Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[King of Kensington]

Liberal MP Michael Levitt is leaving politics:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/michael-levitt-resigns-1.5674294

[King of Kensington]

1. James Moore: I could see him running, as he is still relatively prominent in the CPC. His biggest challenge would be getting a seat, as metro Vancouver has trended away from the CPC since he left.

2. Mike Bernier: If a seat opens up, yes. His part of BC is held by the Conservative backbencher Bob Zimmer, who has been there since 2011. It's not inconceivable that this seat opens up, though maybe not in a snap election.

3. Rona Ambrose: Says she won't run, and has a well-paying corporate job. If she wants back into politics at all, her best bet is to wait for O'Toole's leadership to end at some point and jump into a leadership race.

4. Gary Mar: Don't know much about him, but there's not much free real estate for Conservative politicians in Alberta right now. He'd likely have to wait for a Calgary-area retirement/resignation.

5. Brad Wall: O'Toole would probably love to have someone like him in caucus, he could almost function as a "prairie lieutenant" to shore up the base while O'Toole focuses on Ontario. Again, no real estate in Sask. But should a CPC MP in SK retire anytime soon, he would get the nomination with ease.

6. Brian Bowman: Is he popular in Winnipeg? Winnipeg South and Elmwood-Transcona are marginal enough for a popular tory to win, but it's an uphill battle. And with the current state of Covid in Winnipeg, he might not win.

7. Assuming you mean John Baird: No. Ottawa has been very NOVA-ized since 2015, and his old riding of Ottawa West-Nepean is now a solid Liberal riding. He would have to run in Kanata-Carleton to have a shot. And even then, Baird might not want to. I don't know the details but the word in Ottawa is that Baird has a few skeletons in his closet.

8. Lisa Raitt: Milton is gone. Even if Van Koeverden's Olympian stardom wears off, there's clearly greater trends in Milton and it's hard to see the CPC making up a 9000-vote gap and 21% swing. She could try one of the Oakville ridings, but even those are unlikely to go blue. Her best shot is to hope Chong retires in Wellington-Halton Hills.

9. Michael Fortier: He would have to be parachuted into one of the Beauport ridings, or wait for a QC CPC MP to resign. He's been out of the public eye for quite some time though, I don't think he would be that much of a star candidate.

10. Bernard Lord: Again, out of the public eye for quite some time. He's the CEO of Medavie-Blue Cross now, which probably pays better than an MP's salary. And I don't know how well a red tory like him could fit with the party of Erin "Take Canada Back" O'Toole

11. Peter MacKay: Already announced he's not running. If he changes his mind, he has an uphill battle in Central Nova.

This really shows how difficult the path to victory is for the CPC, even if O'Toole is a much more capable leader than his predecessor.  The Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa suburbs are increasingly out of reach, and O'Toole is going to have to really do spectacularly well outside the "big six" (1 million+) metros or really find a way to break into ethnocultural and immigrant communities.

[King of Kensington]

I agree, O'Toole should not be underestimated.  His caucus is ridiculously weak though (i.e. Pierre Poilievre, Michelle Rempel).

And Scheer was a bad fit outside the Prairies.  O'Toole is much more attuned culturally to eastern Canada. 

[King of Kensington]

The Harper/Kenney strategy of winning the "ethnic/immigrant" vote and using that to win seats in suburban Toronto and suburban Vancouver is still the path of least resistance for the CPC. It is also a more stable coalition for the CPC as they are not going to be on the offside with every single one of their key issues (tax cuts etc) with these voters as they would be with more ideologically left leaning small town Quebec. I don't know why people are counting the Conservatives out from contention for the ethnic vote consider Harper won it in 2011 and so did the Ford brothers. Harper laid out the blueprint of how the CPC can win, they'd be wise trying to replicate that strategy rather than galaxy brain ideas.

The Harper immigrant strategy/success was real, but greatly exaggerated. Yes it's true that Harper won the immigrant vote. When people think immigrant they think Chinese and Indian, but Europeans who moved in the 1950s are immigrants too. When you look at the type of immigrants that are growing in Canada's population, Harper didn't necessarily do too well. Conservatives got 31% of the visible minority vote in 2011, with the NDP getting 38% and Liberals 23%. Of course visible minority =/= immigrant, but most visible minorities in Canada (this doesn't include indigenous people of course) are immigrants, and most growing immigrant communities are visible minorities. In this sense, non-white immigrants didn't carry Harper to victory, so much as they followed a national trend. On a similar note, recent immigrants in 2011 voted for the NDP. This highlights a key difference--longtime, disproportionately white immigrants were the group that carried Harper to victory in 2011. More recent, disproportionately nonwhite immigrants stayed with the centre-left, only this time many of them voted NDP instead of the traditional Liberals (as with most other centre-left groups in 2011). The link to the poll below:

https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/poll-how-religion-and-ethnicity-shaped-canadas-2011-election

