Election 2015

[George Wallace]

Must have missed something....your point is?


Cheers
Larry

My point?

Although the numbers may be roughly 20K; they do not, as I said, constitute a block that will affect any election.   

 

[larry Strong]

My point?

Although the numbers may be roughly 20K; they do not, as I said, constitute a block that will affect any election. 

No different than us!


Larry

 

[Rifleman62]

Quote from: Rifleman62 on Today at 17:10:16

    I expect people with the same head as Trudeau will vote for him. Scary. But look at the mess in Ontario, the province that is a glutton for punishment or some other word that starts with s which describes the Liberal voters.


George Wallace:

Let's just get one thing straight before we go any further; it was the people in the 'Center of Stupid', in Area Codes 416, 647, and 437, who brought back the Liberals

. 

I sit corrected

I expect people with the same head as Trudeau will vote for him. Scary. But look at the mess in Ontario, the province that is a glutton for punishment which describes the Liberal voters in the 'Center of Stupid', in Area Codes 416, 647, and 437, who brought back the Liberals.

 

[TCBF]

Nit pick all you want, the bottom line is we have more than 20K under arms in the regular force, and that was my point.......


K, 68K, better than 3 times greater

http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/about-reports-pubs-report-plan-priorities/2015-endnotes.page

As Norway only ahs 16K reg force

http://mil.no/organisation/personnel/Pages/personnel.aspx



Cheers
Larry

- but the Norgies are all fit, hail and hearty, whereas our troops are pregnant, broken, or old.

;D

Go Vikings!

 

[Edward Campbell]

OK, something not Scandinavian ...

Lawrence Martin, no friend to the Conservatives, worries that the Liberals have picked a bad time to waffle and, as he suggests, "too much caution grips the Grits," in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-sagging-liberals-need-a-shakeup/article24031310/

The sagging Liberals need a shakeup

LAWRENCE MARTIN
Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Apr. 21 2015

A month ago, the Liberal Party’s management team, faced with declining support numbers, got together for three days to plot strategy for the remaining months before the federal election. Since the extended session, news has gotten no better. The Liberals continue to droop in the polls. Since last fall, they’ve gone from about 36 per cent to about 29 per cent. That’s a loss of about 20 per cent of their support. In an election year that is ominous.

In the Greater Toronto Area, where the election may well be decided, a top strategist told me that the biggest drag on their numbers is not their own doing. It’s the Ontario Liberal government’s early age sexual education policy. “I’m not kidding. It’s hurting the brand badly in certain ethnic communities, especially in the west 905.”

There are, of course, many more problems than that. The Conservatives control the agenda, they dominate the airwaves, and they often have Justin Trudeau on the defensive. With a young leader aspiring to replace an entrenched old-school ruler, the Liberals need to have the look of an insurgency movement. Instead, they have the look of bystanders. Their vocabulary is stale. They lack a phrase-maker. They lack clarity.

But despite the grim tidings, the party’s inner sanctum is resisting calls for a change of strategy. Of the existing plan, the strategist wrote in an e-mail, “We will stick to it. We expected the Tories would spend millions around tax time and the hockey playoffs to goose their numbers. That’s what they’re doing.”

He turned to a phrase used by Jean Chrétien, calling the worriers “nervous Nellies.” Mr. Trudeau, he said, is still neck and neck with Stephen Harper “despite being outspent 20-1 on advertising if you include government ad spending.”

To the charge that that they are passive – Idle Some More is what one wag called their approach – the Trudeau team cites substantive speeches the leader has given on energy, on liberty, on democratic reform and on the economy in recent months. But nothing has captured the public imagination. Instead, many of the headlines have gone to Mr. Trudeau’s attempts at damage control.

On the economy, he hasn’t done enough to distinguish his approach from a government that is vulnerable. The country is in a stagnation trap. There’s been a decade of very low economic growth and economists say there are many more years of it to come. The Tories can’t keep blaming the global financial crisis. It ended many years ago.

On foreign policy, the inexperienced Mr. Trudeau could have helped his cause with trips abroad to meet foreign leaders, including the U.S. President. But they didn’t happen. On overhauling our deteriorating parliamentary democracy, Mr. Trudeau was bold in ending Liberal Party affiliation in the Senate, but the party’s other proposed reforms don’t go far enough. They won’t end one-man rule.

Too much caution grips the Grits. They had a lead in the polls. Teams that have a lead going into the third period too often sit on that lead and watch it disappear.

On their declining poll numbers, the senior strategist sent this response. “The horse race numbers are not very meaningful six months before an election. Ask Tim Hudak. Or Adrian Dix. Or Pauline Marois. Or Danielle Smith.” That’s true enough, but if you look at the last four federal campaigns, the Harper Conservatives have increased their standing during the course of every one of them.

The Liberals like to point to the fact that since the last election, the Tories have dropped from 40 per cent support to about 32 per cent. That’s also about a 20-per-cent fall. But they now have the momentum, so much so that Liberals are relieved Mr. Harper did not call an early election. With such a call, he would have had a lot working for him: the terror bounce; his chest-thumping bellicosity in Ukraine and the Middle East; and an avoidance of the Mike Duffy trial.

He could have caught Mr. Trudeau while he was down. As it is, the wounded Liberal leader still has half a year to recover.

