Election 2015

[Altair]

I disagree.  The Liberal Party and the NDP are both strapped for cash and cannot afford another general election in such a short period of time.  As MCG noted: the party that helped the reigning party retain power would be "King Makers".

The liberal democrats were king makers in England and all they got was a swift kick to the teeth.

I think it's especially important for the liberals to avoid propping up the CPC.  Especially a harper lead one. Financial situation aside, if they become the force hindering change the NDP grav that label and off to 24 Sussex goes mulcair.

The Canadian electorate doesn't give a damn about how much money the parties have, they care about wanting a change in government.

 

[McG]

A minority government with the CPC beholden to one or more other parties would be a change. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

I agree that if either M Mulcair's or Prime Minister Harper's wins the most seats M Trudeau is between a rock and a hard place:

    1. He cannot support Prime Minister Harper or he will drive every anti-Harper voter over to the NDP, destroying the Liberal Party;

    2. He cannot support M Mulcair for very long without blurring the line between Liberals and Dippers and, again, destroying the Liberal Party.

His Liberals have to finish ahead of the NDP. Then he can invite the NDP to join him in either a) defeating Prime Minister harper and forcing another election ~ i.e. making M Mulcair decide to be "king maker" and/or hated; or b) invite M Mulcair to support him, M Trudeau, in the HoC. He must, on other words, finish first, or second to the CPC, or he risks destroying the Liberal Party of Canada, as Prime Minister Harper is thought to wish.

Oh, and by the way, I suspect M Mulcair's team can do the same calculations.

 

[Altair]

A minority government with the CPC beholden to one or more other parties would be a change.

True. But I don't see how that change would benefit anyone but the CPC to the detriment of the other two parties.

A conservative minority would need to work with the other parties, calming those who say harper can't play well with others.

It would put more time between the next election and the Duffy show.

For those who hate harper himself,  he might use the time to take his long walk in the snow.

All of this looks like pros for the CPC, cons for the NDP and disastrous for the LPC.

For the LPC, the only thing worst than being in debt is being irrelevant.

Again, the liberals worked with the CPC the most out of all the parties in parliament during the last minority parliament and nobody thought they were king makers. They were dumped to third and made completely irrelevant.

I hope the LPC can see that they can always raise more money someday, in the future,especially if they continue to get 90-100 seats. They can't do that if the electorate decides to dump them to third place with 30 odd seats and trudeau resigning in disgrace because they are fed up with the liberals propping up the CPC.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Harper’s answer was fascinating because it was plain and simply wrong.

Not if Harper was framing his answer in terms of output legitimacy - and to situate the judgement thereof - rather than input legitimacy and directing it at voters and the other leaders.  I doubt that at this point Harper misunderstands how Parliament works.  Sometimes the pedantically correct answer is merely a (factually true) response which misses the (rhetorical) point.

 

[Altair]

I agree that if either M Mulcair's or Prime Minister Harper's wins the most seats M Trudeau is between a rock and a hard place:

    1. He cannot support Prime Minister Harper or he will drive every anti-Harper voter over to the NDP, destroying the Liberal Party;

    2. He cannot support M Mulcair for very long without blurring the line between Liberals and Dippers and, again, destroying the Liberal Party.

His Liberals have to finish ahead of the NDP. Then he can invite the NDP to join him in either a) defeating Prime Minister harper and forcing another election ~ i.e. making M Mulcair decide to be "king maker" and/or hated; or b) invite M Mulcair to support him, M Trudeau, in the HoC. He must, on other words, finish first, or second to the CPC, or he risks destroying the Liberal Party of Canada, as Prime Minister Harper is thought to wish.

Oh, and by the way, I suspect M Mulcair's team can do the same calculations.

correction,  he needs to finish ahead of someone.

It can be the NDP or more likely these days, the conservatives.

At the very least he needs to be close. Within 10-15 seats of the second place party if he finishes 3rd.

But if he finishes in second he's golden.

 

[Kirkhill]

Can Harper pull a Bill Davis?  As my daughter is wont to say: "Maaaaybe".

