Canadian by-elections, 2017 (next event: Calgary-Lougheed, AB prov.: Dec 14)

[mileslunn]

Conservatives elected another dumbass:

Lloyd has a history of posting controversial views in social media, easily retained the Edmonton riding of Sturgeon River-Parkland with 77 per cent of the vote.

Among other things, Lloyd has referred to women's advocates as "Feminazis" and started a Facebook campaign to create a Canadian chapter of the National Rifle Association.

That said, since this isn't actually an 'Edmonton riding' it's possible the rest of the article is wrong.

Definitely the party will want to have stronger and more moderate candidates going into 2019 or they will provide lots of fodder for the Liberals if they have too many like him.  Every party has its kooky candidates, but the Tories have fair or not a bad reputation of being too right wing and they need to shed this if they ever want to return to power.

As for Edmonton, it is in the Capital region, but not part of the city of Edmonton.  While largely rural it does include several bedroom communities so its kind of like Airdire or Okotoks is to Calgary, Abbotsford to Vancouver, or Bowmanville to Toronto.  Still technically within the Metro area and commuting region but not the actual city.  Certainly the capital region surrounding Edmonton tends to vote much more heavily Conservative than the actual city itself.

[mileslunn]

Conservatives elected another dumbass:

Lloyd has a history of posting controversial views in social media, easily retained the Edmonton riding of Sturgeon River-Parkland with 77 per cent of the vote.

Among other things, Lloyd has referred to women's advocates as "Feminazis" and started a Facebook campaign to create a Canadian chapter of the National Rifle Association.

That said, since this isn't actually an 'Edmonton riding' it's possible the rest of the article is wrong.

Definitely the party will want to have stronger and more moderate candidates going into 2019 or they will provide lots of fodder for the Liberals if they have too many like him.  Every party has its kooky candidates, but the Tories have fair or not a bad reputation of being too right wing and they need to shed this if they ever want to return to power.

As for Edmonton, it is in the Capital region, but not part of the city of Edmonton.  While largely rural it does include several bedroom communities so its kind of like Airdire or Okotoks is to Calgary, Abbotsford to Vancouver, or Bowmanville to Toronto.  Still technically within the Metro area and commuting region but not the actual city.  Certainly the capital region surrounding Edmonton tends to vote much more heavily Conservative than the actual city itself.

Yes, the Edmonton suburb/exurb of Stony Plain is in the riding, however most of the rest of it is rural. Provincially the NDP handily won the older and larger suburban Edmonton ridings of St Albert and Sherwood Park in 2015.

This new M.P isn't the first extreme right winger who has won for the Conservatives in byelections, as I'd argue both the replacements for Jason Kenney and Stephen Harper are also fringe.

Actually we've barely heard from either of those two so I suspect if as extreme as he seem he will be confined to the backbenches.  Interestingly enough under Harper not all the by-election ones were extreme.  In his last term you had Erin O'Toole who is fairly moderate, Pat Perkins former mayor of Whitby, John Barlow who was the PC candidate in 2012 who lost to Danielle Smith, and Larry Maguire who was the PC candidate in the 1993 election.  Now you did have Joan Crockett in Calgary Centre who was a Wildroser and rather out there but she got turfed in 2015 mind you I doubt either of those three ridings will flip in 2019 considering their histories.  It does some Harper had a much stronger iron grip and did a better job of controlling the crazies.  Although I've found the better the Tories do the more moderate their caucus is as usually their urban MPs tend to be more moderate whereas the most extreme ones often come from the rural Prairies and to a lesser extent in rural Ontario and BC Interior/Fraser Valley, otherwise their strongholds.

[mileslunn]

And re byelection extremists, we can't forget the provincial case of Sam Oosterhoff in Ontario.

True enough, funny Brown has done a reasonably good job on forcing his caucus to vote moderately whether it be on the bubble law, the provincial version of M-103, condemning C-62 in Quebec.  Wonder how him and a few others like Rick Nichols and Randy Hillier are able to manage or has he read them the riot act.  Mind you it was funny when Harper brought in the motion to declare Quebec a nation within a united Canada watching many ex Reformers who long enjoyed bashing Quebec voting for it.

[mileslunn]

I tried doing a uniform swing on the by-elections using Sturgeon River-Parkland for English Canada results and Lac Saint Jean for Quebec and I get the following

Liberals 182 seats (29 in Atlantic Canada, 77 seats in Quebec, 56 seats in Ontario, 6 seats in Sask/Manitoba, 0 seats in Alberta, 11 seats in BC, and all three territories)

Conservatives 136 seats (3 seats in Atlantic Canada, 1 seat in Quebec (Maxime Bernier's), 58 seats in Ontario, 21 seats in Sask/Manitoba, 33 seats in Alberta, 20 seats in BC)

NDP 19 seats (None east of the Ottawa River, 7 seats in Ontario, Niki Ashton in Manitoba, 1 seat in Alberta, and 10 seats in BC)

Green Party 1 seat

Actually if you look at Eric Grenier's numbers not too far off although he doesn't have the Liberals quite as high as in Quebec a uniform swing would put them at 56% of the popular vote which no poll does and the Tories at only 9% which only Nanos shows them that low and NDP at 8% which no poll puts them at.

I do think though the Liberals will be hard pressed to hold all the seats they have in English Canada, so making gains in Quebec could easily cancel out any losses elsewhere and also makes it very likely they will win at least a plurality if not a majority.  The Tories realistically either need to get over 170 seats of have Tories + BQ + Independents over 170 seats as I suspect if the Liberals + NDP + Greens exceeds 170 seats they would gang up to defeat the Tories on a throne speech thus unless things change dramatically Scheer becoming prime-minister in 2019 seems very unlikely.  Mind you people said that about Donald Trump who won and Jeremy Corbyn who almost won so surprises can and do happen.

[mileslunn]

If the NDP under Jagmeet Singh is reduced to 19 seats, that'll be one heck of a bomb.

True, although looking at the history of the party, 30 seats seems to the average and asides from 2011, the 44 seats they got in 2015 is their second best showing beating Ed Broadbent's 1988 record of 43 seats.  I think a lot in the NDP still fantasize about forming government when in reality much of their contributions has come from holding the balance of power in Liberal minority governments.  Universal health care and pensions were all things that came under a Liberal minority with the NDP holding the balance of power so realistically the best for them regardless of seats is the Liberals get reduced to a minority and they hold the balance of power.  Also even a Tory minority provided the Liberals + NDP + Greens exceeds 170 seats could be good for them as I suspect those three parties would work together to keep the Tories out and prop up the Liberals.

[mileslunn]

If you did a "uniform swing" based on the Outremont byelection of 2007 the NDP would have won a majority government in 2008 so what's the point of this exercise?

True enough, but still interesting also I usually try to take the average of by-elections than one on its own.  Perhaps the next round which will be four to five will be a better.

[mileslunn]

Calgary-Lougheed MLA Dave Rodney is resigning his seat Nov. 1 to allow Kenney to get into the legislature.

Is he quitting politics or is this one of those "get your seat back next election" deals?

I wouldn't be surprised if Dave Rodney tries to make a comeback while I could see Kenney switching to one of the nearby seats although to be fair the PCs won most of the seats in his former federal riding, that is the most conservative part of the city and so it didn't go NDP like the rest and also backed Bill Smith as opposed to Nenshi for mayor.  Anyways seems like a fairly safe seat so I expect Kenney to win it quite handidly.  How he does in a general election is a different story and that you can see the discussion on the Alberta UCP leadership race.
Probably more a "you'll get a comfy paid position once we recover the power electors stole from us".

[mileslunn]

Charlottetown-Parkdale should likely favour the Liberals although if the NDP or Greens are hoping to pick up this seat this would seem like a good one.  PCs could win and certainly if they did that would be a very good sign although of recent they tend to be stronger in the rural ridings while struggle in Charlottetown.

[mileslunn]

With South Surrey-White Rock, tough to say but agree it would have gone Liberal in 2015 had Watts not been the candidate.  That being said if you look at national polls FWIW it shows things have tightened up in Atlantic Canada, Ontario, and Prairies, but BC is largely unchanged and Liberals have gone up in Quebec while Tories down a bit.  Atlantic Canada is more of a dead cat bounce as even with the Tories up almost 10%, they are still on track for their second worst showing in Atlantic Canada save 2015.  Quebec is probably more due to weakness of opposition as none of the opposition parties pose much challenge to the Trudeau Liberals.  For Ontario, I suspect the unpopularity if the Wynne government is why things are tighter and would not be surprised if the PCs win in Ontario in 2018, the Liberals rebound a bit federally.  Ontario often likes to vote opposites so if the PCs win next June that should be good news for the Liberals whereas if the Liberals get back in, then good news for the Tories.  In the Prairies the swing is modest but not surprising in Alberta Trudeau would be unpopular.  BC is always a wildcard and since the NDP provincially is still in its honeymoon phase for now that is probably why not much has changed.

Now if the NDP becomes less popular provincially and the Greens likely would too due to enabling them, then things could get more interesting.  This could help the Liberals as I suspect dissatisfied Green and NDP voters would be far more likely to switch to the Liberals than Conservatives.  But could help the Conservatives as some Blue Liberals might not like the idea of progressive governments at both levels.  The riding though is a fairly affluent one so perhaps Trudeau's tax changes could hurt him while changes to MSP Premiums might hurt  the NDP as likely it will mean higher taxes or a separate line item and a higher rate for most living in this riding.  If you compare to Ontario which has health premiums as part of the tax system, someone making 70K would pay more than BC while someone at 40K would pay less and in this riding you have more in the former than latter and the report is due on March 31, 2018 so not sure if by-election will be held before or after.  Also by-election turnouts tend to be lower and that is probably good for the Conservatives as their base is more motivated to show up and it means more older voters and fewer millennials which helps the Conservatives.

Of the other ones pending, Battlefords-Lloydminister and Bonavista-Burin-Trinity are safe seats and should not change.  With Battlefords-Lloydminster the only interesting question is who comes in second as that might be a hint at which party can challenge the Conservatives most in Saskatoon and Regina.  For Bonavista-Burin-Trinity, it will be more than numbers that are interesting.  The Liberals got 80% in 2015 and Tories only 12% so does it remain this wide or tighten and by how much as that might be a hint at how many seats the Tories could pick up in Atlantic Canada next time, otherwise are traditional Tory seats that went Liberal like Tobique-Mactquac, Fundy-Royal, and New Brunswick Southwest vulnerable or could the Liberals still hold those.

Scarborough-Agincourt leans Liberal and with Arnold Chan's wife running that should help.  Nonetheless if the Liberals lose this or win by less than 5%, this could signal much of the 905 belt would swing back to the Conservatives as this is a 416 suburb so leans Liberal but with a strong conservative base and usually conservative support is slightly weaker than in the neighbouring 905 ridings.

EDIT: Trudeau has called these for December 11th so doubt from the NDP government in BC will have too much impact.  Never mind South Surrey-White Rock is a weak NDP riding anyways.

[mileslunn]

Denis Lemieux from Chicoutimi-Le Fjord is resigning so sometime in the new year a by-election here.  As long as the Liberals maintain their polling numbers in Quebec, suspect they will hold this, but Quebec is known to switch on the dime so if poll numbers change dramatically then you could get an upset.

[mileslunn]

I think two big takeaways are this.

1.  Conservatives have gone up in vote in share in 9 of the 12 while Liberals down in 9 of 12 but Tories going up in the all the wrong places and Liberals in all the right places i.e. in swing ridings while Tories going up in either ones they have no hope at winning or just running the table in already safe ones.

2.  Left is united behind the Liberals with NDP not doing well.  It's very difficult for the Tories to win without a strong NDP to split some votes so it seems Trudeau's strategy of tacking leftward is a smart one as while he might push some Blue Liberals over to the Tories, this will be easily cancelled out by gains from progressive centre-left voters.

[mileslunn]

None of those seats are NDP targets. Don't buy into the pundit narrative that the NDP is dead because it did terrible in a bunch of seats they didn't really bother to campaign in.

One very important thing to realize when it comes to by-elections (and this should be evident to anyone who has followed more than a half dozen over the years) is that typically voters treat them differently than general elections, in that they often become strict two-party races compared to how they would vote in a general election. Whether this is because would-be third party voters are staying home or voting strategically is up for debate, but the evidence is clear. Even though there is no difference between a by-election and a general election in terms of how our voting system works, voters psychological inclinations are different. In a general election, voters will often vote for their preferred party rather than candidate, while in a by-election it is more about the local race.

You needn't go any further than the Vaughan 2010 by-election to see what I mean. The NDP won just 1.7% of the vote; 5 months later they went back up to 12% in the riding, and we all know how well they did across the country in the 2011 election. Their pitiful result was not a harbinger for the future.

The next true test for the NDP will be in Outremont. Conventional wisdom suggests the Liberals will get it back, but tell that to Denis Coderre. The Montreal mayoral race was a good NDP-Liberal proxy race, and Plante won Outrement, so, I wouldn't count the NDP out there quite yet.

