Election 2015

[Edward Campbell]

David Reevely, of the Ottawa Citizen provides a good primer on how strategic voting might work, using one suburban riding as an example, in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from that newspaper:

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/reevely-this-election-is-about-nepean-surrey-and-mississauga

This election is about Nepean, Surrey and Mississauga

DAVID REEVELY

Published on: August 7, 2015

This election will be won in Nepean. Also Surrey and Mississauga and Pickering. But if you want to see the fight of the next two months in microcosm, look at Nepean.

The suburbs around major cities are where the Conservatives won the seats that propelled them to a majority in 2011 and that’s where the redistricting that takes effect this time has added more. When it happened, lots of people figured it would benefit the Tories because they’d done so well in those places last time, but it also means they have more ground to defend, and more ridings without the advantage of incumbency.

In Nepean specifically, it means we’ll have three ridings instead of two, and with John Baird’s departure two of them are vacant.

If Stephen Harper wants to keep power, he’s got to win them. If the New Democrats want power, they have to compete in them, appealing to the suburban vote in a way they never, ever have before. And if the Liberals are to stand any kind of a chance, they have to return to being the natural alternative to the Tories in those seats.

So in the early part of this campaign, we’ve seen two fresh promises from the Conservatives – support for trades apprenticeships; and a home-renovation tax credit worth up to $750 — aimed squarely at the votes of working-class homeowners.

The apprenticeships promise is small, a $60-million tax credit for employers who take on apprentices. The home-reno credit is potentially bigger (a more generous but time-limited one that the Tories offered in order to stimulate the economy a few years ago cost about $3 billion) but it won’t come until the federal budget’s in better shape.

The tax credit isn’t worth a ton to any individual homeowner, especially someone who has several thousand dollars to spend on a home-improvement project, but it’s still money in your pocket after you’ve replaced the deck. And it’s good for plumbers and carpenters and electricians and people who supply them.

Harper’s pledges go up against ones the New Democrats have already made to the critical suburban voter, such as a $15-a-day national daycare program. But, funny thing, the Liberals are trying to portray that not as help for families trying to make ends meet on two incomes, but as a subsidy for the rich.

Universal programs – ones everyone can get the same benefits from – used to be thought of as left-wing. Justin Trudeau’s exploiting the fact that rich people would be eligible for the same treatment as the poor under Mulcair’s plan, just as they are under the Conservatives’ new “universal child-care benefit.”

The New Democrats, Trudeau said in his very first campaign stop, are “irresponsibly supporting Harper’s plan to give more money to millionaires.” Trudeau also scoffed at the NDP plan to raise the minimum wage, which would affect only a handful of federally regulated workers (most people are covered by provincial wage laws, not federal ones), as meaningless.

Trudeau is correct on these facts. By pointing them out, he’s chopping at Mulcair’s left flank, which is Trudeau’s best chance for supplanting Mulcair as the best alternative to Harper – ideally, carving off left-wing voters who don’t like Mulcair’s drift toward the centre.

It’s also just what Harper would like Trudeau to do. The Liberals and New Democrats claw at each other’s eyes over who’ll do a better job of using the government to help regular folks; Harper talks about getting government out of the way.

If you’re OK with Canada as it’s been for the last decade or so, you know exactly who will give you more of it. Not everyone is OK with Canada as it’s been for the last decade or so, is the thing. Both Mulcair and Trudeau have a bigger idea of Canada than Harper does, and after nearly 10 years of him, that obviously has some appeal.

But how to turn that into votes is the challenge for Mulcair and Trudeau, and it’ll be up to you, Nepean, to decide whether they pull it off.

    (Nepean is a bedroom/big box mall suburb in Ottawa's west end.)

I'm not posting David Reevely's article just because he agrees with me ... he also explains how strategic voting might help Prime Minister Harper's Conservatives IF the anti-Harper vote splits just the right way: allowing Conservatives to come up through the middle in rising, after suburban riding, after suburban riding in city after city.

