no such external allies. While Greece faced interest rates of upwards of 12 percent on ten-year bonds, similar U.S. Treasury notes hover at 2.5 percent, near record lows. James Carville’s bond-market vigilantes are nowhere to be seen.

The markets, of course, give the U.S. tremendous short-term leeway for fiscal irresponsibility simply because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency. And the Fed’s reckless QE2 policy promises to further depress bond yields through the purchase of $600 billion in Treasury bills. Likewise, currency manipulators like China keep U.S. bond yields artificially low as they continue buying T-bills with accumulated surpluses.

As a result, U.S. bond yields don’t reflect the actual danger posed by America’s unsustainable deficits. This only delays the day of reckoning, but for now it enables our politicians to avoid making difficult decisions. So whereas British Conservatives could use the Greek tragedy to build a broad public consensus around the need for fiscal consolidation, complacent bond markets make American deficit hawks sound like Chicken Little.

The example of Greece enabled the Conservatives to depict spending cuts as a matter of necessity, not choice. Like Americans, Brits support spending reductions in theory, but vengeful rhetoric about drowning the government in a bathtub doesn’t appeal to the middle ground. That is why David Cameron rarely sells spending cuts as an inherently good thing (shrinking a bloated, inefficient state). Instead, he argues that “there is no alternative,” casting austerity as a painful necessity rather than an ideological decision. And under the slogan “We’re all in this together,” the Conservatives have consciously tackled middle-class benefits — an issue Republicans show no interest in addressing — alongside easier targets like welfare.

Perhaps more important, the Conservatives won’t be facing an election just as spending cuts bite. With another general election not expected until 2015, the luxury of a five-year political cycle enables the Conservatives to front-load spending reductions and (hopefully) offer tax cuts ahead of the next election. Government grants to local councils, for example, will fall by 17 percent in the first two years, but by only 6.5 percent over the two years before the next election. In other words, the U.K. Conservatives can make hard, unpopular decisions now and reap the benefits in time, whereas the Republicans would probably have to risk a midterm shellacking to do likewise.
Even with this breathing space, the Conservatives will face significant opposition from vested interests and left-wing activists. But here again, the parliamentary system confers a structural advantage on the party. Any bold Republican deficit-reduction plan would have to make compromises with Democrats to clear a Senate filibuster. The Conservatives, on the other hand, have a clear majority in Parliament — admittedly through a deal with the Liberal Democrats — enabling their leaders to take radical action without concessions to their own backbench MPs or to Labour.

So Republicans can draw inspiration from the Conservatives’ success, but replicating it will depend on setting out a broad-based, non-ideological approach to fiscal consolidation — less Grover Norquist, more David Cameron. And even then, it is hard to see how the GOP will be able to overcome America’s structural barriers to implementing a sound fiscal policy.

— Piotr Brzezinski is COO of the Big Society Network and a former policy adviser to the Conservative-party leadership at the Conservative Research Department.

 

[Edward Campbell]

There is one poll I like to track. It is not scientific but I'm guessing that it's useful.

At this moment (you may see different numbers when you view it) over 1,000 people have responded, over 700 of them from Ontario and nearly 900 are in the 55 to 74 age group.

This poll matters, I think because that age group has, pretty much the highest and most reliably high voter turn out. Seniors and “near seniors” vote in disproportionately high numbers.

The current (1068 votes) results are:

Conservatives: 38.3%
Liberals: 26.9%
NDP: 7.6%

Now there are too few Québec votes (only 1/10th of a reasonable sample, but, for BC and Ontario, I'm guessing the sample is fairly representative of how nearly ½ of voters will vote. In other words, the grownups, the ones who do vote are for Harper and against Layton.

 

[Edward Campbell]

According to reports which are reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today's Globe and Mail:

1. If we have a snap winter election the combined Liberal/NDP seat count would just, barely, exceed the Conservative one: 128 to 127 (with 53 Bloqistes).