Good point and it does seem that way also for the Conservatives.  While under Harper's majority they generally lost ground in all by-elections, while he had a minority they gained in pretty much every riding they came in first or second in, but generally lost votes in ones they came in third in and were non-competitive.  Interesting if we see this provincially although in the case of Calgary-Lougheed with Alberta Liberal leader David Khan running I suspect he will do better than they have in recent years, but still finish well back.  It will be interesting whether it damages the NDP or UCP more there.  Also in BC, it will be interesting to see how the Green Party does in Kelowna West as using your argument they should decline although since the BC Liberals are likely to get over 50% won't be enough for the NDP to pick it up, but perhaps increase their vote share.  The only way the NDP could ever win this is if there was no Greens and the BC Conservatives were really strong and split the right wing vote perfectly evenly which won't happen anytime soon.

[mileslunn]

Not often you see two party leaders going head to head in a riding, even if one of them is DOA.

It reeks of desperation from the Liberals.  This kind of thing happens all the time actually, but almost exclusively by fringe parties.

Liberals trying to stay relevant although ironically the Alberta Party is not running a candidate.  Essentially the Liberals and Alberta Party are fighting over those who find the UCP too right wing but NDP too left wing.  Otherwise NDP voters with buyer's remorse and Red Tories from the PCs essentially.  I think if the Liberals emerge as the centrist alternative it will hurt NDP more than UCP as many provincial Dippers are federal Liberals (note NDP is struggling to hit 10% in Alberta federally while NDP provincially is around 30% whereas federally Liberals around 20-25% and provincially single digits so most Alberta progressives are NDP provincially, Liberal federally) whereas most PCs don't like Trudeau so being associated with him will make them less likely to vote Liberal.  By contrast if the Alberta Party emerges as the centrist option it should hurt the UCP more than NDP as many Red Tories from the PCs would be willing to vote for them.

[mileslunn]

Advanced polls are now in and Kenney is winning massively beyond what we would expect although I suspect probably a higher percentage who voted here were seniors so should tighten a bit once the regular polls come in.  Though 77.54% is not too far off what Harper got here in 2011 mind you the federal Tories usually do better than their provincial counterparts.  Albertans tend to get more right wing the less local the government so most conservative at the federal level, somewhere in between provincially while most progressive at municipal level.



77.54%      UCP
7.64%        Liberals
13.10%       NDP

[mileslunn]

Only seven polls out of 22 in, but based on the lead I think we can call this already for Jason Kenney.  I expected him to win easily, but if these results hold up it will be a bigger win than I thought.

[mileslunn]

CBC decision desk has now called it for Kenney.  Only interesting thing will be to see the final numbers, but looks like a yuge win for Kenney.

[mileslunn]

Final results as follows

UCP  71.51%
NDP  16.79%
Liberals 9.30%
Reform Party 1.26%
Green Party 0.55%
Leslie Wayne Ind. 0.39%
Larry Heather Ind. 0.20%

So a massive win for Kenney.  This is almost 9 points above the combined PC + WRP vote in 2015 although ironically very close for all three main parties to what they got in the federal election in 2011 in Harper's riding of Calgary Southwest which includes Calgary-Lougheed and other areas.  Total votes cast was 10,852 while in 2015 it was 16,974 so not a bad turnout for a by-election although I kind of suspect low turnout helped Kenney as generally those mad at the government are more motivated to show up.

Still a good showing for the UCP and if those numbers hold into 2019 (which is no guarantee) they should win easily.  Not a good night for the NDP, but this was not a riding they were ever going to win anyways, but if they are to win in 2019, they will need to do better than what they did here.  But at least they have time in that the next election is about 17 months away.

[mileslunn]

Outremont: potential candidates include a Mulcair staffer for the NDP, 2015 candidate Rachel Bendayan for the Grits. Justin will presumably want a high-profile person in this seat (as usual, I pity the locals in that riding) Mulcair's resignation might not take effect till September.

Might be a three peat for the Liberals as this was traditionally a Liberal stronghold so I would put money on them retaking it.  That being said it is an urban multicultural riding so unlike the regions of Quebec where the NDP is probably dead in the water, they still might be competitive here.  BQ and Tories are not likely to be a factor and both will just be happy to get their deposits back.

Chicoutimi-Le Fjord should probably stay Liberal although not a Liberal stronghold by any means but none of the other three parties are in a strong enough position at the moment to snatch it although each of the other three could win it under the right conditions, but those don't exist at the moment.

Another by-election was hasn't been called but will have to be soon is Kelowna West in BC, although this should largely be a snoozer as it is a very safe BC Liberal riding.