I agree with Mr Martin that M. Trudeau has a half year to recover, but:

    1. Prime Minister Harper has the initiative now; his decisions are driving all campaigns; everyone is reacting to him;

    2. I think the Liberals are relying too heavily on Duffy. The only real story is: what will Nigel Wright say? I know what Mr Wright will say: "I saw a man, a colleague of the PM, with an ethical problem and
        lacking the financial resources to solve it. I believed that the best way to solve the problem was to give Mr Duffy some money, to help him to do the right thing. It was an entirely personal choice for me, while I understand that $90K
        is a lot to most Canadians it is not "big money" to me. I tried to help Mr Duffy and, simultaneously, to defuze a political problem. My good intentions failed." Mr Wright will not be shaken from that narrative ... mainly, I think
        it's pretty much the truth, the whole truth and so on ... there is no "smoking gun" in the PM's hand; and

    3. There is still time for a late spring (June) election if the PM thinks it will be advantageous.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail is a useful look at the downstream political impact of the 2015 budget:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/budget-paints-opposition-into-a-red-corner/article24050484/

Budget paints opposition into a red corner

KONRAD YAKABUSKI
The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Apr. 21 2015

In trumpeting the virtue of balanced budgets, Finance Minister Joe Oliver often seems to be debating a bogeyman. After all, neither of the main opposition parties so far proposes running deficits. But Tuesday’s budget – and this may be its most lasting impact – would make it much harder for a Liberal or New Democratic government to keep Ottawa in the black.

By repeatedly shrinking the tax base through (by Mr. Oliver’s own count) 180 “tax relief measures” since 2006, the Tories have made it virtually impossible for any government to enact new programs or enhance existing ones without raising taxes or running sustained deficits.

Neither option makes for a very compelling campaign slogan. Most Canadians feel they already hand over enough of their hard-earned income to governments, while the consequences of chronic deficits were recently laid bare in Europe. Before that, Canada had its own brush with a debt crisis when, in the mid-1990s, The Wall Street Journal held us up as fiscal deadbeats.

“We cannot borrow our way to prosperity, no matter what our opponents might say,” Mr. Oliver said on Tuesday as he tabled his first budget. “Ignoring the lessons of history, they would take the well-trod road to economic decline – a journey that will not end well.”

The Tories will beat this drum ever louder in the countdown to October’s federal election. Despite running up the biggest deficit in Canadian history, betraying their own fiscal instincts during the recession, the Conservatives have managed to claw their way back to black in spite of the curveball that capitalism has thrown at them in the way of cratering crude oil prices.

Mr. Oliver’s first budget was the product of an unusually extended period of gestation, necessitated, he said, by volatile oil prices. We now know why he really needed all that extra time. He’s come up with a lot of creative choreography in those “New Balance” running shoes.

The $1.4-billion surplus he is forecasting for 2015-16 hinges on a $3-billion reduction in interest charges over the amount projected in November’s fiscal update. Even if the lower interest costs materialize – the projection raised eyebrows among some economists – Mr. Oliver has still had to slash Ottawa’s reserve for unexpected expenses to $1-billion from $3-billion for the next three years and rely on continued employment insurance surpluses to balance the budget.

It makes no material difference whether Ottawa posts a small deficit or a small surplus. But surplus sounds better on the campaign trail and this election budget aims to make any spending promises the opposition parties make look unworkable without red ink. In that, it largely succeeds.

The NDP says it would reverse Tory cuts to corporate tax rates. And the Liberals might undo the Tory income-splitting plan. But neither move on its own would allow a Liberal or NDP government to undertake significant new spending – on daycare or infrastructure, for example – without running deficits or raising new revenues.

The Tories have barely left themselves with any fiscal room to manoeuvre. Were either (or both) of the opposition parties to form a government after October’s vote, they would struggle to make their numbers work. Even the limited goodies Mr. Oliver promised in this budget – cutting the small business tax rate, boosting defence spending, doubling the annual limit on Tax Free Savings Accounts – do not kick in or cost much in the near-term. A new government could not free up much money over the next few years by cancelling them.

By repeatedly reducing taxes – mostly through politically efficient but economically dubious measures targeted at key voting blocks – the Conservatives have driven federal revenues to their lowest level in 50 years. They now hover at barely 14 per cent of gross domestic product, down from 16 per cent a decade ago and about 18 per cent in the years prior to that.

Since 2010, the Tories have also dramatically cut direct program spending, generating cumulative savings of almost $18-billion. The Parliamentary Budget Officer calls this the most “sustained restraint” since at least the mid-1960s. Federal spending is set to clock in at 12.9 per cent of GDP this year, back to where it had fallen before the recession.

Still, as Mr. Oliver’s footwork shows, balancing the books isn’t easy – not even for a party that lives to shrink government. Imagine how hard it would be for one that wants to grow it.

Two points:

    1. "Shrinking the tax base" has been what the CPC is all about since 2006 ~ that, not electoral politics, is why the cuts to the HST GST were made. Put simply: you cannot spend what you don't have unless you either -

          a. raise taxes, which no one wants, or

          b. borrow, go into the red, a COA of which Canadians, generally, disapprove;

    2. While programme spending is a record low levels but it is, still, high, and the Conservatives, if they win the next election, have only one reasonable COA ~ to, finally, begin "shrinking government," itself. Whole programmes will, eventually,
        have to but cancelled. Branches in departments, even whole departments, will have to be closed, activities which have "cheering sections" in the population will have to end.

If either the Liberals or, gods forbid, the NDP form a government then they will face the unpalatable choices Konrad Yakabuski suggests: raise taxes or run deficits. I think neither course is open to the CPC as currently self described (as the "good management" party). I suspect that people around the political/bureaucratic 'centre' (PMO, PCO, Finance, Treasury Board and the 'party office' (people like Dustin Van Vugt, Executive Director of the CPC, and Fred DeLory, Director of Political Operations)) are, already, starting the exercise of "discarding losers" (in bridge playing terms) - identifying those programmes that are not, in fact, useful or which serve only constituencies which are, mostly, unavailable to the CPC on either an age, status or regional basis (young, underemployed, women in Quebec and Atlantic Canada, for example).

