Canadian Election 2019

[mileslunn]

If Liberals will fail to get 170 seats in House of Commons, does NDP and/or Greens would be willing to support Trudeau's minority govt or even participate in coalition govt?

Canadian politics newbie is asking.

Support yes, coalition no.

There is no tradition of coalition goverments in Canada? Why?

With FTFP, most of the time the winning party wins a majority so no incentive for a coalition, their goal is introduce popular policies while a minority and dare opposition to vote them down and use that as a springboard for an early election to gain a majority.

[mileslunn]

MQO reserach is doing polls for each province in Atlantic Canada.  In Newfoundland, Liberals are ahead, but the shift since 2015 is pretty massive, mind you Liberal numbers there were so high reversion to the mean was probably expected.

Liberal 46%
Conservative 38%
NDP 11%
Green 2%
PPC 2%

[mileslunn]

The one good news for Trudeau is on best PM, he is at 48%, while Scheer only 30% and that has sort of been the trend as while Scheer was competitive on best PM earlier this year, as people get to know him, the response largely seems to be negative. Off course that could change in the campaign.  Both Hudak in 2014 and Harper in 2006 started with similar numbers, while Hudak just re-enforced the negative image thus his poor showing while Harper improved it dramatically thus won.

[mileslunn]

  Both Hudak in 2014 and Harper in 2006 started with similar numbers, while Hudak just re-enforced the negative image thus his poor showing while Harper improved it dramatically thus won.

I don't know if Harper improved it dramatically so much as the Paul Martin Liberals' negatives exploded mid-campaign through sponsorship scandal revelations.  (Except, maybe, as regards the CPC's breakthrough in Quebec that year)

Actually Harper was damaged fairly badly by bozo eruptions and hidden agenda in 2004 so he started with fairly negative numbers.  His 5 promises in many ways helped him as well as the Liberals also did almost nothing before Christmas assuming no one would pay attention while Harper was active.  On Nanos poll tracker in December, Liberals maintained lead, but on best PM Harper pulled ahead before his party did.  Off course Martin ran a disastrous campaign too so it was a combination of both.  I think if Liberals won an okay campaign they could have barely held on and Tories likewise if a medicore would have lost.

[mileslunn]

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

Liberals just can't keep gaining traction.

And by the way, why Bernier and his Popular Party has so small support and what about Greens?

Bernier quit the Tories and didn't really bring much of a constituency with him. That is at least in part because the Tories have bad memories of the last party split keeping them out of power. Plus his conversion to right wing populism is quite new, so the party was kind of directionless, caught between libertarianism and right wing populism until quite recently. Overall not a good recipe to pick up a lot of support.

But do you see the room in Canadian public life for such party? I mean, how much percent of electorate have such views as Bernier? Are right-wing populists and libertarians pose a real threat to Tories?

I think after past split in the 90s, plus more recent one in Alberta, most on right have learned you cannot win unless you are united under one banner and most on right loathe Trudeau so desire to remove Trudeau trumps everything else.  Still there is a strong libertarian and right wing populist element in the party, after all Bernier nearly won, so if Scheer loses and doesn't stay on, its not out of the realm the next leader won't be in this mode, but no one I can think of at the moment who fits that mold and has high enough name recognition to win.

I also think once the results of right wing populism are seen, there will be less support down the line.  Libertarianism has never been really popular, but its support goes in waves.  When government gets too big and we have major financial issues, you can run on a small government platform and win, see Mike Harris in the 90s, but right at the moment I think the fatigue with austerity makes running on such platform a very tough sell.  Never mind in 90s, public concern was mainly about economic growth whereas now I think it is more about inclusive growth and libertarianism is good for creating growth, but almost all the gains tend to go to the rich and little trickle down to poor and middle class thus the Liberals would use class warfare limiting its ability to win.

[mileslunn]

I think after past split in the 90s, plus more recent one in Alberta, most on right have learned you cannot win unless you are united under one banner and most on right loathe Trudeau so desire to remove Trudeau trumps everything else.  Still there is a strong libertarian and right wing populist element in the party, after all Bernier nearly won, so if Scheer loses and doesn't stay on, its not out of the realm the next leader won't be in this mode, but no one I can think of at the moment who fits that mold and has high enough name recognition to win.