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/where-federal-parties-stand-in-mid-november-2010/article1802314/?from=1802318

2. Harper and his minions have, however, sowed the seeds of dissent for both the Grits and the Dippers:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/liberals-accuse-ndp-of-hypocrisy-on-afghanistan/article1802213/

Liberals accuse NDP of ‘hypocrisy’ on Afghanistan

JANE TABER
Globe and Mail Update
Posted on Wednesday, November 17, 2010

1. Divide and conquer. Without the Conservatives to attack, Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals are gunning for Jack Layton and the NDP, accusing them of adopting a position on Afghanistan that is “simply not credible.”

The Liberals support the Harper government’s decision to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan after the scheduled July pull-out; the New Democrats do not – playing right into the Tory strategy of splitting the opposition.

The criticism of the NDP is contained in a series of talking points issued by the Grits to their supporters Tuesday.

“Jack Layton has called for a ‘massive civilian deployment’ to provide stability in Afghanistan, but you can’t achieve this in the midst of conflict without providing Afghans with the tools to protect their security and their democracy,” the memo says. “Liberals firmly support ending the combat mission in Afghanistan as scheduled in July 2011 and we support the new post-combat training presence as outlined by the government today.”

The Liberals say the Conservatives are basically adopting the position outlined Mr. Ignatieff in June when he called for troops to remain in Afghanistan in a training capacity. “For months, the government was silent. Then, just hours after we pressed for answers in the House of Commons, and just days before the Lisbon [NATO] summit, the government has finally confirmed details of the post-2011 role they are proposing.”

New Democrats have gone on the offensive. Just minutes after the government’s announcement Tuesday, NDP critics were in front the cameras criticizing the mission for being too heavy on military training and too weak on aid and development.

A senior Ignatieff official said Wednesday that if the New Democrats “are going to try to score political points on Afghanistan, it’s important to point out the hypocrisy of their position.”

“The NDP wants to have it both ways – they don’t want to be accused of abandoning Afghanistan so they’re proposing a major civilian mission extending even into Kandahar when basic security, policing and governance still need to be secured,” the official told The Globe.

On this issue, Afghanistan, the NDP stands to grab a fair share of the Liberal hard left cohort making it easier for the Conservatives to win in some three way races - I'm not sure how many there are, right now.

But: If Ignatieff and Layton were to propose a coalition without have 154 seats between them, i.e. Still needing tacit BQ support, then I suspect that several Liberals would leave the caucus – a few would actually cross the floor to sit with the Tories but most would sit as independents. All in all, bad news for Ignatieff.

 

[Haletown]

and factor in that there would be an election campaign, where Harper has a lot of experience and is at least competent, while Iggy has the political instincts of a bag of hammers.

 

[GAP]

Not necessarily.....Iggy played it right backing the Cons on 3 more years as training....it took the issue off the election mandate, gave the Libs equal billing on the issue, and pointed to the NDP & Bloc as hard far left.....it moves the Libs towards the center, where they want to be mostly....

 

[ModlrMike]

Not necessarily.....Iggy played it right backing the Cons on 3 more years as training....it took the issue off the election mandate, gave the Libs equal billing on the issue, and pointed to the NDP & Bloc as hard far left.....it moves the Libs towards the center, where they want to be mostly....

True enough, however it might also be enough to push the truly left leaning liberal voters over to the NDP or Greens. The result would definitely work in the Conservative's favour.

 

[GAP]

Careful there....not all Libs are radical left.....there's a whole wack of them that are moderate center, even slightly right.....they'll vote Conservative or not vote if the Libs are not at the center, but if they perceive the Libs taking a center stance, they'll come out in droves...

 

[Rifleman62]

You are forgetting the left bending Canadian media. If the training mission goes South, you will never hear/see/read:

The Liberals say the Conservatives are basically adopting the position outlined Mr. Ignatieff in June when he called for troops to remain in Afghanistan in a training capacity.

