Canada General Discussion: Trudeau II

[DC Al Fine]

Quarterly Atlantic Canada poll is out.

Nova Scotia
Liberal: 44% (-12)
PC: 28% (+8)
NDP: 23% (+4)

New Brunswick
Liberal: 51% (-1)
PC: 30% (nc)
NDP: 12% (+5)
Green: 5% (-4)

Newfoundland
PC: 39% (+5)
Liberal: 33% (-9)
NDP: 26% (+4)

PEI
Liberal: 48% (+2)
Green: 26%! (+4)
PC: 19% (-6)
NDP: 7% (nc)

NS Liberals are down largely due to labour strife with the teacher's union. Newfoundland Liberals are in 2nd place, probably due to their massive austerity budgets... and holy cow the Greens are in 2nd place in PEI!

[DC Al Fine]

So here's a funny story:

Last night an American conservative writer was on Twitter and mentioned something about Mike Pence was wise not to have dinner alone with women who weren't his wife. He got jumped on for being a sexist and not valuing women's equality... and Kim Campbell of all people came to his defence.

[DC Al Fine]

Conservatives are ahead in a new poll by 2 points...The Trudeau government has officially failed.

That's a junk Forum Poll. And even worse, it was paid for by the Toronto Sun. 

Of course, if the Liberals fall in support, the Conservatives will rise against them, even in a relative way, but I've seen nothing that suggests to me the Conservative Party has done anything to appeal to anybody beyond it's 30-33% voter base.

Even if the poll is right, it's meaningless right now. The Liberals were ahead at this point in Harper's second term and we all know how that turned out for them

If it's March 2019 and the Tories and NDP have their new leaders and the Liberals are still behind in the polls, then I'll get excited, but for now, this is just fool's gold caused by Liberal errors the past few weeks.

[DC Al Fine]

Speaking of Sun Forum polls, latest one claims Wynne's gonna be Campbelled. Like you, Adam, I have trouble taking Forum seriously.

Wasn't Forum notorious for overpolling the Liberals until recently? Why the change?

[DC Al Fine]

Might be an election call in Nova Scotia in the next several weeks. Everyone's running around nominating candidates and the Nova Scotia NDP had their campaign launch despite the fact that an election hasn't been called.

[DC Al Fine]

How are we defining 'Harper' people? Bernier, Raitt and O'Toole were all in cabinet. So was Chong although he's a different case.

[DC Al Fine]

Mid-mandate housecleaning inbound.

On this province: count me extremely skeptical CAQ surge will hold. Happens every 5 years: ADQ 2002/7, CAQ 2011 & now. PQ missed their chance a decade ago (as Josee Legault, Michel David & others have said then & now) to nip these problems in the bud, like Unionists did with BP & RIN. Too late now. So they're stuck in a weird purgatory where QS is an erosion which can't be squashed but not a fatal one a la 1970.

How exactly did Union Nationale squash BP & RIN?

[DC Al Fine]

Mid-mandate housecleaning inbound.

On this province: count me extremely skeptical CAQ surge will hold. Happens every 5 years: ADQ 2002/7, CAQ 2011 & now. PQ missed their chance a decade ago (as Josee Legault, Michel David & others have said then & now) to nip these problems in the bud, like Unionists did with BP & RIN. Too late now. So they're stuck in a weird purgatory where QS is an erosion which can't be squashed but not a fatal one a la 1970.

How exactly did Union Nationale squash BP & RIN?

To simplify a bit, co-opted their issues in a diluted form then steamrollered them. BP fell apart pretty quickly once the war ended. RIN was different: Johnson and Bourgault negotiated an electoral pact whose effect was bleeding Grits in suburbia both on & off-island, allowing UN to come up the middle there. Especially younger lefty nationalists/separatists who couldn't stomach voting for conservatives. Johnson's death (per Black, Johnson saw '66 as '44 & '70 as '48) ended the prospect of Phase 2. The pact was 1) consolidate behind UN candidate in 12 swing ridings while leaving poteau on ballot 2) no-comp in leader ridings 3) concentrate their combined energy on Grits. Pretty much what Lisée would want now.

