Canadian federal election, 2009 - official thread

[mileslunn]

The NDP probably has the most to lose by going to an election now.  That being said I suspect some Liberals privately hope there isn't one.  The two parties were tied around Labour Day, but most recent polls showing the Tories pulling ahead and in fact they've even pulled ahead in Ontario.  This off course could be the backlash for an early election and I still think the Liberals could pull off a win, but it would be an uphill battle.

[mileslunn]

With the government looking to survive into the medium term I haven't been following candidates much, but I would like to point out that, as if this country's politics were insufficiently silly, the Liberal candidate for Okanagan Coquihalla is Ross Rebagliati, who you may recall banished all other news stories from the entire Canadian media for one week in 1998 when he won the first ever Olympic gold medal in snowboarding, was disqualified for testing positive for marijuana, and then had his medal restored when the IOC ruled that marijuana was not a performance-enhancing substance.

My question is why the heck did he choose to run in Okanagan-Coquihalla where the Liberals haven't got a chance at winning.  He is originally from Whistler, so I think West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country would have made more sense as riding to run in since although a challenge to win, at least it is winneable for the Liberals (they won it in 2006).

[mileslunn]

NDP is in danger of losing some of its Vancouver-area ridings, or maybe some in rural Ontario, like Thunder Bay-Rainy River. I think NDP will lose one or two to Liberal and PC each, and pick up a couple more, like Beaches-East York or maybe that riding in SK, Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, that they lost by one point because of gerrymandering.

I'm not going to speak for any riding in particular, but the Liberal party has been bleeding support in a lot of Northern Ontario communities as of late. Some places have been hard hit (Xstrata just laid off 700 workers here, and Timmins is good at surviving recessions), and the Liberals and Conservatives are getting the blame, and the flak for not caring, either. If the next election, Harper wins his little majority, Northern Ontario ridings won't be swinging Liberal, or Conservative. Conservative candidates are seen as too out-of-touch with Northern Ontario, they don't connect at all with Franco voters(the 2007 Conservative MPP candidate couldn't even speak French, in Timmins). The Liberals can, but connecting with voters isn't so much their problem as their general lack of caring.

Same for provincial -- McGuinty can probably say goodbye to some of his northern MPPs come next election.

I suspect the Tories will hold Parry Sound-Muskoka although its questionable whether it is even Northern Ontario or not.  Kenora will depend heavily on the turnout of the aboriginal vote as the Tories won pretty solidy in the southern sections of the riding but got clobbered outside that area.  Nipissing-Timiskaming should stay Liberal as Anthony Rota is pretty popular and besides if it didn't go Liberal, it would go Tory, not NDP.  In many ways it is too far north for the Tories to win but too far south for the NDP (at least in Rural Ontario, they can win in the large industrial centres in Southern Ontario like Hamilton and Windsor).

[mileslunn]

Timmins-James Bay is probably the safest of the NDP seats in Northern Ontario.  Generally the further North you go, the better the NDP does, while the Tories by contrast are strongest in the southern areas of Northern Ontario.  I am not sure what Charlie Angus' French is like, but considering he won the last two elections by large margins, I doubt it is too big of a liability for him.  In terms of the Provincial Liberals, the next election is still a year and a half so a lot can happen.  Never mind, I believe Mike Harris outside of Nipissing and Parry Sound-Muskoka was pretty hated elsewhere in Northern Ontario so they can always use the Harris bogeyman threat to scare people to vote Liberal to stop the Ontario PCs.  After all Tim Hudak, unlike John Tory is clearly a Harrisite and he certainly could win.  Off course whether the Ontario PCs win or not will depend a lot on how they do in the 905 (GTA suburbs), 519 (Southwestern Ontario), and 613 (Eastern Ontario), not the 416 (Toronto) and Northern Ontario which are largely irrelevant for the Ontario PCs much as they are federally.