Canadian Election 2019

[DL]

In other news, Lenore Zann has left the NS NDP, in order to run for the chance to lose to Scott Armstrong in Cumberland-Colchester.

To clarify, she's running federally for the *Liberals*.  (Which blurs the chance-to-lose potential, even if it infuriates the NDP left.)

Hmm, that's interesting, could put a wrinkle in what should be a fairly easy Tory pickup.

What’s in it for her? First of all apparently three other people are running for the Liberal nomination so who knows if she can even win the nomination. Second of all the Tories are heavily favoured to win that seat. The Nova Scotia Liberals are extremely unpopular these days. So what exactly does she gain? Does she think Trudeau might appoint her to the senate ?

[DL]

This is all rumour, but I have heard talk that she strongly dislikes Gary Burrill, the leader of the NS NDP. She thinks he's taking the party in a too Halifax-centric direction (a perennial complaint from non Halifax NDPers).

I guess her decision kind of makes sense from that standpoint

Although Burrill was originally an MLA for a rural riding and only ran for a Halifax seat as a parachute candidate after he lost his seat in the 2013 election. Zann ran for the NS NDP leadership as the far left candidate claiming the party was way too centrist and had to be more socialist and go back to its roots. Now she is willing to throw in with the federal Liberals in a seat she will almost certainly lose...just doesnt make sense

[DL]

Rob Ford's widow is running for the People's Party in Etobicoke North

Further proof that the Fords only care about their name and actually have little regard for the OPCs/CPC. But Kirsty Duncan should still be re-elected.

Its not quite as simple as that...Renata Ford is "one Ford" - but she seems to be on the outs with the rest of the Ford family since she is suing Doug Ford for stealing money from her. I suspect that all the rest of "the Fords" will pull out all stops to ensure she is crushed like a bug

[DL]

Polling Data for the Federal Election in Manitoba

MB (2015 Results in Brackets)
Consv.  43% (35%)
Liberal 24% (45%)
NDP 17% (14%)
Green 13% (3%)

Winnipeg
Consv: 35% (29%)
Liberal 29% (53%)
NDP 20% (14%)
Green 13% (3%)


Outside Winnipeg
Consv 56% (48%)
Liberal 15% (33%)
NDP 11% (13%)
Greens 13% (4%)




https://media.winnipegfreepress.com/documents/190621June+2019MBOmniFedPartyStandings.pdf

The numbers in Winnipeg are pretty devastating for the Liberals. By my estimate they would lose Charleswood-St. James and Kildonan-St. Paul to the Tories for sure, likely lose Winnipeg South to the Tories as well and likely lose Winnipeg Centre to the NDP. Winnipeg South Centre and St. Boniface would be on the bubble. The only Liberal hold would be Winnipeg North – only because the inexplicably popular Kevin Lamoureux is there…

The Tories already hold every seat outside Winnipeg so they can't gain anything - expect for Churchill where they are not competitive because its largely Indigenous

[DL]

I wonder if Scheer would get knifed as party leader after one try like what happened to poor Mulclair.

Depends on how they perform come election day. If they gain enough seats that they hold the Liberals to a minority, then I'd presume that his position would be secure through the next election.

Its less about the raw seat count than it is about what consensus develops about how Scheer campaigned. In Mulcair's case, if he had run a campaign that New Democrats felt good about and he had performed well in debates etc... and was seen as having lost due to forces beyond his control - he would have easily been confirmed as leader. Instead, he was widely review as having run a dull, demoralizing campaign and as having made a series of really bad strategic decisions that cost the party dearly. On top of that he showed no contrition and had absolutely nothing to say about what he would do differently in the future so as not to repeat the same mistakes. On top of that, since by all accounts Mulcair was a really unpleasant person with a miserable personality - there was no "reservoir of good will" towards him in the party. No one ever really liked him as a person in the first place.

With regard to Scheer, if he is seen as having campaigned reasonably well and he does a competent job in the debates and he gains some ground but loses the election - and the consensus is that he lost largely because of a backlash against Doug Ford in Ontario - then he can probably live to fight another day...Harper lost in 2004 and still got to stay as CPC leader. If on the other hand, Scheer falls flat on his face in the campaign and is seen as having been a major liability to his party and he makes a lot of enemies within the party - that is a different story and then there would be pressure on his to quit. But is ANYONE in the Tory party going to regret that they picked Scheer as their leader instead of Maxime Bernier???

