Canadian federal election - 2015

[Citizen Hats]

Probably a Conservative majority with a similar seat haul for the party. NDP will fall back to third place and Liberals will become the Official Opposition again fairly easily. Obviously, this is just gut feeling- I (hope) I may be completely off.

I suspect a mild Liberal minority. The Tories are ruthless, but their old methods are less effective against a Liberal leader that Canadians think they know.  Ignatieff and Dion were unknowns to the public, and thus Harper could define them.  By contrast, Trudeau is not.   Trudeau is a much more effective manager than Ignatieff. People actually like working for Trudeau, and things get done. This was not the case previously

The Liberals have enough money coming in that they can more than wage a full campaign, although they won't be able to go toe-to-toe prewrit.  They've got the most donors, and the from my own view on the inside the base of active volunteers has swelled enormously, as has the organizational capacity to utilize this.  

During the last election the electorate polarized against Harper or against the NDP, to the detriment of the Liberals.  Once the charismatic figure of Jack Layton caught on in Quebec, it triggered a cascade across the country in favor of the NDP or against them. Thomas Mulcair is no Jack Layton, and while I have no doubt the NDP will have one of their best results ever, the electorate in much of the country is still likely to polarize against Harper, but with the perceived-to-be-charismatic and credible-with-the-public Justin Trudeau rather than the NDP there to pick up the anti-Harper vote.  

The NDP is unlikely to win an election in this country as long as its true that in the event of polarization that more voters will vote against them than than will vote against the Tories. Without a credible centre party, Canada becomes a bigger BC (and nobody wants that). Trudeau is incredibly popular in the Atlantic Provinces.  In Quebec, voters tend to go with personality to a great degree, and Trudeau is simply much more of a personality than Mulcair. Mulcair will likely take the most seats, but I would likely chalk up the Liberals the most votes.  In Ontario, things will depend on the Provincial Election.

In the West, while the Liberals have swung downward in recent years like everywhere else, the trend has been somewhat in our favor.  Liberal voters are less likely to be a great mass of Central Canadians, and with the echoes of the once popular Reform Party slipping away into managerial CPC government. Mulcair has alienated many of the Old NDP types who might be susceptible to his message out west with his economic views that their gains are his voters' losses, and many more conservative leaning voters have discovered that, now that the West is in, it's not what they'd imagined it was going to be.

So minority it will be

[Citizen Hats]

Taking a guess at Quebec

Liberals win the popular vote by 5ish pts, but tie the NDP in seats because their efficiency sucks.
Bloc holds onto a couple seats due to popular incumbents/vote splits.
Tories hold onto Beauce & Roberval-Lac St. Jean (assuming Lebel runs again).

Quebec will look something like this

PLC: 37
NPD: 37
BQ: 2
PCC: 2

I highly doubt the Tories will lose seats. I suspect they will pick up a few. The Tories usually poll at or around their (already low) 2011 numbers.  The NDP and (sometimes) the Bloc are polling lower, and the Liberals higher. Liberals aren't likely pulling all that many votes off island (though who knows for sure), but could very well pull enough votes in NDP-Tory Marginals to flip some of them back to the Tories

[Citizen Hats]

Taking a guess at Quebec

Liberals win the popular vote by 5ish pts, but tie the NDP in seats because their efficiency sucks.
Bloc holds onto a couple seats due to popular incumbents/vote splits.
Tories hold onto Beauce & Roberval-Lac St. Jean (assuming Lebel runs again).

Quebec will look something like this

PLC: 37
NPD: 37
BQ: 2
PCC: 2

I highly doubt the Tories will lose seats. I suspect they will pick up a few. The Tories usually poll at or around their (already low) 2011 numbers.  The NDP and (sometimes) the Bloc are polling lower, and the Liberals higher. Liberals aren't likely pulling all that many votes off island (though who knows for sure), but could very well pull enough votes in NDP-Tory Marginals to flip some of them back to the Tories

NDP-Tory marginals, in Quebec? There is perhaps 2 or 3 of them. When Tories finished 2nd, they were usually a distant 2nd.

it's true that there were a handful, but if we're talking about a universe were the NDP are taking only 75% or so of their 2011 vote-haul, and the tories are taking 90-110% then a number of those seats around Quebec city come into play

[Citizen Hats]

Taking a guess at Quebec

Liberals win the popular vote by 5ish pts, but tie the NDP in seats because their efficiency sucks.
Bloc holds onto a couple seats due to popular incumbents/vote splits.
Tories hold onto Beauce & Roberval-Lac St. Jean (assuming Lebel runs again).

Quebec will look something like this

PLC: 37
NPD: 37
BQ: 2
PCC: 2

I highly doubt the Tories will lose seats. I suspect they will pick up a few. The Tories usually poll at or around their (already low) 2011 numbers.  The NDP and (sometimes) the Bloc are polling lower, and the Liberals higher. Liberals aren't likely pulling all that many votes off island (though who knows for sure), but could very well pull enough votes in NDP-Tory Marginals to flip some of them back to the Tories

NDP-Tory marginals, in Quebec? There is perhaps 2 or 3 of them. When Tories finished 2nd, they were usually a distant 2nd.

it's true that there were a handful, but if we're talking about a universe were the NDP are taking only 75% or so of their 2011 vote-haul, and the tories are taking 90-110% then a number of those seats around Quebec city come into play

It would need to be closer of 67% than of 75%. A typical score for Quebec area is 45 NDP 30 CPC. There is Louis-Saint-Laurent (2%) and Montmagny--L'Islet--Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup (109 votes) which were close. Else, it's in the 45-30 scale described earlier. It's very wierd.

