Canadian federal election - 2015

[EPG]

STV gives the people exactly what they want, which may or may not be what political scientists, and people who see politics ideologically, think they should get.

[EPG]

The Lib Dems are a particularly poor case because their appeal as a centre party under FPTP rests on winning each of the other parties' voters in different kinds of constituency, they have no broad social base that they can reward with targeted measures and that will continue to back them with money or votes like trade unions, businesses, immigrants, pensioners, etc., and targetting narrow social bases, like liberal parties in Europe do, can't work under FPTP; it is hard to reward your voters when it is unclear what they want from you and when you won many of them on a permanently-oppositional basis.

In a sense, coalition is a commitment mechanism to bolster low-trust minority governments. I don't trust you to keep supporting my big party, or to take account of my small party's interests, so everyone chooses their own ministers to run some departments and everyone loses out if the plan fails.

The NDP could do OK as a coalition party or minority supporter if they keep labour on board (and govern well).

[EPG]

LOL. Yes, let us say that from now on Europe is defined by PR electoral systems, and Britain and France are an off-shore entente atlantique.

[EPG]

What seats do you think will go against the general trend next election?

E.g. The Tories lost Saanich-Gulf Islands despite making gains in 2011.

Louis Saint Laurent is the only one that comes to mind.

There was chat about Mount Royal, wasn't there? Will that effort come to fruition?

[EPG]

- Speaking of Uppal's successor riding, the NDP will be acclaiming semi-retired researcher Annie McKitrick in Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan, AB. All of the other parties have already nominated their candidates. The Tories chose Garnett Genuis, who ran in Sherwood Park for the Wildrose Party in 2011. (His name is familiar, apparently he went to Carleton at the same time I did, and is my age.. and we have 14 mutual friends on Facebook...)

He does have a memorable name. I am quite sure I have met a Carleton man by this name in Europe.

[EPG]

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This is a totally useless piece of information, and, frankly, journalistically embarrassing. Who performed the survey? Who paid for it? Which ridings are we talking about?

In the US papers like the New York Times actually have rules about restricting the use of anonymous sources to cases where it is in the public interest; you can't just randomly push someone's internal poll without attribution. I wish Canadian papers were responsible enough to follow.

This is only really a U.S. rule of journalism. Outside the States, there are no cavils about using anonymous sources, no intricate hierarchies of source descriptions, etc. It's not at all obvious that the U.S. way is better.