Bill Davis - 1971-1985

The 1975 campaign was far more bitter than that of 1971, with Davis and Liberal leader Robert Nixon repeatedly hurling personal insults at one another. Polls taken shortly before the election had the Liberals in the lead. The Progressive Conservatives won only 51 seats out of 125, but were able to remain in power with a minority government. The New Democratic Party (NDP) won 38 seats under the leadership of Stephen Lewis, while Nixon's Liberals finished third with 36. Soon after the election, Davis hired Hugh Segal as his legislative secretary.

Davis appointed right-wingers Frank Miller and James Taylor to key cabinet portfolios after the election, but withdrew from a proposed austerity program following a negative public response. In 1977, he introduced a policy statement written by Segal which became known as the "Bramalea Charter", promising extensive new housing construction for the next decade. Davis called a snap election in 1977, but was again returned with only a minority. The Progressive Conservatives increased their standing to 58 seats, against 34 for the Liberals and 33 for the NDP.

The Conservatives remained the dominant party after the 1975 and 1977 elections due to the inability of either the New Democrats and the Liberals to become the clear alternative. The Conservatives were able to stay in power due to the competition between both opposition parties. As there was no serious consideration of a Liberal-NDP alliance after both campaigns, Davis was able avoid defeat in the legislature by appealing to other parties for support on particular initiatives. His government often moved to the left of the rural-based Liberals on policy issues. The opposition parties had also undergone leadership changes; Nixon and Lewis, who had posed a strong challenge to Davis, resigned after the 1975 and 1977 elections, respectively. Nixon's successor Stuart Lyon Smith proved unable to increase Liberal support, while new NDP leader Michael Cassidy lacked the support of the party establishment and could not measure up to Lewis's charismatic and dynamic figure.

This period of the Davis government was one of expansion for the province's public health and education systems, and Davis held a particular interest in ensuring that the province's community colleges remained productive. The government also expanded the provisions of the Ontario Human Rights Code, and expanded bilingual services without introducing official bilingualism to the province.

Wiki

Will he be forced (is he planning) a Hamlet strategy?  Maaaybe.

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen - 1993-2001 (Centre Left)
Anders Fogh Rasmussen - 2001-2009 (Centre Right)
Lars Lokke Rasmussen - 2009-2011 (Centre Right)
Helle Thorning-Schmidt - 2011-2015 (Centre Left)
Lars Lokke Rasmussen - 2015 (Centre Right)

But first let us consider Britain 2015.

Whole lot of speculation based on speculative data and a whole lot of people trying to pretend they have a clue.....

 

[Edward Campbell]

correction,  he needs to finish ahead of someone.

It can be the NDP or more likely these days, the conservatives.

At the very least he needs to be close. Within 10-15 seats of the second place party if he finishes 3rd.

But if he finishes in second he's golden.

I don't think so. If M Trudeau's Liberals finish second to M Mulcair's Dippers in a minority situation then he has two bad choices:

    1. Support the NDP, which, as I said earlier, will blur the lines between the Liberal left, maybe the whole Liberal "brand," and the NDP. People will wonder why they should bother voting Liberal at all when there is a "clear" choice between the NDP and the CPC; or

    2. Join with the CPC, as soon as the finances are in order, to bring down the NDP, no matter how well the latter is governing, opening himself to just the attack you and the Harper Haters™ mentioned.

I think he must beat the NDP, nationally, and to do that he must, first, beat them in Quebec.

Looking farther into the future: In my opinion the post-Harper Conservatives will still have a solid prairie base (maybe a little less "firm" than today, and that might be a good thing since it would indicate greater "moderation" all around) and BC and Ontario will still be "up for grabs" by all three parties but only the CPC can/is willing to "govern without Quebec" ~ see my very first post in this thread. The Liberals' long term fortunes (survival) depends upon Quebec. In the really long term the "natural governing party" must capture the "hearts and minds" of the voters in suburban and small city Alberta, BC and Ontario ~ that's where the growth in Canada is occurring. Atlantic Canada (32 seats, the Liberal Party's only "stronghold") and MB and SK (28 seats, part of the CPC's "prairie base") are fine, as "firm bases," in military parlance, but the real battlegrounds are in the areas with the real growth and those are in three provinces: AB, BC and ON.

