Ontario 2011 (6th October)

[Хahar 🤔]

Would the Liberals and NDP form a coalition government if necessary? (Sorry I haven't read the entire thread)

It won't be necessary; it's common enough in Ontario for no party to have a majority, and there have been no coalitions yet. A Liberal minority government supported by the NDP is certainly possible, although the Liberals would probably have to finish ahead of the Tories for it to be politically feasible.

[lilTommy]

Would the Liberals and NDP form a coalition government if necessary? (Sorry I haven't read the entire thread)

It won't be necessary; it's common enough in Ontario for no party to have a majority, and there have been no coalitions yet. A Liberal minority government supported by the NDP is certainly possible, although the Liberals would probably have to finish ahead of the Tories for it to be politically feasible.

Not necessarily, in 1985 the PCs won; yet the NDP and Liberals worked out the "Accord", a rough unofficial support... the NDP would support the Liberals for 2years. That basically last 3years then the Liberals won the next election. I doubt the NDP would enter into anything like that again.

[DL]

Keep in mind that the incumbent Premier is technically still the Premier until he or she either resigns of loses a confidence vote. If we hypothetically had 43 Tories, 41 Liberals and 23 New Dems - McGuinty would probably present a Throne Speech and dare the NDP to vote it down and install Hudak.

[MaxQue]

Would the Liberals and NDP form a coalition government if necessary? (Sorry I haven't read the entire thread)

It won't be necessary; it's common enough in Ontario for no party to have a majority, and there have been no coalitions yet. A Liberal minority government supported by the NDP is certainly possible, although the Liberals would probably have to finish ahead of the Tories for it to be politically feasible.

Not necessarily, in 1985 the PCs won; yet the NDP and Liberals worked out the "Accord", a rough unofficial support... the NDP would support the Liberals for 2years. That basically last 3years then the Liberals won the next election. I doubt the NDP would enter into anything like that again.

Well, PC was in power since 42 years, so, if the PC had a minority, it was still a mandate for change.

[DL]

Check out the tables on the right side in this just released Ipsos online poll of 8,000 people in Ontario. They don't actually ask how people will vote, but they do ask people what their most important issue is and then which party will do the best job of dealing with whatever issue they feel is most important. They get Libs and PCs dead even at 36% each and the NDP at 25% - so that would mean back to the 1985 scenario! (I think we can assume that almost everyone will vote for the party that they think will do the best job on their most important issue).

http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=5340

[Хahar 🤔]

Would the Liberals and NDP form a coalition government if necessary? (Sorry I haven't read the entire thread)

It won't be necessary; it's common enough in Ontario for no party to have a majority, and there have been no coalitions yet. A Liberal minority government supported by the NDP is certainly possible, although the Liberals would probably have to finish ahead of the Tories for it to be politically feasible.

Not necessarily, in 1985 the PCs won; yet the NDP and Liberals worked out the "Accord", a rough unofficial support... the NDP would support the Liberals for 2years. That basically last 3years then the Liberals won the next election. I doubt the NDP would enter into anything like that again.

Hence "probably". There's precedent, but the circumstances were very different.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1058006
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/provincialelection/article/1057308--horwath-talks-about-possible-kingmaker-role?bn=1

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Also, want to see my ElectoMatic at work?
Go here
http://predictor.hillandknowlton.ca/#/ontario+2011
Click "Split"

TA DA

The exact same math I use. Except in the ElectoMatic, you don't need to bother adding to 100%, it does that for you autoMatic.

[Holmes]

Maybe it's best for the NDP to finish in the mid-high 20's, with Libs in low 30's and Conservatives in mid 30's. If that leads to a slight Liberal minority with 20 - 22 NDP seats (mostly from the north, and seats they won in May), they can prop up the Liberal government for a few years, and go into the next election strong, focusing on regions they would need to and could win.

