Election 2011

[Dissident]

I don't get it though, something must be rotten. How can votes go straight from the Conservatives to the NDP?

 

[Retired AF Guy]

And speaking of unsupported assumptions as discussed in the Media Bias thread, see this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/terra-incognita-poll-projects-100-seats-for-surging-ndp/article1998361/

Now, it's a big poll but it is not clear to me that it is not extrapolating QC support and a general feeling of “love” for Jack Layton into number that cannot and will not materialize on 2 May 11.

Remember, that caveat at the end of the polls; "Right 19 out of 20 times." Its possible that we are now seeing one of those polls.

 

[Edward Campbell]

According to ThreeHundredEight.com there are still 14 ridings in ON and QC where the 'spread' between the Tory and the nearest candidate is less than 5%, which, given the size of samples, is a statistical dead heat:

(Ridings are colour coded according to party that currently has the lead.
Ontario
Ajax-Pickering
Brampton-Springdale
Brampton West
Guelph
Kingston and the Islands
Kitchener Centre
Kitchener-Waterloo
Mississauga-Erindale
Oak Ridges-Markham
Sault Ste Marie
Vaughn
Welland
Québec
Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup
Pontiac

A majority is, however, now much harder: the Conservatives must hold today's 146 and gain all eight of those 14 close races in which they do not, already, lead and get one more close race - maybe Burnaby-Douglas or Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca in BC.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I don't get it though, something must be rotten. How can votes go straight from the Conservatives to the NDP?

The Tories are, according to the article, equal opportunity losers: they lost seats to both the Liberals and NDP in BC, ON and QC. The NDP picked up seats from the Conservatives, Liberals and BQ.

But, as I mentioned above, there are still a lot of statistical ties out there - because the poll samples are too small at the individual riding level.

 

[McG]

I don't get it though, something must be rotten. How can votes go straight from the Conservatives to the NDP?

While that is not inconceivable, it is also not necessarily happening.  It is possible that the Conservatives lost support to the Liberals primarily in ridings where only the NDP was a strong contender.  It is conceivable that the Conservatives have been bleeding support into both the Liberals and the BQ while those parties have been bleeding even faster to the NDP and Greens.  It is also possible that some people previously saw the Conservatives as the only viable option for an anti-Ignatieff vote but are now seeing potential in something more in-line with their traditional leanings.  It is probably actually some combination of the above, and the impact of statistical variance.

 

[Old Sweat]

I may be whistling past the graveyard, but seat prediction is a bit of a black art. There are often too many variables and too small a sample. This poll reminds me of a sudden sitrep reporting the enemy has broken through and is overrunning our forward positions. Let's take a wait and see attitude. This poll may be accurate and the NDP support certainly is rising, but let's see what happens as other polls, especially Nanos, appear over the next few days. Note that Nanos did not poll last night, so this poll lacks independent confirmation. Suddenly adding one set of results that suggest a sudden shift in opinion may skew results.

A great deal of this is based on a huge jump in support for the NDP in Quebec. Will this translates into a jump in seats?

Last, let's not forget the "Flora factor." In the convention that picked Joe Clark as the PC leader, Flora Macdonald thought she was in a very good position to make a run for the top job. Her supporters had canvassed delegates and believed she would do very well on the balloting. To her and their shock, the voting went very much against her, and she eventually crashed and burned. It was suggested that delegates either told her people what they wanted to her, while intending to vote against her, or they had second thoughts when voting.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) 0of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen, are two interesting opinion pieces from commentators with whom I fairly often agree:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/What+Harper+might+with+majority/4673933/story.html

Andrew Cohen: What Harper might do with a majority

By Andrew Cohen, The Ottawa Citizen

April 26, 2011

In the last days of the federal election campaign, there remain only two unanswered questions: Will Canadians give the Conservatives their much-coveted majority, and if so, what will they do with it?

The striking thing about Stephen Harper's campaign is how he has grown in self-confidence. The pursuit of a majority has become the emblem of his campaign, and the narrative (if not the truth) has been bent to its purpose.