With Ford in 2018, once again, immigrant groups did not necessarily carry the PCs as much as they followed the trend. Some groups like Chinese-Canadians swung heavily to the PCs, as they have federally as well. But the South Asian and Black communities, who tend to have similar voting patterns and are a very large bloc in the GTA when combined, still leaned left. If you look at poll-by-poll breakdowns in the GTA, the Liberals and NDP did better in parts of the GTA that are disproportionately black and south asian. It should be no surprise then that three of the NDP's four seats in the 905 were in Brampton. However, what skews people's perception is that many suburban and diverse ridings were split closely. Consider Scarborough Centre, where the PCs got 38% of the vote, but the NDP and Liberals split the centre-left 33-22. Or Brampton West, one of the two PC seats in Brampton, which broke down 39-38-18 PC-NDP-OLP. Going back to the 2011 federal election makes this even clearer. The Conservatives carried Bramalea-Gore-Malton, which has one of the highest immigrant populations in Canada. Upon further inspection, the CPC candidate only got 34% of the vote, and the NDP and Liberals split 34-29. I may be cherrypicking here, but there are just a lot of examples, in both 2011 and 2018, where the Conservative sweep of immigrant-heavy ridings were mainly a byproduct of the centre-left splitting votes.

Excellent analysis. 

[King of Kensington]

This split between Chinese and non-Chinese VMs is quite evident in Scarborough in the last Ontario election.  The heavily Chinese ridings (Scarborough North and Agincourt) went 50% PC, the PC vote was below 40% across the other Scarborough ridings.

[King of Kensington]

I see there's a hotly contested nomination in Thornhill for the CPC nomination between PC strategist Melissa Lantsman and the MPP, Gila Martow.  It seems like all the big names are behind Lantsman, both federal and provincial.

[King of Kensington]

Michelle Rempel weighs in, allegedly on the Rod Phillips affair...doesn't take long for her to make it about herself, the media and Justin Trudeau:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddgzX5rUI-4&feature=emb_title

[King of Kensington]

Anybody see recent Mainstreet poll in Alberta?  Shows NDP at 48%, UCP at 31% Wildrose Independence party at 10% so even combined right is trailing (https://www.westernstandardonline.com/2021/01/exclusive-new-poll-shows-ucp-collapse-as-ndp-wildrose-surge/).  Frank Graves tweeted Kenney's approval rating at 16%.  So I believe idea of Notley winning in 2023 is not far fetched but actually fairly likely although not certain.  Never mind if bad poll numbers persist I am guessing UCP dumps Kenney as leader which can change a lot. 

Still wondering, is this the end of conservative dominance of Alberta?  Not saying Tories won't win there in future, just think their lock on province is over and it will be more like BC, Ontario, and Manitoba sometimes voting for centre-right parties but not all the time.  Also be interesting if this spills over federally.  Hasn't happened yet, but considering Kenney endorsed O'Toole, I cannot help but that there is an opportunity for Liberals and NDP.  Only caveat is federal NDP far more anti-oil than provincial NDP who support O&G sector unlike federal counterparts.  And Trudeau still very unpopular, way more so than Notley.  Thoughts here>

Wil Calgary and Edmonton start voting more like big city residents and less as "Albertans"?  That happened in 2015, but then that pattern reverted with the hyper-regional voting took place in 2019. 

[King of Kensington]

Visible minority:

Liberals 53%
Conservatives 22%
NDP 20%
Greens 4%
BQ 0

https://twitter.com/DavidColetto/status/1350087616570523654

[King of Kensington]

Leger poll:

Liberals  37%
Conservatives  28%
NDP  22%
BQ  7%
Greens  5%

https://2g2ckk18vixp3neolz4b6605-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Legers-North-American-Tracker-February-1st-2021-min.pdf

(regionals on page 43)

[King of Kensington]

Conservative numbers outside the Prairies are dreadful.

