Saskatchewan provincial election 2015/2016 (more likely in 2016)

[lilTommy]

Seat projections are also hampered by re-distribution with 3 new seats (2 in Saskatoon and 1 in Regina) and all other riding's but Cumberland and Athabasca being redrawn to some extent.
Is there anyone who can extrapolate the 2011 votes into the 2016 Districts?

[Hatman 🍁]

Seat projections are also hampered by re-distribution with 3 new seats (2 in Saskatoon and 1 in Regina) and all other riding's but Cumberland and Athabasca being redrawn to some extent.
Is there anyone who can extrapolate the 2011 votes into the 2016 Districts?

I've already done this. I'll be posting something next week.

[adma]

What state are the Sask Liberals these days, or is their verging-on-10% share simply Trudeau-honeymoon party-label stuff?

[136or142]

What state are the Sask Liberals these days, or is their verging-on-10% share simply Trudeau-honeymoon party-label stuff?

They ran only 6 candidates in the last election and they've already nominated at least 50 this time around.

Their leader is the brother of Kevin Lamoureux, the very popular Winnipeg Liberal M.P.  In the last election their leader was  from North Battleford who subsequently got elected to the North Battleford city council in 2012.  

I don't know this for certain, but it wouldn't surprise me if he ran for the Liberals in the provincial election simply so that he could raise his profile to be able to run successfully in the municipal election.

[Hatman 🍁]

Ugh. SK NDP wants to reduce the number of seats. So the next time the Sask Party gets 60%, they can be assured of getting wiped out entirely (save for maybe the two northern seats)

[lilTommy]

Ugh. SK NDP wants to reduce the number of seats. So the next time the Sask Party gets 60%, they can be assured of getting wiped out entirely (save for maybe the two northern seats)

Just read that! move to 55 seats next election... which is more in line with the population per seat with Manitoba I suppose, about 20K+ or so, now its under 18K per seat or so from the figures I saw. Still camman, I can understand some populism (the "gravy plane", ok that I can get on board with without too much cringe) but ugh, should have just left this alone and not added seats for like 20 years or something

[DL]

Ugh. SK NDP wants to reduce the number of seats. So the next time the Sask Party gets 60%, they can be assured of getting wiped out entirely (save for maybe the two northern seats)

In practice, Saskatchewan is a bit gerrymandered with too many thinly populated rural ridings that are Sask Party strongholds. If the size of the leg were reduced from 61 to 55 seats it would mainly mean merging a lot of rural SP held seats while the under-represented cities (where the NDP seats are located) probably wouldn't change much.

[CultySmother]

Ugh. SK NDP wants to reduce the number of seats. So the next time the Sask Party gets 60%, they can be assured of getting wiped out entirely (save for maybe the two northern seats)

In practice, Saskatchewan is a bit gerrymandered with too many thinly populated rural ridings that are Sask Party strongholds. If the size of the leg were reduced from 61 to 55 seats it would mainly mean merging a lot of rural SP held seats while the under-represented cities (where the NDP seats are located) probably wouldn't change much.

You're thinking of 30 years ago. Since the Romanow government, Saskatchewan has used a +/-5% deviation limit--the lowest in the country. And there are just as many rural ridings above the provincial average as below (look up the 2012 provincial commission report). The only "thinly populated" rural riding in the province--Athabasca--is an NDP stronghold.

[Hatman 🍁]

Yeah, and if they made those two northern seats any larger, they could be in play in a wave election.

Fairly disappointed with that policy plank. Reducing legislature size is not a social democratic policy. It's a right wing populist move. Luckily for the Sask NDP, there is not a strong Liberal Party to take away left wing voters.

[DL]

I don't see the size of a legislature as a right/left issue. Harper added 30 seats to the House of Commons I guess he was a raving socialist! There should be some sort of formula or principle for how many people there are per seat within reason. Why should Saskatchewan have fewer citizens per riding than Manitoba

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Alternatively less seats could be good for the NDP if things went overwhelming their way (as does happen sometimes, this being Saskatchewan). I.e. the effect would depend on circumstances, which obviously we don't know. And anyway this is a populist platform plank for an election in which they're looking to make gains so as to challenge next time rather than they're challenging right now.

[Hatman 🍁]

I don't see the size of a legislature as a right/left issue. Harper added 30 seats to the House of Commons I guess he was a raving socialist! There should be some sort of formula or principle for how many people there are per seat within reason. Why should Saskatchewan have fewer citizens per riding than Manitoba

A stopped clock is right twice a day.

