Canadian Politics Thread

oh. ok yes.

obviously. sorry.

Totally agree with this btw:

my big fear about an idiotic two party system is all reasonable policy consideration would be out the window. it would be two large, entrenched camps battling it out for the middle 10% or simply appealing to their own base to turn out en mass. it's already been turning into that over the last 10 years - where it's nothing but partisan bickering over inflamitory side-issues - where nuanced discussion about the difficult decisions gov't must make from time to time get ignored in favour of jingolistic soundbites and petty mud slinging.

It's good to have a centrist party.

To defend the US system a little though, there's a broad range of opinion within each of the two parties, compared to what we typically find within our parties. Individual Congressmen are not whipped to vote the party line on issues.

think it's a fallacy to identify the Liberals, NDP, and BQ all as "left-of-centre" parties and assume that all of their voters would then always vote for a single 'left' party in a two-party system.

At the risk of repeating myself and just to sort out my thoughts, I guess I think this is a fallacy because of two assumptions that seem to be behind it:

i) The Liberals are in fact a left-of-centre party who have more in common with the NDP than with the Conservatives.
ii) People's voting decisions are based on the left-right spectrum.

Whether or not a party is left of centre depends of course on where you think the centre is. I've always thought of the Liberals, at least since the 80s, as a 'middle' party, borrowing ideas from either side as they see fit. The Liberal Party of the 90s was relatively socially liberal but, one could argue, the most fiscally conservative government we've had in decades. (And yes, this was a trend throughout the Western world at the time.) The Fraser Institute, who are as economically right-wing as you can get, recommends their 1995 budget as a model because Harper isn't cutting enough: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/research-news/news/display.aspx?id=17270 Tom Flanagan, an intellectual pioneer of the Reform/CPC movement, accused the Liberals of stealing Reform economic policies. The corporate taxes we're discussing now were first introduced under the Liberals and, as the CPC never fails to point out, Ignatieff's Liberals voted for them.

The Liberals are currently running on a platform that is much closer in spirit to the NDP (or perhaps the 60s/70s LPC?) than to the CPC but their record in the Commons during the last Parliament showed plenty of support for CPC measures. As Mansbridge pointed out when he interviewed Ignatieff, Ignatieff had voted for the fighter jets and jails he is now running against.

From any polls I've seen and in my experience, there are many Liberal voters who would pick the CPC over the NDP as their second choice.

While the BQ is a genuinely social democratic party, Quebec voters’ choices can be determined by a range of factors beyond a left-right spectrum. Often they will vote for a leader who offers more self-determination to Quebec or, frankly, who offers more money. Mulroney swept Quebec. The BQ’s founder came from Mulroney’s cabinet. They currently seem to be parking with the NDP but there is no reason why a right-wing party – who would probably favour decentralization anyway – could not do well some of the time in Quebec if we had a two-party system.

Likewise, there are e.g. many Prairie or working-class ridings that switched from the NDP to Reform in the 90s. People vote according to a range of factors. Political parties come up with strategies to attract them. If you’re one of two big parties in a two-party system, it seems more likely that, by doing this, you could win half the time than if you’re at one extreme of a three- or four-party system.

at least since the 80s

Maybe as much or more so in the Mackenzie King era, actually!

This is close--but not as close as I wanted, so I've concluded that the Harper picture must look exactly like someone I went to high school with.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IG7nagJCvAU/R-ZUelEcDDI/AAAAAAAAASo/Sx41eZuWiWQ/s400/michael%25252Bsarrazin.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7g7vq7oz8bE/TDH6elA093I/AAAAAAAADY8/IqOVy98T0Uk/s1600/007_harper

I voted today! But I did not get a sticker attesting to that fact : (

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/features/votecompass/map/

This is sort of interesting. Most of the spreads of responses to the various questions are pretty predictable, but #6 surprised me. Why are Quebeckers more strongly in favour of closer economic ties to the US than other parts of the country? Is there something obvious I'm missing here?

I found it interesting (but tbh unsurprising) how Quebec ridings were the furthest left on (most) economic issues and foreign policy but also the most conservative on accommodating religious minorities or on admitting immigrants who don't speak English or French. I don't know the answer to your question though, salsa shark...

Not sure if it was the same QC ridings actually though...

Nanos regionals suggest CPC majority: http://www.nanosresearch.com/election2011/20110424-BallotE.pdf
but...
EKOS shows less than 6 points between the CPC and NDP!: http://ipolitics.ca/2011/04/25/ndp-leapfrogs-liberals-to-landin-second-spot-in-astonishing-campaign-twist/

suggest CPC majority

this is terrifying!

It is but I don't know what to make of those polls. One implies a CPC majority. The other makes an NDP-led government actually plausible, despite a CPC plurality.

Ekos report: http://www.ekospolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/full_report_april_25_2011.pdf

With the current splits, these levels of support would produce 131 Conservative seats but the NDP would have 100 seats while the Liberals would hold 62. Together, the NDP and Liberal Party would have a majority and 31 more seats than the Conservatives, as well as nearly 20 more points in popular vote. It is hard to imagine how these totals would not produce the once unimaginable outcome of a Jack Layton led coalition government deposing Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. Unless of course, Stephen Harper could convince Michael Ignatieff that the Conservatives were more appropriate political bedfellows for the Liberals.

sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit

this would be the funniest thing that ever happened

If Smilin' Jack actually sailed up the middle to take opposition (and consequently, potentially, the government), I would laugh my goddamn ass off, the way both Harper and Iggy have been carrying on.