 

[Old Sweat]

As a card carrying Conservative, it is my impression that the target is the large number of moderate Liberals who want no truck or trade with the NDP. The aim, after all, is to keep a centre-right focus (under CPC leadership) in Canadian government, and if that can best be done by building an alliance with some Liberals, so be it. And the way to do that is to frighten the snot out of them by raising the prospect of the NDP having access to their wallets courtesy of Finance Minister Jack Layton.

Every time a journalist raises the prospect of a left-leaning coalition being a logical desirable, outcome on programs like Power Play, hands are probably rubbed toether in glee.

 

[Edward Campbell]

As a card carrying Conservative, it is my impression that the target is the large number of moderate Liberals who want no truck or trade with the NDP. The aim, after all, is to keep a centre-right focus (under CPC leadership) in Canadian government, and if that can best be done by building an alliance with some Liberals, so be it. And the way to do that is to frighten the snot out of them by raising the prospect of the NDP having access to their wallets courtesy of Finance Minister Jack Layton.

Every time a journalist raises the prospect of a left-leaning coalition being a logical desirable, outcome on programs like Power Play, hands are probably rubbed toether in glee.

I agree, Liberals of the John Manley school, and there are some, probably including e.g. Keith Martin (who will not run again and whose Vancouver Island seat might be competitive for the Conservatives) and Scott Brison (who was a Conservative) are on the radar if, and it's a Big IF, Iggy Iffy Icarus is silly enough to go for a coalition that must have at least passive BQ support.

 

[Edward Campbell]

According to this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, Liberal dissent is already rearing its ugly head:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/michael-ignatieff-faces-caucus-rift-over-afghan-extension/article1803052/

Michael Ignatieff faces caucus rift over Afghan extension

JANE TABER
Globe and Mail Update
Posted on Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Michael Ignatieff heard from furious MPs Wednesday, upset with his decision to support the Harper government’s extension of the Afghan mission without any consultation or vote in the Commons, according to a caucus source.

Behind the closed doors of the party meeting, the Liberal Leader asked MPs not to talk to the media about their concerns. He admitted they may not have liked the process but urged them to talk to him, according to a source.

At one point Toronto MP Bob Rae, considered Mr. Ignatieff’s biggest rival, stood up to support the leader, reminding caucus members that Mr. Ignateiff outlined the Liberal position – about troops staying in Afghanistan to help train the military and police – this summer.

At the time it was announced, however, it was believed the Harper government would bring the troops home next July as scheduled. No one thought he would change his mind.

“So then Michael said, ‘You ... may not have liked the process but I did announce it in June and if you have a problem come and talk to me, don’t go talk to the media about it’,” the source said.

The Liberal caucus is clearly split over Mr. Ignatieff’s decision to support the Harper government. The leader’s support was given even before the details of the new training mission were announced.

The government formally laid out its plan on Tuesday. Last Friday morning, however, Mr. Rae told The Globe and Mail he supported the government, saying there was no need for a debate or vote in the House of Commons. Later that day, Mr. Ignatieff supported Mr. Rae’s view.

Liberal insiders believe Mr. Ignatieff would not win a vote and that is why it is being avoided. The Liberal leadership does not want to reveal a split in the ranks.

“If there was a vote, I think Michael would lose the vote,” the insider said. “He would lose the vote. I don’t think caucus would support him.”

Several Liberals, including Toronto MPs Rob Oliphant and Gerard Kennedy, spoke about their displeasure with the way in which the decision was handled, the source said. At least one Quebec MP also spoke out against the process.

Another MP told The Globe he came to the Liberal Party to “have a voice,” adding that he was “very, very displeased with how this was handled.” Many MPs first heard about the Liberal position in the media.

“They were furious,” the caucus insider said. “The general consensus ... was that Harper has pulled the rug out from underneath Michael and that Michael should have been prepared.”