*harrumph* *harrumph* Doug Ford, except that at this point his "high enough name recognition" isn't exactly of the winning sort...

True, but if Tories gain in every province save Ontario, but lose ground there, I doubt they will be stupid enough to choose him as leader.  There may be some members who care about ideology more than electability, but you have to be pretty oblivious to whats going on to think Doug Ford could win nationally.

[mileslunn]

If (as I gather polls are currently showing) the Tories gain in literally every province but decline or stay about still in Ontario, and Liberals are reduced to a minority government, would Scheer stay around as leader? It'd be pretty easy to point at the improvement and just blame Ford. Or is the perception of Scheer as a non-entity already pretty set at this point? Who might even replace him -- would O'Toole be any better? (Or someone else)?

A poor performance for the federal Conservatives would not endanger Ford's rule of the provincial party, correct? It doesn't seem like 2008 or 2011 reflected badly on McGuinty at all, or like federal politics impacts provincial politics this way in other provinces. It seems to me like hatred of Trudeau on the right might be strong enough to endanger ill will if Ford is blamed for Trudeau's survival, but that might just be my provincialism, since effects like this with Harper and leftist premiers weren't seen.

It depends.  If the party loses seats, he is gone or if the gains are minimal, but if the Tories say win 140 seats but still fall short, I think most will say he is moving them in the right direction so get to stay on.  As for losses elsewhere but not Ontario meaning a minority, not necessarily as lets not forget Quebec since although the Tories aren't likely to lose ground there, the NDP has imploded there and the Liberals could easily scoop up most of those seats thus cancelling out losses in Western and Atlantic Canada.  

Reason McGuinty didn't leave after 2008 and 2011 is losses for Liberals were from coast to coast so you couldn't pinpoint it to one provincial leader, it was an overall shift thus the blame got laid on the federal leader.  If Scheer gains in every province except Ontario while loses ground there, it will be pretty obvious it was not a national swing, but it was because of Ford.  I doubt Ford will resign, but I suspect you will see more pushback from his MPPs and probably a high number of MPPs not running again in 2022 as well as perhaps even a few quitting to sit as independents or maybe even cross the floor to the Liberals (although skeptical about this, maybe one or two, but not sure that will even happen).  You could also see Elliott, Mulroney or others with leadership ambitions organize behind the scenes much like Paul Martin did in the 90s

As for replacement leader, no obvious one, but Erin O'Toole is one and perhaps some of the big names like John Baird or Peter MacKay who sat out might jump in this time.  It was widely expected whomever won in 2017 leadership race would be a caretaker leader since Trudeau would get a second term and then the next leader would be the next PM, so by 2023, Trudeau having been in office for 8 years and negative baggage that goes with that, I could see some who sat out last one jumping in this time.  Heck even Caroline Mulroney with all of Ford's troubles, might decide there is a better future in federal than provincial politics.  Likewise Gerald Detell is another dark horse to watch.

[mileslunn]

A poor performance for the federal Conservatives would not endanger Ford's rule of the provincial party, correct? It doesn't seem like 2008 or 2011 reflected badly on McGuinty at all, or like federal politics impacts provincial politics this way in other provinces.

In 1997, the Nova Scotia Liberals were extremely unpopular - the federal Liberals went from holding all 11 federal seats in NS to holding zero of them!

In 1974, 1997 and 2000 the federal NDP suffered heavy losses in BC because of the unpopularity of the BC NDP governments in those times.

The backlash against Mike Harris is widely seen as having contributed to the Liberals under Chretien sweeping Ontario in 1997 and 2000.

A backlash against Dalton McGuinty is seen as having cost the federal Liberals a lot of seats in Ontario in 2004 and 2006 and 2008 

True enough although in case of Nova Scotia, Liberals took a big hit in 1997 throughout Atlantic Canada so many blamed it on EI changes more than unpopular Liberal government.

For BC in 1993 and 2000, NDP performed badly coast to coast so while BC NDP probably did hurt federal counterparts, it wasn't as obvious, however the case in 1997 was somewhat stronger as NDP bombed in the four largest provinces (hadn't ever done well in Quebec or Alberta at the point, while bad memories of Rae still persisted in Ontario), but they did okay in the smaller provinces.

