Canadian federal election - October 19, 2015 (Official Campaign Thread)

[King of Kensington]

Where has all this talk of Elizabeth May somehow taking the Greens to the political right? Some people even call them centrist. Seems a bit odd to me, especially considering how they're to the left of the NDP.

"The Tories with composters" line hasn't been true since Jim Harris, a former PC, led the Greens.  Elizabeth May has moved the party to the left.

[King of Kensington]

Not quite. That honour goes to Thornhill, which is a safe Tory seat.

As for why the Tories aren't doing as well in Mount Royal as they are in Thornhill:

1) Mount Royal is mostly "secular Jews". Thornhill has a lot more Orthodox/Ultra-Orthodox.

2) The Liberals are running a prominent member of the Jewish community. The Tory candidate is also prominent and Jewish, but also used to lead a controversial Anglo rights party, which doesn't help with the decent sized francophone population.

I should note, that Quebec and especially, Montreal politics isn't really my strong suit. Rogue Beaver or one of the other central Canadians can probably give you a more detailed explanation.

I would guess the Jewish population in Mount Royal is pretty similar to that in Eglinton-Lawrence: some affluent secular liberals, a lot of elderly, a lot of Orthodox Jews.  Except Mount Royal, being Montreal, would have more Sephardim.  

The more secular Ashkenazi types are probably a minority in every Montreal Jewish community except Westmount (very Liberal).  

As for the race in Mount Royal, considering that Housefather is the popular mayor of CSL with the backing of nearly every elected official in CSL and Hampstead.  I would think he's very competitive there.  And if Libman can't dominate in CSL he has no path to victory.  And as has been pointed out, Trudeau is more popular among Montreal Jews than Iggy was.

(The Conservatives got 52% in CSL/Hampstead last time BTW).

[King of Kensington]

Ivison on Tory Maritime woes.

Wouldn't surprise me to see the Tories in the Maritimes reduced to just three rural New Brunswick seats.

[King of Kensington]

Rural NB is a lot more right-wing than rural NS.  Tobique-Mactaquac votes like Leeds-Grenville.

[King of Kensington]

There seems to be an unmistakable decline in the relative position of NDP.  This might be bad news for CPC as now there might be more pro-LPC tactical voting, especially in places like ON.   

The NDP has blown it in Ontario, and probably won't win more than 20 of its 121 seats.  Mulcair's condescension towards Trudeau doesn't play well among the many soft Liberals in the province.

Right now it looks like the Tories are going to have the most seats and a minority (maybe 130 or so) with the NDP and Liberals very close together which should make for an "interesting" minority parliament. 

[King of Kensington]

Is this a piece for the Beaverton?

http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/5936534-alex-johnstone-has-earned-my-vote/

[King of Kensington]

That, and the NDP gambit of moving to the centre to become more electable backfired when the Liberals made left-ish promises about increasing public investment and health care spending.

The Liberal platform actually calls for Health care cuts to balance by 2019 (about 2B if you listen the the federation of nurses)... but they won the "i'm more left-wing" debate thank's to Liberal news outlets like The Star since for some reason running huge deficits for 3 years then introducing massive cuts (which is indicated in their platform) to balance by 2019 is somehow considered Left wing.

Trudeau's considered very good debate performances, favourable media treatment of their platform (without much dissection) and the niqab mess has hurt the NDP. CBC reported the NDP is changing tack and going more now after both Harper and Trudeau and will focus on promoting Mulcair who is still ranked highest is approval for trust and suck in a number of polls

Even if it's true that the Liberals are "faking left" (which is nothing new) the NDP should never have allowed for the perception to exist.  Running in the mushy middle meant that there was almost nowhere for the Liberals in the space "in between" Harper and Mulcair, so they're trying to outflank them on the left.[/quote]

Meanwhile, the NDP numbers are a joke too.   Mulcair and Thomson have pretty much banished any Keynesian notions from the party.  There's no way they can maintain this commitment to "sound" public finance, hold the line on taxes and bring in a bunch of new social programs.  It's the Third Way mirage.

And Mulcair is completely ridiculous to try to tie the Rae government to the Liberals because he became a Liberal 10 years after.  What he's essentially saying is that Rae was wrong to prioritize fighting the recession over fighting the deficit, and should have imposed more austerity.  This is an attack on the Rae government from the right, not the left.  He also conveniently ignores that the Selinger government has been running deficits for 6 years and they're not going to balance the budget anytime soon in Alberta either.

Federally Jack Layton led the charge for more stimulus in 2008 and as recently as last year Peggy Nash said that Flaherty's focus on balancing the budget was misguided.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/02/04/use_budget_to_boost_economy_help_consumers_says_ndp.html

But now we're supposed to believe that the NDP are the only party that's "truly" committed to fighting the deficit?

The deficit is just about the least "populist" issue.  It appeals mainly to the Conservative base (who are very concerned about Liberal and NDP deficits but don't mind that their own party preaches the gospel rather than practices it) and to fiscally conservative business types.  

[King of Kensington]

What left wing? There really isn't one in the NDP. Sure at every convention you see half a dozen Trotskyists hogging microphones but the NDP really doesnt have any organized leftwing that is anything like factions of the UK Labour party or the Australian Labor Party.

There used to be about a one third or so "militant minority" that could sought to move it further to the left (the Waffle, the Left Caucus, the NPI etc.) that was powerful enough to influence the party.   But it pretty much disappeared after Layton became leader.

I mean, 84% of delegates voted in favor of removing the word "socialist" from the preamble of the party's constitution a few years ago.