But if he's right, if M Trudeau is going to swing waaaayleft and try to hive off the NDP's left wing, rather than ~ one one would have though is more logical: to appeal to the NDP's right wing ~ then I believe he's taking a bad risk. Like "the lady" (Margaret Thatcher), the left wing of the NDP is not, in my opinion, "for turning." It's been there for a long, long time: ever since the Canadian Labour Congress and the old, prairie, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) merged in 1961. The NDP's left survived the crisis of the Waffle movement in 1971 and it survived Pierre Trudeau's silk stocking socialism in the late 60s and throughout the 70s. It will not be "turned" by kind of arguments M Trudeau is making, now.

His own "right wing," the Blue or Manley Liberals are, however, nervous, right now, I think, and they could be panicked ~ panicked enough to stampede towards the Tories ~ if M Trudeau is perceived to be really intent on campaigning and[ governing on the left. Plenty of Liberal leaders have "campaigned left" but the party power brokers, from Big Business, Big labour and the Big Banks, have always been quite sure that those leaders would "govern right," when the time came ...  and, except for Pierre Trudeau, they all did.

I see that the CPC is increasing its attacks on M Trudeau's (and M Mulcair's) fiscal plans: warning Canadians that both will run deficits. That's aimed squarely at the suburbs where, by and large, deficit financing causes real (albeit unreasoned) fear.

That M Trudeau is going after M Mulcair suggests, to me, that he knows who the real enemy is: he's fighting for Stornoway, not 24 Sussex Drive and it's an uphill battle.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>(albeit unreasoned) fear.

Unreasoned?  We ran deficits on behalf of the past recession, and here we are on the verge of another without having put anything back in the pot.  (I'm not particularly worried; I think Canada - and all other countries currently experiencing unspectacular recoveries from the last one - could spend the next few years sliding in and out of recessions just because of the way a recession is defined.)  I don't object to theoretical Keynesian management of cycles; I object to the real-world version in which we have deficits during a recession and deficits between recessions.

Looking back not too far, we know that when governments manage finances badly, things can get very bad - or fearsome, if you prefer.  There is nothing in the physical universe to prevent today's NDP or LPC from fussing up as badly as the Trudeau Liberals, the Rae NDP, or the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals (who have governed longer than Harper with less to show for it except a desperate hope that the next government of Canada will be happy to take the heat for new taxes and give the money to ON to spend).

Enough articles have been written pointing out that the real burden of tax revenue is borne by the middle class for the middle class to be aware of it.  We know that when governments get up against a wall, the problems aren't to be solved by taxing merely "the rich".

 

[Edward Campbell]

>(albeit unreasoned) fear.

Unreasoned?  We ran deficits on behalf of the past recession, and here we are on the verge of another without having put anything back in the pot.  (I'm not particularly worried; I think Canada - and all other countries currently experiencing unspectacular recoveries from the last one - could spend the next few years sliding in and out of recessions just because of the way a recession is defined.)  I don't object to theoretical Keynesian management of cycles; I object to the real-world version in which we have deficits during a recession and deficits between recessions.

Looking back not too far, we know that when governments manage finances badly, things can get very bad - or fearsome, if you prefer.  There is nothing in the physical universe to prevent today's NDP or LPC from fussing up as badly as the Trudeau Liberals, the Rae NDP, or the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals (who have governed longer than Harper with less to show for it except a desperate hope that the next government of Canada will be happy to take the heat for new taxes and give the money to ON to spend).

Enough articles have been written pointing out that the real burden of tax revenue is borne by the middle class for the middle class to be aware of it.  We know that when governments get up against a wall, the problems aren't to be solved by taxing merely "the rich".

I know I'm preaching to the choir, Brad, but I need to repeat that it appears to me that most politicians never managed to finish John Maynard Keynes' book: they just got tot he bit where it said "spend during a recession or depression to stimulate growth" and then put the book away. John Maynard Keynes was not subtle: he prescribed spending of sorts that can be, without too much political pain, switched on and then off again, when the economy is booming or, at least, motoring along happily. Most politicians (conveniently for those who are of the tax and spend variety) invoke Keynesian theory without having understood it.

I don't find deficits overly alarming ... but, then, I did finish the book. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

This ...

       

              ... from NDP candidate and former journalist Linda McQuaig (on CBC TV's "Power and Politics") and not anything said in the debate may be the "story" for the NDP in Alberta.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Things that make you go

There have been a series of posts, in the last day or so, about Liberal lawns signs, in Quebec, that do not feature M Trudeau's image at all or, even, in large print, his name.

