2022 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election

[Benjamin Frank]

Per wiki, a senior non profit international aid director and former lawyer named Grant Abraham has thrown his hat into the ring.  Abraham is a Canadian citizen but ran for the U.K Conservative Party in Northern Ireland in 2019.

His campaign website: https://www.canadaspromise.com/

Mentions opposing "globalism" in his announcement video, while his campaign bio boasts about the fact that he has spent most of his adult life working abroad, even running for office in another country. Interesting message there bud.

I forgot to mention: I don't know if Grant Abraham will end up making the ballot or not, but I guess it isn't over until the fat lady Abrahams. (sorry)

Or whatver my original line was. I don't pay attention to myself half the time either.

[Benjamin Frank]

Per wiki, 74 Conservative M.Ps have endorsed a candidate.  This excludes the 4 M.Ps who are running for the leadership.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorsements_for_the_2022_Conservative_Party_of_Canada_leadership_election

In addition to these 4 M.P leadership candidates , I know and/or assume these M.Ps can't endorse: the Interim Leader (Candice Bergen), the Deputy Leader (Luc Berthold), the Caucus Chair and the Chief Whip.  I presume Erin O'Toole will also not endorse anybody.

Does anybody know if any other M.Ps are not able to endorse a candidate, like the Deputy Caucus Chair or the Deputy Whip or any of the M.P provincial caucus chairs?

[Benjamin Frank]

Caucus endorsements are also worth keeping in mind. While some endorsements are personal or ideological, generally MPs like to endorse whoever they see as the most likely to win the leadership, in hopes of getting a nice position from the new leader. Poilievre is way ahead in caucus endorsements, and some of them seem strategic. For example, Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary-Forest Lawn) endorsed MacKay in 2020 and Pierre in 2022. You would think a Mackay supporter would prefer Charest, or for that matter, a Poilievre supporter would have supported O'Toole ("true blue" era O'Toole, at least). For Mr Hallan, a relatively new and young MP, I'm guessing his endorsement calculation is mainly about currying favours.

Per Wikipedia (not sure how up-to-date this data is), Poilievre has 54 caucus endorsers, Charest has 16, Lewis has 8. Brown? 4. Hell I'll name them because the list is so short: Muys, Rempel Garner, Seeback, Shipley.

Caucus members tend to have a better pulse on where the party is than outside observers, and if the endorsements are anything to go by, the CPC caucus is not feeling the incentive to go over to Brown.

Obviously not being a Conservative insider I don't know if that wiki page is complete, but I do know it's both regularly and recently updated. I think it would be ridiculous to say that 'Jean Charest is closing the gap' between himself and Polievre, but Charest has received 4 of the last seven endorsements with Polievre getting 2 more and Leslyn Lewis one.

It should also be noted that 83 M.Ps endorsing is even more than 83 out of 119 because the endorsements don't include the 3 current M.Ps running, and the interim leader and deputy leader aren't allowed to endorse anybody and I believe there are a few others not allowed to endorse especially the caucus chair and the chief whip.  Also, it's highly unlikely that Erin O'Toole will endorse anybody and it's unlikely any of the candidates would want his endorsement. There is one more as well who is not able to or is unlikely to endorse who I forget right now, maybe the House Leader.

I asked here before if the chairs of the provincial Federal Parliamentary caucuses were allowed to endorse and nobody replied, but, leaving them out, that adds up to 9 M.Ps who can't or won't endorse. So, thus far, 83 of the remaining 110 Conservative M.Ps have made an endorsement (which is roughly 75%)

[Benjamin Frank]

This is a surprise to me. Rob Moore endorses Dr Leslyn Lewis.
https://tj.news/telegraph-journal/101889033

Dr Lewis picks up two M.P endorsements in the last two days, with failed leadership contender B.C M.P Marc Dalton endorsing her yesterday.

