Defenestrate Them All: Canadian Politics 2021

Haha. I was a DRO for the federal election in 2011. We were explicitly told not to give any information about any of the parties or candidates! I did have one young voter ask me whether the Greens were the party that supported marijuana legalization. I think the rules were similar to what you see above, that you just had to mark the bubble and only one bubble. I might have eventually defaulted to saying "x or check in the bubble is fine" since it was more complicated to explain what was and wasn't ok, not sure. I did think those visual guides were available, though.

Hm, well, that was completely distanced with markings on the floor and everything. Guy also told me to draw an x. Maybe I seemed especially clueless.

is anyone expecting anything beyond a weakened liberal minority?
looks like the NDP and cons will likely win a few more seats, but no huge swing. i was up north (ish - not very north) over the weekend and was surprised to see almost as many PPC signs as CPC! i think that could potentially eat away at some gains they were hoping to make off of trudeau via right-wing vote splitting.

Driving through BC and AB this weekend I was floored by the number of PPC signs. It occurred to me to wonder whether they’re being bankrolled by dark money somewhere but I haven’t looked into it yet because a) lazy and b) gross

I don't know what to expect. If these poll tracker sites mean anything then it seems like it could easily land on a Conservative minority or Liberal majority.

Things are looking a bit better for the prime minister now, though. Canada has two prominent, FiveThirtyEight-style election forecasters: Philippe J. Fournier of 338Canada and Éric Grenier, who writes the newsletter The Writ and runs the Poll Tracker for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.3 And as of Sunday evening,4 they gave Liberals a 68 percent and 75 percent chance of winning the most seats, respectively.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/5-things-to-watch-in-canadas-big-election/

The 338 website has odds of Liberal majority at 16%.

CBC Poll tracker has basically a 3 in 4 chance of Liberal victory:

17%
Probability of the Liberals winning a majority
57%
Probability of the Liberals winning the most seats but not a majority
25%
Probability of the Conservatives winning the most seats but not a majority
1%
Probability of the Conservatives winning a majority

Liberal minority seems most likely to me; I'd expect better chances for the Tories if I saw more CPC signs in the west end suburbs, which I haven't.

We had a friend visit from BC who had been in the Kelowna area, where she said there were a scary number of PPC signs. They're p marginal over here.

i'm reassuring myself that the PPC signs are likely from a *very* vocal minority and that much of their support is a reaction to covid regulations, mask and vaccine mandates etc and hopefully by the next election it will be less of a hot button issue and people will have settled the fuck down a little.

I get the feeling that the PPC has spent a decent amount of money in advertising. I have seen a decent amount of their stuff in Vancouver, whistler, and salt spring in the last month, but not on private residences. on people's lawns or in their windows.

many were predicting Max Brenier (can't be bother to check his spelling) would win his seat last election, but he didn't and no one is predicting them to win a single one this time. i don't see them being a threat anywhere, except to the cpc in close races where the ppc might help out the liberals/ndp/bloc.

xpost – there were definitely a fair amount of lawns around barrie with them; including a "my body, my choice" kids music school.

I am the least invested in an election than I think I have ever been. maybe because counting both BC provincial elections and federal elections there have now been 4 in 5 years. but also because I don't see a conservative majority, which is the only thing to really fear imo

liberals just getting another minority is probably the funniest and most drab result so my money is on that

Same.

I’m predicting an unpleasant upswing in PPC voters overall because of the past few years of Trump fallout, conspiracy crap, and the fact that our individual freedoms were actually significantly curtailed for the first time in most of our lives, and that has sent the “live free or die” crowd into fight mode. That and many people seem to really, really love to hate Trudeau personally. Nationally that might translate into more votes for O’Toole, but I suspect the PPC gains will be extra strong in Ontario because the worst of the cons have absolutely disowned Ford. They felt anger and were betrayed by all the most competent parts of his COVID response, and may take it out against the party. Especially if the recent shameless appeal to the centre backfires and has alienated more Ontario con base than it has stolen liberal votes. I’ll be happy to be wrong though. The vaccination rate reassures me sometimes.

I do think a Tory-Bloc alliance is a non-negligible possibility tbf, with the BQ enjoying a bit of a boost and O'Toole making clear overtures.

One seat called for the Grits.

not loving these early results...

So far my friend Nicole isn’t holding onto the green vote in Fredricton. That’s disappointing.

Of the five seats that have been called for the Tories, only one was previously held by a Liberal, so I don't think this is too ominous so far?