Why do I imagine the actual results will be considerably less exciting?

dare to dream with us, mr. shit

Even if I believed those poll numbers (which I don't), I still don't see how they translate into NDP seats. What does it matter if Tory support in the Prairies drops from 60% to 50%? They'll still win nearly every seat there.

The national numbers are skewed by the numbers from Quebec, and everywhere else in the country the Tories are the clear plurality choice. Is Quebec really having a Bob Rae 1990 moment, where they're sick of elections, sick of voting for the usual parties and want to vote for the New Guys (which btw is the dumbest possible reason for changing one's vote and is exactly how we ended up with the Tories defeating the Liberals in the first place five years ago)?

everywhere else in the country the Tories are the clear plurality choice

The EKOS regionals show the CPC in third place in Atlantic Canada. Otherwise, you're right, though. I have no idea where that seat projection comes from. Quebec, BC, and blue-collar Ontario, I guess? 100 seats sounds like fantasy, however.

EKOS has been an outlier throughout this campaign, always showing the CPC lower and the NDP and Liberals higher than other pollsters.

Nanos may well be more realistic.

On the Nanos poll they are way ahead in Atlantic Canada, so yeah, I have no idea what to make of such a big difference between the two. EKOS shows that the NDP basically tripled its support in Atlantic Canada in the past ten days, which seems far outside the realm of believability IMO.

i don't think it's fair to say that the Conservatives were voted into power simply because Canadians wanted "the new guy". i could literally say that about any change in vote or gov't if you're going to apply it there.

and EKOS always seems to have the Cons behind what other polls peg them at. no idea why.
right now for seat projections i'm looking at threehundredeight.

wooo - they just updated their projections and have dropped the cons from 151 to 146!

xpost I disagree, a lot of people voted against the Liberals, not *for* the other parties, in 2004 and 2006. It's one thing to vote Conservative because you think they have the best platform for running the country, and other thing to not vote for the Liberals because they should be punished for doing such and such when they were in power.

I didn't know about threehundredeight ... interesting that for all the talk about the NDP "leading" in Quebec, they're projected to take only six seats.

And their current seat projection shows that the new parliament will look ... almost exactly the same as the previous one! Shocking, I know.

so you're saying in the recent "orange surge" people aren't voting *for* the NDP, they're voting against the Conservatives (or the bloc in Quebec)?

I'm saying they're bored of elections and bored of hearing the same rhetoric over and over again from the same parties, so they're like "screw it, let's try something new and vote for the NDP instead".

ah ya. i see your point.

Chantal Hebert made a valid point, I thought. The war in Afghanistan is most unpopular in Quebec: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/979022--hebert-why-quebec-is-loving-jack-leaving-gilles

Duceppe behaving like a raving lunatic might also have something to do with it.

i'm pretty sure these polls are 99% fairy dust, but i do wonder how well canadian polls measure likely voter turnout. turnout was so low, especially among young people, that even a relatively small increase could make a big difference and screw with these projection models. and it does seems like (based mostly on fb), people are much more engaged in this election than they were in 2008.

otoh, i was out of the country for the 2008 election. does it seem like people care more this time around?

the polls showing a minority PM Layton, that is

Reality Check made some really good points about the unreliability of polling in this day and age: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/realitycheck/2011/04/polling-and-the-ndp-surge.html

I'm not sure if more people care or not, dblake... I'm much more involved this time so I feel like they might but that probably just reflects my own experience.

The fact that there is some sort of NDP surge, regardless of which poll you look at, does suggest that people are taking an interest, right?

that quebec article is really interesting

Ugh: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/26/cv-election-constitution-042611.html

"We have a quarter of our population who have never signed the Constitution."

A blatantly false statement.

Does anyone still need more proof that Layton is a dumbass??

he could be a drooling, hockey-helmet-clad kindergarten dropout for all i care. of the three big federal leaders he's the only one who didn't want us going into Iraq.

Holy shit, breaking Angus Reid numbers: Cons at 35, NDP 30 and 22 for Libs

9 minutes ago: http://twitter.com/#!/RobertFife

And I guess this means people do care more this time?: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/26/cv-election-advance-polls.html

I'm looking forward to the outcome in Calgary Centre-North, one of my former ridings. Prentice left this year, leaving it open to a newbie Conservative candidate, who's been criticised for not showing up at 2 of 3 recent public forums. The Liberal candidate is a good guy (he was one of my uni profs) and seems to be getting some positive responses (the area has a lot of students, the rest is a weird patchwork of high-income communities, low-income communities, and hip/yuppie/regenerative communities)... Tories will probably still take the seat but hopefully they at least lose a chunk of their votes. Prentice seemed pretty popular with constituents and I doubt M1chelle R3mpel can match it.

Ha, love that the signs behind Jack are all "We Can Do This" - a bit more Thomas the Tank Engine than Obama, maybe?

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2011/04/27/hi-jack-layton-ndp-852-cp-00577146-4col.jpg

Whoops, "The Little Engine that Could", not Thomas, obviously. But the point still stands...on the level of inspirational slogans it's a bit watery.

"we promise to see what we can do"

OK, this shocked me:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/982823--two-bloc-members-endorse-ndp?bn=1

Woah.

I'm not sure if I've ever not voted Liberal in 30 years. I may have voted NDP once or twice, many years ago--I really can't remember. I'm somewhat on the fence heading into Monday. Part of me feels like I'd be jumping on a bandwagon, but Ignatieff has not been impressive. Strategically, it might be a bad move to jump on that bandwagon. I don't know.