 

[Edward Campbell]

I agree, broadly and generally, with this Globe and Mail editorial and the opinion piece by John Ibbitson which follows; both reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/this-budget-was-designed-to-win-an-election-and-it-could-work/article24051964/

GLOBE EDITORIAL
This budget was designed to win an election, and it could work

The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Apr. 21 2015


It’s a budget. It’s an electoral agenda. It’s a debate over the nature of government, its proper role and size – a debate the opposition Liberals and NDP need to engage the Conservative government in, rather than shy away from. And, finally, it’s a mishmash of inconsistencies.

Joe Oliver’s budget, a.k.a. Economic Action Plan 2015, aims to leave you with two big takeaways: that revenues and expenditures are, as you may have heard, in balance; and that your tax burden has steadily marched downward, with more to come. Both of these claims are largely true. But the full story is considerably more complicated.

“Canadian families and individuals,” trumpets the budget, “will receive $37-billion in tax relief and increased benefits in 2015-16 as a result of actions taken since 2006.”

These are not, however, across-the-board tax cuts. Some key electoral constituencies benefit more, and others benefit far less.

Once upon a time, small-c conservatives wanted to make the tax code leaner, cleaner and simpler. That’s not exactly what Ottawa’s been up to these past few years.

For example, this budget continues the government’s long-standing focus on seniors. The annual contribution limit for tax free savings accounts (TFSAs) is being nearly doubled, to $10,000 a year, and the government is more than happy to admit that the chief immediate beneficiaries will be seniors, who will henceforth be able to transfer more savings from taxable to tax-free accounts.

Seniors will also benefit from a relaxation of RRIF withdrawal rules. That’s an idea we recommended last month – but as a substitute for raising TFSA limits, not in addition to it. There’s also a new tax credit to help make seniors’ homes more accessible. All of this comes on the heels of a variety of other senior-friendly tax benefits since 2006, from income splitting for seniors, to doubling the pension income seniors can receive tax-free, to increasing the basic income-tax deduction for seniors.

The other targeted group: families with children. The big benefits for them were pre-announced last fall. There’s the Universal Child Care Benefit, which rises from $100 a month to $160 for families with children under the age of 6, and a new $60 a month benefit for families with children aged 6 to 17. There’s the so-called Family Tax Cut, a tax credit of up to $2,000 for couples with children under age 18. There’s an increase in the amount that can be claimed under the Child Care Expense Deduction.

And who can forget the Children’s Fitness Tax Credit? The government has even promised to consider an Adult Fitness Tax Credit, and will strike an “expert panel” to design it. This may be the funniest thing since Ontario’s Beer Ombudsman.

Then there are business taxes. They will be lowered – at least for the favoured small-businesses constituency. Over the next five years, the small-business tax rate will be gradually reduced from 11 per cent to 9 per cent.

Helping to pay for it all, one category of taxes remain far higher than it should: Employment Insurance premiums. These premiums are, basically, a tax on jobs. For years, Ottawa has quietly been taking in several billion dollars more than it pays out. The budget promises a long-term plan to lower premiums – but it doesn’t kick in until 2017.

Which brings us back to the top news story in this budget, promised and anticipated since the last election: It’s in balance. You’ll hear lots of talk about how this involved a bit of mathematical sleight of hand, with a diminished contingency fund making this year’s tiny surplus possible. There’s some truth to that – but in the grand scheme of things, it just doesn’t matter.

Bringing the budget into precise balance, this year, was never an economic agenda. It is a purely political imperative. If the Conservatives had planned to run a small deficit this year, it would have done no economic damage to the country. Indeed, it would have mildly benefited a weak economy. And the budget’s big infrastructure announcement, a plan to chip $1-billion into transit in Canada’s big cities, could have been launched immediately, instead of being put off for more than two years.

But politics demanded balance now. So balance we have, followed by small projected surpluses in the years to come. If the economy does better than expected, those surpluses will grow.

All of which presents opportunities for the opposition in this election year – and big challenges.

The Harper government is making government smaller. But even more importantly, it is changing its shape. It spends less in the traditional manner – through actual outlays of cash on projects and programs – and more through what are known as tax expenditures: targeted tax credits to people, businesses or activities. Many voters rather like this approach. The Liberals and NDP will have to lay out a compelling vision of how to do things differently, or face four more years of Conservative government.

                                        And

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/in-cutting-federal-deficit-harper-covers-his-ears/article24054746/

In cutting federal deficit, Harper covers his ears

JOHN IBBITSON
The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Apr. 22 2015

Was it wrong for the Harper government to balance the budget this year? That depends on whether we have become as conservative as the Prime Minister thinks we are.

The government promised to eliminate the federal deficit by 2015 and it has, although it took a bit of fiscal legerdemain. But in the opinion of many respected economists, a balanced budget is a mistake.

Growth is sluggish. Interest rates are at historic lows. Infrastructure, from sewers to subways, is rundown. Investing now in early-childhood education, for example, would pay off in improved productivity later.

While a conservative minority of economists supports the government’s balanced-budget approach, a broader consensus of experts believe that running a modest deficit over the next couple of years, with the money going to any or all of the above, would be the wiser approach.

“If there are projects at hand that can be financed at record-low interest rates with long-term payoffs, then we shouldn’t let a balanced budget stand in the way of that,” believes Andrew Jackson, senior policy adviser for the Broadbent Institute, a progressive think tank.

Don Drummond, the former chief economist of the TD Bank and associate deputy minister of finance, asks one simple question: “Is the economy running below its potential?” The answer, unequivocally, is yes. The role of government in such circumstances, he believes, “is to provide stimulus, but not to go wild.”

Many economists south of the border agree. Larry Summers, who was U.S. treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and who has been offering advice to Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, is arguing for deficit-financed stimulus spending to promote growth, reduce inequality and renew infrastructure.

