Canadian by-elections, 2013

[MaxQue]

What about Thunder Bay? Not large enough for its own riding?

It's splitted in two are geographical reasons (it's the merger of two cities and it's not possible to link all the rural around them to create a rural riding). Anyways, Thunder Bay is weakest for NDP than the rural areas around it (it's the usual North Ontario/Quebec patterns, as the cities are having more business owners/doctors/lawyers/other liberal professions than the rural areas). In short, rich people.

Provincially, two Libs (but one seat is pretty close), federally, 1 NDP and 1 Independant (elected as NDP, left over gun control).

[RogueBeaver]

Penashue resigning from Cabinet and his seat due to the campaign finance scandal, will run again. Anytime between May 6 and October 31 but no mention of date in PMO press release.

[Hatman 🍁]

I wonder if Harper will call this earlier than he normally does, because they already have a candidate.

[RogueBeaver]

I wouldn't bet on it. Todd Russell will decide in the next few days. Yvonne Jones is also thinking about running.

[Hatman 🍁]

Good test for the NDP. Labrador would be an essential riding en route to an NDP win.

[RogueBeaver]

For Grits and Tories too.

[Linus Van Pelt]

I don't think so, really. A riding with such a large Aboriginal population generally isn't a good guide to national trends.

[Хahar 🤔]

Good test for the NDP. Labrador would be an essential riding en route to an NDP win.

Would it? I'd suspect that a place with voting patterns as tribal as Labrador would be one of the last to fall.

[DL]

I wouldn't bet on it. Todd Russell will decide in the next few days. Yvonne Jones is also thinking about running.

If Yvonne Jones runs for the Liberals she would have to resign her seat in the Newfoundland legislature. Right now there are 6 Liberals and 5 New Democrats in St. John's...if the NDP won the provincial byelection it would overtake the Liberals and become the official opposition.

[Хahar 🤔]

The chances of the Liberals losing Yvonne Jones's seat are nonexistent, I would think. Today I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in her riding and he told me that he had never seen any signs of an NDP campaign in his life. Jones has only been opposed by an NDP candidate once in her 17 years as MLA, and that candidate got all of 44 votes. There is no Labrador NDP, at least not outside Labrador City and Goose Bay.

[Hatman 🍁]

While the Inuit wont vote NDP, the First Nations vote could, as could those is Labrador City and HVGB. However, the outports on the south coast (Yvonne Jones' riding) are not NDP friendly...

[RogueBeaver]

Jones is running.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2013/03/15/nl-peter-penashue-political-reaction-315.html

[DL]

In NL things can change on a dime with the right candidate. In 2008 the CPC can did ate in Labrador was a distant third with 8% and in 2011 Penashue won with 41%. Right across the Straits of Belle Isle from Yvonne Jones riding is a riding where the NDP went from having virtually no support whatsoever in 2007 to winning in 2011... So don't rule ANYTHING out in NL

[Hatman 🍁]

The NDP needs a really good *LOCAL* candidate to win. Otherwise, they wont win.

[DL]

The NDP needs a really good *LOCAL* candidate to win. Otherwise, they wont win.

That goes without saying...here is a case study of how much of a difference having a good local candidate and an active campaign can make in rural Newfoundland. The ridings of Grand Banks and Burin-Placentia are right next door to each other and are demographically identical in every way. In the Oct. 2011 NL election in Grand Banks the NDP ran a "paper candidate" who got 202 votes 3% of the total. In Burin-Placentia the NDP ran a former local mayor and put resources into the contest - they got 2,498 votes (48%) and lost by just 40 votes.

On paper Yvonne Jones' provincial seat in Labrador looks like a super safe Liberal seat, but this is the sort of places where people vote overwhelmingly for the individual and not so much the party. If she is out of the picture, in a byelection that seat would be totally up for grabs. You can be sure that now that the NDP is polling at 39% province-wide, there will be no shortage of local notables and mayors who would be eager to board the orange elevator on the ground floor before it goes up!

[lilTommy]

The NDP needs a really good *LOCAL* candidate to win. Otherwise, they wont win.

The NDP needs someone like Arlene Michelin, who was the candidate in Lake Melville last prov. election and came in second (i think) but a huge increase in a seat the NDP weren't targeting (they were targeting Labrador West with a non-local candidate and lost). She's a councillor in the area HVGB i think.