Now we see (at least some of) the same in Ontario:

   

Much was made, including by me, of the Liberals relying too heavily upon M Trudeau's image and charisma; now it appears some Liberals want nothing much to do with him.

 

[George Wallace]

At the same time, if it is too expensive to take to oil out of the oilsands due to the world economic situation, it is only good business to leave it in the ground.  We have seen this for years in the mining sector.  Is it really a concern?

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is what I think the CPC advertising campaign should look like for most of the campaign season:

         

Both the Liberals and the NDP has promised to raise taxes in order to fund new social programmes. Neither leader can deny that. Prime Minister Harper can run on the fact, and it is a fact, that both taxes and government spending are lower than they've been in decades.

The "Just Not Ready" campaign has, probably, worked well enough ~ likely better than expected. Let M Trudeau's Liberals attack M Mulcair. Campaign on the truth: lower taxes and lower spending.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Which is to say, government spending as a fraction of economic activity (eg. of GDP) is lower.  This is, after all, the "highest spending government ever".

If oil stays in the ground long enough, it stays there forever.  Alternatives will eventually dominate - just not as suddenly as some people think is necessary.

 

[The Bread Guy]

There have been a series of posts, in the last day or so, about Liberal lawns signs, in Quebec, that do not feature M Trudeau's image at all or, even, in large print, his name.

Same in this part of Ontario - no pix at all, in fact, on many of the ones I've seen.

The signs would have been ordered well in advance of the writ, so it was also a decision made a while back.

- edited to qualify statement, now that I've seen a few with candidate pix -

 

[McG]

I prefer signs that only show the local candidate.  That is who we are voting for.
Sticking a party leader on the signs just contributes to people's misbelief that they are voting for a PM.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Mulcair has been claiming the Conservatives added $150 "in new debt".  I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, with the modifier "new" in there.  The number should be $135B [1].

One big hit was -$55B in 09-10, when revenues were down since 07-08 by $23B and expenses were up by $46B.  [2]

The major pressure point was Paul Martin's Health Accord [3].

The point: the Conservative government upheld and extended a major social spending commitment, did it while they trimmed some taxation, did it through a major recession and mediocre recovery, and did it for amounts that dwarf the piddling $2-3B the NDP and LPC are hoping to find for their daycare subsidies.  Criticisms that the Conservatives have been poor fiscal managers, have attacked the social welfare fabric of Canada, or have been unable to do the right thing to serve the interests of Canada don't stand up - except where there is flysh!t in the pepper.

[1] What the fiscal reference tables show is that the accumulated deficit at the end of FY 05-06 was $481.5B and at the end of FY 13-14 was $611.8.  Given ~$2B deficit for last year and ~$2B deficit for this year (assume debt, not surplus), that means the accumulated deficit increase will be a little under $135B.  It's still a big number, but I keep finding bullsh!t under the NDP's numbers.

[2] No-one should believe the Conservatives engineered a world-wide fiscal crisis; no-one should forget that the opposition parties (led by Ignatieff, with his "on probation" shtick) pressed for well over $30B in "stimulus" spending.

[3] The difference between Paul Martin's 6% growth rate in the Health Accord and 3% will be a cumulative ~$80B over the life of the Conservative government from 06-07 to 15-16, and a ~$12B difference in the year it ends.  My chosen 3% comparison is not entirely arbitrary - it's the rate the Conservatives intend to apply after the Accord expires, and is closer to (still above) recent rates of revenue growth and GDP growth.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Yesterday I wrote: "...I think Canada - and all other countries currently experiencing unspectacular recoveries from the last one - could spend the next few years sliding in and out of recessions just because of the way a recession is defined."

Here is an opinion on the value of the definition of "recession".

With or without an imminent election, the opposition parties may be expected to beat the "Canada is in recession; therefore, Conservatives are poor managers" drum.  But without that sharp recession/not-recession cutoff, they are just waffling and really saying "We don't like Conservatives.  Elect us instead!".

 

[Fishbone Jones]

In a word: Arseholes.

Lying, truth bending, hypocrites.

We lose over 50% of our national wealth, due to the price of oil and Mulcair and Trudeu say it's all the CPC's fault.

Morons.

 

[Harrigan]

Much was made, including by me, of the Liberals relying too heavily upon M Trudeau's image and charisma; now it appears some Liberals want nothing much to do with him.