[Benjamin Frank]

From Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorsements_for_the_2022_Conservative_Party_of_Canada_leadership_election

Polievre 57 M.P endorsements
Charest 16
Lewis 10
Brown 2
Aitchison 1
Total: 86

This does not include the 3 M.Ps running for leader.  So, that means 89 of the 119 Conservative M.P have either made an endorsement or are running. The remaining 30 M.Ps are:

1.Tako Van Popta, Langley-Aldergrove Endorsed Pierre Polievre
2.Laila Goodridge, Fort McMurray-Cold Lake
3.Rachel Thomas (nee Harder), Lethbridge
4.Blaine Calkins, Red Deer-Lacombe, Whip/ can not endorse
5.Earl Dreeshen, Red Deer-Mountain View Endorsed Pierre Polievre
6.Ziad Alboultaif, Edmonton-Manning Endorsed Pierre Polievre
7.Kelly McCauley, Edmonton West Endorsed Pierre Polievre
8.Mike Lake, Edmonton-Wetaskiwin
9.Greg McLean, Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan
10.Bob Benzen, Calgary-Heritage
11.Tom Kmiec, Calgary-Shephard
12.Gary Vidal, Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River
13.Randy Hoback, Prince Albert
14.Warren Steinley, Regina-Lewvan
15.Kevin Waugh, Saskatoon-Grasswood
16.Candice Bergen, Portage-Lisgar, Interim Leader/ can not endorse
17.Raquel Dancho, Kildonan-St. Paul
18.Shelby Kramp Neuman, Hastings-Lennox and Addington
19.Scott Reid, Lanark-Frontenac-Kingstong, Caucus Chair/ can not endorse
20.John Brassard, Barrie-Innisfil, House Leader/ can not endorse
21.Alex Ruff, Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound
22.Terry Dowdall, Simcoe-Grey
23.Tony Baldinelli, Niagara Falls
24.Ben Lobb, Huron-Bruce
25.Michael Chong, Wellington-Halton Hills
26.Lianne Rood, Lambton-Kent-Middlesex
27.Erin O'Toole, Durham
28.Jacques Gourde, Levis-Lotbiniere
29.Luc Berthold, Megantic-L'Erable, Deputy Leader/ can not endorse
30.Chris D'Entremont, West Nova, Deputy Speaker/ can not endorse

Update: Tako Van Popta has endorsed Pierre Polievre
Update: Ziad Alboultaif has endorsed Pierre Polievre
Update: Kelly McCauley has endorsed Pierre Polievre
Update: Earl Dreeshen has endorsed Pierre Polievre

[Benjamin Frank]

Stephen Harper has always been as sleazy as Pierre Polievre, it's just that Harper is more extreme in his rhetoric and policy proposals now that he is no longer Prime Minister.

Both of them are wholly owned by the fossil fuel sector.

[Benjamin Frank]

Stephen Harper has always been as sleazy as Pierre Polievre, it's just that Harper is more extreme in his rhetoric and policy proposals now that he is no longer Prime Minister.

Both of them are wholly owned by the fossil fuel sector.

People in the US tend to underestimate just how deeply captive to fossil fuel interests Canadian politics is. It's not as bad as, say, whaling in Japan where there's almost literally nobody in the country taking the position that the rest of the developed world thinks is the moral no-brainer, but you'd be surprised at what uncommon knowledge it is that the Tories are essentially a continuation of oil sands lobbying by other means and the Grits are only slightly if at all better.

Former Alberta provincial Liberal Party leader Kevin Taft wrote a book on this called "Oil’s Deep State: How the petroleum industry undermines democracy and stops action on global warming — in Alberta, and in Ottawa."  
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/insight/graham-thomson-oil-deep-state-controls-alberta-former-liberal-leader-kevin-tafts-new-book-says

This is similar to Australian economist Richard Denniss who has commented similarly on the coal and mining sector in Australia.  But, who has also added that, as in Canada -primarily in Alberta and Saskatchewan - the coal and mining sector actually employs no where near the number of workers that people think it does.