Anyways, more bad news for the Sask NDP, their campaign manager, Frank Quennell was sacked.

[DC Al Fine]

Alternatively less seats could be good for the NDP if things went overwhelming their way (as does happen sometimes, this being Saskatchewan). I.e. the effect would depend on circumstances, which obviously we don't know. And anyway this is a populist platform plank for an election in which they're looking to make gains so as to challenge next time rather than they're challenging right now.

This is true, but the NDP are more likely to be burned by fewer seats than SP, all else equal. Like the rest of the Prairies, the right has its rural bastions, but there isn't quite the same poor, urban NDP equivalent like there is in Manitoba.

[136or142]

I don't see the size of a legislature as a right/left issue. Harper added 30 seats to the House of Commons I guess he was a raving socialist! There should be some sort of formula or principle for how many people there are per seat within reason. Why should Saskatchewan have fewer citizens per riding than Manitoba

A stopped clock is right twice a day.

Anyways, more bad news for the Sask NDP, their campaign manager, Frank Quennell was sacked.

Well, that's odd.  Frank Quennell is a long time respected New Democrat and was the Justice Minister from 2003-2007 (or for most of that time anyway.)

Edit: It's pretty clear why he had to go. Over the last 3 days, four NDP candidates had to step down over comments they made on either Facebook or Twitter, and unlike the deliberately misquoted comment by CBC of 'stupid farmers'  when he actually said 'some stupid farmers', for at least the three cases the offensiveness of the comments seem to be pretty clear.

The forth candidate Mark Jeworski said he dropped out for 'personal reasons.'

Interesting, the person behind the 'some stupid famers' comment, Clayton Wilson did make some genuinely offensive comments and is one of the candidates who was dropped.

One of the other candidates is Terry Bell and the final candidate removed from the NDP slate is Cameron Robock in Estevan.

I don't think any of these New Democrats are running in ridings that are all that winnable and three of them were pretty much last minute candidates nominated right before the election, but Cameron Robock was nominated more than one year ago.  So, at the very least, that he was vetted so poorly is completely inexcusable.

I certainly wouldn't have regarded any of those four as 'star' candidates, but Clayton Wilson worked part time as an SGI motorcycle riding instructor, which would be a completely different background from most politicians.

I suspect that dropping four candidates from a slate if under a week has to be some kind of record.  Hopefully for the NDP there are no more to come and they can quickly recover.

[adma]

Incidentally, shouldn't the thread title be changed?

[DL]

I suspect that dropping four candidates from a slate if under a week has to be some kind of record.  Hopefully for the NDP there are no more to come and they can quickly recover.

A lot of this stuff happens behind the scenes...I've heard that last year when it suddenly looked like the Alberta NDP was doing much better than expected and that more seats would be winnable and that candidates would be under greater scrutiny etc...candidates were re-vetted and a whole bunch were quietly replaced without any fanfare and without anyone in the media noticing...

In the federal election last year i think the CPC, NDP and Liberals each had to fire about 6 or 7 candidates over the course of the campaign, including the infamous case of the CPC candidate caught on video pissing in someone's coffee mug! I suppose better to ditch 4 candidates all at once in two days than to have it go drip-drip-drip over the course of the campaign

[DC Al Fine]

Of course percentage wise, four candidates is still a big deal in a small legislature.

[Hatman 🍁]

This is how every election is going to be for the foreseeable future until we get used to it. More and more candidates are going to have extended social media foot prints.

It's going to get to the point where I'd be more concerned about candidates not having a footprint at all, or being too squeaky clean. Do we really want to elect robots?

[Poirot]

After social media scrutiny, the legal scrutiny. Five candidates (3 Sask party, 2 NDP) have past conviction of drunk driving.

[RogueBeaver]

Mainstreet has 53/35/8 and Insightrix 61/29/8.

[Hatman 🍁]

As promised, here is the redistribution of the 2011 election: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2016/03/saskatchewans-new-electoral-map.html

[RogueBeaver]

Mainstreet: Wall won the debate.

[RogueBeaver]

Insights West: 56/34/6.

[136or142]

As promised, here is the redistribution of the 2011 election: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2016/03/saskatchewans-new-electoral-map.html

This is my favorite post in the Atlas Forum ever.  Thanks!

[RogueBeaver]

Insightrix: 60/30. Barring a last-minute Forum this should be it for polls.