I am guessing that we are drifting, as is the UK, towards an American style two party system: it's simpler, easier to understand, and people like "easy". I think there will be a centre left to left of centre party and a centre right to right of centre party. The former can be either the LPC or NDP and the latter can be either the CPC or LPC. Prime Minister Harper is reported to believe that a NDP (left) <> CPC (right) pairing will be preferable, but that pairing could, just as easily, be a LPC <> CPC or NDP <> LPC. The Liberals have the most to lose, and the most "opportunity" to lose, in my opinion.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Ah, the bias of the CBC.  This is buried down in the Politics section and you have to open it up to read it, I believe if it was a CPC gaffe vs NDP, it would be waved like a red flag.
Shared under the fair dealings provisions of the copyright act.

Senior NDP aide to Tom Mulcair apologizes for tweets targeting Catholic Church

By Colin Perkel, The Canadian PressPosted: Sep 08, 2015 9:46 PM ET|Last Updated: Sep 08, 2015 10:35 PM ET

A senior aide to New Democrat Leader Tom Mulcair apologized Tuesday after past tweets surfaced in which he took aim at the Roman Catholic Church.

The two-year-old tweets by Shawn Dearn, hired in February as Mulcair's director of communications, were also directed at Pope Benedict.

"Memo to CBC and all media," one of them reads. "Stop calling the misogynist, homophobic, child-molesting Catholic church a 'moral authority.' It's not."

However, in a tweet to his followers late Tuesday, Dearn apologized.

Shawn Dearn, director of communications for NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, acknowledged Tuesday that some tweets he sent that 'pre-dated my current role were offensive and do not reflect my views.' (@shawndearn/Twitter)

"Some tweets that pre-dated my current role were offensive and do not reflect my views," he said. "They are being deleted and I apologize sincerely."

It was not immediately clear how the past tweets resurfaced.

Within hours of the Twitterverse taking new note of the posts, Dearn made his Twitter account private and therefore inaccessible to most users.

Dearn took aim at Pope Benedict for saying Britain's human-rights policy on gay equality violated natural law. Dearn is married to a man.

The tweet used an offensive expletive in connection with the Pope.

Dearn's tweets sparked strong reaction on social media.

Mulcair himself was not immediately available to comment.

Party spokesman George Soule conceded the posts were offensive.

"Earlier tonight, a campaign staff person was reminded of tweets posted prior to taking his position," Soule said.

"These tweets were inappropriate and offensive to many, and are being deleted. He has apologized."

The furor over the tweets came a day after the Conservatives dropped two candidates when past distasteful actions surfaced in videos — one for urinating in a home-owner's coffee mug and another for prank calling about Viagra and posing as a mentally disabled person.

Also Tuesday, the Tories' Bay of Quinte Electoral District Association fired a board member for posting offensive views.

Sue MacDonell had posted on Facebook that a Cree woman recently crowned Mrs. Universe was a monster and a "smug entitled Liberal pet."

© The Canadian Press, 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-shawn-dearn-ndp-mulcair-twitter-apology-1.3220283

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is an interesting analysis of the (Canadian) political fallout from the refugee crisis:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/globe-politics-insider/three-ways-the-refugee-crisis-could-unfold-and-what-it-means-for-harper/article26267226/

Three ways the refugee crisis could unfold and what it means for Harper

SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

John Ibbitson
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Sep. 09, 2015

The great surprise of this election thus far has been the explosion of the Syrian refugee crisis as a campaign-defining issue. According to conventional wisdom, the Conservatives have botched the situation and it will cost them support. That may or may not be true. Here are three scenarios on how things could play out over the next six weeks.

The first possibility is also the saddest: that the issue goes away. The tragic photo of Alan Kurdi horrified the world, and galvanized demands that Western governments come to the aid of the millions of Syrians displaced by civil war and Islamic State atrocities. But as aid agencies can sadly attest, our attention span is limited. The horror fades, new events displace old, people move on. The once-forgotten become forgotten again.