"According to the government’s own statistical agency, of the 12.9 million Australian workers in 2019 only 52,100 worked in coal mining with a further 28,100 employed in oil and gas extraction. When jobs in refining and energy supply are factored in, a generous estimate of employment in the fossil fuel industry is 133,100 people."

"Anyone providing such simple, truthful context to the Australian public is accused of hating working people, ignoring regional Australia, not understanding that fossil fuel exports somehow “fund” our way of life or – bizarrely, when coming from people with no training in economics – not understanding how the economy works. All of this messenger shooting is, of course, complete bullsh**t. But in a democracy, power is the ability to talk BS and get away with it. And no industry wields as much power in Australia as mining."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/23/stop-believing-in-fairy-tales-australias-coal-industry-doesnt-employ-many-people-or-pay-its-fair-share-of-tax

I argue as Richard Denniss does here, that this doesn't just occur with resource industries, but occurs anytime a society identifies itself with an industrial sector. For instance, in history, the United States Secretary of Defense under Eisenhower said  "because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa."

I think this was clearly the situation in the U.S South as well pre Civil War.  

The modern debate over the economics of slavery was kicked off with the 1974 publication of the book "Time on the Cross" written by left wing economic historian and Nobel Prize winner Robert William Fogel and Stanley Engerman who argued that slavery was very profitable.

Since that time, many economic historians have looked at their data and new data and have generally reached a consensus that 'slavery was indeed very profitable for the wealthy plantation owners, but it was at the expense of everybody else, including the non wealthy plantation owning whites (some of whom owned slaves themselves.)

First, the southern states mandated slave patrol duty for free whites. "And, in some states, there were actually taxes to finance the patrols. Hummel estimated the sum of enforcement costs brought his estimates to between $64 and $210 million. This represents at most a fifth of the southern economy in terms of inefficiency. This remains a conservative estimate as there was also a deadweight loss from forcibly reallocating non-slave labor towards patrolling which is hard to measure."

https://www.aier.org/article/slavery-did-not-make-america-richer/

Fee.org is not my favorite website, but the above article covered the 'deadweight loss' from slavery. This article describes the opportunity cost.

"Economic historians have repeatedly emphasized that slavery delayed Southern industrialization, giving the North a tremendous advantage in the Civil War."

https://fee.org/articles/no-slavery-did-not-make-america-rich/

A major reason for that, not mentioned in the article, is that few white Europeans immigrated to the Southern States, obviously realizing they could not compete for employment with the slaves.

So, why did so many Southern whites embrace slavery at the time, even though they were made poorer because of it and even though many Southern whites themselves did not even own slaves? I think there is no question that they had come to identify the south with slavery and with their way of life.  People are often irrational.

Finally, I don't think this is just a resource thing or an 'uneducated hick' thing at all.  I think it can also be easily argued that Californians identify themselves as a 'high tech' state in the same way as these other examples. The referendum in California on classifying Uber and other gig workers as contractors and not employees I think is an example of how Californians have been captured by 'big tech.'

[Benjamin Frank]

Conservatives finalize membership list.
https://www.conservative.ca/conservative-party-of-canada-finalizes-voter-list-for-2022-leadership-race/

[Benjamin Frank]

My final prediction (source: my hunch):

Poilievre: 58%
Charest: 21%
Lewis: 15%
Aitchison: 3%
Baber: 3%

Is that the point count or the raw vote?

I wouldn't be surprised if the raw vote was something like that, but with the point count closer.

Based on the point count, I'd go:

Polievre: 54%
Charest 30%
Lewis 12%
Aitchison 2%
Baber2%

[Benjamin Frank]

My final prediction (source: my hunch):

Poilievre: 58%
Charest: 21%
Lewis: 15%
Aitchison: 3%
Baber: 3%

Wow, you were way off!