After five years in office, Harper still has not closed the deal with Canadians. It was as if they'd developed an emotional circuit-breaker over the last 62 months, which inevitably cut that surge of power whenever it threatened to lift the Conservatives to a majority.

Harper now says it's the Conservatives or chaos. Give us a majority, he warns, or it's higher taxes and bigger debt. It's economic uncertainty and political instability.

Curiously, Harper doesn't say what he'd do with a majority. From him there is no real sense of where he would take the country.

In the past, some leaders have articulated a big idea. John Diefenbaker offered a Northern Vision in 1958. Pierre Trudeau imagined a Just Society in 1968.

More likely, though, a leader wins big and surprises us. Having won a majority in 1974, for example, Trudeau introduced the wage and price controls he had ridiculed. In 1984, Brian Mulroney pursued free trade with the United States and the constitutional reform he had rejected as a leadership candidate.

In the 1993 campaign, Jean Chrétien didn't discuss eliminating the deficit, his signature achievement.

His budget of 1995 was so draconian that he could not have contemplated it without a majority.

While parties in modern Canada rarely ask for a majority expressly to do big things, it endows them with unfettered authority. A majority as prime minister allows you to summon and dismiss Parliament, set election dates and name the governor general, senators and judges, among other appointments. By and large, you are Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey's Simpson's "friendly dictator."

So what would Stephen Harper do? While he may pay lip-service to social conservatives, he is unlikely to reopen the debate on abortion, same-sex marriage and capital punishment. He knows that's playing with fire.

What he is more likely to do, though, is what he is doing already: appoint more conservative judges, deny funding to liberal-minded non-governmental organizations like Planned Parenthood, abolish the gun registry and get tough on crime.

Where he is likely to move aggressively is reshaping the state. Here, expect him to use the deficit as reason to shrink the size of government. That may mean slashing the public service, starving (or selling) the CBC, and privatizing government services.

Expect him to lower taxes and explore ways to empower the individual. Expect him to reform the Senate. Expect him to offer the provinces new authority, including Ottawa's residual powers. While he is unlikely to initiate constitutional reform (he doesn't like convening first ministers), expect the national government to be less national.

At the same time, watch for the Conservatives to give more substance to citizenship, which they think is too easy to acquire. There will be new emphasis on national history and national symbols, particularly the monarchy. The Conservative will continue to trumpet the North, espousing a new kind of nationalism.

Abroad, Canada will continue to regard the United Nations suspiciously. There will be no return to peacekeeping, as the Liberals suggest, or a human security agenda. Military spending will rise while international assistance is reassessed. A foundering CIDA will be reorganized, even abolished.

The government will pursue a new deal with the United States on border and security issues. It will build on new free trade with Europe. Canada will remain Israel's best friend.

Those who expect the same tone and tenor of the last five years -a centrist stewardship, reflecting a comfortable moderation, veering right only on the margins -should not be surprised to see the empowered Conservatives abandon that kind of caution.

For the opposition, particularly the Liberals, a Conservative majority will be disastrous. Michael Ignatieff will decamp for the University of Toronto and Bob Rae will dutifully succeed him. Without public financing, the party will be bankrupt. So will the Bloc Québécois.

For Stephen Harper, a majority will be the triumph of incrementalism, validating his strategy of playing the long game. For a strong man with ideas, it will be the Elysian Fields.

Without any conventional constraints, he will be free to revisit his deep-seated libertarian view of limited government and personal freedom and consider how both can create a Conservative Canada. In this project, he will have the confidence of his ideas and the loyalty of his colleagues in what is a one-man government. And assured of four more years in office, he won't worry about re-election.

With the opposition in retreat, his party in check and his agenda in focus, Stephen Harper with a majority will be untouchable.

Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University.

