Canadian federal election - 2015

[mileslunn]

I'm predicting another Tory majority, no idea who will be Opposition Leader.

I honestly hope this doesn't happen. Lord knows the ass whooping we'd receive if we're in power 13 years. Tory minority is my prediction right now.

Not likely.  Lets remember the Tory vote has pretty consistently fallen in the 30-40% range.  Only when they breakthrough in Quebec like 1958, 1984, and 1988 do they crack the 40% mark, and only when the right splits like in the 90s do they fall under 30%.  2004 is so far the lowest percentage ever for the right wing vote in Canadian history.  Now I agree due to the fact they haven't been in power for over 10 years since the late 1800s may be partly why so I could see them falling as low as 25%, but any lower would require another right wing party emerging.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Tory minority. I'm actually a fan of minority governments, so I don't think it would be the worst thing in the world.

In this situation, Harper would retire and the Liberals would probably give Trudeau a second chance (obviously he'll improve the party's standing by a significant margin, which has got to count for something). If the Conservatives elect a decent, likable leader to replace Harper, they'd have the potential to win another majority and hopefully eliminate Trudeau as a prime ministerial contender. We'll see. At this point, I actually think another Tory majority would be bad for the party in the long term.

[adma]

Note that I did not include Peter Stoffer's riding in the NDP holds. Sackville-Eastern Shore was always more of a Stoffer riding than an NDP riding. The recent redistribution removed the outlying rural parts (which vote like BC) and tacked on some Liberal voting suburbs (Dartmouth East, provincially). I expect the Liberals to win the new Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook by a nose.

Though my feeling is that Stoffer's the sort whose magnetism migrates to whatever new territory he takes on--a little like how Peter Kormos used to operate in Ontario...

[Hatman 🍁]

I think the Liberals take Halifax before they take Stoffer's riding.

[DC Al Fine]

Note that I did not include Peter Stoffer's riding in the NDP holds. Sackville-Eastern Shore was always more of a Stoffer riding than an NDP riding. The recent redistribution removed the outlying rural parts (which vote like BC) and tacked on some Liberal voting suburbs (Dartmouth East, provincially). I expect the Liberals to win the new Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook by a nose.

Though my feeling is that Stoffer's the sort whose magnetism migrates to whatever new territory he takes on--a little like how Peter Kormos used to operate in Ontario...

Stoffer isn't running again. Now don't get me wrong, the NDP still have a good sized base in the riding (I'd guess 30%), but I think a Liberal sweep with no NDP incumbent will flip the riding.

[RogueBeaver]

I think ROQ will be very interesting, particularly given recent NDP gains and Mulcair's high popularity here.

[DC Al Fine]

Taking a guess at Quebec

Liberals win the popular vote by 5ish pts, but tie the NDP in seats because their efficiency sucks.
Bloc holds onto a couple seats due to popular incumbents/vote splits.
Tories hold onto Beauce & Roberval-Lac St. Jean (assuming Lebel runs again).

Quebec will look something like this

PLC: 37
NPD: 37
BQ: 2
PCC: 2

[DC Al Fine]

I think ROQ will be very interesting, particularly given recent NDP gains and Mulcair's high popularity here.

Quebec & BC are going to be a pain in the butt to project

[RogueBeaver]

308 has very different projections for QC: 40 NPD, 26 PLC in seats. You can almost never overestimate Grit inefficiency among Francophone voters.

[Citizen Hats]

Taking a guess at Quebec

Liberals win the popular vote by 5ish pts, but tie the NDP in seats because their efficiency sucks.
Bloc holds onto a couple seats due to popular incumbents/vote splits.
Tories hold onto Beauce & Roberval-Lac St. Jean (assuming Lebel runs again).

Quebec will look something like this

PLC: 37
NPD: 37
BQ: 2
PCC: 2

I highly doubt the Tories will lose seats. I suspect they will pick up a few. The Tories usually poll at or around their (already low) 2011 numbers.  The NDP and (sometimes) the Bloc are polling lower, and the Liberals higher. Liberals aren't likely pulling all that many votes off island (though who knows for sure), but could very well pull enough votes in NDP-Tory Marginals to flip some of them back to the Tories

[Hatman 🍁]

If Stoffer doesn't run, then yes- his riding will go Liberal.

[MaxQue]

Taking a guess at Quebec

Liberals win the popular vote by 5ish pts, but tie the NDP in seats because their efficiency sucks.
Bloc holds onto a couple seats due to popular incumbents/vote splits.
Tories hold onto Beauce & Roberval-Lac St. Jean (assuming Lebel runs again).