[King of Kensington]

New Innovative Research Group Poll:

Lib 31, NDP 29, Cons 29, Grn 6, BQ 5 , Oth 1

Their numbers for the Tories in Ontario and the Prairies are way too low for me to believe.

[King of Kensington]

Curious if this will affect voting patterns among Sephardic Jews - probably not at all, I suppose most of them voted Conservative and will vote Conservative. Are there any data where Canadian Sephardic Jews are polled as a distinct category?

There's too few of them and there's no enclaves specifically of Sephardic Jews that I know of. 

[King of Kensington]

However this approach to Jewish voters may repel more than it appeals to:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/tories-extreme-stand-a-bid-for-jewish-vote-330506441.html

[King of Kensington]

It's always possible he might quit just of his own volition

The ultimate humiliation for Mulcair would be playing second fiddle to JUSTIN.

He may call it quits if he's in third.

The NDP braintrust would prefer a Conservative majority and NDP official opposition to coming third behind the Liberals in a minority parliament.

[King of Kensington]

http://www.news1130.com/2015/10/02/conservative-issues-immigrants-backfiring/

Reasonable to assume the same thing is occurring in the 905 area. The implications for both this election and the future are serious.

1) I can't find the actual poll release for this at all.

2) To whatever extent this is true, the Tories are triaging by making weed an issue again.

I wonder if they have breakdowns for East and South Asian groups - but 14% seems too low to me. 

[King of Kensington]

I agree with my socialist comrades from the US here. 

[King of Kensington]

The NDP brain trust would have you believe the breakthrough was because of their brilliant "triangulation" strategy, and not due mostly to the popularity of Jack Layton, the dysfunction of the Liberal Party and a vacuum in Quebec.

One talking point I'm seeing now is basically "if you look closely at the numbers" the NDP is actually the best poised to beat Harper, because the Liberals will just pile up big pluralities in the GTA, while the NDP can win swaths of seats in southwestern Ontario, the Prairies and BC.

This infatuation with "populist Conservatives" should really have run its course by now. 

[King of Kensington]

Edmonton: 34/26/21 (Liberals ahead of NDP)

http://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/battleground-edmonton/

[King of Kensington]

The Star tends to be very Liberal friendly, they only endorsed half-heatedly the NDP 2011 because the party was a head of the Liberals, 2006 and 2008 were the Liberals. They only endorsed the NDP one other time in 1979 and the old federal PCs in 1972.

A friend put it this way:
"The The Toronto Star: By far the easiest to predict. The Star's traditionally Liberal-aligned editorial board will enthusiastically and unreservedly endorse the Trudeau Liberals. Its editorial will extoll Trudeau's "optimism" and "youthfulness", and will say that he's "defied his critics" during this campaign. It will also praise his "bold economic strategy", which he embraced at "considerable political risk", and instruct even its less sympathetic readership to vote "strategically" (i.e. Liberal) to "turn the page on the dark years of Stephen Harper".
After a few token words of reservation (which will probably not mention Bill C-51) it will say, with insufferably saccharine earnestness, that "Justin" has "a touch of his father" about him, and that the final days of this campaign have "something of the excitement of that legendary summer in 1968" when the country "also turned an important page in its history".
The Voice of TorStar will offer some token words about "Mr Mulcair's NDP", and praise it for its "principled stand" on the niqab issue. It will then attack the NDP's opposition to the TPP as "old style politics" designed to "play to the base", and will say Thomas Mulcair's criticisms of Justin Trudeau [over C-51 and other quite specific things that won't be mentioned] "diminished his stature". It will praise the NDP for its "effective and admirable" years as Canada's Official Opposition and then reiterate its weird crush on the Trudeau Liberals with a great, flourishing crescendo of florid rhetoric."

And if the NDP had kept up the momentum, the Star would have been "forced" to endorse them again.  NDP whining about the "phony progressives" at the Star is tiresome and predictable. 

[King of Kensington]

NDP leads in Saskatoon, Tories in Regina

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/strategic-voting-in-saskatchewan-1.3264417

[King of Kensington]

The NDP is now focused on ensuring a respectable third place.

[King of Kensington]

Looks like the NDP vote may be efficient, given the low % number.  If they can manage to win the competitive races in the old city of Toronto, southwestern and Northern ontario, and get 5% everywhere else in the province (905, central, rural-east), they may not see the significant blow are expecting.

Also, some polls for some Northern Ontario ridings, still strong for the NDP.

http://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=726178

Yeah the NDP may be able to take 5 seats in Toronto: Danforth, Davenport, Parkdale-High Park, Spadina-Fort York and University-Rosedale.

As for SW Ontario, this region has really shown to be the "fool's gold" for the NDP.  Besides Essex, what else can they pick up there?  The region isn't as "rust belt"-like as many assume.  I don't see the SW Ontario populist strategy yielding many gains.

[King of Kensington]

It won't happen.

[King of Kensington]

Whatever happened to Pundits Guide?  No postings since September 28?

[King of Kensington]

So will Harper receive a lower % of the vote than Hudak in Ontario?  It's still hard for me to imagine the Tories going below 30%.

[King of Kensington]

Sikh group sees right through Harper's attempt to appeal to "ethnic" voters

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sikh-group-offended-by-conservative-anti-trudeau-ads-1.3271668

[King of Kensington]

Globe endorses Conservatives not Harper

This is a bizarre endorsement (and likely a reflection of the tension between the editorial board and ownership, where a Liberal endorsement was replaced by a Conservative one in the last provincial election). So basically it says: stick with the Conservatives because the Liberals and NDP aren't all that different anyway. And then goes on to say replace Harper with a more moderate leader. But Harper's most likely successor is the more socially conservative Jason Kenney.