Canadian federal election - 2015

[DL]

The good news for the NDP rolls on...CROP has a new poll out in Quebec that has the NDP surging 11 points in one month to 42% leaving the Liberals in the dust at 25% and even in the Quebec City area the NDP now leads the Tories 39% to 35% and among francophones the NDP has a crushing 47% to the Libs 20% and the Tories and the BQ each Ch at 15%

[DL]

The CCF lost all its Saskatchewan seats in the Diefenbaker landslide of 1958 - and Dief was a Saskatchewan "favourite son). The doctor's strike was mainly a big issue in 1962 when TC Douglas ran in Regina and the height of the backlash and lost to the PC incumbent by 10,000 votes - a few months later an NDP MP from Burnaby-Coquitlam in suburban Vancouver resigned so that Douglas could get a seat in a byelection and he won. in 1963 the NDP popular vote in Saskatchewan fell even further to an all-time low of 19% as the Medicare controversy raged and Douglas was running again in vancouver. In 1965, the NDP backlash had subsided and the NDP had lost power in Saskatchewan and NDP support recovered to 26% but it still didn't win any seats as Dief did another clear sweep.

It all changed in 1968. Diefenbaker had been ousted and replaced as PC leader by Robert Stanfield from Nova Scotia and the Ross Thatcher Saskatchewan Liberal government was getting unpopular. The NDP won 6 out of 13 Sask seats (and added a 7th in 1971 in a byelection)...Douglas lost narrowly in Burnaby-Seymour that year to a Liberal and got back into parliament a year later when the NDP member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-the Islands passed away and Douglas won the subsequent byelection. He weas MP_ for that riding until he retired in 1979. The NDP won seats in Saskatchewan in every election until 2004 and in each of the '04, '06, '08 and '11 elections while the NDP was shut out in Sask it was largely bad luck from having a couple of very near misses in each of those elections.

[DL]

The NDP shut-out in Saskatchewan has to almost certainly be a result of the "rurban" ridings that existed throughout those elections.

Not quite. The "rurban" ridings existed in the 1997 and 2000 elections and the NDP managed to win several of them. In fact in 1988 and 1993 the NDP even won some purely rural ridings in Saskatchewam

[DL]

Actually, the BQ is polling rather well, considering. They're close to their 2011 numbers, and federalist vote splitting may help them gain a few seats.

Depends on what polls you look at - in 2011 when they were reduced to 4 seats they got 23% of the vote in Quebec. The big CROP poll out on the weekend had them down to 13% which would mean zero seats.

[DL]

Ipsos = junk pollster

You can say that but their numbers are remarkably consistent with what we have seen from Ekos and Forum and CrOP

[DL]

There has only been one election in Canadian history where there was even an issue or possibility of the 2nd and 3rd largest parties forming a government - so its hard to say what is "standard practice". If you look back in Canadian history in almost case up to 2008 you had a situation where the party with the largest number of seats also had an obvious smaller partner party that would be willing to make a formal or informal deal.

Interesting the first ever "hung parliament" in Canada was in 1925 - and in that case the Tories took 115 seats, the Liberals under Mackenzie King took 100 and the Progressives took 22. The Progressives were an earlier version of the CCF/NDP (ie: "Liberals in a hurry") and they backed King's continuation as PM...and no one seemed to mind. in fact when the government fell a year later and the so-called King/Byng controversy erupted - the liberals under King regained their majority in the 1926 election!

If you look at subsequent minority parliaments, it was pretty obvious who not only had the most seats but also had a "mandate" and was most likely to be able to govern:

1957 - The Tories GAINED 61 seats to get 112 and the Liberals lost 60 to end up with 105 - the CCF had 25 seats and Social Credit had 19. The Liberals actually won the popular vote by 100,000. Theoretically St. Laurent could have tried to stay in power but after having lost 60 seats and the plurality and with PC+Social Credit outnumbering Liberal+CCF it was clear that the jog was up and St. Laurent resigned on election night. Diefenbaker formed a minority gov't but called a snap election less than a year later and won the biggest majority in Canadian history

1962 - The PC lost their majority and got 116 seats to the Liberals 99, Social Credit took 30 and the NDP took 19. The Liberals had no way of forming a government since at the time the NDP had no great desire to make Pearson PM since their long term goal was to replace the Liberals and in any case the ultra rightwing Social Credit party was willing to prop up the Tories in the short-term - so there was no obvious non-Tory government possible.