Interesting, thank you.

I heard the other day that the NDP is finally going to get the ball running in terms of fielding candidates for the next provincial election? Wonder if that will shake things up a bit. Depends who the leader is, I guess.

How do you think they would do at this point? I mainly remember this as a pre-Trudeau idea. What's the ignored demographic they'd be targeting? Leftish federalists who can't bring themselves to vote QS?

[DC Al Fine]

Denis Lebel is retiring

[DC Al Fine]

Alberta's political centrists are attempting to consolidate around the Alberta Party ahead of the 2019 election. Alberta Together, a new centrist PAC being run by Stephen Mandel (former Edmonton Mayor) and Katherine O'Neill (until recently, President of PC Alberta) hosted a cross-party meeting of centrists in Red Deer yesterday, during which 83% of attendees voted in favour of the Alberta Party as the best vehicle to present a credible centrist option in 2019.

On a related note, how are the Liberals doing? Basically moribund or do they have serious plans for a comeback attempt in 2019?

[DC Al Fine]

Peterson eyeing Ambrose's seat.

[DC Al Fine]

Regarding the proposed Alberta conservative merger: Some Wildrosers are preparing to create a new party if the deal goes through, and Starke seems (IMO) to be hinting at going independent and not joining the UCP if the deal is approved

A couple questions for Njall or anyone else who cares to comment:

1) The 2004 federal election shows us that predicting results won't be as simple as 2015 PC vote + 2015 Wildrose vote. The Tories lost 15-20 seats they "should" have won based on the 2000 results. Assuming all breakaway third parties, indy runs are flops, how much of the combined conservative vote do you think the NDP/Liberals/Alberta Party will be able to pick off? What does that mean in seats?

2) Are Wildrose hardliners mostly libertarians, socons or populists? What are the odds that they are able to get a meaningful % of the vote?

[DC Al Fine]

Very interesting thanks.

[DC Al Fine]

A few comments for the folks salty about the merger:

Suspiciously high. Kenney and Jean probably cooked up numbers.

Citation?

Kenney seems to think that WR + PC = automatic power.

He was involved in the PC/CA merger in '04. He should know better.

That's a bit revisionist:

2000 election: Alliance + PC = 37.7%
2003 polls: Alliance + PC = ~28%

2015 election: Wildrose + PC= 52.0%
2017 polls: Wildrose + PC = ~66%

Before Adscam broke, Unite the Right was all about being avoiding being slaughtered by the Liberals. UCP would have to choke way worse than the '04 Tories did to lose the next election.

The right will break up again, mark my words. Even if it takes a few decades.

The first sentence is an interesting prediction. The second sentence is like saying water is wet

[DC Al Fine]

A few comments for the folks salty about the merger:

The right will break up again, mark my words. Even if it takes a few decades.

The first sentence is an interesting prediction. The second sentence is like saying water is wet

True. Just trying to console myself. It will probably take a few terms in power for there to be enough anger for a new party.

I must say, the ability for conservatives to unite and find common ground is amazing. I wish the left could do the same.

Well to be fair, ~ 2/3 of the population is opposed to our politics in a way that's quite different from Liberal/NDP fights. It forces a sort of ecumenism of the trenches.

[DC Al Fine]

Any hot takes on the Trudeau Rolling Stone cover/"Why can't he be our President" lolness?

horribly cringeworthy. My favourite part is when they called the RCMP the "Royal Canadian Mountain Police"

Oh FFS

[DC Al Fine]

What do people think of Don Pittis? I can't decide if I like or dislike him.

[DC Al Fine]

Mainstreet-ON: 50/31/15... in 416! Tories even lead in the downtown core. Wonder what the seat count looks like.

JFC. She's so friggin' selfish. For the sake of the future of the province, please resign.

Wouldn't it be more selfish to make some poor Liberal play Kim Campbell?