Quebec will look something like this

PLC: 37
NPD: 37
BQ: 2
PCC: 2

I highly doubt the Tories will lose seats. I suspect they will pick up a few. The Tories usually poll at or around their (already low) 2011 numbers.  The NDP and (sometimes) the Bloc are polling lower, and the Liberals higher. Liberals aren't likely pulling all that many votes off island (though who knows for sure), but could very well pull enough votes in NDP-Tory Marginals to flip some of them back to the Tories

NDP-Tory marginals, in Quebec? There is perhaps 2 or 3 of them. When Tories finished 2nd, they were usually a distant 2nd.

[Citizen Hats]

Taking a guess at Quebec

Liberals win the popular vote by 5ish pts, but tie the NDP in seats because their efficiency sucks.
Bloc holds onto a couple seats due to popular incumbents/vote splits.
Tories hold onto Beauce & Roberval-Lac St. Jean (assuming Lebel runs again).

Quebec will look something like this

PLC: 37
NPD: 37
BQ: 2
PCC: 2

I highly doubt the Tories will lose seats. I suspect they will pick up a few. The Tories usually poll at or around their (already low) 2011 numbers.  The NDP and (sometimes) the Bloc are polling lower, and the Liberals higher. Liberals aren't likely pulling all that many votes off island (though who knows for sure), but could very well pull enough votes in NDP-Tory Marginals to flip some of them back to the Tories

NDP-Tory marginals, in Quebec? There is perhaps 2 or 3 of them. When Tories finished 2nd, they were usually a distant 2nd.

it's true that there were a handful, but if we're talking about a universe were the NDP are taking only 75% or so of their 2011 vote-haul, and the tories are taking 90-110% then a number of those seats around Quebec city come into play

[MaxQue]

Taking a guess at Quebec

Liberals win the popular vote by 5ish pts, but tie the NDP in seats because their efficiency sucks.
Bloc holds onto a couple seats due to popular incumbents/vote splits.
Tories hold onto Beauce & Roberval-Lac St. Jean (assuming Lebel runs again).

Quebec will look something like this

PLC: 37
NPD: 37
BQ: 2
PCC: 2

I highly doubt the Tories will lose seats. I suspect they will pick up a few. The Tories usually poll at or around their (already low) 2011 numbers.  The NDP and (sometimes) the Bloc are polling lower, and the Liberals higher. Liberals aren't likely pulling all that many votes off island (though who knows for sure), but could very well pull enough votes in NDP-Tory Marginals to flip some of them back to the Tories

NDP-Tory marginals, in Quebec? There is perhaps 2 or 3 of them. When Tories finished 2nd, they were usually a distant 2nd.

it's true that there were a handful, but if we're talking about a universe were the NDP are taking only 75% or so of their 2011 vote-haul, and the tories are taking 90-110% then a number of those seats around Quebec city come into play

It would need to be closer of 67% than of 75%. A typical score for Quebec area is 45 NDP 30 CPC. There is Louis-Saint-Laurent (2%) and Montmagny--L'Islet--Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup (109 votes) which were close. Else, it's in the 45-30 scale described earlier. It's very wierd.

EDIT: Forgot Jonquière-Alma at roughly 80%.

[Citizen Hats]

Taking a guess at Quebec

Liberals win the popular vote by 5ish pts, but tie the NDP in seats because their efficiency sucks.
Bloc holds onto a couple seats due to popular incumbents/vote splits.
Tories hold onto Beauce & Roberval-Lac St. Jean (assuming Lebel runs again).

Quebec will look something like this

PLC: 37
NPD: 37
BQ: 2
PCC: 2

I highly doubt the Tories will lose seats. I suspect they will pick up a few. The Tories usually poll at or around their (already low) 2011 numbers.  The NDP and (sometimes) the Bloc are polling lower, and the Liberals higher. Liberals aren't likely pulling all that many votes off island (though who knows for sure), but could very well pull enough votes in NDP-Tory Marginals to flip some of them back to the Tories

NDP-Tory marginals, in Quebec? There is perhaps 2 or 3 of them. When Tories finished 2nd, they were usually a distant 2nd.

it's true that there were a handful, but if we're talking about a universe were the NDP are taking only 75% or so of their 2011 vote-haul, and the tories are taking 90-110% then a number of those seats around Quebec city come into play

It would need to be closer of 67% than of 75%. A typical score for Quebec area is 45 NDP 30 CPC. There is Louis-Saint-Laurent (2%) and Montmagny--L'Islet--Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup (109 votes) which were close. Else, it's in the 45-30 scale described earlier. It's very wierd.

EDIT: Forgot Jonquière-Alma at roughly 80%.

Either way, I think that we can safely rule out the Tories getting two seats under anything like present vote distributions

[DL]

We also need to consider that if the Liberals enjoys a dead-cat bounce in Quebec outside of Montreal - in places like the Quebec City area those votes could also come from people who voted CPC in 2011.

Another things that makes Quebec unpredictable is the fact that by Oct. 2015 it is highly likely that the Couillard government will be extremely unpopular - they are already getting raked over the coals for their austerity measures and this is still just the tip of the iceberg...and that could also do some damage to the federal Liberal brand.

In other news the BQ is totally on life-support - an ex-BQ MP stated publicly over the weekend that the BQ should fold and that sovereignists should vote NDP as the "lesser of all evils" among federalist parties.

[njwes]

Lots of you are mentioning Tory minority governments; is it very unlikely that the NDP and the Liberals would form a majority coalition, given the opportunity?

[DC Al Fine]

Lots of you are mentioning Tory minority governments; is it very unlikely that the NDP and the Liberals would form a majority coalition, given the opportunity?

Possibly, but I get the impression that the NDP isn't willing to play 2nd fiddle.

[RogueBeaver]

Coop maybe, no more than that. We've only had one formal coalition - which ended apocalyptically for everyone involved and nearly the country.

[MaxQue]

Coop maybe, no more than that. We've only had one formal coalition - which ended apocalyptically for everyone involved and nearly the country.

Are you referring to the "unionists" of WWI?

[DC Al Fine]

So the Liberals are at record levels of support in BC. Is there any chance of them winning a seat outside of Greater Vancouver/Victoria?

The 308's most recent average had them beating the Tories by 4%. This exceeds their best results in B.C. (8% behind Reform in '93, 8% behind CPC in '04)

Looking at their past results, they haven't really come close to winning a rural BC seat even at the best of times Jim Gouk's riding in '93 excepted. They might win a seat around Kamloops next time, but I doubt it.

[RogueBeaver]

Coop maybe, no more than that. We've only had one formal coalition - which ended apocalyptically for everyone involved and nearly the country.

Are you referring to the "unionists" of WWI?

Yep.

[Citizen Hats]

Coop maybe, no more than that. We've only had one formal coalition - which ended apocalyptically for everyone involved and nearly the country.

But that's not the case everywhere. BC has arguably had a coalition government for the last 14 years and had an formal one in the 1940s and 1950s, which was a very productive time (though it also ended terribly for both parties involved, for other reasons)

[DC Al Fine]

Coop maybe, no more than that. We've only had one formal coalition - which ended apocalyptically for everyone involved and nearly the country.

But that's not the case everywhere. BC has arguably had a coalition government for the last 14 years and had an formal one in the 1940s and 1950s, which was a very productive time (though it also ended terribly for both parties involved, for other reasons)

By "other reasons" do you mean that the Socreds showed up or do you mean something else?

[mileslunn]

So the Liberals are at record levels of support in BC. Is there any chance of them winning a seat outside of Greater Vancouver/Victoria?

The 308's most recent average had them beating the Tories by 4%. This exceeds their best results in B.C. (8% behind Reform in '93, 8% behind CPC in '04)

Looking at their past results, they haven't really come close to winning a rural BC seat even at the best of times Jim Gouk's riding in '93 excepted. They might win a seat around Kamloops next time, but I doubt it.

Highly unlikely, but possible.  Liberals leading in the polls is actually not that unusual in BC, but it seems for some reason it never materializes outside the Lower Mainland.  One thing about BC is its politics are unpredictable as we saw in the last provincial election as well as it tends to be fairly polarized between left vs. right so only if the NDP gets completely destroyed and they become the defacto left wing opposition to the Tories could I see this happening.  In fact the bigger danger is a strong Liberal showing will just split the vote and help the Tories win more seats.  In 2011, the Tories got 46% of the popular vote in BC, but only 21 of 36 seats, while in 2004 they got only 36% of the popular vote but 22 of the 36 seats so the stronger the split is the easier it is for them to win seats.  Now not all Liberal gains will come from the NDP, in fact just as much will come from the Tories, but if both drop equally it won't change the overall result as outside the Lower Mainland the Liberals at least at the moment don't have the ability to gain seats.  Now maybe 2015 will be an election where that changes, but history is not on their side.