[2952-0-0]

Maybe it's best for the NDP to finish in the mid-high 20's, with Libs in low 30's and Conservatives in mid 30's. If that leads to a slight Liberal minority with 20 - 22 NDP seats (mostly from the north, and seats they won in May), they can prop up the Liberal government for a few years, and go into the next election strong, focusing on regions they would need to and could win.

But Dalton will be motivated in that instance to do to the NDP what Cameron did to the Lib Dems: dump all the blame for unpopular decisions onto the junior partner, which will be powerless to influence the decisions and turn off their entire base.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The trick, of course, is to avoid actually becoming part of the government.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Any sort of NDP "accord" would really need the PC Party to finish slightly ahead in terms of seats. If the Liberals win the seat count, Dalton would probably try to go it on his own, and if the PC Party beats the Liberals by 10 or more, the media would hang the NDP unless it agreed to an outright coalition.

[Smid]

Probably not likely, but best outcome for the NDP is to finish second, for the Tories to not have a majority, and force the Liberals to decide... Do they prop up the Tories or do they validate the NDP votes? Technically the best result there for the NDP would be for the Liberals to prop up a Tory minority government which would leave them as the real alternative to the Tories.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Probably not likely, but best outcome for the NDP is to finish second, for the Tories to not have a majority, and force the Liberals to decide... Do they prop up the Tories or do they validate the NDP votes? Technically the best result there for the NDP would be for the Liberals to prop up a Tory minority government which would leave them as the real alternative to the Tories.

You're right that this would be the best option for NDP. It would be a disaster for Ontario, though...

[Holmes]

We should remember that, in the eyes of the majority of Canadians, the party with the most seats after the election "won". So any type of agreement in which that party is not the governing one is corruption/unethical/overthrowing the government/whatever. So the only way a Liberal-NDP accord can work is if the Liberals come ahead in terms of seats.

[Holmes]

If anyone has a stream of the Northern Ontario debate from last night, would they please be so kind as to post it?

[adma]

So the only way a Liberal-NDP accord can work is if the Liberals come ahead in terms of seats.

Or at least, if the seat totals were close enough--the Liberals had 48 to the PCs' 52 in '85, although being ahead in the actual vote totals gave the Grits an added gloss of "moral authority".

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

I still say that so long as they are close, even if the PC Party wins the vote and the seat count, that an "accord" will be likely. How close?

Tie? Certainly.
1 seat? Very likely.
2 seats? Still very likely.
3 seats? likely
4 seats? More likely than random chance, it's happened before.
5 seats? I'd peg this closer to random chance
6 seats? That's really as far as I am comfortable saying that it'd happen
7 seats? only if the NDP has 25+ seats, and thus can claim an authority based on that.
8 seats? No. The only way this would work is something like: 31+34+42, which would really be a stretch; unless the NDP topped 30% in the polls as did the Liberals; then maybe.

If the Liberals win by even 1 seat, McGuinty will go for a minority.

[Hatman 🍁]

There was a poll from Peterborough

Lib: 45.5
PC: 28.5
NDP: 22
Grn: 4

Compare to my projection

Lib: 44
PC: 30
NDP: 24
Grn: 2

This poll must be very accurate The 308 guy is bragging at how close he was, but mine is even better

[DL]

Apparently the Toronto Star is releasing a poll of 39,000 (yes 39,000) that will show the Liberals and PCs dead even at 35% with the NDP at 23% and the Greens and others at 7%.

This is like 1985 all over again! when that exact vote split led to 51 PCs 49 Libs and 25 NDP.

[Hatman 🍁]

Apparently the Toronto Star is releasing a poll of 39,000 (yes 39,000) that will show the Liberals and PCs dead even at 35% with the NDP at 23% and the Greens and others at 7%.

This is like 1985 all over again! when that exact vote split led to 51 PCs 49 Libs and 25 NDP.

Sample is large enough for individual riding projections too, and they have the NDP with just 13!