Ontario’s government, under Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne, is deliberating running deficits and raising taxes in order to fund a massive retooling of the province’s transportation infrastructure, and calling on Mr. Harper for help.

But help, for the most part, will not be forthcoming. While this election budget does spend on infrastructure, the greater emphasis is on tax cuts and a budget surplus. The Conservatives will campaign on both from now till the election on Oct. 19, because Mr. Harper believes this is the message an increasingly conservative population wants to hear.

There is always a reason to run a deficit. Some reasons are better than others. In November, 2008, Group of 20 leaders (including Mr. Harper) unanimously agreed to stimulate their economies through deficit spending to prevent a severe recession from turning into a depression.

Since then, the Conservatives have been steadily reducing the deficit until, by last year, it was effectively balanced. And it will remain balanced for the rest of the decade, barring a new recession.

Mr. Harper believes that a broad swath of voters prefer to see government small, books balanced and taxes low. Such voters believe that it is wrong – even immoral – for governments to be adding to the debt during times of growth.

These are the voters who watched decades of deficit in the 1970s and 80s spiral into the fiscal crisis of the 1990s. They remember how painful it was to break the back of that crisis and they don’t want to go through it again.

Then there are the immigrant voters from Asia and elsewhere who are more economically and socially conservative than many native-born Canadians. They delivered a majority government for Mr. Harper in 2011 and he is counting on their support one more time.

Mr. Drummond acknowledges that running a deficit outside a recession “violates the ingrained belief among Canadians that ‘thou shalt balance the budget.’”

So ingrained is that belief that the NDP and Liberals are unlikely to offer election platforms that include a return to deficit financing. While emphasizing differences at the margins, they will cleave to Conservative orthodoxy in the main.

Many economists will point out that such thinking is old-fashioned and counterproductive. The Conservatives don’t care. They are convinced that voters are old-fashioned, too.

They’re willing to bet the election on it.

I agree with "many respected economists" that: "Growth is sluggish. Interest rates are at historic lows. Infrastructure, from sewers to subways, is rundown. Investing now in early-childhood education, for example, would pay off in improved productivity later." That's all true, in so far as it goes, but I am also one of those who "believe that it is wrong – even immoral – for governments to be adding to the debt during times of growth." And the economy is growing ~ sluggishly, to be sure, but this is not the time for Keynsian stimulus. The budget does offer some "good" stimulus, as reported (Ottawa Citizen): "The new Public Transit Fund will — eventually — make good on demands by cities and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for the federal government to invest $1 billion a year on urban transit. The fund gets off to a slow start, by only providing a total of $750 million until 2019, but permanently commits $1 billion annually thereafter." To quote the late US Senator Everett Dirksen, "A billion here, and billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money." And that's "good," long term money which many economists think is required for both practical (building needed new and repairing existing infrastructure) and ideological grounds (it can be switched off if the economy is getting overheated, as John Maynard Keynes said it should be).

Many commentators have noted, and I agree, that Prime Minister Harper's overarching aim has been to change Canada in a quite fundamental way. He wants to make us as conservative as we were during the administration of Louis St Laurent. We were, in the 1950s and 60s, cautiously socially liberal, but we believed, firmly, in hard work and self reliance; we were in the 1950s and well into the 60s, active internationalists but reluctant to overspend on defence; we were in the 1950s careful, prudent if you like, with the public purse. That all changed, starting in 1960 and coming to something of a climax in the 1970s when, apparently, we (well, 40ish% of us, anyway) came to believe that money grew on trees, that we were "entitled" to almost everything our hearts might desire and that budgets would, eventually, balance themselves ... somehow or other, presumably with the aid of the tooth fairy.

This budget is a well aimed election manifesto. It's targets are middle aged and older Canadians, especially, middle class families, and new Canadians from Asia who are, as John Ibbitson says, "more economically and socially conservative than many native-born Canadians."

The Globe and Mail's editorial board says that "The Harper government is making government smaller." Not quite, but it wants another term in office to start doing that. "But," says the Good Grey Globe, "even more importantly, it is changing its shape. It spends less in the traditional manner – through actual outlays of cash on projects and programs – and more through what are known as tax expenditures: targeted tax credits to people, businesses or activities." The editorials conclude that "Many voters rather like this approach. The Liberals and NDP will have to lay out a compelling vision of how to do things differently, or face four more years of Conservative government." Spot on!

 

[McG]

According to the latest Nanos numbers, the Conservatives have fallen behind the NDP.  The results come from pre-budget polling, so it will be interesting to see where they go from here.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/nanos-on-the-numbers/liberals-score-highest-on-nanos-index-as-west-drives-negative-trend-for-tories-1.2337969

 

[Rocky Mountains]

The NDP are ahead of the Conservatives after the numbers are massaged.  The raw numbers are Lib 34% Con 29% and NDP 25%.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6BIj7kEo7KE/VTkOCITFjrI/AAAAAAAAV7s/G9lrr-zSQIY/s1600/Polls.png

There is also the question of whether Nanos is pushing an agenda because its polls usually have Liberals doing better than the rest of the polls.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Throw away the narrow, focused polls of 1000 people and concentrate on the larger, broader and further reaching numbers 3-4000 and, in most cases, the CPC is polling higher.

Polls are a mugs game anyway. They prove nothing and have been extremely wrong the last few years predicting wins that turn out to be massive failures.

“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”
― Mark Twain

 

[Edward Campbell]

Throw away the narrow, focused polls of 1000 people and concentrate on the larger, broader and further reaching numbers 3-4000 and, in most cases, the CPC is polling higher.

Polls are a mugs game anyway. They prove nothing and have been extremely wrong the last few years predicting wins that turn out to be massive failures.

“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”
― Mark Twain

For reasons I'm not at all sure I understand, political polls have become suspect. I'm told, by people who should know, that consumer/audience polls are still highly reliable but political polls have two problems:

    1. Apparent inconsistency ~ too many (public) polls are biased and produce results that only further confuse the general public. We should, for example, not be surprised when a polling firm with a long history with Party A
        produces a poll that differs substantially from that produced by another firm with a long history with Party B. The media makes it worse by failing, normally, to explain polling to viewers/readers; and

    2. Public disenchantment with politics. Canadians, likie Australians, Brits, Chileans and Danes and so on are disenchanted with politics and mistrust politicians so they tend to treat political polling calls as a chance to "hit back"
        and they flat out lie to the pollsters.

The two trends feed upon each other.

My wholly unscientific guess is:

    Now, nearly six months out -

          Conservatives have a firm 20%± of the vote, even if the damned economy collapses and the PM is caught in some sort of scandal they'll get at least 17.5%;

        Liberals have a firm 20%+ of the vote, even if Justin Trudeau makes a series of HUGE gaffes they'll get at least 20%;

          The New Democrats have a firm 15±% of the vote, no matter what goes wrong they'll get at least 12.5% of the vote; and

          All the Others have a firm grip on 10% of the vote.

That means that, between now an voting day, 40% of the vote can be shifted from one camp to any of the others.

In a three+ party system a comfortable majority can be had with 40% of the popular vote. Both the Conservatives and Liberals are, almost automatically, half way there when they start. (Remember than even in 1993, when the PCs were, effectively, wiped out, reduced to the status of just two "independent members," they got 16% of the popular vote.) Which brings up a second point: vote efficiency is just as important as vote strength. It is far, far better to win many seats by small margins than a few seats by very large numbers, as the Conservatives do in many rural areas and the Liberals do in urban Montreal and Toronto.


Edit: typo

 

[Infanteer]

After the BC 2013 Provincial election, I don't believe pollsters at all.  Just sayin'

 

[Edward Campbell]

This, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is a bit of a cri de coeur, but I share Konrad Yakabuski's concern that discourse about ideas, policies and even strategy has all but disappeared, replaced by big data and so on:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-lost-art-of-political-persuasion/article24101210/

The lost art of political persuasion

KONRAD YAKABUSKI
The Globe and Mail

Published Saturday, Apr. 25 2015

You knew what kind of day it was going to be when, just before Question Period on Wednesday, Tory MP Parm Gill rose in the House of Commons to praise his own government’s budget.

“This is a great budget for middle-class Canadians,” Mr. Gill insisted in a statement that appeared to serve no other purpose than to generate video content for his Twitter feed. “The Liberals and the NDP … want high taxes on middle-class families, high taxes on middle-class seniors and high taxes on middle-class consumers. That is their plan for the middle class. Our government’s plan is reducing taxes on middle-class families.”

Mr. Gill’s caucus colleague, MP Rob Clarke, got up next to deliver the exact same lines – with a straight face. He, too, posted his cameo on Twitter.

There was more of the same when the actual questions began. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau wondered why the Prime Minister wasn’t “helping people in the middle class who need it.” Stephen Harper countered that the Liberal Party “wants to raise taxes for middle-class families, middle-class seniors, middle-class consumers” and all of those small businesses run by upstanding middle-class Canadians.

Between member statements and oral questions, the term “middle class” was uttered almost 80 times by government and opposition MPs alike. It even popped up in answers to questions on the sexual harassment of interns and policies related to the agri-food industry.

Talking points are hardly a 21st century political innovation. But they have so crowded out every other form of discourse that politics is now utterly devoid of honesty, unless it’s the result of human error. The candidates are still human, we think, though the techies now running campaigns are no doubt working on ways to remove that bug from their programs.

Intuition, ideas and passion used to matter in politics. Now, data analytics aims to turn all politicians into robots, programmed to deliver a script that has been scientifically tested. The fembot running (via Chipotle) for the White House gave proof of that when she recently popped up in Iowa vowing to fight for the “everyday” folk who politicians up here still call the middle class.

“The deck is still stacked in favour of those at the top,” Hillary Clinton said in launching her candidacy for the 2016 Democratic nomination. A couple of days later, in New Hampshire, she built on that theme by adding: “My job is to reshuffle the cards.”

That phrase did not just roll off her tongue, mind you. The data analysts have algorithms that tell them just what words resonate with just what voters and will coax them to donate, volunteer and vote.

Politics is no longer about the art of persuasion or about having an honest debate about what’s best for your country, province or city. It’s about microtargeting individuals who’ve already demonstrated by their Facebook posts or responses to telephone surveys that they are suggestible. Voters are data points to be manipulated, not citizens to be cultivated.

All major parties, including the three Canadian ones with a shot at victory in October, now build vast databases accumulating as much information as possible on individual voters in order to customize their pitches. This approach was perfected by President Barack Obama’s campaign operation, whose database contained as many as a thousand variables on some voters.

Campaign strategists euphemistically refer to this data collection and microtargeting as “grassroots engagement” or “having one-on-one conversations” with voters. But it’s really about manipulation and pressing individual voter buttons. College women get e-mails from Democrats warning abortion rights are under siege; rifle club members get ones from Republicans warning gun rights are about to be curtailed. So, send $5 fast. And vote. These techniques have now become common in Canada.

The data analysts on the 2012 Obama campaign came up with “scores” for each voter in its database, or what author Sasha Issenberg called “a new political currency that predicted the behaviour of individual humans. The campaign didn’t just know who you were; it knew exactly how it could turn you into the type of person it wanted you to be.”