The source noted, however, that Mr. Oliphant did say that at the end of the day he supported the leader, but he believes the Liberal position could be a “tough sell” for him in his riding.

The NDP has come out hard against the Liberals on this issue, accusing them of making a deal with the government. They have argued for a civilian mission that would be less costly and less dangerous. And with a new commitment of 950 troops to remain for three more years, the NDP says this commitment should be voted on in the Commons.

“There has been no consultation,” the Liberal insider said. “Caucus is not happy about it.”

But there are other Liberals, more loyal ones, who have not run, whinging, to Jane Taber, who would be furious if the party did not support the government of Chrétien's war, Martin's war and, indeed, Harper's war, because they know that if they fail to support it Harper will nail them, all, to the political cross. If it was a good war when Jean Chrétien sent in the troops and if it was a good war when Paul Martin sent them to Kandahar then why is it a bad war now? What's that thing about being hoist on one's own petard?

 

[GAP]

The 1993 election changed everything
LAWRENCE MARTIN Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Article Link

There’s a lot of head-scratching in Liberal ranks these days. They’re confused as to why they can’t get untracked, as to why, in the great Canadian turtle derby, they’re forever trailing the Conservatives.

To find the reason for their woes, they might look back, strangely enough, at one of their successes – the election of 1993. That campaign, which gutted the Canadian political structure like no other, is known as the one that vanquished the old Progressive Conservative Party. The Tories came away with two seats. But it should also be known as the one that undermined the Liberals, who came away with a majority.

Although they won handily, that campaign effectively reduced the Grits to an Ontario party with a few regional add-ons. Post-1993, the party won successive majorities in 1997 and 2000, but in each it was an all-Ontario show, with the party registering unbelievable sweeps of 100 or so seats in that province.

That represented close to two-thirds of the party’s overall total in those elections. The warning signals were there. These majorities masked the Liberal Party’s geographical isolation.

The tumult of 1993 saw the simultaneous beanstalk ascendancies of the Reform Party in the West and the Bloc Québécois in the East. Quebec had always been a Liberal Party pillar. The arrival of the Bloc, which would take half or more of Quebec’s seats in the following campaigns, removed it. On the Prairies, the Liberals’ misfortune had begun long before. But they were still potentially competitive. Reform’s 1993 rise effectively sealed the door. Like Quebec, the West now had its own political formation.

Outside of Ontario, the Liberals were left with only a sprinkling in British Columbia, less than half the loaf in Quebec and a measurable share in the Maritimes, where there weren’t many seats to begin with. Although it appeared that Paul Martin inherited a strong party in 2003, he didn’t. It was plagued by scandal, and as soon as the absolute hold on Ontario was loosened, as it inevitably would be, it had few places to look for help. Stéphane Dion faced similar circumstances, as has Michael Ignatieff. The party they commandeered was hardly the bastion it had often been.

While other federal elections have featured more prominently in the history books, few can match the 1993 campaign for altering the landscape. The reasons why we’ve had almost seven straight years of minority governments can be traced back to that campaign. It dramatically reduced the throw weight of both major parties while creating, with the two new potent formations, a pizza Parliament.

Of course, the Conservatives eventually recovered from the devastation and merged in late 2003. But the new party was dominated by the regional right-siders from Reform days and lacked the big-tent national appeal of the old Tories, who were occasionally capable of racking up big majorities. Unlike Brian Mulroney’s Tories, the new party has also been largely absent in Quebec.

As for the Liberals, they have no hope of making significant gains on the Prairies in the years to come and no hope, with the Bloc entrenched, of sweeping Quebec the way they once did. Mr. Ignatieff is getting a dozen ideas thrown at him daily on how to do the quick fix. But the problems may be too deeply entrenched for any fast remedy.

While the Conservatives have a powerful and reliable support base on the Prairies, the Liberals have no regional base to speak of. Even their Metro Toronto fortress, one of their last big strongholds in the country, may now be imperilled. Given the trendline of the ethnic vote, given the trendline locally (mayor-elect Rob Ford), and provincially (the sliding Dalton McGuinty), the Toronto seats may fall, starting on the outskirts, with the by-election in Vaughan next Monday.