[Benjamin Frank]

M.P ridings

Parry Sound–Muskoka
Scott AITCHISON 398 16.7%
Roman BABER 217 9.1
Jean CHAREST 168 7.1
Leslyn LEWIS 195 8.2
Pierre POILIEVRE 1,403 58.9  
1922                  

OUCH

Haldimand–Norfolk
Scott AITCHISON 19 0.8
Roman BABER 140 6.2
Jean CHAREST 110 4.9
Leslyn LEWIS 675 30.1
Pierre POILIEVRE 1,298 57.9  
2242

Ouch

[Benjamin Frank]

Non M.P ridings
York Centre
Scott AITCHISON 19 2.3%
Roman BABER 259 31.2
Jean CHAREST 82 9.9
Leslyn LEWIS 55 6.6  
Pierre POILIEVRE415 50.0
Votes: 830

OUCH

Sherbrooke
Scott AITCHISON 0 0.0%
Roman BABER 4 0.67
Jean CHAREST 304 51.1
Leslyn LEWIS 27 4.5
Pierre POILIEVRE260 43.7
595

Terrible turnout

The PDF goes from the riding of Cambridge on page 21 to the riding of Chatham-Kent-Leamington on page 22, so Polievre's riding of Carleton is missing!?!

Edit to add: for some reason it's on page 33 after the riding of Richmond Hill.

Carleton
Scott AITCHISON 60 1.6%
Roman BABER 108 2.8
Jean CHAREST 557 14.5
Leslyn LEWIS 222 5.8
Pierre POILIEVRE 2,897 75.4
3,844

Total votes: 417,635

That averages 1,236 votes per riding.

[Benjamin Frank]

Highest votes
1.Foothills: 5,062
2.Banff-Airdrie 4,523 (a bit odd since some of this riding the NDP has serious hopes of winning provincially)

Lowest votes
1.Nunavut: 38
2.Labrador: 133

[Benjamin Frank]

The PDF goes from the riding of Cambridge on page 21 to the riding of Chatham-Kent-Leamington on page 22, so Polievre's riding of Carleton is missing!?!

Edit to add: for some reason it's on page 33 after the riding of Richmond Hill.

By custom, Canadian ridings are sorted by their "number" and not A-Z. In most cases, the numbers match the alphabetical order, but if a riding name is changed after its number is set, it messes up the order a bit. Carleton was originally intended to be named "Rideau-Carleton", which alphabetically puts it after Richmond Hill. Later the Rideau was dropped, but the number was unchanged.

That may be the most obscure thing I know about Canadian politics. Man, I need to touch some grass 

Thanks! Rideau more like Ridumb!

My favorite joke that expresses my disdain for fantasy book series: Have you ever read Middle Earth is Dumb...ledore by J.K Tolkien?

I know I'm not funny.

[Benjamin Frank]

Let's see what else is here.  In each of the Brampton ridings turnout was under 1,000 votes, however there seems to be generally relatively low turnout in most ridings with large racialized populations.

Of course, in the political contest that most Canadians actually care about, Alberta NDP MLA Rod Loyola won renomination in Edmonton-Ellerslie.

https://twitter.com/MLAIrfanSabir/status/1568767292678504450
Loyola defeated two challengers including Judi Malone, the President of the Alberta Psychologists Association.

Loyola is something of a genuine socialist/communist, but as far as I can tell he's been a loyal and decent member of the Alberta NDP caucus.