I want to know more about this poll. Here are the "close races"

Ancaster-Dundas

Beaches-East York

Bramalea-Gore-Malton

Brampton-Springdale

Halton

Kitchener Centre

Kitchener-Conestoga

Kitchener-Waterloo

London North Centre

London West

Mississauga East

Mississauga Erindale

Mississauga South

Niagara Falls

Oak Ridges-Markham

Ottawa South

Pickering-Scarborough East

Richmond Hill

St. Catharines

Thornhill

Thunder Bay-Atikokan

Thunder Bay-Superior North

Timmins-James Bay

Trinity-Spadina

Welland

Windsor-Tecumseh

Windsor West

York Centre


Where's Ottawa Centre? Surely the NDP isn't ahead by 5%, and neither are the Liberals?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A poll with a sample that big is deeply suspicious; which outfit did it?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Is it even possible to randomly select a sample of 39000 people ? This kind of "mega polls" usually don't have random samples (see Literary Digest).

[Hatman 🍁]

A poll with a sample that big is deeply suspicious; which outfit did it?

Forum Research.

I'm concerned. How can a 6 point gain only result in 3 more seats. (The article says the NDP is down in Parkdale-High Park, yeah right!).

[Holmes]

Timmins-James Bay

Don't worry too much about this. Timmins-James Bay was fool's gold for Conservatives in the federal ("polls show Greenberg close or ahead"). Spacek is a horrible candidate for Timmins (not too much love for Kapuskasing there, and the Conservative candidate needs to win the city big for a victory), and Bisson has very sold support outside of the city.

[Linus Van Pelt]

To take a brief foray away from the numbers and into a policy rant (though it has political implications that I’ll discuss in the last paragraph):

Horwath’s platform sucks. It’s the worst I’ve seen from the NDP at the provincial or federal level - basically there’s a grab-bag of silly populist measures that don’t make sense from the point of view of any of economic growth, egalitarian redistribution or environmental protection. To take a couple of examples:

- the party proposes not to get rid of the HST altogether, but to eliminate it on ... gas! Why gas? If poorer people are struggling with the HST, why not just give them a rebate regardless of what they’ve spent their money on? Aside from the obvious carbon-increasing implications, it should be clear that this is not redistributive in the right way, since rich people buy more gas than poorer people. Imagine the NDP had said instead: “we’re just going to write a cheque every year to each Ontarian, and the amount will be a linear function of the amount of gas you buy. So Rakesh who takes the bus from his apartment in outer Scarborough to his job in a restaurant in North York gets $0, Dave who drives his Ford from his home in Windsor to his factory job 5 km away in another part of Windsor $50, and Bill who drives his BMW SUV from his home in Oakville to his office 40 km away in downtown Toronto $500.” This is functionally the same proposal as a cut to the tax on gas. Of all the ways of distributing money, this is the way the NDP chooses?

- Horwath promises to undo a contract already signed for new commuter trains for Toronto because she wants a “buy-Ontario” policy and the factory is in ... Montreal! Now, I have some sympathy for trade restrictions with countries that restrict labour rights, but seriously? We shouldn’t be trading with another Canadian province? Does she seriously think that Canadian manufacturing will stay competitive if companies have to give up economies of scale and have ten separate factories in different provinces?

As an expat I can only vote federally, but if I were in Ontario I’d be very tempted to cast a rare non-NDP vote. Social democratic views or no, Dalton is clearly the adult in the room.

Now, back to the politics: leaving aside what I think, the whole operation is clearly appealing to a certain kind of economically squeezed but not very poor voter in smaller manufacturing centres, but it's bad for the urban educated left-of-centre. Given the quality of polling, I'm pretty reluctant to make specific regional predictions, but it shouldn't be surprising if it turns out that the Liberal->NDP trend is reduced, or even in reverse, in central Ottawa and Toronto. (Especially since, in light of recent events at the municipal level in Toronto, the NDP/Smitherman voters are not in the mood to hear "normal people just gotta drive" type automotive populism.)