1963, 1965, 1972 - in each of these elections the Liberals had the largest number of seats AND the NDP had enough seats to let the Liberals pass legislation - the PCs and Social Credit did not have enough seats to great a 2nd party + 3rd or 4th party government...if the PCs had taken one seats more than the Liberals in 1972 instead of one seat fewer - who knows what would have happened. But keep in mind that in those days there was virtually no ideological difference whatsoever between the Liberals and PCs and so there would have been little motivation for the NDP to keep the Trudeau Liberals in power over Stanfield's PCs - unless maybe the Liberals would would have made some grand gesture such as making NDP leader david Lewis minister of Finance!

1979 - The PCs under Clark were just six seats short of a majority and all they needed was support from the 6 Social Credit MPs to survive (Clark mishandled this though)...the math was never there for the Liberals to stay in office with NDP support.

2004 - The Liberals won the most seats and there was no sentiment on the part of the NDP or the Bloc Quebecois to overthrow Martin and install Stephen Harper as PM so Martin limped along...though its worth noting that Harper, layton and Duceppe wrote a letter to the GG at the time to make clear that IF the Liberal minority government fell, there was the option of asking the leader of the second largest party - Harper - to try to form a government rather than an automatic dissolution.       

2006 - The Harper Conservatives won a plurality of seats. Theoretically Martin could have tried to stay in power - but the NDP didn't have enough seats to help him pass a Throne Speech and the BQ had a pathological hatred of the federal liberals under Martin and made it clear that there was no way that they would be complicit in keep the Liberals in power - so Martin quit on election night

2008 - we all know the long, sad story of the coalition that wasn't etc...so i won't repeat it

My point is that IF after the 2015 election we end up with the CPC getting  a plurality of seats but the NDP and Liberals together have vastly more seats than the CPC (something like CPC 130, NDP 110, Libs 98) - it will be the first time in Canadian history that the math is there for the 2nd largest party for pass a Throne Speech with the support of the 3rd largest party. There is no precedent and we don't know how the public would react. NDP and Liberal voters are extremely anti-Conservative in a way that was not the case in past minority situations. 

[DL]

The Conservatives will fair better attacking the Liberals, because that's where they're going to make the most gains. A strong NDP means the Tories can appeal to blue Liberals who are afraid of an NDP victory.

You mean all those "blue Liberals" who are terrified that the NDP will NOT increase taxes on people with incomes while the Liberals supposedly will?

[DL]

So far Duceppe's leadership bump is no bigger than Paillé, who polled in the high 20's for a month or so after becoming Bloc leader. Disaster averted?

Depends on whose side you're on. A viable Bloc is good for both the Liberals and the Tories.

Yeah it's funny how the Liberals in particular pontificate about Canadian unity and are always trying to imply that the NDP are not truly committed to federalism...and yet at the same time the Liberals and the Tories are both obviously rooting for the separatist BQ to become a force again...such hypocrites

[DL]

Are there are any seats held by the Ontario PCs that the federal Tories could really lose - besides Nipissing perhaps?

Perhaps Chatham-Kent-Essex? Sarnia-Lambton?

[DL]

Green party opened their Quebec office. It hopes to elect MPs on the opposition to transportation of oil by rail cars and pipeline. Claims to be the only national party to fight pipelines.

I think the Bloc will try to use the Energy East proposed pipeline against the NDP if they support it. It must not be very popular with the progressives, pro-environment. The PQ is against it and I imagine Québec solidaire the same.  