Mike Harris was hard to say as while unpopular, Ontario had a perfect split on the right whereas provinces west of it saw most of the right wing vote go to Reform/Alliance, and provinces of east of it mostly to PCs so many blamed vote splitting on right more for Liberal dominance as after all nearly 4 in 10 voted for a party on the right, but unlike other provinces, it was pretty much split down the middle.

McGuinty may have had a negative impact, but in all three cases Liberals did better in Ontario than they did nationally despite losing seats so some chalked it up to national swings.

So I agree Ford will hurt Scheer, but it depends on how blatantly obvious it is with the results.  If you see a swing towards Tories in Ontario, but just weaker than elsewhere, people will be able to claim reasons.  But if Tories make sizeable gains in every other province, but lose ground in Ontario than it will be more obvious.

[mileslunn]

If the federal Tories have a really disappointing performance in Ontario and its interpreted as being largely due to a backlash against Doug Ford - it will not in and of itself cause a revolt against his leadership. First of all there really is no mechanism for the Ontario PCs to ditch him while he is premier. The only way would be if the entire cabinet resigned and threatened to vote non-confidence in him and force a snap election...very unlikely.

Now if the Tories not only do badly in the federal election but they also continue to poll very badly and maybe get crushed in some byelections - it will cause more and more discontent - and if Doug Ford was a more conventional politician with some loyalty to his party - he might take a walk in the snow and resign so his party has a better chance of winning in 2022 under a new leader. But Ford is none of those things. he is like Trump in that he doesnt give a damn about his party - its all about him. If he can't be leader than he really doesnt care about whether the next Premier is some PC hack or Andrea Horwath!

I predict that no matter how much unrest there is - Ford would act like Greg Selinger and dig in his heels and absolutely refuse to go and would insist on leading the Tories in 2022 - damn the torpedoes.

Unless Scheer resigns as Ford with his big ego I could see running federally.  The guy really has no sense of reality and in fact while the boos at the Raptors victory parade were not a shock to most, they were to him suggesting he was disconnected how unpopular.

Nonetheless you are right, despite unpopularity, often leaders stay on.  It was pretty obvious with both Wynne and Selinger they were going to lose, yet both insisted on staying on so lots of leaders out there don't know when to quit.  Heck even with Harper it was pretty clear he was not going to win a majority in 2015 and that if he fell short of a majority, the Liberals and NDP would gang up to defeat him on the throne speech, but he still stayed on thinking he could somehow pull off a majority or the supply and confidence between NDP and Liberals would never materialize.

[mileslunn]

Ford he would have to be even more delusional than rumoured to think he could ever be federal Tory leader. If Scheer loses it will be largely because of Ford's extreme unpopularity in Ontario - so how much of a death wish would federal Tories have to be to pick as their federal leader the man whose incompetence and unpopularity were singularly responsible for them losing the election...Even if Ford were popular - the fact he is the guys speaks ZERO French and Quebec ridings get a weighted 24% of the vote in a CPC leadership contest.

He wouldn't win, but he is so delusional he may believe he can.

[mileslunn]

If Bernier were included, the question is who would it benefit and who would it harm.  I think it could go two ways:

1.  Bernier performs well and eats into Conservative vote thus creating vote splits to help the Liberals win

2.  Bernier looks like a total nutcase making Scheer appear quite moderate thus Liberal attacks that Scheer is too extreme ring hollow and Scheer is able to win over some of the Blue Liberal/Red Tory voters who are upset with Trudeau but weary of Scheer.

So really it could benefit or hurt either of the two main parties.  He is not a greater debater in English, but he doesn't come across as crazy.  However if you check the twitter feeds of most of his candidates, his party is full of pretty much every right wing nutbar you can fine.  Part of that could be vetting as party doesn't have the tools to vet as well, but also his dog whistles do seem to appeal to that demographic.  In addition perhaps the fact his party has zero chance at winning, candidates are less restrained whereas with more serious parties, candidates know a dumb comment on twitter can hurt them and party nationally so they don't put out whatever comes to their mind.

