Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[King of Kensington]

Large Angus Reid poll (4600 respondents):

British Columbia

Liberals  33%
Conservatives  31%
NDP  24%
Greens  7%
Other party  5%

Alberta

Conservatives  53%
Liberals  19%
NDP  16%
Greens  1%
Other party  11%

Saskatchewan

Conservatives  56%
Liberals  17%
NDP  15%
Greens  2%
Other party  10%

Manitoba

Conservatives  43%
Liberals  26%
NDP  23%
Greens  4%
Other party  4%

Ontario

Liberals  38%
Conservatives  32%
NDP  22%
Greens  4%
Other party  3%

Quebec

Liberals  37%
Bloc Quebecois  27%
Conservatives  17%
NDP  13%
Other party  3%

New Brunswick

Liberals  39%
Conservatives  28%
NDP  14%
Greens  10%
Other party  8%

Nova Scotia

Liberals  44%
Conservatives  27%
NDP  20%
Greens  6%
Other party  4%

Newfoundland

Liberals  50%
Conservatives  29%
NDP  20%
Greens  1%
Other party  --

https://angusreid.org/federal-politics-conservative-leadership/

[King of Kensington]

GTA

Liberals  43%
Conservatives  28%
NDP  21%

Greater Montreal

Liberals  47%
Bloc Quebecois  20%
NDP  16%
Conservatives  10%

Metro Vancouver

Liberals  40%
Conservatives  25%
NDP  25%

Calgary

Conservatives  51%
Liberals  23%
NDP  18%

Edmonton

Conservatives  46%
NDP  22%
Liberals  21%

[King of Kensington]

I'm not a big analyser of polls, but what would bother me more is the treatment of the GTA as a single subsample. Toronto itself and all the other regions of the GTA are much more unique than that would suggest.

Yes and the GTA has about half the population of Ontario and a larger population than all but two provinces.

[King of Kensington]

Yeah, don't know Ottawa was excluded.  Does the Capital Region covering both Ontario and Quebec "complicate" things? Could just do Ontario side which has a larger population than Winnipeg if that's a problem.

[King of Kensington]

Yikes

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-delegates-reject-climate-change-is-real-1.5957739

[King of Kensington]

Actually don't buy O'Toole had any "bold" or substantive climate change policy at all.  Support pipelines, oppose the carbon tax but "I believe climate change is real."

Basically a position that pleases few.

[King of Kensington]

How large is the climate denialist constituency in the Prairies?

Notice the Angus Reid has "another party" at 10-11% in Alberta and Sask.

[King of Kensington]

2/3 of Alberta's population lives in Calgary and Edmonton.  Saskatchewan is more rural - 40% in Regina and Saskatoon.  Calgary is the anchor keeping Alberta a bit to the right of Sask.  Rural Alberta and Sask. basically the same now.

Calgary is the most conservative major city, while Edmonton, Regina and Saskatoon about the same politically.  As Calgary liberalizes more (which seems underway) and right holds dominance of rural areas, Saskatchewan will displace Alberta as most conservative.

[King of Kensington]

I can't see a Calgary revolt against the Eastern Conservative establishment for being "too liberal" like in the 90s.  Maybe in rural Alberta and Sask. - but even there most likely to stay Conservative even if somewhat begrudgingly. 

[King of Kensington]

Yes modern-day Calgarians are more Lisa Raitt-type conservatives than Preston Manning-type conservatives.

[King of Kensington]

Min Sook Lee, a well regarded activist and cultural figure in Toronto, has made the seemingly abrupt decision not to run again for the NDP in Toronto-Danforth:

https://twitter.com/minsooklee/status/1374758550824714244

[King of Kensington]

Supreme Court rules carbon tax is constitutional:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/supreme-court-federal-carbon-tax-constitutional-case-1.5962687

O'Toole vows to fight carbon tax and have a credible climate change plan:

https://twitter.com/erinotoole/status/1375146220746907648

[King of Kensington]

National Post pleads for unity:

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/np-view-conservatives-must-unite-behind-erin-otoole-if-they-are-to-defeat-trudeau

[King of Kensington]

Liberal and NDP both held conventions this weekend.