OK, two. Maybe we can start to worry.

Oh wow, are they taking Fredericton??

I guess it's possible there'll be different trends in different parts of the country...we can hope!

Man, if land could vote, ON and MB would be such solid NDP country.

Liberal victory, according to CBC.

This election hasn't changed anything except giving Singh and O'Toole a much larger public profile. The Liberals should be shitting themselves for the next election because both of them are going to get stronger from here. Dont expect another federal election anytime soon.

Basically, this is a huge loss for the LPC.

disagree—i can't see how this result is a "big" win/loss for anyone

liberals did fine. held off a strong conservative push, held off the BQ (really well) in quebec, kept the NDP at the kids' table

the conservatives are gonna have real trouble internally trying to deal with backlash from their right flank

singh's lack of gains in quebec paint a target on him; unless they make some nice gains in BC i can't see who was impressed/inspired by the NDP

bloc weren't able to capitalize on weak libs

and the single most interesting leader, Annamie Paul, is probably already out

Definitely seems like an overstatement to say that winning an election is a huge loss but, sure, LPC were probably hoping for more. And a minority govt keeps Singh and the NDP in a position of influence so I don't see them as having been sidelined or diminished. Hope they'll be bolder in the next Parliament tbh.

On some level, I half hope that Tory candidates win a slight plurality of the popular vote again so we get to hear more indignance about how not being able to form government with 34% of the vote is counter-majoritarian. Might be the fastest path to electoral reform.

"Liberals did fine"? They called an election expecting a majority and failed. Trudeau is weaker than ever.

Interesting things might be happening in Edmonton...

I don’t see things trending well for Trudeau - but for a bit there it looked like the cons might wind up with more seats than them.
O’Toole is going to be forced to go through a leadership review… NDP will gain a couple seats… green support collapsed while amazingly still getting two seats.
I’d say the liberals “won” by not really losing. Amazing they may gain some seats in Alberta!!

That most Canadian of situations, an election where nobody wins!

this is a good tone for jagmeet

Obv going for the majority and flubbing it isn't optimal but this election will feel like a long time ago by the time the next one comes around

liberals sweeping richmond is kind of crazy

looks like Cons will win the pop vote again lol

maybe the mail-ins will change that

Wouldn’t be surprised if they made a difference in Spadina Fort-York.

And can anyone tell me what might have happened in Richmond to swing it blue to red??

to win it for the sex pest? great

I think Richmond is getting younger...but maybe Con rhetoric on China played a part too?

*Zooms in on Edmonton*

This mf named Brock Crocker pic.twitter.com/3HYuMLH7IB

— Will Burns (@wcburns) September 21, 2021

Curious about Kitchener Centre, which went to the Greens - is this mostly Wilfrid Laurier/UWaterloo students?

I don't feel like calling an election and hoping for a majority means that you have lost or failed if you only win a plurality of seats and form a minority government (especially in a five-party Parliament)? That people still see it that way says more about how much the LPC is still seen as the Natural Governing Party imo. Checking the voters' confidence after going through a major crisis actually seems to me like a reasonable thing to do for a minority government, even for non-power-grab reasons.

(Also still don't think winning a 34% plurality of the popular vote is a 'win'.)

I was in Kitchener two weeks ago and there were Morrice signs absolutely everywhere, so likely more than just the student vote.

What are the demographics of the riding like? I don't think I've ever been to Kitchener. I gather that the Liberal incumbent dropped out bc of sexual misconduct allegations so it became a three-way Tory/Green/NDP race?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/kitchener-centre-federal-election-race-1.6176985

Do the PCs usually win the popular vote? I find that a little troubling.

don't think the PCs have won the popular vote since 1988...

but Scheer only won it by 200K, and O'Toole's margin will probably be a lot smaller after they count a million or more mail-in ballots this week. it's more about running up 70% margins in every riding in rural Alberta than anything else. Still, guess the Liberals have only won the popular vote once since Paul Martin did it in 04.

Forming a minority government without a plurality of votes but with the support of other parties, with whose combined vote share you actually have majority support, seems completely fair and right to me, though. That's how I would expect things to work if we had a proportional system where representation was 100% in line with the popular vote. (And that's leaving aside that we vote for local representatives anyway, so there's no real 'popular vote' when ballots have different names on them in every riding - I voted for Yasir Naqvi, not for Justin Trudeau or the Liberal Party per se.)