[mileslunn]

It seems in the possibility of winning seats, the plural is important. I don't know if the criteria is two or it's more.

The commission has consulted available opinion polls, riding projection sites and independent pollsters. None of these sources project, at this time, that the People's Party of Canada has a legitimate chance to elect more than one candidate," Johnston said.

Johnston said the decision to exclude Bernier could be reversed if the party submits a list of three to five ridings where the party believes it is most likely to elect a candidate — and then, Johnston said, the debate commission would conduct independent polling of its own in those ridings to verify that Bernier's chosen candidate has a reasonable chance of winning that seat.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/leaders-debate-commission-maxime-bernier-out-1.5244287

This is absolutely ridiculous to me. Most of these sites rely on past election results to do their projections. How can they be of any use in the case for a new party? I suppose they can pull numbers out of their a**es to boost candidate numbers for people like Renata Ford or Steven Fletcher, or they might try to some regression analysis based on demographics, but I doubt any of them are doing that.

Very few sites seem to have beauce as competitive, but lots have it one way or the other, so they really are just making it up.

Mainstreet research showed PPC and CPC tied in Beauce, but with riding polls not having a great track record, tough to know.  Beyond that one, I don't expect them to win elsewhere.  Cornelius Chisu was an unknown backbencher so don't expect him to have any impact and Gurmant Grewal was over a decade ago and riding has changed a lot since so doubt he will have much impact either.  Steven Fletcher won't win, but he may create strong enough splits to allow the Liberals to hold the riding as right now I have that one leaning Tory, but local factor could save Liberals.  For Renata Ford, she will probably have one of the better showings, but considering how poorly the Tories normally do here, I expect Kirsty Duncan to hold the riding without too much difficulty.

[mileslunn]

Nonetheless you are right, despite unpopularity, often leaders stay on.  It was pretty obvious with both Wynne and Selinger they were going to lose, yet both insisted on staying on so lots of leaders out there don't know when to quit.  Heck even with Harper it was pretty clear he was not going to win a majority in 2015 and that if he fell short of a majority, the Liberals and NDP would gang up to defeat him on the throne speech, but he still stayed on thinking he could somehow pull off a majority or the supply and confidence between NDP and Liberals would never materialize.

I actually don't know how clear it was to Harper--I think the federal Cons were counting on the added seats through redistribution, a massive fundraising advantage, the Liberals as a depleted third party force under a lightweight leader and the NDP being the NDP.  And, maybe, the extended writ period as an opportunity to wear the opposition down, so to speak.  They really thought they could "fix" the election to their advantage...

Could be quite right, but it was obvious to me even with those there was no path to a majority for the Tories.  I still saw a minority as feasible, but I know if that happened NDP and Liberals would gang up on throne speech to vote him out just as you saw in BC.

[mileslunn]

Nonetheless you are right, despite unpopularity, often leaders stay on.  It was pretty obvious with both Wynne and Selinger they were going to lose, yet both insisted on staying on so lots of leaders out there don't know when to quit.  Heck even with Harper it was pretty clear he was not going to win a majority in 2015 and that if he fell short of a majority, the Liberals and NDP would gang up to defeat him on the throne speech, but he still stayed on thinking he could somehow pull off a majority or the supply and confidence between NDP and Liberals would never materialize.

I actually don't know how clear it was to Harper--I think the federal Cons were counting on the added seats through redistribution, a massive fundraising advantage, the Liberals as a depleted third party force under a lightweight leader and the NDP being the NDP.  And, maybe, the extended writ period as an opportunity to wear the opposition down, so to speak.  They really thought they could "fix" the election to their advantage...

Could be quite right, but it was obvious to me even with those there was no path to a majority for the Tories.  I still saw a minority as feasible, but I know if that happened NDP and Liberals would gang up on throne speech to vote him out just as you saw in BC.

What would have happened if NDP and Liberals won same amount of seats in 2015?
Or one party won more voters but won less seats?

Probably another election or perhaps who won more votes.

[mileslunn]

Jagmeet Singh has a better chance of being the next PM than Bernier does of losing Beauce.

I am not so sure, Bernier has some popularity, but more vote on party than individual candidate.  Never mind Beauce has more dairy farmers than any other riding so his stance on supply management won't help, whereas in past he keep quiet on that as he was a cabinet minister and had to support party policy on that.