[King of Kensington]

Abacus poll:

Liberals  32%
Conservatives  31%
NDP  18%
BQ  8%
Greens  7%

Still a lot of wasted Conservative votes in the Prairies.

https://abacusdata.ca/horserace-tightens-vaccines-rollout-canadian-politics-abacus-data/

[King of Kensington]

If one read nothing but National Post coverage of the pandemic, you'd think Canada was a unitary state with no provincial governments.

[King of Kensington]

Very unlikely to take it.  Her strong by-election showing was based on high turnout in low-population Cabbagetown.  Guelph seems like a wiser choice.

[King of Kensington]

Poll by polls from Toronto Centre for selected areas.

Church-Wellesley (Gay Village)

Liberals  1,987  42%
Greens  1,396  30%
NDP  954  20%

St. James Town

Liberals  1,042  59%
NDP  278  16%
Greens  260  15%

Cabbagetown

Greens  891  55%
Liberals  505  31%
NDP  159  10%

[King of Kensington]

I think Tories are in a bigger rut due to shift in public opinion.  Liberals have never really been anchored to anyone ideology so they can shift whichever way wind blows.  People may be upset about Liberals being late on vaccines, but I think general fear and mistrust of Tories means they have to mess up really badly to lose.  A bad rollout probably means a minority instead of majority.

In last decade, the base has become even more right wing so any more moderation risks creating another split on right.  By same token median voter has moved even further left so your Blue Liberal/Red Tory demographic exists but much smaller than they've been in the past.  Essentially I would argue gap between median voter and Tory base is too large to bridge thus why they cannot win in the near future.  Whereas 10 years ago it was a challenge but at least possible to bridge it.

I also think pandemic has created perfect storm to make big government popular so what can Tories run on?  Social and cultural conservatism has always been a vote loser in Canada.  Fiscal conservatism was once a vote winner but not now.  And trying to be like Liberals won't work as people will just vote for real one.  Thus I think failure to win in 2019 means party missed its opportunity and will likely be in opposition for quite some time.

As for provincial conservative parties, PCs in Atlantic Canada and CAQ doing well but there is enough daylight between them and federal Tories.  Ford is doing okay and would probably win a majority if held today, but I would say he is more vulnerable than Trudeau is.  Pallister is definitely in trouble, but time to recover and besides not likely to run again in 2023.  The one advantage of Manitoba is PCs more or less have a lock on rural ridings outside North so that is 40% of seats right there.  Next time NDP wins in Manitoba, it will probably be by a near sweep of Winnipeg.

For Saskatchewan, Moe's approval has slid a bit, but I think Saskatchewan will probably replace Alberta as Canada's most Conservative province if it hasn't already.  Kenney is very unpopular and I would say at this point, Notley is probably favoured to win in 2023.  Not a certainty, but I don't buy idea when right is united they automatically win in Alberta.  That may have once been true but not anymore.  Real question is when does Edmonton and Calgary at federal level start voting like other cities their size?  It still leans heavily Tory, but in another decade, I could see Liberals or NDP being competitive in two cities.

It seems like Canada is moving a bit toward an American-style "progressive" vs. "conservative" polarization, but less balanced.  Conservatives are increasingly torn between the median voter and their base.  Roughly 55% are consistently Liberal/NDP/Green, 30-35% Conservative.  

[King of Kensington]

It may have - while somewhat imperfect I have around 1,800 votes cast in St. James Town and 1,600 in Cabbagetown.  

[King of Kensington]

Not buying this "Peter MacKay would be doing better" line.  MacKay may be "moderate" or whatever but I don't think he'd have better talking points than "show us the contracts" and "we would have been better than Trudeau."  The electorate has shifted leftward.

[King of Kensington]

Mark Carney has joined Twitter:

https://twitter.com/MarkJCarney

[King of Kensington]

It's the perfect place for it.

[King of Kensington]

Mark Carney has joined Twitter:

https://twitter.com/MarkJCarney

Will Carolyn Bennett retire and open up the "prestige" riding of St. Paul's?

[King of Kensington]

I looked at Regent Park as well.

Liberals  1,164  49%
Greens  636  27%
NDP  409  17%

The area has changed a lot with Regent's "redevelopment" and it also includes some coops, private housing in Treffan Court etc.

[King of Kensington]

The Conservatives want us to "meet" Erin O'Toole, telling us he isn't a career politician and neglects to mention that his father was an MPP under Mike Harris.

https://meet.erinotoole.ca/

[King of Kensington]

O'Toole seems like a decent fit for Atlantic Canada.

[King of Kensington]

What's with Eastern Ontario? There's also the independent (ex-PC) MPP Randy Hillier.