Thankfully, that level of sophistication is still a bit beyond the technological and financial wherewithal of parties on this side of the border. But just because, comparatively speaking, they’re still amateurs at this game does not mean the Tories, Liberals and NDP aren’t building a file on you.

Especially if you consider yourself middle class.

I'm pretty certain that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has some Big Ideas but I'm guessing that he has decided, on the advice of professional campaign directors, not to share them with us because each might disturb one slice of the electorate. Ditto, I think, for M. Mulcair ~ except my suspicion is that he fears alienating the hard left part of the NDP's base. For all I know M Trudeau may have some big ideas, too ... but his political manager, Gerald Butts, is one of those who worships at the shrine of the Obama campaign and he, and many Liberal insiders, are convinced they (like the CPC) can "slice and dice" the electorate and use social media, especially, to reach increasingly more narrowly defined slices of that electorate.

 

[Brad Sallows]

"...the Conservatives have driven federal revenues to their lowest level in 50 years. They now hover at barely 14 per cent of gross domestic product, down from 16 per cent a decade ago and about 18 per cent in the years prior to that."

Here are recent revenues (in millions of dollars and %GDP) from the government's fiscal reference tables.

2006-07 238,397 16.0
2007-08 245,525 15.7
2008-09 237,286 14.4
2009-10 222,103 14.2
2010-11 240,840 14.5
2011-12 249,107 14.2
2012-13 256,635 14.1
2013-14 271,677 14.4

The point: pundits can make a case either way: revenues are increasing (in absolute terms) or decreasing (in relative terms).  Pay attention to the units of measure they attach to their claims.

On the other side of the ledger, some writers grind axes complaining that the Conservatives have been a "big-spending" government, while others complain spending is too low.

Many of the people complaining about the tricks used to balance the budget have only themselves to blame.  They complained about the Conservatives' reluctance to increase spending as the 2008 recession arrived.  They complained about the "Conservative deficits" ever since.  They would undoubtedly be happy to dine out politically if the Conservatives failed to meet the repeatedly stated commitment to balance the budget.

Hypothesis: the economy isn't "weak", it is "normal".  The economy in the decade prior to 2008 wasn't "normal", it was "strong".

Fiscal policy should be tethered to "normal".

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Breaking news, re-printed under the usual caveats of the Copyright Act.

Outgoing Toronto Police chief Bill Blair will run for federal Liberals

By The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — Apr 26 2015

TORONTO - Toronto's outgoing police chief has confirmed he will be running for the federal Liberals in the fall election.

Bill Blair tweeted Sunday morning that he is "excited to continue my public service by working to earn the support of people in Scarborough Southwest."

The tweet follows a report from the Toronto Star in which Blair says he hopes to be a candidate for the Liberals in the riding.

Blair says he has discussed his future with Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and has decided to seek the Liberal nomination in the riding of Scarborough Southwest where he grew up and raised a family. The riding is currently held by New Democrat Dan Harris.

The 61-year old Blair spent the past decade as Toronto's top cop, and says he wants to remain in public service, which he considers the "highest calling."

Toronto's incoming police chief, Mark Saunders, moves into his new office on Sunday.

Article Link

 

[CougarKing]

Another piece that makes it sound like the "Dauphin" Trudeau has "all the cards" including great hair...  :

David vs David political column/Yahoo News

Canada's election: Harper lacking full support, but still likely to triumph
By David T Jones | David vs. David – Fri, 24 Apr, 2015

Upwards of 60 per cent of the Canadian electorate doesn’t support him. This lack of support ranges from glum tolerance of the consequences of the democratic process that has made him prime minister since 2006 to active distain, even hatred regarding his very existence in Canadian politics by some Canadians. It is difficult to determine why an intelligent, honest, family values-espousing, moral man generates such animus, but he does, and this attitude is a basic element of current Canadian politics.

(...SNIPPED)


Liberal leader Justin (Just-in-time?) Trudeau has led the Liberals for two years, following their debacle/defeat in 2011. When selected as party leader, he immediately surged to the front of voter preference ranks, dragging the third place Liberals with him into national lead. With hair to die for, a lovely wife and equally photogenic children, Trudeau was the most dynamic Canadian political figure in a generation. He provided rock-star personal appearance while promising to do politics differently which, combined, were exceptionally politically attractive.

For a considerable period, Trudeau simply floated above his mistakes and missteps (excused as “youth and inexperience”). Akin to how we ignore the personal peccadilloes of Hollywood stars, the electorate blew past essentially idiotic comments: They disregarded his suggestion that the Russian action in Ukraine/Crimea could be sourced to losing a hockey match. They looked past his expression of admiration for the Chinese communist economic system. They even forgave him sympathizing with Quebec’s desire for independence. Then, to show how he was going to “do politics differently,” he evicted all Liberal senators from caucus, interfered in riding nominations, and welcomed party switcher Eve Adams booted from Tory caucus for hissy fits above the norm.

Plus he politically defenestrated two Liberal MPs, essentially on the word of two NDP female MPs that claimed sexual harassment—without anything relating to due process.

The Liberals are being hoist by their own petard. They have sought glamour in leaders rather than steady competence: Remember how both Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff were going to fire up the base and appeal to Francophone voters in Quebec? They might have done better with engineer/astronaut MP Marc Garneau and slow-but-steady tactics.

(...SNIPPED)

Perhaps it underestimates Mulcair compared to Trudeau?

The NDP’s Thomas Mulcair has a different problem.

Although widely recognized for effective parliamentary performance, nobody is watching Parliament’s QP or listening to Mulcair’s speeches. He has not been in the hustings, connecting with Tim Hortons voters. Moreover, he is chained to Quebec in a death battle to retain NDP seats from prospective Trudeau/Liberal inroads. He must hold them to have any chance of gaining a federal victory (or even second place). Likewise, Trudeau must have them, too.