[mileslunn]

Victoria did though vote Liberals back in the 90s so while I am skeptical about Liberal chances here, this is really one of those promiscous progressive ridings where overwhelming majority are on political left, but they are willing to shop around.  Interestingly enough until the 70s, this used to be a strong Social Credit and PC riding, but since then has swung to the left.  I am guessing it was more your older high class expat Brit types, whereas nowadays more a mix of a government town and a lot of small businesses in areas that generally lean progressive.

[mileslunn]

Surprised the Greens aren't way out ahead. On paper, should be an easy pickup. I mean, they have the Greens losing support! I guess this is due to Liberal voters coming home due to not voting for their resigned candidate in 2015.

The Green Party mayor of Victoria Lisa Helps isn't all that popular (only reelected with all 43.1% of the vote despite not having a high profile challenger.)  So, maybe she doesn't helps.

Wasn't she the one who wanted to remove the John A. Macdonald statue?  That got quite a backlash and while many were on the right, I've heard lots of other negatives about her so that kind of makes sense as on paper I think this would be one of the top targets for Greens and still is, but could be a liability rather than asset.

[mileslunn]

https://twitter.com/CochraneCBC/status/1163602982828728320

Still lots of time although I don't think this will necessary be a CPC pickup.  Possible but I would still give the Liberals a slight edge here.

[mileslunn]

A few updates on polls and so far it seems any impact for ethics commissioner report has not materialized at least not yet and may not at all.  Numbers still a bit over the place, but some interesting pictures emerge.

Advanced Symbolics which tries to use AI to predict results (I am bit skeptical of this, but only NDP numbers seem high, others seem about right) has Liberals 147 seats, Conservatives 139 seats, NDP 31 seats, BQ 17 seats, Green party 3 seats, PPC 1 seat.

Ekos tweeted that both parties tied at 34%, but in Ontario and Quebec large lead with it being in Quebec LPC 34%, CPC and BQ tied at 21%, NDP at 11%, GPC 10%, PPC 0.8% (wow his home province doesn't like him, but only 159 so MOE is 8.22% which is sizeable.  In Ontario big Liberal lead of LPC 43%, CPC 30%, GPC 14%, NDP 9%, PPC 3%, but sample of 301 so margin of error smaller here.

Nanos publicly shows on party power both Liberals and Tories falling but Tories falling a bit more while on best PM, Trudeau level at 31%, but Scheer falling from 25% to 23% (note this is publicly available, for raw data have to subscribe, but still these can be good lead indicators).  This is a four week rolling average and only last three days included bombshell, but little sign of it having an impact.

Ipsos has a tight race of 35% CPC, 33% LPC, 18% NDP, but unlike Ekos, CPC is 3 points ahead in Ontario, but LPC 19 points ahead in Quebec and 4 points ahead in BC.  I tend to think Liberals are ahead in Ontario but admittedly until we get more polls post Labour day tough to know just how big the lead is.  Seems everytime Ford is in the news, it hurts CPC, while when he falls off the news they rebound a bit, but still weaker than back in March.

[mileslunn]

Tories just landed a star candidate.  Former gold medal olympic synchronized swimmer Sylvie Frechette plans to run under the Tory banner in Riviere du Nord.  While a big catch, this is not exactly friendly Tory turf.  It did go CAQ provincially, but unless there a blue wave in Quebec, doubt she will win it.  Still attracting high profile names does look good in terms of it shows some think the Tories have a chance.

[mileslunn]

Nanos is out and some interesting results, particularly Ontario and PPC #'s so for subscribers worth checking out.  Power party index and best PM are still publicly available and both show a slight tightening but well within margin of error.  On vote consider, both Tories and Liberals are on lower end of the 12 month high and 12 month low and ditto NDP, while only Green going up here.

Innovative Research has an interesting report out and shows except Greens and Elizabeth May, all three main leaders have negative approval ratings and each of the three main parties have negative ratings.  While all within margin of error, Scheer is least negative, followed closely by Singh, and then Trudeau but range is -12 to -15.  On Parties Tories do worse, NDP best but all fall in the -9 to -15 range so quite close.  PPC does the worst, but so no surprise.