[Hatman 🍁]

I was going to suggest Randy Collins, but uh... then I read his bio.

Interestingly the other NDP MLA elected from Labrador (former provincial party leader Peter Fenwick) later ran for the Canadian Alliance in Newfoundland and is currently the mayor of Cape St. George on the west coast of the island.

So, I am at a loss for a good candidate. Maybe Darrell Brenton (candidate in Labrador West from 2007)?

[lilTommy]

Some news out of the Windsor-Tecumseh not-yet-called-by-election.
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2013/03/15/hatfield-to-announce-plans-for-his-political-future-at-1-p-m/

Percy Hatfield, former union guy & CBC journalist and windsor city councillor is going after the NDP nod (pretty sure with his name brand and municipal experience, he wont be contested. the NDP candidate from 2011 isn't running).
This one seems like a lock for the NDP... just waiting for it to be called.

@Hatman... ya i thought about Randy Collins too, ya shame that. Huh, Darrel has a pretty hefty background on him, a former town councillor and mayor of Labrador City. Doesn't have Yvonne's name, but has just as much experience in gov't.
 

[Hatman 🍁]

For those who are interested, here are the 2011 federal results by provincial riding:

Torngat Mtns (Northern villages)
Cons - 521 (46.5%)
Lib - 418 (37.3%)
NDP - 169 (15.1%)
Grn - 13 (1.2%)

Labrador West (Labrador City, Wabush)
NDP - 1245 (38.0%)
Cons - 1013 (30.9%)
Lib - 979 (29.9%)
Grn - 41 (1.25%)

Lake Melville (HVGB & area, Churchill Falls)
Cons - 2197 (51.6%)
Lib - 1450 (34.1%)
NDP - 541 (12.7%)
Grn - 68 (1.6%)

Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair (Southern coastal villages)
Lib - 1175 (69.8%)
Cons - 360 (21.4%)
NDP - 138 (8.2%)
Grn - 10 (0.6%)


Very polarized area, for sure. The Tories, Liberals and NDP would all win at least one riding. Also, I don't buy the "anyone can win" Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair. I think it is very, very Liberal leaning...

[DL]

Interesting to see those provincial riding breakdowns. The NDP managed to win the Labrador West area (essentially Wabush and Labrador City) with no campaign at all...I guess it helps when that area is essentially all steelworkers! Seems to me that the path to the NDP winning Labrador is to hold and expand support in Labrador West, not worry too much about "Torngat Mountains" where there are almost no votes anyways and not worry too much about Carwright-L'Anse au Clair either - esp. if Yvonne Jones runs for the Liberals...the place where the riding could be won is clearly the Melville Lake riding which includes the population centre of Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The NDP only took 12% of the vote there in the 2011 federal election, but running Arlene Michelin provincially (who is a city councillor in the Goose Bay), the NDP vote climbed to 35%...she is apparently being courted to run federally for the NDP now.

[Hatman 🍁]

Here are the results by census division (county equivalents)

Division No. 11 (Nunatsiavut)
Lib - 410 (43.4%)
Cons - 361 (38.2%)
NDP - 163 (17.2%)
Grn - 12 (1.3%)

Division No. 10 (everywhere else)
Cons - 3895 (40.0%)
Lib - 3767 (38.65%)
NDP - 1957 (20.1%)
Grn - 127 (1.3%)

[Hatman 🍁]

So, Torngat Mtns is basically Nunatsiavut plus the Innu village of Natuashish. The Inuit went Liberal, marginally but the Innu went heavily Conservative, and that lone village in the riding was enough to swing Torngat Mtns to the Tories.

[Hatman 🍁]

Just for fun...

There are two Innu reserves in Labrador, here is their combined vote:

Con: 669 (92.9%)
Lib: 37 (5.1%)
NDP: 12 (1.7%)
Grn: 2 (0.3%)


Without those two villages, the Liberals would have won the riding.

[DL]

What is the difference between the Innu and the Inuit? I was always under the impression that "Innu" was the name given to Inuit people living in Labrador...but apparently they are actually different people.

[Linus Van Pelt]

The Innu are a First Nations group whose traditional European name was Montagnais. They are status Indians and would be thought of as Indian under traditional classification, not Inuit. Their language is Algonquian, like Cree or Micmac, and it's just a coincidence that their name for themselves sounds like "Inuit".