[DC Al Fine]

At the moment it seems progressive politics really dominates the country.  Asides from Manitoba and Saskatchewan and perhaps Quebec, it is mostly centre-left parties in power.  Do you think this is a blip or part of a larger trend.  The polls suggest Ontario and Alberta will swing rightward next provincial election but some are skeptical and with the BC NDP just forming government albeit narrowly losing the popular vote and seat count it is anyone's guess what happens there.  Likewise neither Brad Wall (who is retiring) or Brian Pallister seem massively popular, but not massively unpopular either so possible either but more likely in Saskatchewan than Manitoba they swing leftward next election.  Federal is still over 2 years away, but unless Trudeau does something really stupid or Andrew Scheer really catches fire in the campaign I suspect the Liberals will get back in, just a question if it is a majority or minority (note they only need to lose 15 seats to lose their majority so a very small swing to either NDP or Tories would do this).

I agree that the country as a whole has moved left compared to ten years ago, but the provincial results are more a function of the Trudeau government being < two years old. Provincial governments tend to go the opposite of federal governments over time. Over half the provincial governments were governed by the right when Harper came to power, but that dwindled to just BC and SK by the time Trudeau won. Another good example is the Liberals controlling zero provincial governments from 1978-1985, and then provincially winning basically as soon as the Tories got power federally. I expect the Tories will be doing a lot better provincially in five years.

Also, this is a minor quibble, but the Nova Scotia Liberals have run to the right of the Tories the past two elections, so I guess you could call them the "conservative" party right now.

[DC Al Fine]

I think more to the point, it's a successful time for the Liberal brand rather than "progressive politics". After all, most of the Atlantic Canada liberals are hardly particularly progressive.

Atlantic Canadian Liberals are funny. Federally, they've found great success as the party of Pogey, but they're practically Tories provincially.

[DC Al Fine]

Looking through old results, I noticed that the Greens put up great results federally and provincially in Dufferin-Caledon and Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound in the mid 2000's. What was going there? Rural Ontario is not the sort of place where you'd think the Greens would do well.

[DC Al Fine]

Doug Ford will seek a rematch against John Tory next year.

This comes as absolutely no surprise.

I heard the Ontario PC's didn't want him.  He would probably help them win Etobicoke North, but we would be a liability in much of the rest of the province.  Also his strong support for Trump and other indiscretions would make him an easy target for OLP attack ads.  I get the impression Brown is trying to play it safe and doesn't want to do anything that might cost the party what should be an easy winneable election.

In terms of mayor, he does have his pockets of strong support but I suspect John Tory will easily beat him as he is reasonably popular.  I also suspect with him running the left won't put up a candidate and will instead throw their support behind John Tory just to keep Doug Ford out of office.

He ought to cruise to reelection regardless of what the left does. An incumbent mayor has to screw it up pretty bad to lose and Tory has already handled Ford and Chow comfortably.

[DC Al Fine]

absolutely foolish to be looking at seat projections this soon

Agreed.  I think a couple of takeaways are as follows.

1.  Liberals are in good position but hardly an insurmountable lead and certainly not the 20+ like they've had last year.  It wouldn't take that big a swing to be reduced to a minority, although agree as long as they don't do something too stupid they should probably win in 2019, but nothing is 100% certain these days.

2.  Tories have a good solid base are consistently staying north of the 30% mark which gives them a good starting point, but cannot seem to get beyond 33% and until they can find a way to appeal to more swing voters they will be stuck in opposition.  Since Scheer is relatively unknown, how he defines himself and how his opponents define him will be very important.

Agreed. To put this in perspective, at this point in Chretien's first mandate, the Liberals had a lead of ~35% over their nearest competitor (the Bloc Quebecois), and a ~25% over Reform and the Tories combined. The right had was polling below what the Tories are scoring in 2017. The situation in 2017 is bad for the Tories and good for the Liberals, but the 2019 election is hardly a fait accompli, particularly if the new NDP leader can shave a few points off the Liberals.

[DC Al Fine]

Trudeau era cabinet minister Allan MacEachen has died.

[DC Al Fine]

Trudeau era cabinet minister Allan MacEachen has died.

"Trudeau era" confused me there for a sec!

Haha oops