They are, however, secondary to Harper who has already proved he win can a majority without significant Quebec representation, so it doesn’t matter whether the NDP or Liberals hold Quebec seats (and mild resurgence of the Bloc Quebecois and even the Tories appears in the offing).

(...SNIPPED)

 

[Edward Campbell]

Back in May of last year I posted this in the Ontario Election thread:

David Parkins, in the Globe and Mail has summed up the first week +, I think, in this cartoon:

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/no-wifi-in-the-garden-of-eden/article18348706/#dashboard/follows/

Kathleen Wynne appears, to me to have been the clear winner by picking a "soft target:" the feds. She has given those who are inclined to vote Liberal someone else to blame: Stephen Harper. Next she needs to go after Andrea Horwath and the NDP ~ she, Wynne, needs to "unite the left" and that means taking votes away from Horwath.

Mr Hudak seems to be helping the Wynne campaign by wallowing in gaffes.

There's four + weeks to go, and we all should remember Harold Wilson's admonition that "a week is a long time in politics."

Then, in July, I posted:

I think that just as Premier Wynne campaigned against Prime Minister Harper in the recent Ontario election, Prime Minister Harper is going to campaign against her in the lead up to 2015, as explained in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the National Post:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/07/03/kelly-mcparland-joe-oliver-channels-jim-flaherty-in-telling-ontario-to-quit-whining-and-solve-its-own-budget-problems/
Next year, at budget time, Ontario is going to have to signal its firm intention to reduce spending, social spending, in order to balance the budget by 2017/18. That will mean breaking its 'promises' to most of its constituencies and I expect the Conservative Party of Ontario to tie Premier Wynne very, Very, VERY closely to Justin Trudeau and paint him as equally untrustworthy ...

              I suspect M. Trudeau may live to regret these pictures. I have no doubt they helped Premier Wynne this year...
                                                          I'm less sure they will help him in 2015.

Now, as we begin to think about a national campaign, John Ibbitson muses that I may be right in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-premier-wynne-may-have-a-starring-role-in-federal-election/article24147805/

[size=14pt]Ontario Premier Wynne may have a starring role in federal election

JOHN IBBITSON
The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Apr. 27 2015

Miriam Ali operates a daycare centre in Mississauga that caters to the children of new Canadians from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. The parents of these children are angry about Ontario’s new sexual education curriculum, and they hold Justin Trudeau partly to blame.

This makes no sense. But it is all part of the Battle for Ontario in the next federal election, in which Premier Kathleen Wynne will be a key combatant, whether she wants to be or not.

A suburban city of 703,000 that spreads west of Toronto, Mississauga has a population that is 53 per cent foreign born. Its six swing federal ridings usually reflect, and help determine, the outcome of elections. So if voters in Mississauga are upset with Mr. Trudeau over an issue, even one outside federal jurisdiction, this matters.

The new sex-ed curriculum put forward by the provincial government “corrupts the morals of our children,” Ms. Ali said in an interview. “Our parents are very concerned about this. Sexual education should be taught by parents.”

Parents associate Mr. Trudeau with the program “just because of the name Liberal,” she said. Conversely, the Conservative Party “has always come across as pro family values.”

Of course, sexual education has been on the Ontario curriculum for generations. The new curriculum, which introduces the topic of same-sex marriage in Grade 3 and the dangers of sexting in Grade 7, will be viewed by many parents as appropriate to a tolerant and digitally connected society.

But many immigrant Canadians from India, China, the Philippines and other major source countries are socially more conservative than their third-generation counterparts. And they voted for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in the 2011 federal election.

They also voted for Ms. Wynne’s Liberals in the 2014 provincial election. Whether these voters are thinking about Tory tax cuts and family values or Liberal infrastructure programs and help for struggling families will be crucial when they vote in the Oct. 19 federal election.

A senior Conservative strategist, speaking on background, said the party’s war room is very aware of the opposition to sex-ed in Mississauga and other suburban cities outside Toronto collectively known as the 905, after their area code.

Without referencing the subject directly, the Conservatives will stress during the election campaign that immigrant values are Conservative values and that Mr. Harper believes parents should be left to do the job of parenting, which is why the government sends child-care cheques directly to homes, rather than subsidizing day-care spaces.

The Tories expect that public support for the Wynne government will wane over the course of the year as Queen’s Park struggles to implement an ambitious infrastructure agenda while attempting to balance the budget eventually by reining in health-care and education costs. Conservatives will paint last Thursday’s Ontario budget as a tax-and-spend agenda (although, in fact, it is relatively austere), in contrast to last Tuesday’s balanced federal budget.

The Trudeau team, many of whom were recruited from Queen’s Park, supports Ms. Wynne’s agenda, but will keep a friendly distance from their provincial colleagues.

The Liberal economic platform, according to a senior party official, will focus on clawing back Tory tax cuts that benefit upper-income Canadians and redistributing the revenues to voters in lower tax brackets, rather than on huge sums for infrastructure.

As for voters angry at Ms. Wynne’s sex-ed curriculum, Mr. Trudeau will simply say, if asked, that the matter is outside federal purview.

Issues at one level of government routinely cross-pollinate, or contaminate, other levels. If immigrant voters in Mississauga and Brampton and Markham and other 905 cities decide that sex-ed is a federal issue, then it’s a federal issue, and that’s all there is to it.

But regardless of the issue, the Conservatives will seek to yoke Ms. Wynne to Mr. Trudeau at every opportunity in the minds of Ontario voters. The Liberals, in contrast, will count on Ms. Wynne and her activist-government agenda to remain popular among suburban voters who need help with the commute to work, as well as lower taxes.