E-mail: andrewzcohen@yahoo.ca

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

And:​

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/election+could+bring+changes/4673932/story.html

William Watson: A ho-hum election could bring big changes

By William Watson, The Ottawa Citizen

April 26, 2011

Seat projections for Monday's election are showing not much change from the status quo: the Tories and NDP up a few, the Bloc and Liberals down slightly and the Greens still shut out. If that happens, a lot of people will say the election wasn't worth having.

Well, yes, of course, if we'd had its outcome a month ago, we could have avoided the expense.

But (so far as we know) nothing's actually predestined, not even Canadian politics. How do you know nothing's going to change until you actually play the game?

Even if the seat count does stay essentially the same, the election has already shown that things have changed in a couple of important ways. For instance, the Conservatives have been able to use the M-word ("majority") and use it repeatedly and insistently without immediately suffering a 10-point drop in their support.

The other parties are playing up "You can't trust Harper," and maybe that will end up denying the Conservatives their longsought majority, but that majority is no longer the goal that dare not speak its name. Canadians have had Stephen Harper as their prime minister for five years now and, though millions still detest him, even more millions now have some degree of comfort with him.

A second change is that Canadians are now much more familiar with how their system of government works. We elect members of Parliament at whose sufferance the prime minister serves. Nothing says the prime minister must come from the party with the most members. All that's required is that his or her government have the confidence of the House. It may not be the best system in the world but it's our system and now more of us understand it. Who knows? With a week of potential political education left, maybe even Harper will come around to understanding it.

A third possible change is in Quebec. It's not good for the country and it's not good for Quebecers to have a party representing them in Ottawa that is pledged to the breakup of the country -albeit a slow and deliberate breakup that doesn't rush ahead of the full vesting of Bloc MPs' parliamentary pensions.

Many Quebecers argue there can't be a reconciliation with the rest of the country until it somehow makes amends for the repatriation of the Constitution in 1981 -fully 30 years ago now! -without Quebec's signature (even if the separatist René Lévesque could never, ever have signed a Canada-renewing constitution). Both the Meech Lake and Charlottetown efforts having failed, it seems formal reconciliation just isn't going to happen. In their daily lives, few Quebecers think of such things anymore, but when the point is raised the debate turns, as it did in the French-language leaders' debate, to almost Talmudic colloquies about who did what to whom way back when.

For 20 years, federalists have been waiting for the Bloc's support to wane. The only question was whether the Liberals or Conservatives would replace it.

If, to everyone's surprise, the federalist role falls to the NDP, well, so much the better. The centre of gravity is further left in Quebec than in most parts of the country. If Quebec's politics re-align themselves along more natural ideological divides and away from constitutional fault lines, that will be good for all of us.

Maybe ideological realignment is coming for the rest of the country, too. Suppose -and this is still a big suppose -the NDP's surge sustains itself all the way to voting day. If a Liberal-NDP saw-off elects Conservatives in enough ridings to give Harper his majority, maybe people left of the country's centre will come to the same conclusion people right of it did 10 years ago: that they need to unite in order to prevent decades of exile from power.

If that should happen and if the Liberals and NDP can find a strategist as determined and unrelenting as Harper, they might pull off the kind of merger he engineered a decade ago. And if that happens, it could be that in the next few elections two major federalist parties, the Conservatives and the Liberal Social Democrats, go head-to-head across the whole country.

It was supposed to have been an unnecessary election; it may have been a nothing election; but it could end up as the little election that did.

William Watson teaches economics at McGill University.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Now, while I would not be so bold as to predict what Stephen Harper will do with a majority, I cannot fault Cohen's projection:

” ... appoint more conservative judges, deny funding to liberal-minded non-governmental organizations like Planned Parenthood, abolish the gun registry and get tough on crime ... shrink the size of government [by] slashing the public service, starving (or selling) the CBC, and privatizing government services ... lower taxes and explore ways to empower the individual ... reform the Senate ... offer the provinces new authority, including Ottawa's residual powers. While he is unlikely to initiate constitutional reform [thereby making] the national government to be less national ... Canada will continue to regard the United Nations suspiciously ... no return to peacekeeping ... or [to] a human security agenda. Military spending will rise while international assistance is reassessed. A foundering CIDA will be reorganized, even abolished ... pursue a new deal with the United States on border and security issues ... build on new free trade with Europe [and] Canada will remain Israel's best friend.”