[Benjamin Frank]

Back to our regularly scheduled posts:

Lowest and highest votes by province
Newfoundland and Labrador
Labrador: 133
Coast of Bays–Central–Notre Dame: 542

Prince Edward Island
Charlottetown: 361
Malpeque: 636

Nova Scotia
Cape Breton–Canso: 630
South Shore–St. Margarets: 1,033

New Brunswick
Madawaska–Restigouche: 324
Fundy Royal: 1,79

Quebec
Abitibi–Baie-James–Nunavik–Eeyou: 172
Pontiac: 1,183

Ontario
Humber River-Black Creek: 325 (AKA York West)
Carleton: 3,844

Manitoba
Churchill–Keewatinook Aski: 279
Provencher: 2,446

Saskatchewan
Desnethé–Missinippi–Churchill River: 765
Cypress Hills–Grasslands: 2,441

Alberta
Calgary Forest Lawn: 787
Foothills: 5,062

British Columbia
Vancouver Kingsway: 337
North Okanagan–Shuswap: 3,406 (North Okanagan is mostly Vernon)

[Benjamin Frank]

Over/under 1,000 votes
New Foundland and Labrador: 0/7
Prince Edward Island: 0/4
Nova Scotia 1/10 (I guess the fishers are still unhappy)
New Brunswick 3/7 (easy to guess which 3 ridings)
Quebec: 2/76
Ontario: 82/39
Manitoba: 9/5
Saskatchewan: 12/2
Alberta: 31/3
British Columbia: 27/15
Territories: 0/3
Total: 167/171

Interesting. The median riding turnout was right around 1,000 votes.

In the other Conservative held riding in New Brunswick, Mirmamichi-Grand Lake turnout was a relatively low 653, however it did go 82.1% for Pierre Polievre, so, he did his bit.

The other riding in Quebec with over 1,000 votes was oddly Lac-Saint-Louis with 1,049 votes. Polievre beat Charest 558-418.

The other riding in Saskatchewan with less than 1,000 votes was Saskatoon West with 954 votes.

The other ridings in Alberta with less than 1,000 votes were Calgary Skyview with 885 votes and  Edmonton Griesbach with 937 votes. Edmonton Strathcona had 1,150 votes with Polievre getting 68%

In the 15 Liberal held ridings in British Columbia the over/under was 4/11

[Benjamin Frank]

CNN -  BREAKING NEWS

Jean Charest has spoken to Donald Trump and is refusing to concede defeat.

(Just kidding)

[Benjamin Frank]

Does anyone have access to the raw vote totals as opposed to points?

It was posted.

Riding By Riding Results



https://cpc-leadership-2022.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/10200514/Results-by-Riding.pdf

If you're looking for the grand vote totals, if nobody else has done it in a few hours, I'll add it all up.

[Benjamin Frank]

Total votes and points:


Aitchison 4,947 votes (1.18%), 356.66 points (1.06%)
Baber 22,380 (5.36%), 1,696.76 (5.03%)
Charest 48,651 (11.65%), 5,421.62 (16.07%)
Lewis 46,374 (11.10%), 3,269.54 (9.69%)
Poilievre 295,283 (70.07%), 22,993.42 (68.15%)

To me anyway, Charest underperformed as badly as Charlie Angus did.

[Benjamin Frank]

Total votes and points:


Aitchison 4,947 votes (1.18%), 356.66 points (1.06%)
Baber 22,380 (5.36%), 1,696.76 (5.03%)
Charest 48,651 (11.65%), 5,421.62 (16.07%)
Lewis 46,374 (11.10%), 3,269.54 (9.69%)
Poilievre 295,283 (70.07%), 22,993.42 (68.15%)

To me anyway, Charest underperformed as badly as Charlie Angus did.

I think Charest performed as expected.  Party is a lot more conservative than one he led in 1997 and likewise its centre of power is in Prairies not Quebec so a Quebec Red Tory was always going to have a tough time winning.  Peter MacKay was probably only one from old PCs who maybe could pull off a win and fact he couldn't I think was sign anyone with PC roots at least if known (O'Toole comes from former PCs but most didn't know it at time) cannot win today's Conservative leadership.

Likewise anyone from Quebec needs to be a libertarian like such as Bernier or Duhaime.  A Mulroney or Legault type cannot win in present day party

For me, that would be easy to say in hindsight. I had thought the progressive conservatives were still about 1/3 of the party.

[Benjamin Frank]

Did anybody add up the vote totals by province?