[DL]

FYI, Lisa Raitt cannot speak French. When she ran for leader she mouthed some horribly accented "French" that she was clearly reading from a script written in phonetics. GONG

[DL]

I’ve heard that despite his name being “Pierre Poilievre” he is 100% Anglo and barely speaks any French

[DL]

The Bloc vote in Laurier Ste. Marie was very inflated in 2011 and 2015 because Gilles Duceppe was the candidate. It’s actually a very cosmopolitan socially liberal bohemian riding that went massively Quebec Solidaire provincially. With the NDP running the wife of the very popular Qs MNA. I suspect that it will be very much an NDP/Liberal contest and the BQ won’t be much of a factor.

[DL]

The Bloc vote in Laurier Ste. Marie was very inflated in 2011 and 2015 because Gilles Duceppe was the candidate. It’s actually a very cosmopolitan socially liberal bohemian riding that went massively Quebec Solidaire provincially. With the NDP running the wife of the very popular Qs MNA. I suspect that it will be very much an NDP/Liberal contest and the BQ won’t be much of a factor.

Oh? I thought it was more working class, like Beaulieu's riding.

Beaulieu’s riding would be sort of a Montreal equivalent of Scarborough Southwest. Laurier Ste. Marie more like A Montreal version of Davenport

[DL]

Who will succeed Singh?

Sven Robinson is outspoken and probably could get media attention and visibility.

Svend Robinson, Niki Ashton, Charlie Angus, Guy Caron, Alexandre Boulerice

Some others to think about: REB, Tracey Ramsey, Andrew Cash

Not a bad list. You could add Peter Julian. Trouble is, it's possible only two of those win (Angus and Boulerice, add Julian for a third). That would be a really bad result for the NDP and I think they can definitely do better - but it isn't outside the realms of possibility.

Ya, *depending on if they win*

There are a couple other names of candidates that "could" be leadership contenders but have no Parliamentary experience. I'm thinking of a couple of notables from municipal politics:
Laurel Collins in Victoria, Matthew Green in Hamilton Centre or Taylor Bachrach in Skeena-Bulkley Valley

another MP that I wouldn't be surprised if they ran for leadership: Daniel Blaikie

Anyone who even runs for the NDP leadership MUST be able to speak at least some French (and English). That qualifies Boulerice, Caron, Ashton, Julian, Robinson, REB and Angus (sort of). As far as i know the other names mentioned speak no French. GONG!

[DL]

Fordnation support is like Trump's, there is an absolute floor, and nothing he does or says will drop that support below that number. There is a reason why he's not the least popular premier in the country (only second least!).

Yes, there is a floor, but it is lower than you think with some polls showing his approval rating as low as 20%

[DL]

MQO reserach is doing polls for each province in Atlantic Canada.  In Newfoundland, Liberals are ahead, but the shift since 2015 is pretty massive, mind you Liberal numbers there were so high reversion to the mean was probably expected.

Liberal 46%
Conservative 38%
NDP 11%
Green 2%
PPC 2%

Regardless of what any poll says - the NDP is almost certain to pick up St. John's East where they are running Jack Harris. He will win on the strength of his personal brand

[DL]

A poor performance for the federal Conservatives would not endanger Ford's rule of the provincial party, correct? It doesn't seem like 2008 or 2011 reflected badly on McGuinty at all, or like federal politics impacts provincial politics this way in other provinces.

Actually there is a long history of unpopular provincial governments costing their federal cousins votes and seats in Canadian elections. In 1979 the extreme unpopularity of the rightwing Manitoba PC government under Sterling Lyon cost the federal PCs several seats and could have been the difference between the Joe Clark government surviving or losing power.

In 1997, the Nova Scotia Liberals were extremely unpopular - the federal Liberals went from holding all 11 federal seats in NS to holding zero of them!

In 1974, 1997 and 2000 the federal NDP suffered heavy losses in BC because of the unpopularity of the BC NDP governments in those times.

The backlash against Mike Harris is widely seen as having contributed to the Liberals under Chretien sweeping Ontario in 1997 and 2000.

