Canada 2011 Official Thread

[Kevinstat]

Two ridings in Montreal do have polls done of them:

Lac-Saint-Louis: Lib 46%, Con 26%, NDP 12%, Green 8%, BQ 7%
Outremont: NDP 47%, Lib 27%, BQ 14%, Con 7%, Green 5%

Obviously the record of constituency poll is bad just about everywhere, etc, etc, etc.

I'm not sure what makes you say that. We don't tend to see all that many riding polls in Canada - but when they are done - they tend to quite accurate.

Have a look at the slew of riding polls (mostly in QC) in 2008.

Voter preferences in Quebec may be more fluid than in the rest of Canada.

[Kevinstat]

I can see how a badly divided left would benefit the Conservatives.

There are some Conservative-NDP marginals in western Canada (the "rurban" Saskatoon and Regina seats other than Ralph Goodale's (Liberal-Wascana (& southeast Regina)), all presently held by Conservatives, come to mind, although some of them may not be very marginal nowadays), where the Conservatives could be hurt by a Liberal -> NDP shift, although a lot of would-be Liberal voters there might vote tactically NDP anyway, just as I'm sure there are tactical Dipper votes for Goodale in the Wascana riding.  I imagine the NDP percentage in there would surge if and when Goodale retired or in the first election after the Conservatives took him out.

[Kevinstat]

Any idea when the next election will be held?  Is the law passed in Harper's first term that seemed to provide for a four-year term (yet he was able to prompt an election in 2008 that I recall was at least not completely forced by the opposition) still on the books?

Basically, will the next election be at a set time that will become pretty clear pretty soon or will it be (as is typically the case with majority governments in parliamentary systems) whenever the Prime Minister wants it to be (presumably when the Conservatives are polling well or better than they fell they might later, particularly for the election to be called before 2015) inside the five-year limit?  Or would four years now be the limit without the Conservatives having to embarrasingly get rid of their own law from 2004 or 2005?  (Of course, they would only do that if they were polling very badly, so the bad PR that move would generate might be not be a significant consideration.)