If that turns out to be true, then the refugee issue will diminish in importance, leaving a residual resentment of Tory callousness, but ultimately contributing no more to the campaign’s outcome than what Ray Novak knew about Nigel Wright’s cheque. (If you need reminding of who Ray Novak is and what he knew, consider the point made.)

But this is the least likely scenario. The refugee crisis is escalating, and won’t be disappearing from the headlines any time soon. Tens of thousands of desperate Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans continue to flood into Europe, testament to the endless, brutal civil war within Islam. European governments struggle to cope. Pressure rises on Canada to do more. Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau accuse Stephen Harper of foot-dragging and demand a large, immediate increase to the number of refugees that Canada is prepared to accept. Mayors and premiers and aid groups declare they can and want to do more. Support for the Tories wanes, as even core Conservatives question Mr. Harper’s compassion and good sense.

That’s the scenario playing out now. Since the Conservatives are resolved to stay the course – highlighting their military contribution to the fight against the Islamic State, while promising to allow in only a modest and carefully screened cohort of refugees – the issue could contribute to Mr. Harper’s defeat on Oct. 19. It could be the event that encapsulates voter weariness with this Prime Minister after 10 long years.

There is a third scenario, which Conservative strategists are hoping will play out. It goes something like this. (The following is based on conversations with senior party officials speaking on background.)

Over the next six weeks, the true complexity of the refugee crisis starts to sink in. The need of Arab refugees for sanctuary is practically infinite; the resources all too finite. Tensions rise within the European Union as some governments do more than their share, and others want no share at all.

Canada’s contribution, as measured against many other nations, is far from meagre. On a per capita basis, our offer to settle another 10,000 refugees over several years is roughly in line with the contribution of Britain and France, and streets ahead of anything the Americans are offering. And it’s not just the Americans who are laggards. How many refugees is Japan prepared to accept? Or China?

Why are Western nations showing such reluctance to step up in the face of this disaster? Because Islamic extremism is a problem at home as well as abroad. Only the tiniest fraction of Muslim immigrants fail to integrate fully and successfully into Canadian society, but that tiny fraction can pose a serious problem to internal security, which is why the Conservatives are insisting that immigrants be carefully screened before admission.

And as for Canada’s military effort against the Islamic State, which both the Liberals and NDP oppose, how many more millions would be on the move if that fanatical sect had been left to expand in Iraq and Syria unchecked?

The Conservatives are hoping for, and counting on, voters to have second thoughts, as the weeks unfold. They are counting on voters to come around to the belief that a measured approach involving limited military action and a carefully screened intake of refugees is both appropriate and prudent.

The Conservatives may be wrong. Right now, most observers consider the second scenario – in which this crisis contributes to Mr. Harper’s defeat – the more likely. We’ll see.

OK, my (hard hearted) views on refugees are already known, ditto my view that the best way to solve the "endless, brutal civil war within Islam" is to sell them weapons to use against one another and then get out of the way and let the slaughter begin, for a generation or two.

My guess is that option one, new "events" displacing this one in the public mind, is very possible but that a variation of option three is most likely. I am prepared to guarantee that a dozen or more IS** terrorists are hidden in that mass of refugees and, fairly soon, one or more will come out of hiding and attack a target in Europe. Equally, I am prepared to guarantee that sometimes within the next six weeks IS** will commit further atrocities, making it harder and hard to say, as Messers Mulcair and Trudeau do, "send blankets, not bombs." Finally, I believe that Canadian voters have short attention spans, especially when foreigners are concerned and their attention will turn to other matters ... see below.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Winnipeg Sun is biased, but it can and should form the basis for some CPC and NDP attack ads:

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2015/09/08/trudeau-continues-assault-on-paycheques

Trudeau continues assault on paycheques

BY DAVID AKIN, PARLIAMENTARY BUREAU CHIEF

FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 08, 2015

OTTAWA - Justin Trudeau continued his assault Tuesday on your paycheque.

This time, it comes in the form of higher employment insurance premiums which will reduce your take-home pay.

Trudeau’s promised reporters Tuesday morning in Bouctouche, N.B that “employment insurance is not meant to be a profit centre for the government.”

Indeed, previous Liberal governments got into political trouble, particularly with small-c conservative minded voters, for doing just that, collecting more in premiums than they ever needed to pay out in EI benefits so they could use the rest for general government revenue. The NDP was quick to slam Trudeau Tuesday by noting that, for the 13 years they were last in power, successive Liberal governments over-taxed us in EI premiums to the tune of $50 billion.

The NDP argued that extra $50 billion taken in by the Liberals should have been doled right back out in the form of higher EI benefits.

Trudeau is now proposing to take in an extra $2 billion so that he can, among other things, cut the wait time before you get an EI cheque from two weeks to one week and give more money to the provinces for skills training.

To contrast, the Conservatives said in their most recent budget they would lower EI premiums by 21% by the year 2017.

Premiums paid by employees right now amount to $1.88 for every hundred dollars of the first $49,500 you make in a year. (Any earnings above that are not insured and no premium is deducted.)

If the Conservatives win on Oct. 19, that premium comes down to $1.49 for every $100 you make. If Trudeau wins, it’s only going down to $1.65 per $100. The difference between the two adds up to an extra $2 billion for Ottawa.

“That’s $2 billion out of people’s pockets,” a puzzled reporter asked Trudeau. “Is that not a tax increase?”

Not to Trudeau. It’s money to be redistributed from employees and employers for new “investments.”

And if that reporter had asked that question of the country’s finance minister in 1994 — a guy Trudeau campaigned with last week named Paul Martin — the answer would have been an unequivocal, hell, yeah! Martin, back in the day, called hiking payroll taxes like EI premiums and CPP contributions “a cancer on the economy.”

Martin was right then. But now he’s endorsing Trudeau’s plan for more deficits and more payroll tax hikes. Or he’s helping Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne implement an unnecessary provincial pension plan that will skim $1,000 a year off the pay cheques of anyone making $60,000.

Trudeau likes Wynne’s pension scheme. And while he’s yet to table the details, he’s already said he’d do something similar to what Wynne is doing, to expand the Canada Pension Plan.

“Hiking EI leaves no space for other proposals to increase CPP (contributions) or the even uglier [Ontario] plan,” Dan Kelly, the CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said on Twitter. “Increasing EI taxes by $2.15-billion a year in a flat economy is a recipe for higher unemployment, particularly for young people.”

And yet, there it is. Hikes in EI premiums. Hikes in CPP contributions. Higher costs to create new jobs. And smaller paycheques. That’s one of the changes Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are selling this election.

First: All those who argue that media bias is always against the CPC need to suck back and reload; and

Second: This is the sort iof good, solid, personal, pocketbook political issue that can be used with devastating effect against the Liberals.

 

[vonGarvin]

Ah, the bias of the CBC.  This is buried down in the Politics section and you have to open it up to read it, I believe if it was a CPC gaffe vs NDP, it would be waved like a red flag.
Shared under the fair dealings provisions of the copyright act.

The new "truth":

"My view is that my views aren't my views"

 

[Altair]

This article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Winnipeg Sun is biased, but it can and should form the basis for some CPC and NDP attack ads:

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2015/09/08/trudeau-continues-assault-on-paycheques

First: All those who argue that media bias is always against the CPC need to suck back and reload; and

Second: This is the sort iof good, solid, personal, pocketbook political issue that can be used with devastating effect against the Liberals.

The CPC will get right on that, after they are done attacking justin on other important things... like his hair.

 

[Pencil Tech]

I don't think so. If M Trudeau's Liberals finish second to M Mulcair's Dippers in a minority situation then he has two bad choices:

    1. Support the NDP, which, as I said earlier, will blur the lines between the Liberal left, maybe the whole Liberal "brand," and the NDP. People will wonder why they should bother voting Liberal at all when there is a "clear" choice between the NDP and the CPC; or

    2. Join with the CPC, as soon as the finances are in order, to bring down the NDP, no matter how well the latter is governing, opening himself to just the attack you and the Harper Haters™ mentioned.

I think he must beat the NDP, nationally, and to do that he must, first, beat them in Quebec.

Looking farther into the future: In my opinion the post-Harper Conservatives will still have a solid prairie base (maybe a little less "firm" than today, and that might be a good thing since it would indicate greater "moderation" all around) and BC and Ontario will still be "up for grabs" by all three parties but only the CPC can/is willing to "govern without Quebec" ~ see my very first post in this thread. The Liberals' long term fortunes (survival) depends upon Quebec. In the really long term the "natural governing party" must capture the "hearts and minds" of the voters in suburban and small city Alberta, BC and Ontario ~ that's where the growth in Canada is occurring. Atlantic Canada (32 seats, the Liberal Party's only "stronghold") and MB and SK (28 seats, part of the CPC's "prairie base") are fine, as "firm bases," in military parlance, but the real battlegrounds are in the areas with the real growth and those are in three provinces: AB, BC and ON.

I am guessing that we are drifting, as is the UK, towards an American style two party system: it's simpler, easier to understand, and people like "easy". I think there will be a centre left to left of centre party and a centre right to right of centre party. The former can be either the LPC or NDP and the latter can be either the CPC or LPC. Prime Minister Harper is reported to believe that a NDP (left) <> CPC (right) pairing will be preferable, but that pairing could, just as easily, be a LPC <> CPC or NDP <> LPC. The Liberals have the most to lose, and the most "opportunity" to lose, in my opinion.

Dear Mr. Campbell,

You are flagellating a deceased equine. Stephen Harper is done. I was active in politics for years and a riding association president for several. It's pretty obvious when a campaign has the smell of death around it. From the bottom of my heart, it's over.

 

[vonGarvin]

The Canadian electorate doesn't give a damn about how much money the parties have, they care about wanting a change in government.

I think you misunderstood me.  What I mean is that those two parties don't have the money to fund a campaign, ie pay for adverts, signs, etc.  That's all.

 

[McG]

... and, while that public may not care about how much money each party holds, that public is influenced by the advertisments that the money buys.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Dear Mr. Campbell,

You are flagellating a deceased equine. Stephen Harper is done. I was active in politics for years and a riding association president for several. It's pretty obvious when a campaign has the smell of death around it. From the bottom of my heart, it's over.

I have to agree too, unless other two leaders get caught in a scandal of biblical proportions that makes them and their party pariahs between now and the 19th, the PM will be needing to make post Sussex plans.  There is a smell of a dead whale on the beach coming from SH's side of the game.  I wouldn't be surprised if they fall as hard as the Liberals did under Iggy.

 

[Remius]

Dear Mr. Campbell,

You are flagellating a deceased equine. Stephen Harper is done. I was active in politics for years and a riding association president for several. It's pretty obvious when a campaign has the smell of death around it. From the bottom of my heart, it's over.

I'm not going to say that it's over just yet.  This campaign still has a while to go.  But the momentum has shifted and the ruling party is in what seems to be the beginning of a free fall.  There are reports of low morale and stagnation and dissatifaction with the management of the campaign.  Dumping your campaign manager at this point is dangerous unless they can bring someone who can turn things around.  It could send the wrong signal.

I'm not sure anybody saw his interview on CBC but I think, people need to see more of that.  If he had done something like that, say a year ago, then maybe some of the issues like Mike Duffy would have had less of an impact.

I think it is too early to call this one.  Remember, this election more than any other will be a riding by riding battle. 

 

[Remius]

I have to agree too, unless other two leaders get caught in a scandal of biblical proportions that makes them and their party pariahs between now and the 19th, the PM will be needing to make post Sussex plans.  There is a smell of a dead whale on the beach coming from SH's side of the game.  I wouldn't be surprised if they fall as hard as the Liberals did under Iggy.

i still think it is too early to tell but if the trend continues, this outcome would not surprise me. 

 

[jollyjacktar]

I believe the ER hit it on the head earlier in that people are tired of SH and want a new hand on the tiller.  If this is so, then I expect there will be a groundswell of votes to boot the CPC from the king of the hill position.  If enough voters do it, then it will be a slaughter for the CPC and they may just be able to hold their caucus meetings in a phone booth.  And that's why I think there is a smell of a dead whale about the CPC campaign.