Canadian Election 2019

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I think it would be a mistake for Tories to rely heavily on personal attacks on Lil Justin. I understand there's something about his personality that drives the cadre nuts, but it's clear your median swing voters don't share this antipathy, finding him on balance a nice enough person. For some reason, the conservative party of Canada really likes its negative campaigning, but I don't see it working unless combined with some national recession (which of course can't be ruled out).

Weird question: can Liberals penetrate more of Calgary, given their liberal Mayor and vast expanding population?

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Agreed, but what would you propose as an alternative strategy?

As I understand it, a big problem in Canada at the moment is that although baseline growth is good, wages are stagnant and cost of living expenses are rising. I'd base a national conervative campaign on those sort of lines: GST cuts, vigorously campaign against carbon taxes (which of course worked very well for the LNP, although Miles post above suggests that isn't enough at the moment) and, most importantly, further immigration (note I don't mean a "Muslims will eat your kids" campaign, which isn't necessary here and has the potential to backfire).

Not groundbreaking stuff as campaign fodder, obviously, but I can't see how the whole "Trudeau is an evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet" line will actually work, unless the man independently soils his image or the economy collapses and he comes across as Nero at his fiddle.

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What's the possibility of a Green surge if they win PEI in two weeks? In my opinion I think with the inept leadership of the NDP they could be tied or within 1-2% of each other if that occurs.

I mean, it wouldn't be impossible to see a local boom in PEI, but I highly doubt your average Canadian will even be aware that PEI has had an election, let alone change their vote.

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Could the PPC inherit the Wildrose Party. Voters in Alberta?

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The only thing for Scheer to do is put on blackface himself otherwise they'll never break through in francophone Quebec

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I think the important thing in regards to Singh's survival is that you can sort of ignore Quebec? If the NDP caucus holds up in the rest of Canada, even if it's masked by a total blowout in Francophone ridings, that would be a healthy sign.

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Are the good results im seeing for BQ in some polls solely due to the secularism issue?

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Why have the Liberals lost so much ground in the Atlantic since their sweep last time? Dogsh**t provincial governments?

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The issue with the Tories is they've got to get over their obsession with negative campaigning. Yes it worked well on Dion and Ignatief back in the day, but I think they've allowed their cadre's visceral loathing of Lil Justin to allow the campaign to essentially become preaching to the choir (for comparison, see 80's Labour unable to square the deep loathing their core seats had for Thatcher with a cohesive electoral message for people with less strong opinions on her). Like, even post-blackface and post-scandal, most Canadaians seem to regard their PM as essentially an affable dumbass, but the Tories insist on personal attacks as if he is some unknown figure yet to be defined in the eyes of the masses.

Tbh this election is really bad for them, even worse than it was for the NDP and Liberals. They were this close to squaring the big issue for the Canadian Right in the post-Mulroney era: uniting Anglophones and Francophones. If they had managed to get the CAQ coalition - even a significant portion - they could honestly be in a position to challenge the Liberals as the natural governing force of Canada. Instead they frittered it away and allowed a zombie party to rise from the grave. And unfortunately for them, I don't think they'll get the opportunity again: the Alberta/Sask coalition is too pissed off and interrnally powerful to accept much capitulation to Quebec (even ignoring the pipeline issue).

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Yes, I think the question of whether Singh is a long-term success is ultimately probably at least as much about whether he can fix its finances as it is about how he navigates a hung parliament.

Wouldn't it be best for Singh to form an official coalition government with Trudeau? I know this is not as common as in countries like Germany or Italy, but the UK also had a coalition government from 2010 to 2015. I think the Liberal Party and NDP could get some stuff done.

Why would either party even want a coalition?