A backlash against Dalton McGuinty is seen as having cost the federal Liberals a lot of seats in Ontario in 2004 and 2006 and 2008 

[DL]

If the federal Tories have a really disappointing performance in Ontario and its interpreted as being largely due to a backlash against Doug Ford - it will not in and of itself cause a revolt against his leadership. First of all there really is no mechanism for the Ontario PCs to ditch him while he is premier. The only way would be if the entire cabinet resigned and threatened to vote non-confidence in him and force a snap election...very unlikely.

Now if the Tories not only do badly in the federal election but they also continue to poll very badly and maybe get crushed in some byelections - it will cause more and more discontent - and if Doug Ford was a more conventional politician with some loyalty to his party - he might take a walk in the snow and resign so his party has a better chance of winning in 2022 under a new leader. But Ford is none of those things. he is like Trump in that he doesnt give a damn about his party - its all about him. If he can't be leader than he really doesnt care about whether the next Premier is some PC hack or Andrea Horwath!

I predict that no matter how much unrest there is - Ford would act like Greg Selinger and dig in his heels and absolutely refuse to go and would insist on leading the Tories in 2022 - damn the torpedoes.

[DL]

Ford he would have to be even more delusional than rumoured to think he could ever be federal Tory leader. If Scheer loses it will be largely because of Ford's extreme unpopularity in Ontario - so how much of a death wish would federal Tories have to be to pick as their federal leader the man whose incompetence and unpopularity were singularly responsible for them losing the election...Even if Ford were popular - the fact he is the guys speaks ZERO French and Quebec ridings get a weighted 24% of the vote in a CPC leadership contest.

[DL]

The Tories led minority governments from 2006-2011, not 2011-2015. I'm also not quite sure it's accurate to say there was a clear majority of 'left-of-centre' MPs during those years.

The thing that was different in that period was that the BQ had 50 seats and after the 2006 election they made it clear that there was no way in a million years that they would ever back another Liberal government under Paul Martin what with the sponsorship scandal. If the Liberals+NDP had had a majority between them, you can be sure Harper would never have formed a government. After the 2008 election there was an attempt at a Liberal-NDP minority government with BQ support, but because the Liberals had already allowed a Throne speech to pass, Harper was able to go to the GG and demand a prorogation.

[DL]

There are zero remotely winnable seats for the NDP in New Brunswick so why would the party waste time and money there?

[DL]

Normally the official campaign period is 35 days

[DL]

Mainstreet is out today and has the NDP at only 8.4% federally.

Nanos today has NDP support at 16.6% - go figure

[DL]

Nanos tracking 9/16 ->
CPC 34.4%,
LPC 34%,
NDP 16.4%,
Greens 7.8%,
PPC 2.3%. 
*BQ was at 20.0% in Quebec

https://myemail.constantcontact.com/CTV-News-Globe-and-Mail-Nanos-Nightly-Tracking---BALLOT---CPC-34-4--LPC-34-0--NDP-16-4--GP-7-8--PPC-2-3---three-nights-ending-Se.html?soid=1101375804867&aid=r0aU2uQmT0k

Nanos 9/14&15th ->
LPC 35%,
CPC 32%,
NDP 17%,
Green 10%

https://www.nanos.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019-1445-CTV-Globe-ELXN-Ballot-Ending-September-14-2019.pdf

The Greens must have really dropped like a stone over the weekend to lose almost two points in one day...at this rate they will be back at their usual 5-6% and when all the dust settles they may end up with just 2 seats and people will refer to them as the most overrated story of the election

[DL]

His apology was the best apology for this kind of sh-t I've seen from a politician in a long time. That's something. I'll still vote NDP in Vancouver Centre though, ha.

You’ve gotta be kidding. He was awful. All he did was talk about himself and never about the people who are hurt by this and he couldn’t even bring himself to say the word “blackface”. Then he tries to trivialize the whole think by saying “he likes to wear costumes”

If you want to see good heartfelt words on this watch Jagmeet Singh’s statement

[DL]

https://twitter.com/CBCKatie/status/1174703833467019264

Meanwhile Scheer still refuses to apologize for his homophobic remarks in 2005 - he scoffs and says "it was a long time ago". Total hypocrit

[DL]

I can't wait for the post-Facegate polling.