Like Watson, I think the NDP's shellacking of the BQ is a good thing. I also think it will be good for the Dippers in a way they do not expect: it will force them to make some serious political and economic policy choices. They will remain a left of centre party, which does, as Watson says, “fit” with Québec, but they will have to manage Québec's never ending demands with the views in their Western base.

 

[dapaterson]

If Westmount - Ville-Marie goes NDP it's the beginning of a fascinating dynamic - the loss of the Montreal Anglo unwavering support to the Liberal Party.  The repercussions will be felt in subsequent elections - because suddenly there's a bunch of other ridings on the Island of Montreal that are in play for other parties; right now, the NDP and Conservatives make nice noises but don't make dedicated efforts for those ridings, as they're seen as too far gone.

I have to wonder - if we could bring back Nick Auf Der Maur into NDG this time like in 1984 (as a Tory, no less!) would Marlene Jennings be running scared?  (And try to imagine Nick as a Tory under Stephen Harper's somewhat directive communications approach).


(Edit: Typos)

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

DP, I hope you remembered that Nick has been dead 12 years now!

 

[dapaterson]

DP, I hope you remembered that Nick has been dead 12 years now!

His attendance would still be comparable to that of several other Honorable Members; it's certainly cut down on his smoking, and he's still more likely to make intelligent commentary than many other Honorable Members.


Perhaps we need a referral to the Supreme Court to address this obvious discrimination on the basis of vitality status - why not let the dead run for Parliament?

 

[Old Sweat]

At the very least, he can still vote Liberal.

 

[OldSolduer]

His attendance would still be comparable to that of several other Honorable Members; it's certainly cut down on his smoking, and he's still more likely to make intelligent commentary than many other Honorable Members.


Perhaps we need a referral to the Supreme Court to address this obvious discrimination on the basis of vitality status - why not let the dead run for Parliament?

Perhaps we call it The Zombie Party?

 

[Dissident]

Perhaps we call it The Zombie Party?

Shirts already available:
http://www.zazzle.com/kids_zombie_party_tshirt-235074683583691944

 

[Infanteer]

While that is not inconceivable, it is also not necessarily happening.  It is possible that the Conservatives lost support to the Liberals primarily in ridings where only the NDP was a strong contender.  It is conceivable that the Conservatives have been bleeding support into both the Liberals and the BQ while those parties have been bleeding even faster to the NDP and Greens.  It is also possible that some people previously saw the Conservatives as the only viable option for an anti-Ignatieff vote but are now seeing potential in something more in-line with their traditional leanings.  It is probably actually some combination of the above, and the impact of statistical variance.

All these variables make the polls, as Old Sweat says, a black art.  I'm not convinced Harper is bleeding like the Libs/BQ are to the NDP.  It appears that everything here is a fragmentation of the left as the post-Chretien flirtation with leaving the center behind comes to a sputtering halt.  All the pieces seem to be slowly moving to Jack Layton as the most likely leader able to get anything done for that end of the political spectrum.

My scientific wild-ass guess is look for a lot of "up the middle" wins for the Cons, possibly enough to put them in majority territory.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

My scientific wild-*** guess is look for a lot of "up the middle" wins for the Cons, possibly enough to put them in majority territory.

:nod:

 

[GR66]

I still shake my head at the thought that the Conservatives are in a serious dog fight for a majority when their opposition consists of one of the least charismatic and least trusted party leaders in modern Canadian political history (leading a party that has no policies other than "we're not the Conservatives"), a socialist that can't even begin to answer the very obvious questions about where the money to pay for his promises will come from, and a seperatist party from a province that is a net benefactor of federal tax money!

This election has always been the PM's to lose and to my mind another minority government definitely counts as a loss. 