In the 1993 election, the Tories suffered the worst drubbing of any party in Canadian history. Seventeen years on, as the turtle derby proceeds, it's starting to look like the other party got the worst of it.
end

 

[ModlrMike]

Now that the dust has settled on the 3 by-elections last night, the results are:

NDP - biggest looser (lost Wpg seat, lost substantial voter share in Vaughan)
Libs - next biggest looser (squeaker to take Wpg, lost in Vaugan)
Torries - biggest winners (safe seat in Dauphin = no big deal... won in Vaughn, a split NDP/Lib vote in Wpg seat they were never going to win)

I live near the Wpg riding, and I didn't see many Conservative signs out. It wasn't until last week that I learned who the Torrie candidate was. Perhaps they had written off the riding? This seat could easily change hands in the next election. I'd call it a marginal Lib/NDP seat now.

Given that historically the sitting government looses by-elections, I think the Torries are truly the big winners on the night.

It will be interesting to read the ensuing spin in the next few days.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

I live near the Wpg riding, and I didn't see many Conservative signs out. It wasn't until last week that I learned who the Torrie candidate was. Perhaps they had written off the riding? This seat could easily change hands in the next election. I'd call it a marginal Lib/NDP seat now.

I don't know the boundaries of Winnipeg North but aren't there more communists than conservatives in the area north of downtown, perhaps exagerating a bit.  Square miles of tiny run-down house  where visible minorites add up to a majority.  Definitely not a possibility of ever electing a Conservative MP unless perceptions change a lot.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Very bad and sad news, if this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is correct:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/federal-parties-agree-to-scrap-bill-to-correct-voting-inequalities/article1823068/

Federal parties agree to scrap bill to correct voting inequalities

JOHN IBBITSON

OTTAWA— From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Dec. 02, 2010

The Harper government and the opposition parties have agreed to quietly sink legislation that would have given Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta more seats in the House of Commons. As a result, urban and visible-minority voters will continue to be discriminated against in Parliament.

Conservative, Liberal and New Democratic MPs and party strategists, speaking on condition that they not be named, stated this week that the bill has no chance of passage. Although all three national parties remain committed to the principle of equal representation for all Canadians in the House of Commons, in practice, the legislation that would advance that cause has virtually no hope of becoming law.

In April, the Conservatives announced with great fanfare Bill C-12, which would add 30 seats to the House of Commons, taking it to 338 from 308, to address severe underrepresentation among Canada’s fastest-growing provinces.

Under the legislation, Ontario would have received 18 new seats, British Columbia seven, and Alberta five, bringing all three provinces up to the level of representation in the House warranted by their populations.

The need for the bill was manifest in Monday’s by-elections. In the exurban Toronto riding of Vaughan, 120,864 voters were entitled to cast ballots. But Winnipeg North has only 51,198 electors, making a vote in Greater Toronto worth less than half the value of a vote in Winnipeg.

Constitutional and legislative provisions heavily favour smaller provinces and rural ridings at the expense of large cities in growing provinces.

“Politicians are very aware that the people who are most underrepresented in the current electoral map are new Canadians, visible minorities, concentrated in Canada’s largest cities,” said Matthew Mendelsohn, director of the Mowat Centre, a think tank dedicated to Ontario issues. “If political parties choose to not move forward and pass legislation to correct voting inequalities, they’re doing it with their eyes open.”

Sources report that the Conservative, Liberal and NDP leadership encountered strong resistance to the bill among Quebec and Maritime MPs, who correctly argued that their regions would have relatively less influence in the House. The Bloc Québécois opposed the legislation from the start.

The Liberals and Conservatives especially feared that passing the bill could harm the electoral prospects of their Quebec MPs.