Rather early, and just a daily tracking poll, but still

Libs: 36.8
Cons: 34.2
NDP: 10.1
Green: 9.8
Bloc: 4.7

Changes from the previous poll were all under 0.5 in every case.

Nanos was virtually unchanged, too. Liberals dropped less than a point and the Greens and NDP gained no more than a point (the Conservatives had a tiny drop in support). Those aren't even obvious enough changes to be anything other than statistical noise.

The problem for the (mostly NDP and Conservative) cheerleaders of the longevity and gravity of the blackface scandal is that nobody has an argument for why it would hurt the Liberals. There are principally two groups digging into this with glee. First, those who resent the Woke King's wokeness and hope this will temper his SJW credibility. These people are Conservative voters, anyway. The other group is the (white, western provincial, progressive) people watching the Singh video with tears rolling down their faces. These people are NDP voters. But none of this actually moves the needle away from the liberals. What Grit voter sees Trudeau acting insensitively on camera suddenly decides that, no, I am so woke that I want to punish Trudeau by voting for or helping elect the people who represent and legislate everything contrary to my political and social values? Where this could hurt the Liberals is among marginal Harper-Trudeau voters who have had enough already. But these are likely Scheer supporters already.

But what you’re missing is that the normal level of NDP support in Canadian elections going back to 1962 is about 17-18%. Lately the NDP was polling way lower than that largely because people kept being told that Singh was an weak leader. One thing everyone agrees on is that Singh has campaigned very well so far and that he hit the ball out of the park with how he handled Trudeau’s minstrel show pictures. A lot of people who usually vote NDP may now start to “come home” to their usual home and you could see the NDP move back to the mid to high teens. Just anecdotally, two weeks ago people I know who vote NDP were doing so despite Singh and no one wanted to talk about him. Now NDP voters are feeling proud of him and he is drawing bigger more enthusiastic crowds. The whole emotion around the NDP campaign has changed 180 degrees

[DL]

Yes yes yes, the Liberals always play the strategic voting card to stop the “scary Conservatives”. They have done that in every single election I have been aware of. They played that card in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2015. Of course it works with some people but that is a strategy that typically is the difference between the NDP getting 21% of the national popular vote or getting 18%. Usually the NDP floor is about 16% never 10%. And Harper was by any objective standards much “scarier” than Scheer is. To the average voter Scheer is too much of a flaccid nerd to be “scary”. The other thing is that the people who are that terrified of Scheer are mostly a few academics who live in the downtown core. In the other 90% of Canada people just don’t see it that way and there are a lot of people who are pissed off with Trudeau who are asking themselves “should I vote Tory or NDP”.

As much as the Liberals try to demonize Scheer, I just don't think its all that effective. I can't stand the guy myself, but he is NOT some Canadian version of Trump or Boris Johnson. He is also not a federal version of Doug Ford. To me he is sort of a somewhat rightwing version of Joe Clark... Seriously though what exactly would Scheer do that the average swing voter is supposed to find TERRIFYING? is it the pledge to restore the tax credit for children's sports and activities? Is it the pledge to balance the budget 5 years from now (one year faster than the Liberals)? Sure there is a lot of fear mongering about abortion and gay marriage but seriously, does ANYONE think Scheer would pass a law banning same sex marriage or abortion? Harper was PM for 10 years and never touched those issues and he was more of a social conservative personally and attended some evangelical church. The Supreme Court has already rules that equal marriage and abortion rights are protected under the Charter. Keep in mind that even if Scheer won a majority (still very unlikely), all legislation would have to get through the Senate and the Senate is now overwhelmingly composed of "independent" small "l" liberal senators who would vote down almost anything the Tories tried to do. In any case after the publication of the pictures of Trudeau at a minstrel show - the Liberal strategy of dredging up bigoted quotes by Tory candidates form 15 years ago is now DEAD.

Don't get me wrong, I loath Scheer and I really don't want him to win, but I just think that the Liberal attempt to depict him as some sort of existential threat to humanity is just not going to work.

[DL]

So called strategic voting started long before that. The first election I was aware of was in 1974 and in that election the NDP lost half its seats because so many people were “terrified” that Stanfield would
Impose wage and price controls and switched from NDP to Liberal to stop Stanfield. Of course one year later the Trudeau Liberal brought in wage and price controls themselves but I digress