Whether or not the phrase “Trudeau/Wynne Liberals” works as a political weapon could decide the outcome of the election in the 905. And as the 905 goes, so goes the nation.

I take issue with one point. In the second sentence John Ibbitson says "Premier Kathleen Wynne will be a key combatant, whether she wants to be or not" ~ look at the top of this post: she wanted this fight a year ago, she needed this fight a year ago ... well, now it is Prime Minister Harper's turn to hit back.

The key to victory is Ontario and the key to Ontario is the GTA, and those "suburban voters who need help with the commute to work" (who like that part of Premier Wynne's agenda) will be reminded, over and over again, the the federal Conservatives have budgeted billions and billions for transit and that they share the broadly socially conservative views of New (Asian) Canadians while Trudeau-Wynne, demonstrably, do not.

(Remember, please, that Asian social conservatism is not a good fit with the Christian Right ... there are some overlaps (a distaste for public gay rights expressions, for example) but many BIG areas of disagreement (e.g.abortion).)

 

[Edward Campbell]

This article, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, certainly doesn't need comment beyond saying that:

    1. Justin Trudeau is a hypocrite; and

    2. The Liberal Party of Canada's philosophy (power at any cost) never changes.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/recruiting-bill-blair-for-the-liberals-is-a-quizzical-tactic-by-trudeau/article24160164/

Blair recruitment shows Trudeau's passion for civil liberties has limits

ADAM RADWANSKI
The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Apr. 28 2015

Not two months ago, Justin Trudeau presented himself as a passionate defender of civil liberties.

“I believe that one of the highest aims of Canadian political leadership is to protect and expand freedom for Canadians,” the Liberal Leader told a Toronto audience. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, at the time under fire for their treatment of niqab-wearing women, were guilty of encouraging Canadians “to be fearful of one another.” And “efforts of one group to restrict the liberty of another are so very dangerous to this country, especially when agencies of the state are used to do it.”

Making the case for protection of individual and minority rights in the face of fears about unfamiliar cultures and our collective safety, it was probably the most compelling speech by Mr. Trudeau since he took his party’s helm.

But it has become a bit more difficult to take those sentiments at face value, now that Mr. Trudeau has recruited Bill Blair – whose just-ended tenure as Toronto’s police chief was to a large extent defined by civil-liberties controversies – as a star candidate.

As former-Toronto-chiefs-turned-federal-politicians go, Mr. Blair is relatively progressive. He made considerable effort to improve police relations with minority communities, consistently expressed complex and nuanced views about crime and its causes, and didn’t try to convince the city its streets weren’t safe so he could boost his own profile or budget. In other words, he is not Julian Fantino. (Whether it’s healthy for Toronto’s last two chiefs to have both used that position to pave the way for political careers is a different matter.)

For those reasons, senior Liberals argue that far from weakening their small-l liberal claims, Mr. Blair’s candidacy bolsters them. By this account it will now be easier for Mr. Trudeau to push back against the Conservatives’ law-and-order agenda and tough-on-terror rhetoric, and advocate for policies such as marijuana legalization; with one of the country’s most prominent cops in his corner, it will be harder for Tories to brand him as soft. Mr. Blair already seems to be embracing that role, going so far as to say Mr. Trudeau’s liberty speech helped draw him in.

The words of both Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Blair, though, are difficult to square with two sets of actions under the former chief’s watch.

The first was the handling of the G20 summit in 2010, when a wave of vandalism prompted police to arbitrarily suspend normal rights. More than 1,100 people were arrested (most of them never charged), random passersby were “kettled” for hours on end and there were widespread allegations of excessive force. While Mr. Blair later took responsibility for mistakes, he was strongly defensive of his force’s actions at the time.

The second, probably more germane to issues Mr. Trudeau flagged, was “carding.” Stopping and questioning people not suspected of a crime, pervasive under his watch, has been sharply criticized as a form of racial profiling that targets and alienates young black men in particular. Mr. Blair suspended and then modified the practice in his final months on the job, but only after pushing back hard against police-board attempts to rein it in.

For anyone inclined to cast a ballot on the basis of which party best defends civil liberties, either of those issues could be deal breakers – if not because they’re on Mr. Blair’s record, then because Mr. Trudeau has expressed little concern about them. He says he won’t “second-guess” his new recruit on the G20 and appears to have even less to say about carding.

What the Liberals seem to be counting on is not many voters being all that zealous on this subject, at least not when it has no direct bearing on them. Outside downtown Toronto, there was a common view that people there during the G20 were looking for trouble. And issues affecting the city’s young black males, not a powerful political constituency, are out of sight and out of mind for most everyone else.

The Liberals might not be alone in those calculations. Considering that Mr. Blair plans to run against one of their incumbent MPs, and that they previously poked holes in Mr. Trudeau’s liberty pitch by highlighting his support for the Conservatives’ rights-encroaching anti-terrorism legislation, Thomas Mulcair’s New Democrats could be talking a lot about the former chief’s record. Instead, they seem to be avoiding the subject.

The values expressed in Mr. Trudeau’s speech, of course, involve standing up for rights especially when there is limited political upside to doing so. But with all available public-opinion research showing safety trumping civil liberties among voters’ concerns, nobody wants to get too carried away.

I know that some members here plan to vote for M Trudeau's Liberals and that's all well and good; it's your right.

I know that some members here want to vote against Prime Minister Harper for a variety of reasons and that, too, is all well and good; it's also your right.

I suspect that some members her are going to vote without giving serious thought to the real, big, long term issues ...

 

[jollyjacktar]

And some of us, such as myself, have (almost) always voted PC and now find themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea.  I don't quite honestly like any one of the players enough to decide.  I may just sit this one out.

 

[a_majoor]

While that is also your right, I always remind people who think that way that if they don't vote, they have no right to complain about how things turn out....