Facing caucus revolts and potential electoral losses, the government shelved the bill.

Minister of State for Democratic Reform Steven Fletcher’s office said the minister was not available to be interviewed. However “our government is moving forward with the Democratic Representation Act,” said spokesperson Jessica Georgakopoulos. She added that “it is anticipated” that the bill will be brought forward for debate next year.

That supposition, however, is contradicted by higher officials within the government.

Liberal Democratic Reform critic Carolyn Bennett, from Toronto, said her party was not ready to support the bill “without robust consultation with the provinces.”

“This is no way to run a federation,” she said. “Where is the consultation? Where is the first ministers’ meeting? Where is any understanding of how this country is supposed to work?”

When asked whether she was concerned about the underrepresentation of visible minorities, Dr. Bennett said it is equally important to “make the rest of Canada more inclusive for people choosing to come to Canada.”

Although NDP sources said the party was split over the bill, David Christopherson, critic for Democratic Reform, predicted his party would ultimately have voted for it.

“We were prepared to support C-12,” he said in an interview. “And if [the Conservatives] are not going to move on C-12, they should bloody well bring forward something that deals with this.” Mr. Christopherson’s seat is in Hamilton, another underrepresented Ontario city.

Carolyn Bennett is much more concerned with preserving core, over-weighted, Liberal seats in Québec and Atlantic Canada than she is in trying to earn the confidence of most Canadians.

I think Harper should, now, bring this forward, to a vote, and expose the Liberals and maybe the NDP, too, as hypocrites during the runup to a 2011 election.

I have had rather a lot to say about this, most recently this:

The Liberals ride to the rescue, according to this article reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/liberal-party-favours-more-federal-seats-for-quebec/article1570822/
Some time back I presented a “model” based on New Brunswick, with 10 seats, being “fairly and properly, represented. I allowed that the three territories and PEI would remain grossly overrepresented and that no province should have a ‘variance’ from the ‘national average’ of more than about 10%. That produced a 451 seat legislature. I amended that to produce a 351 seat legislature - one with greater and, according to the anonymous Liberal official, unacceptable variances.

I have refined it further. A model which meets the Liberals goal of (very nearly) 100% equality of representation for all provinces except PEI (and the territories) requires about 500 seats in the HoC – more, I think, than Canadians will accept. There is another model that has 399 seats – something we could achieve in, say, three steps, on every five years, with about 30 new seats in each step. That model has a variance of about +15% (for Newfoundland and Labrador, on the plus side) (PEI and the Territories are still excluded but their overrepresentation “falls” to around only 250%.) and -3% (Ontario) which, I think, ought to be acceptable.

Here is the HoC using that model:

NV .......    1
NW .......    1
YK .......      1
BC .......    51
AB .......    42
SK .......    14
MB .......  15
ON ....... 150
QC .......  92
NB ........  10
NS .......    11
PE .........    4
NF .........    7
Canada  399

(I hope the numbers add up, i.e. that there are no transcription errors.)

The fact is that equality of representation does matter and mature democracies strive to achieve it, overcoming entrenched resistance from the heavy minorities.

I know Québec opposes equality, and I know that appeasing Québec is a Canadian political requirement, but it is time it stopped. Ditto appeasing Atlantic Canada, too. If they want more representation they can make their regions more attractive for e.g. immigrants and domestic migrants: you know, lower taxes, better job opportunities less restrictions on personal freedom ...

 

[George Wallace]

I know Québec opposes equality, and I know that appeasing Québec is a Canadian political requirement, but it is time it stopped. Ditto appeasing Atlantic Canada, too. If they want more representation they can make their regions more attractive for e.g. immigrants and domestic migrants: you know, lower taxes, better job opportunities less restrictions on personal freedom ...

As most immigrants migrate to the major metropolitan centers, it is rather difficult to encourage them to lesser centers.......Can we construct a high population density "Golden Horseshoe" along the NB/NS coastline opposite PEI overnight?