The PQ was for it when they were in power, now it's like if the NDP says black they have to say white...Peladeau flubbed his lines yesterday saying that it was "simplistic" to oppose Energy East then backtracked when told he had contradicted Duceppe and accidentally agreed with the Liberals and NDP

[DL]

Latest Forum has a clear NDP lead
NDP 34%
LPC 28%
CPC 26%

http://poll.forumresearch.com/post/299/conservatives-liberals-tied-for-second/

[DL]

I predict "Professor Popsicle" will melt into a wet puddle...the Tories are likely to lose most if not all of their seats in Winnipeg

[DL]

Sounds to me like its virtually a done deal that Olivia Chow will run against Adam Vaughan and given the current state of play between the NDP and Liberals nationally, i suspect she would win.

What would Adam Vaughan do after losing? Collect EI for a few years? Run against John Tory for mayor in 2018?

[DL]

Latest EKOS poll of 1,750 June 24-28

NDP - 31%
CPC - 27%
Libs - 26%

https://ipolitics.ca/2015/07/03/ekos-a-renewed-three-way-race-with-encouraging-news-for-the-liberals-graves/

NDP is way ahead in Quebec and BC and slightly ahead in Ontario. Liberals only lead in Atlantic and Tories lead across the Prairies...I suspect the Tory vote would be very ineffecient in this kind of scenario - they would pile up huge majorities and waste a lot of votes in the rural west and some rural/exurban parts of ontario and get crushed everywhere else

[DL]

How can the leftwing be split in Canada when there is only 1 leftwing party - the NDP. I'm looking forward to see the Tories and the Liberals split the rightwing vote!

If Ontario actually had close to a three-way split in the popular vote, I suspect that the seat distribution would be LETHAL for the Liberals. In would guess than in that scenario the NDP would sweep northern Ontario, the downtown and lower income parts of the GTA, the industrial towns of Hamiltonb, London, Windsor, Oshawa, Sarnia etc... the CPC would win all the rural seats and the more upper income parts of the GTA like York Region, Halton etc... and the Liberals could be left with almost nothing - what is their area of strength in Ontario? there is none

[DL]

Its funny that higher income areas in the GTA would be averse to the NDP considering that its Justin Trudeau that says he wants to increase income taxes on people with high incomes while the NDP says it won't!

[DL]

Abacus: 32/29/27.

Education breaks don't make sense

You mean the LACK of education breaks I assume? Other polling consistently has the NDP way ahead among university grads and the CPC doing best among the un-educated and this poll has all the parties doing about the same in all edcuation groups

[DL]

Whoa: Yelich lost renomination. When was the last time a serving Cabinet minister lost their nomination?

Sheila Copps in 2004?

[DL]

NDP candidate in Papineau resigns after her Option Nationale flirtation was revealed.

I think there is more to this story...she would not resign just because she had once been a member of Option Nationale. Lots of people in the NDP were once in Quebec Solidaire or the PQ etc...

[DL]

Harper may go to Rideau Hall Sunday, before a rally here in Montreal.

I'd be surprised if Harper could actually get a rally together in Montreal where support for the CPC is almost non-existent...but i guess they can bus in all the Tory staffers from Parliament Hill to fill out the room.

[DL]

Harper may go to Rideau Hall Sunday, before a rally here in Montreal.

I'd be surprised if Harper could actually get a rally together in Montreal where support for the CPC is almost non-existent...but i guess they can bus in all the Tory staffers from Parliament Hill to fill out the room.

Metro Montreal has 4 million people. I'm sure they can find a few hundrend Tories there to fill a gymnasium.

They will probably round up drunks from the local homeless hostel and promise them beer money if they pretend to be enthusiastic for Harper

[DL]

https://twitter.com/OpAnonDown/status/626875006438539265

Also, for further context:

http://travel.gc.ca/travelling/publications/child-crime

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I have a tough time believing that is true. Probably a smear campaign.

I believe...I've heard that Baird has a predilection for younger guys of colour...