 

[Kirkhill]

I wouldn't sweat the 308 shift.  At the eleventh hour he revises his model...... At which point he needs to show both models: the old one carried forward withouth change and the new one reworked backwards to demonstrate the trend.  Otherwise he has just produced a "hide the decline" shift where a different reference is substituted at the end.

The problem is compounded by the inclusion of the Ekos poll which seems to be outside the norms detected by other pollsters.

Emphasising an outlier and adjusting your model does not good statistics make.

 

[Redeye]

I think it's more a commentary on the Prime Minister and his party than on the Liberals or NDP.  It seems he has failed to convince enough people that he deserves a majority government, and the fact that he can do so without any particularly credible opposition is quite a statement.

"We're not the Conservatives" incidentally seemed to be a good enough policy statement to propel the Liberals into office for quite a few years under Chretien.

I still shake my head at the thought that the Conservatives are in a serious dog fight for a majority when their opposition consists of one of the least charismatic and least trusted party leaders in modern Canadian political history (leading a party that has no policies other than "we're not the Conservatives"), a socialist that can't even begin to answer the very obvious questions about where the money to pay for his promises will come from, and a seperatist party from a province that is a net benefactor of federal tax money!

This election has always been the PM's to lose and to my mind another minority government definitely counts as a loss.

 

[a_majoor]

And perhaps a bit of comfort for people contemplating Jack Layton as Prime Minister:

http://freedomnation.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-dawn-for-ndp.html

A new dawn for the NDP?

This election has turned fascinating really quickly. The upsurge of the NDP especially in Quebec could be a new dawn for this old but untested federal party. We could be witnessing a reordering of Canada’s political parties as Bloc voters consider abandoning the nationalistic socialism of the BQ for the  socialistic nationalism of the NDP.

It strikes me that this situation is somewhat familiar. In the recent British general election the Liberal-Democrats experienced a similar surge forward. At times it looked like they would even overtake the Labour Party as the official opposition. Although no one seriously discussed the possibility of the Liberal-Democrats leading a coalition there was plenty of pre-election talk about how crucial they would be in forming the next government.

Then Election Day came and the results were very disappointing for the Liberal-Democrats. It was the best showing for the party in decades and a triumph when you consider how close they had come to obliteration in the 80s. Still it was nowhere near the heights that the polls were giving them just days before the election.

As always it is pretty difficult/impossible to know what really happened, but the best that anyone can figure is that either people were not being completely honest to pollsters or Liberal Democrats just decided not to vote. Personally I find the former much more realistic than the latter. There was so much excitement around the Liberal Democrats I would suspect that supporters would be more motivated to actually vote.

So I think that the people surveyed were being dishonest. Not really dishonest to the person taking the survey but dishonest to themselves. Tired of the “same old political parties” some voters flirted with something new, but when it came time to vote old habits kicked in and they voted for something that was safe and familiar. A fed up Labour voter may have said that he/she will vote Liberal Democrat in disgust of Gordon Brown, but most of them actually voted Labour.

This is a lesson that the NDP should pay attention to because the attitudes of segments of the Canadian electorate mirror what was happening in the UK. I predict that although the NDP will get a breakthrough in Quebec the final results will be extremely disappointing for them.

We are witnessing a change in the federal party system but it is not a fundamental shift. There will be no new dawn for the NDP.

 

[OldSolduer]

I still shake my head at the thought that the Conservatives are in a serious dog fight for a majority when their opposition consists of one of the least charismatic and least trusted party leaders in modern Canadian political history (leading a party that has no policies other than "we're not the Conservatives"), a socialist that can't even begin to answer the very obvious questions about where the money to pay for his promises will come from, and a seperatist party from a province that is a net benefactor of federal tax money!

This election has always been the PM's to lose and to my mind another minority government definitely counts as a loss.

Although Mr. Harper does have presence, he comes off as a cold fish on TV. Most voters can't get past that, when you compare him with a more dynamic, engaging Jack Layton.