This "woke" banker will make a fine candidate for Toronto-St. Paul's, but I don't see him sweeping the country or anything:

https://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/cpac-special/episodes/66359485/

[King of Kensington]

Liberal delegates support UBI, pharmacare and "green new deal" and reject capital gains tax hike and inheritance tax:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-universal-basic-income-1.5982862

[King of Kensington]

Is Carolyn Bennett running again?

[King of Kensington]

From Reg Whitaker, a distinguished Canadian political scientist:

Absent the Turners and Martins who dominated economic policy in previous Liberal governments, the star turn of Mark Carney, former governor of the Banks of both Canada and England, served to show just how far off-centre the Liberals have now moved. Instead of the austerity and inflation-fighting mania of earlier bank governors, Carney urges a capitalism more concerned about reducing inequality and achieving a greener economy.

It is easy to be cynical about Liberal promises. No doubt a number of these aspirations will never see the light of day, and others may be severely compromised when enacted.

But the NDP are mistaken to claim unbroken continuity from a past when the Liberals campaigned from the left and governed from the right.

The old "Government Party" -- the classic big-tent, middle-of-the road brokerage party that could shift as easily to the right as to the left in response to changing wind direction -- is dead and buried.

Seismic shifts in society, economy and in political marketing and communication have rendered brokerage politics all but obsolete.

Big data, micro-targeting and social media have sharpened the boundaries between groups of voters and are polarizing electorates along increasingly tribal lines which are pulling away from each other.

Tribalization is not as advanced in Canada as it is in the U.S., but it has pulled the Conservative party much further to the right, consolidating their base of about a third of Canadians, concentrated in Alberta and Saskatchewan, with their petro-state economies and ideology to match.

The other two-thirds are split between Liberal, NDP, Green and Bloc Québécois supporters who have a great deal in common in political values and policy preferences (broadly on the moderate centre-left) but are divided regionally on partisan lines -- which leaves open the possibility of the right-wing minority imposing itself on the country over a fragmented majority.

Practically, Liberals have no hope of breaking into the solid Tory base, but must consolidate the centre-left to avert a Tory win.

https://rabble.ca/news/2021/04/liberals-emerge-convention-ready-govern-left

[King of Kensington]

This childcare announcement will likely bury the NDP in the next election.  "We thought of it first!" doesn't usually win you votes.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-budget-freeland-tasker-1.5991137

[King of Kensington]

If the ONDP are down 10 points they've lost the strategic voters.

[King of Kensington]

Layton strategist Brad Lavigne reflects on the 10 year anniversary of the orange wave.  Can't say it's a very profound analysis: the NDP "decided" it "wanted to win" and then...it almost did?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-ten-years-after-his-orange-wave-the-ndp-must-recommit-to-jack-laytons/

[King of Kensington]

2011 was very much a fluke, not some genius plan cooked up by Lavigne.

[King of Kensington]

The 1995 election, incidentally, was the first election in which the 905 area code was in existence and observers recognized the political power of the commuter region surrounding Toronto which had embraced the Common Sense Revolution and delivered all of its seats to the PCs.  In 1990, the NDP didn't do very well there, but it didn't matter as much because it didn't have the political weight it has today.  Most of the 905 is post-1980 suburbia.

[King of Kensington]

Canada is moving leftward.  The Conservative Party stuck at a 25-30% base unable to break into the "moderate vote" constituency (and the hard right is drifting off), but the shift leftward of the Liberal Party under Trudeau (compared to Chretien/Martin) doesn't seem to be sending anyone to the Tories. The old business wing, so prominent in the Turner and Chretien/Martin eras, seem pretty much extinct now.  It seems like a lot of people who would have been PCs or "blue Liberals" a generation ago have embraced a form of corporate "wokeness" (for lack of a better term). which means not only more sensitivity around issues of gender and racial equality, but also a concern about corporate social responsibility and income inequality.

[King of Kensington]

It's not really a matter of "eastern PCs" and "western Reformers" anymore though.  Calgary is more "PC" than "Reform" at this point.  The rural Prairies are Reform-type right-wing populist. 

[King of Kensington]

Looking back two decades, the Lower Mainland of BC and Vancouver Island embracing Preston Manning and Stockwell Day sure looks weird today.  But so was the election of Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto.