Canadian by-elections, 2013

[Hatman 🍁]

Hmmm. Odd, you'd think there'd be more NDP members in Labrador City. I suppose there's no hope in winning the riding?

[RogueBeaver]

Only 106 Dippers voted in that nomination and the party won't release the breakdown. Russell will announce on local CBC radio tomorrow morning whether he'll run, but as I said earlier doubtful he does. Surely Jones phoned him before immediately jumping in.

As for the by-election itself I'd put money on a Liberal win for now. Cue the "Grits scalp Harper minister" headlines.

[RogueBeaver]

Teddy saying on Twitter that the Dippers will be taking Tory votes.

[RogueBeaver]

Russell isn't running, but he won't endorse Jones or get involved either.

[Hatman 🍁]

Only 106 Dippers voted in that nomination and the party won't release the breakdown. Russell will announce on local CBC radio tomorrow morning whether he'll run, but as I said earlier doubtful he does. Surely Jones phoned him before immediately jumping in.

As for the by-election itself I'd put money on a Liberal win for now. Cue the "Grits scalp Harper minister" headlines.

"Only" 106?  That's pretty good for a remote riding that's the least populated in Canada, and where the party is a distant third.

[Hatman 🍁]

It's a big improvement for the NDP to have contested nomination races. Both provincial by-elections in Ontario are also contested. (Windsor-Tecumseh would've been anyways, probably), but especially good in London West. What's even more surprising was the nomination in Kent, NB was also contested.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's... that's not an embarrassing turnout at all, actually... a lot more votes than I'd have guessed.

[Hatman 🍁]

That's... that's not an embarrassing turnout at all, actually... a lot more votes than I'd have guessed.

Indeed. I've been to nomination meetings with like... 10 people (although they were uncontested) in Ottawa South, which has 5 times as many people and roughly similar support levels.

[Хahar 🤔]

Poll shows Liberals likely to defeat Penashue in Labrador by-election

Forum Research:
Yvonne Jones (L): 57%
Harry Borlase (N): 21%
Peter Penashue (C): 20%

The obvious caveats about constituency polling apply, particularly in a riding as rural and far-flung as Labrador. In particular, a poll like this can be expected to substantially underrepresent the native population, which happens to have been Penashue's strongest base of support in 2011.

[Hatman 🍁]

Wow.

Good point, Xahar about the undersampling of natives. This would be a believable result though.

[Benj]

Seems like pretty much any result would be believable, no? Not the most predictable riding ever.

[Hatman 🍁]

True...

I don't know how FR weights their data typically, but I would hope they did so by Aboriginal status. Probably not, though. I know we typically just weight by Age and Gender (sometimes education), and by Region (that would be another reliable way of weighting the riding if not by aboriginal status).

[DL]

I think people in Labrador have made up their mind one way or the other about Penashue. I expect him to come in third. All this talk about how the NDP needed to stand aside because he could only lose to a single opposition candidate are obviously absurd. I have a feeling Harper is now going to stall calling this byelection for as long as possible since it is certain to be a Tory defeat, but they may try to use Labrador as a laboratory to test attacks on Justin Trudeau after he is crowned...though even if the Tory attacks on the Liberals work - it will probably only shift votes from Liberal to NDP and bypass the Tories completely.

[the506]

If you look at the poll-by-poll results, Innus voted en masse for Penashue, but that's just 2 polls, and the other natives in the riding voted more or less the same way as everyone else.

I think it's Jones' to lose at this point.

[RogueBeaver]

Labrador has been called for May 13.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/04/07/nl-byelection-labrador-407.html?cmp=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[DC Al Fine]

So why the heck did Penashue resign? It seems like he could have ridden out the scandal. Now he's giving up his seat.

[RogueBeaver]

Because it was probably part of a deal with Elections Canada and the PM. It'll get drowned out by Dixquake the following day anyways, which is why Harper picked that date.

[DL]

Also, I'm sure a deal has been cooked up in advance whereby after Penashue loses he will declare that his new permanent address is in Ontario and harper will name him to the senate.

[RogueBeaver]

Penashue is a student at the Duplessist porkbarrelling school.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2013/04/penashue-says-he-withheld-approval-for-nfld-project-to-secure-labrador-highway-funds.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[MaxQue]

Penashue is a student at the Duplessist porkbarrelling school.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2013/04/penashue-says-he-withheld-approval-for-nfld-project-to-secure-labrador-highway-funds.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Blame yourself, you voted for that party.

[RogueBeaver]

I'm not a constituent of his, nor am I under any illusions about the gap between the party's theory and practice.

[DL]

Can someone explain what exactly was wrong with Boulerice's blog post. I was under the impression that just about everything he said is true:

World War One was a capitalist war - TRUE it was...anyone care to come up with any other definition of it?

Just about the only people willing to resist the jingoist call to arms in 1914 tended to be communists and socialist - also true

The vast majority of the soldiers who got slaughtered in unbelieveable numbers in World War One were 18 and 19 year sons of peasants and factory workers (in those days about 95% of the population fell into those two categories = true

At Vimy Ridge tens of thousands of Canadian boys died capturing one hill all in futile inconclusive war about nothing - also true

BTW: I personally think the Crusades of the 11th century were also a mistake - sorry if I insulted any veteran Crusaders or their descendants

[Hatman 🍁]

Not sure why we're talking about Boulerice's comments in this thread, but I will echo my response from when they were brought up in the Canadian General Discussion on the International Discussion Board:

I guess we are taught growing up that Canada has always been on the right side of wars, especially the great patriotic World War I, but it really was a pointless war. Especially for French Canadians.

[DL]

If the Conservatives want to remind Quebecers of how Borden shoved conscription down their throats in 1917 it will INCREASE NDP support in Quebec.

[RogueBeaver]

Back to Labrador: Dunderdale said Penashue's statement was "unacceptable, bad politics, and if any of my ministers did that they'd lose their jobs." BOOM.