So not having the party leader's name on a sign automatically means some Liberals want nothing to do with Trudeau?  Really? 

Just because the CPC campaign is "all Harper, all the time", doesn't mean that the other parties have to be a one-man show too (and in the Liberals case, they should be focussing on their team anyway).  Could it not also be equally/more likely that pretty much everyone in the country already knows who the Liberal leader is?

Harrigan

 

[Edward Campbell]

So not having the party leader's name on a sign automatically means some Liberals want nothing to do with Trudeau?  Really? 

Just because the CPC campaign is "all Harper, all the time", doesn't mean that the other parties have to be a one-man show too (and in the Liberals case, they should be focussing on their team anyway).  Could it not also be equally/more likely that pretty much everyone in the country already knows who the Liberal leader is?

Harrigan

Google: www.harper.ca ~ you get some guy's empty blog, or Google www.stephenharpoer.ca and you redirected to the CPC web site

Google: www.mulcair.ca ~ you get a commercial photographer's website (with some very nice photos, by the way)

But Google: www.justin.ca and see what you get (www.trudeau.ca is already taken by a kitchen appliance maker)

So, yeah, it has, in fact, been "all Justin all the time" since 2013 and it is a wee bit surprising to see his name/image relegated to the fine print.

 

[Harrigan]

Yesterday I wrote: "...I think Canada - and all other countries currently experiencing unspectacular recoveries from the last one - could spend the next few years sliding in and out of recessions just because of the way a recession is defined."

Here is an opinion on the value of the definition of "recession".

With or without an imminent election, the opposition parties may be expected to beat the "Canada is in recession; therefore, Conservatives are poor managers" drum.  But without that sharp recession/not-recession cutoff, they are just waffling and really saying "We don't like Conservatives.  Elect us instead!".

I don't disagree with your assessment on a recession, but the problem the government has is twofold:

1.  They are telling everyone that the economy is growing!, Growing!!, GROWING!!!, and that they are the ones (the only ones) who made it happen.  Yet people are seeing the dollar fall, the record of 8 straight years of deficits (now that the "surplus" is no longer) and the statistics stating exactly the opposite of what the govt is saying.  Of course, statistics are malleable, but voters are being asked to square what the government is saying and what they are seeing, which are not the same.  Most people don't share the govt's disdain for evidence-based decision making - and the evidence is not their friend at the moment.

2.  I completely agree that the current problem is heavily related to oil.  Problem for the government is that they are the party that has self-identified as pushing a heavily oil-based economy moreso than a diversified economy.  (Of course they are not trying to eliminate diversification, but no party pushes the oil-based economy more than the CPC).  This has been their strategy throughout their government, and the risks of this strategy must be all too apparent in the CPC bunker at the moment.

Harrigan

 

[Harrigan]

Google: www.harper.ca ~ you get some guy's empty blog, or Google www.stephenharpoer.ca and you redirected to the CPC web site

Google: www.mulcair.ca ~ you get a commercial photographer's website (with some very nice photos, by the way)

But Google: www.justin.ca and see what you get (www.trudeau.ca is already taken by a kitchen appliance maker)

So, yeah, it has, in fact, been "all Justin all the time" since 2013 and it is a wee bit surprising to see his name/image relegated to the fine print.

I have no idea why you think that Domain Name Hijacking is even remotely relevant to this conversation.  You clearly agree that everyone knows who the leader of the Liberal Party is already, based on their (and the CPC's) pre-election promotion. 

What I find a leap in logic is automatically equating an election sign with only the candidate's name on it as somehow meaning that they don't support the party leader.  That is ridiculous.  Does a Green Party sign in Newfoundland HAVE to have Elizabeth May on it?  Does the attached photo means there is a front-bench revolt underway against the PM?

Harrigan

 

[Brad Sallows]

1.  Whenever the economy is not shrinking, it is growing.  I suppose some people must feel the Conservatives have been claiming the economy is "GROWING!!!"; my impression is that they have been telling everyone Canada has been doing as well as or better than most other countries.

1a.  Can we leave talk about "8 straight years of deficits" to the spinners?  One office's projection isn't a fact, nor is it destined to be one if the office doesn't control the levers.  I'm peeved by all the sloppiness: 7 years of recession-induced deficits and a tight projection becomes "8"; a proposed Liberal tax cut worth about $670 is worth "almost a thousand dollars"; an increase in accumulated deficit of $135B is "$150 billion".