[mileslunn]

Abacus has a poll with 4,500 respondents.

Conservative 34
Liberal 33
NDP 17
Green 9
Bloc 4
People's 3

https://abacusdata.ca/a-tale-of-two-or-more-races/

Ontario Lib 37 CPC 33 NDP 19
Quebec Lib 35 CPC 23 BQ 18 NDP 12
BC CPC 31 Lib 29 NDP 22 Green 14  

On twitter there is data for Ontario subregions

Toronto: LPC 44 CPC 29 NDP 15
GTHA postal code L : LPC 37 CPC 35 NDP 19
East: LPC 41 CPC 24 NDP 21
SW: LPC 29, CPC 40 NDP 17
North (sample of 64): LPC 33 CPC 23 NDP 24 Green 17  

Why is Green only mentioned for the North?
Anyway, I think Angus will lose his seat to the Liberal candidate (same goes for Hughes in AMK).

Because when I tries to copy the image from twitter it seemed big on the post. I was afraid it would cause trouble in format for some. So I decided to enter the numbers myself and was lazy, wanted to save some transcript by skipping the Green since it was around 10% everywhere but the North. I will edit and put the Green numbers in my original post. I will try to include the original twitter post here: (I'll remove it if it causes formatting trouble for people)

Toronto #'s no surprise and with those would probably be hard pressed to win a single seat, but might be competitive in a few in the suburbs.  905 belt numbers suggest a close race there with narrow advantage Liberal, but campaign matters.  I have a tough time believing Tories are only at 24% in Eastern Ontario.  Maybe in Ottawa, but Eastern Ontario includes a lot of the most conservative ridings in the province, many where Tories regularly top 50% or even 60%.  Southwestern Ontario sounds about right while Northern Ontario too small to say much.  I think Charlie Angus as a possible successor will hold his seat as in Northern seats local candidate plays a much bigger role.

Provincially its why Thunder Bay ridings were close even though with a generic Liberal I suspect NDP would have taken both in a landslide.  Likewise its why the PCs picked up Kenora-Rainy River which I think would have gone NDP with a generic candidate and why Nipissing usually goes Liberal federally even in bad electiosn and PCs provincially even in bad.

[mileslunn]

Dissolution tomorrow.

Which of the big parties is likely to end up with the most seats?

Probably the Liberals.

Would agree, due to voter efficiency, Tories need about a 2-3 point lead to win more seats as they are piling up the margins in Alberta and Saskatchewan.  Tories could win most seats, but right now my money is on the Liberals and I say that as someone who badly wants Trudeau to lose, but I still think he is favoured to get back in.

[mileslunn]

Bernier will be in the official debates.

Wonder what seat(s) besides Beauce they thought the PPC had a reasonable chance of winning.

No idea, but even Beauce I doubt they will win.

As per impact, could hurt the Tories but most on right hate Trudeau with a passion and will vote for whomever is most likely to defeat him so impact at most minor.  Also it will make Scheer look moderate when compared to Bernier although I suspect by that point in the campaign opinions will be pretty baked in.  French debate probably more likely to have impact as Quebec is known for large late swings whereas other provinces much less so.

[mileslunn]

Bernier will be in the official debates.

Wonder what seat(s) besides Beauce they thought the PPC had a reasonable chance of winning.

No idea, but even Beauce I doubt they will win.

As per impact, could hurt the Tories but most on right hate Trudeau with a passion and will vote for whomever is most likely to defeat him so impact at most minor.  Also it will make Scheer look moderate when compared to Bernier although I suspect by that point in the campaign opinions will be pretty baked in.  French debate probably more likely to have impact as Quebec is known for large late swings whereas other provinces much less so.

I wrote the report to the Debate commission on behalf of EKOS, providing our two cents based on the polling we did for them. All the data is on their site, but the top two ridings were Nipissing-Timiskaming and Etobicoke North.

Amusing that Andrew Scheer is blasting us as a "Liberal" polling firm, but I certainly am no Liberal!

Not surprised about Etobicoke North, but why Nipissing-Timiskaming?  Is the PPC candidate some well known person there?