Canadian by-elections, 2013

[DL]

Delacourt said on Twitter that Smitherman told her to watch HuffPo over the next 48 hours about his plans for TO Centre... could we see 2 big-name Grits duke it out?

Hmm...I wonder he would be coy and say to watch HuffPo if the story was going to be that he would NOT run? Then again the other candidate in the race right now is Todd Ross who used to be Smitherman's top aide...until they had some major falling out (seems like everyone who works with George ends up on his enemies list before long). Maybe Smitherman will announce he supports Freeland as a way of putting a bullet between the eyes of his one time close associate?

[DL]

Weird Star article about sharpening Tory knifes were Hudak to be swept. This time next week these people will be gushing, so meh.

It is weird given that its in the same paper that trumpets poll numbers pointing to a PC triumph in the by elections. The real story ought to be what happens to Kathleen Wynne if she gets shellacked in the by elections?

[DL]

I would agree that whatever chance there ever was of a Wynne-engineered fall election is now gone...its not inconceivable that both the PCs and NDP could detect blood in the water and bring down the government in the fall - though i think the NDP is more likely to make more demands and bide their time.

[DL]

At some there will have to be an election and whenever that comes - a Hudak will be a possibility. Maybe the Ontario liberals are just such a damaged brand that they should just not bother contesting the next election and instead let the NDP under Horwath act as a bulwark against Hudakism

[DL]

A strong showing by Giambrone actually HELPS the Liberals in Scarborough-Guildwood, he siphons off anti-government votes that would otherwise go PC.

[DL]

Regrading Bourassa - fwiw, the riding is about 15% Haitian - just about the most Haitian riding in Canada - but that still leaves 85% of the riding that is NOT Haitian. If the Greens run Laraque (Haitian descent) and the Liberals run an MNA from a nearby riding who is also Haitian - all things being equal maybe the NDP is better off being just about the only party running a non-Haitian candidate (ie: Julie Demers)...she might also have a better chance of attracting what's left of the BQ vote there.

[DL]

Maybe the NDP will run Michaelle Jean!

[DL]

"well known former journalist" John Deverell will be the Green candidate in Toronto Centre. Never heard of him. Apparently he's a former Liberal.

I love these "well-known" people no one has ever heard of!

[DL]

Georges Laraque was forced to quit as the Green Party candidate in Bourassa after it was revealed today that he has been charged with theft and fraud! Not sure what impact this has on the race and who it helps...I don't think it does the BQ any good.

[DL]

My thinking is the Liberals then NDP will benefit from this, but the Liberals will breath the biggest sigh of relief. Now Quebec might be the odd man out here, but it seems like the Greens and Liberals are the closets, all you have to do is look at how Buddie-buddie May is with the Liberals. But (someone can correct me here) polls have said for green voters their second choice is pretty evenly split but favour the Liberals slightly.

I have to disagree. There might be something to your theory if this was a by-election in English Canada but this is Bourassa and there is a totally different dynamic at play there:

1. The Green Party as an actual organism is literally non-existent in Quebec. They have NOTHING, NADA - virtually no members, no donors, no real "brand". The provincial Greens got about 1% of the vote last year and federally the Greens typically poll in low single digits in Quebec - often VERY LOW single digits. May has no personal following in Quebec - particularly since quite frankly - she speaks French like my ass chews gum!

2. As non-existent as the Green party is in Quebec - it gets worse in a very low income multicultural riding like Bourassa. To the extent that the Green party has any "strongholds" at all anywhere in Canada - it's usually in ridings that have a lot of upper middle class, university educated, creative class types, who are rich enough not to care about "economic growth" and who dutifully fill their composters with kitchen scraps every day - many of those people are disaffected Liberals as opposed to NDPers. Green support tends to be almost  non-existent among working class people. Notice that they do particularly badly in places like Winnipeg North or run-down parts of Scarborough etc... I guarantee that a no name Green candidate in Bourassa would be lucky to beat the Rhinoceros party and get over 1% of the vote

3. The Liberal-Green swing vote that is marginally extant in English Canada really doesn't exist in Quebec. In Quebec (esp. in Montreal) there is one "traditional axis" and that is the old federalist/PLQ/LPC vs. sovereignist/BQ/PQ axis. People who are old line federalists and dyed in the wool big "L" Liberals in a riding like Bourassa are people who still buy into that "old dichotomy". Needless to say, when the NDP had its breakthrough in 2011 that shattered the old dichotomy...anyone who was seriously thinking of voting for Laraque as a Green in a riding like Bourassa would have already "crossed the rubicon" and entertained the possibility of exiting the old Lib/federalist vs PQ/sovereignist axis and was willing to vote for a "non-traditional" party...seems to me that if some traditionally Liberal Haitian immigrant was already ready to abandon the Liberal "DNA" and vote Green - going "orange" is only a small step next door. They have already taken the highway exit marked marked "goodbye to the old line parties" and if the first door off the exit ramp marked "Green" is suddenly locked - the very next door that is unlocked is marked "Orange"!

4. To the extent that Laraque was ever going get any significant level of support in Bourassa - it was 100% based on his personal fame and "star quality" and 0% on the Green Party or Elizabeth May. If you even look at his now defunct website - there was almost nothing about the environment and nothing about May - it was all about promoting him as a famous person! Well, if you are the kind of person in Bourassa who was considering voting Green for no other reason than that the candidate was a "star" and had been a pro hockey player and had a high profile in the Haitian community...where do you go to next? The Liberals are running a very old school Haitian-born provincial MNA Dubourg from another non-overlapping riding who is a colourless former accountant. The NDP is running a young charismatic Haitian former pop star Stephane Moraille who recorded a hit with the group Bran Van 3000 and is now a lawyer specializing in intellectual property. Seems to me that for most people who were going to vote for "the ex hockey player" - the next best thing will be "the sexy pop star turned lawyer" not "the old school accountant".