2. You fish where the fish are.  Our problem isn't governments that tried to make the most of favourable resource prices (main effort); our problem is people who are determined to not exploit those prices.  If the best that can be said about the Conservatives is that they have not tried to hinder diversification, the worst that can be said about the NDP is that they will hinder it - they plan to raise corporate taxes.

There was never any problem finding articles about how the GST cut was effective politics but poor economics.  Yet I have seen very few people attack a major part of the NDP platform - corporate tax increases - for the same thing.  See A Tale of Two Tax Cuts (Stephen Gordon in Maclean's, Dec 2013).

However poorly people feel the CPC has done, the NDP is plotting a course to do worse.

 

[PuckChaser]

Let's also remember it was the Liberals and NDP that demanded those deficits as a condition of confidence. They conveniently wash their hands of it now, when it doesn't suit the rhetoric.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Let's also remember it was the Liberals and NDP that demanded those deficits as a condition of confidence. They conveniently wash their hands of it now, when it doesn't suit the rhetoric.

Even during a majority government?

Meanwhile, from the hustings ....

Harper Announces Banned Travel Zones to Combat Terrorism

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced that a re-elected Conservative government will take additional steps to stop the flow of foreign fighters to and from Canada. Building on previous counter terrorism measures implemented under Prime Minister Harper’s leadership, a re-elected Conservative government will create a new category of banned foreign travel zones known as “declared areas”. Declared areas will be designated regions within foreign countries where listed terrorist entities such as ISIS are engaged in hostile activities, and are recruiting and training followers. New legislation will make it a criminal offence for Canadians to travel to such areas.

“Foreign fighters pose a direct threat to Canada, both through their terrorist actions overseas and especially if they seek to travel to Canada to carry out attacks here at home,” Mr. Harper said. “The creation of a category of banned foreign travel zones will provide Canadian law enforcement with further tools to better protect Canadians from individuals who have travelled to these dangerous areas and who intend to return to Canada to commit terrorist acts.”

Prime Minister Harper outlined the urgency of these additional measures in the face of the terrorist threat posed by ISIS and its followers:

    In 2014, the Government was aware of 80 individuals who had returned to Canada after engaging in terrorist activities. At the time, 130 individuals were also believed to be outside of Canada supporting terrorist activities overseas.
    Canadian members of ISIS have appeared in Internet videos vowing to travel to Canada to murder Canadians. ISIS and its followers have engaged in mass murder, beheadings, persecution of religious minorities, and desecration of some of the world’s most important holy sites.
    Australia, a close ally that has already passed similar legislation, has banned travel to two regions where ISIS is active: al-Raqqa province in Syria and Mosul district in Iraq.

This measure will build on previous steps taken by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to combat terrorism including making it a criminal offence to leave Canada to engage in terrorist activity; revoking Canadian citizenship from dual citizens and denying it to permanent residents who are convicted of terrorism; making it illegal to promote terrorism; and giving authorities additional powers to disrupt planned attacks on Canadian soil.

Prime Minister Harper explained that there may be limited legitimate reasons that a Canadian may travel to declared areas such as providing humanitarian aid or professional journalism. Canadians who can demonstrate they have travelled to declared areas for defined legitimate purposes would not be prosecuted under the new legislation.

Prime Minister Harper noted that Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair intend to ignore the threat posed by ISIS by immediately ending Canada’s military mission against the terrorist organization. “Justin would rather make excuses for terrorists and focus on the so-called root causes of radicalization. He lacks the maturity to defend Canada against serious threats,” he said. “Thomas Mulcair believes that our men and women in uniform have “no place being in Iraq” and that we should engage in “diplomacy” with terrorists.” The Prime Minister noted that Mulcair’s dangerous ideology would make Canada less safe.

Prime Minister Harper also stated that diplomacy and studying root causes would not stop ISIS. “I will not privilege the interests of terrorists who have vowed to come to Canada in order to kill Canadians over the rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Prime Minister Harper. “Canadians did not invent the threat of jihadi terrorism, but Canadians also know that we cannot make the dangers of the world disappear by simply denying their existence.”

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