Anyways, that's my two cents worth  

[DL]

I agree that his actual support was never going to be all that high anyways - but with the Greens breaking their piggy bank in support of him - any votes he got were more likely to be from soft NDP 2011 voters than from anyone else. On top of that having him in the race would have created a distraction.

The fact is, the Liberals almost certainly have the largest pool of solid voters who will vote Liberal no matter what. They will not get less than 35%. It was in the Liberals interest for the vote to be split as many ways as possible. If the Green vote drops to 1% or 2% and if the Tory vote is 3% or 4% (which may be generous in Bourassa) and if the BQ vote drops to single digits (which is quite possible) - the danger for the Liberals is a two way race with the NDP where the NDP retains its 31% from 2011 and then hoovers up the soft remnant of the BQ vote and nips any Green growth in the bud....not saying it will happen - but the path to an NDP win in Bourassa starts with the Greens and the BQ running very weak campaigns and set up a two way fight.

[DL]

Bourassa is the Montreal equivalent of really poor run-down postwar suburban Toronto ridings near the Jane-Finch corridor - like York West or Etobicoke North...

[DL]

Anyone in Bourassa who is already swept up by "Trudeau-mania" Mark 2 - is already voting Liberal and would not have given Georges Laraque any consideration.

[DL]

For the latest on the byelections (and especially on how the Green party probably unwisely bankrupted itself on the Laraque caper) read this http://www.punditsguide.ca/2013/10/by-election-slates-bourassa-bombshells-and-polls-out-monday/

[DL]

I think this is the week the wheels really went off the Trudeau bandwagon. Andrew Coyne - who actually voted Liberal in the last election described him in a column as a "ninny" (I looked up the word "ninny" in the dictionary...Webster's says it means "a foolish, stupid person"), then Jean Lapierre a high profile pundit in Montreal and ex-Liberal cabinet minister saw Trudeau speak in Bourassa in French and described it as the flattest, dullest worst political speech he had ever seen in his life!

Now, the ultimate "opinion leader" for the Toronto intelligentsia - Chantal Hebert wrote the following

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/11/13/justin_trudeau_still_making_rookie_mistakes_hbert.html

”On a bad day Ignatieff or Dion would have been hard-pressed to deliver a flatter stump speech than Trudeau did. Reading from notes the rookie leader delivered rambling remarks that belied his years on the public speaking circuit. If Trudeau wrote that text, he needs a speech writer. And if someone else wrote it, he or she needs a new assignment. In the unrelenting heat of a general election, Trudeau’s bizarre comments on China last week could have sent his campaign into a tailspin and his over-scripted performance in Bourassa would have reinforced the perception that he can only avoid putting his foot in his mouth by sticking to banalities"

[DL]

We haven't seen much in the way of horse race numbers since Trudeau fell flat on his face lately...we shall see

[DL]

Bourassa will be closer than people think - as much as I am a sceptic about Forum polls - I can't ignore that a week ago ther Liberals led the NDP 50% to 21% and as of yesterday the gap collapsed to 43% to 31%

[DL]

The final poll in Toronto Centre points to something brewing - I'm not sure what.

Suddenly Linda McQuaig has surged to 39% while the Liberal Freeland is at 47% (keep in mind that in the 2011 election which was supposed to have been a once in a millennium all time high for the NDP, the Libs won that seat with 41% to the NDP's 30%).

Reading between the lines, McQuaig may be doing better than the poll indicates:

1. Toronto Centre is one of the youngest ridings in Canada with 42% of the electorate under the age of 35...I would say that 80-90% of people in that age group do not have landlines and only have a cell phone. It is impossible to get cell phone numbers by riding - so any "el cheapo" media poll would be only dialling people with LISTED landline numbers. I suspect that the vastly undersampled younger cell phone people would likely skew to the NDP. NB: only 7% of respondents to the Forum poll are 18-34 - even though that age groups actually makes up 42% of the population!

2. The poll asks people how they voted in 2011 and 59% (!!) say they voted Liberals while just 18% say they voted NDP...in reality the Liberals only carried Toronto Centre 41-30% in 2011 - so for whatever reason, Liberal voters are being vastly oversampled in this poll. That being said 31% of people who say they voted Liberal in 2011 now say they will vote NDP - that is a lot of leakage. In contrast people who voted NDP in 2011 are almost unanimously sticking with the NDP.

If the NDP is only 8 points behiond in a polls that seems to have a sample that is so HEAVILY skewed towards 2011 Liberal voters and which totally excludes young people with cell phones...it may actually be a very long night tomorrow night!

[DL]

Looking at the Forum poll for TC and readjusting to reflect the actual vote breakdown in 2011, Linda McQuaig takes it by about 5 points.  Whatever it is, it should be an interesting night!

You shouldn't weight by 2011 vote. Who knows how many voters didn't even live in the riding back then. Not to mention people forgetting who they voted for.

True, but there is still something very, very, very strange about a supposedly random survey in a riding that went Liberal 41% to NDP 30% two years ago having a recalled vote that is 59% Liberal and just 18% NDP. Recalled vote is never perfect - but i have never seen it off that dramatically. If the NDP can be just 8% behind in a sample that is overwhelmingly Liberal - its not a bad position to be in...though i still don't expect the NDP to actually win.

[DL]

I can see no reason why they'd be catastrophically wrong in BS without the same effects being in play in Provencher, perhaps more so

Forum was also spectacularly wrong in Provencher. They had the Conservatives ahead by 10% in their final poll and they ended up winning by 28%!