EDIT: Forgot Jonquière-Alma at roughly 80%.

Either way, I think that we can safely rule out the Tories getting two seats under anything like present vote distributions

[Citizen Hats]

Coop maybe, no more than that. We've only had one formal coalition - which ended apocalyptically for everyone involved and nearly the country.

But that's not the case everywhere. BC has arguably had a coalition government for the last 14 years and had an formal one in the 1940s and 1950s, which was a very productive time (though it also ended terribly for both parties involved, for other reasons)

[Citizen Hats]

Coop maybe, no more than that. We've only had one formal coalition - which ended apocalyptically for everyone involved and nearly the country.

But that's not the case everywhere. BC has arguably had a coalition government for the last 14 years and had an formal one in the 1940s and 1950s, which was a very productive time (though it also ended terribly for both parties involved, for other reasons)

By "other reasons" do you mean that the Socreds showed up or do you mean something else?

the 1952-1972 Socreds weren't really a coalition. They were conservative/populist, the Liberals regularly pulled 20% of the vote, and they seem to have had a certain party tribal solidarity that proper political parties do and that the BC Liberals do not.   The Post 1972 Socreds were much more coalition-y, absorbing the MLAs of the PC and Liberal Parties to the extent that Bill Bennett's first cabinet was majority composed of former Liberals and Tories rather than Socreds.  The BC Liberals, especially given that there are a lot more Liberals in BC than there were in the 1980s, are much more like this iteration of the Socreds than the previous one, a soulless coalition party rather than a thing itself

[Citizen Hats]

The thing is that there's actually a lot of Liberal Activists in BC. Just proportionately fewer voters. This plays as much into the BC Liberals, were you find surprising numbers of LPC members in places you would least expect.

[Citizen Hats]

so really what we're saying hear is that most Canadian coalitions result badly for at least one party?

[Citizen Hats]

ya, but there were a lot of things dragging down the Liberals in that one

[Citizen Hats]

I feel like the NDP would be fairly opposed to Alternative Vote. It is after all not proportional in any way, although the results would be closer to proportionality as it would force the Tories out of power. But at the same time, it would prevent the NDP from ever winning as well. Get used to Liberal power for a long time, or at least some sort of barely right of centre conservative party. (might cause the creation of a new reform party!)

it would prevent the NDP from ever winning as well?

The liberals are unpopular in enough of the country to lose second preferences


Otherwise, I don't like MMP because I don't like party-list representation, though I could be down with STV

[Citizen Hats]

with an added layer of individual scrutiny.  You can't really examine the timeservers and hacks of the party list

[Citizen Hats]

Jonathan Wilkinson, environmental remediation CEO nominated as Liberal candidate in North Vancouver

[Citizen Hats]

some one from Calgary was telling me that today. Too shame

[Citizen Hats]

Gordo? Would be an interesting pick, but I've heard that his expense accounts at the London High Commission were a little large for him to be so quickly welcomed.  He would make a good Tory Candidate among the more affluent voters of the riding, though it is important to note that while the Shaunessey voters take up a lot of space, the vast majority of voters in the riding are in apartments and multi-unit dwellings, and are much less amenable to the Tories then they were to the BC Liberals

That being said, Campbell is of amorphous politics federally.  Whether he voted for Joyce Murray or Deborah Meredith is purposely unknown. He's a technocrat above all things. Among his acts as premier was to more-or-less prohibit federal political activity among BC Liberal MLAs, staff, and officials after some of the Martinites working for the government got out of hand.

[Citizen Hats]

Funny given that Flavio is a more "progressive" Liberal given that Joe Volpe was quite a reactionary Liberal who really pandered to right-wing constituents (as pro-Israel as Harper/Kenney/Baird, opposed Lawrence Heights redevelopment, came out in support of funding for religious schools etc.) 

Mendicino sounds like a good candidate for the Libs (at least on paper): North Toronto resident, lawyer, and lead prosecutor of the"Toronto 18."

You've been around too long to expect us to be consistent, KoK

[Citizen Hats]

My list of potential NDP replacements for Jenny Kwan's Vancouver-Mount Pleasant provincial seat.

I'm not sure if the rule requiring a woman to run to replace an outgoing NDP MLA is still in place or, if it is, if it applies to byelections.  Like the rule or dislike it, there is no question it has achieved its goal.  The B.C NDP caucus has gone from 7 of 33 NDP MLAs being women in 2005 to 14 of 34 MLAs in 2013.

If men are allowed to run (and potential women candidates as well)
1.Raymond Louie, City Councillor.  Would likely clear the field.

2.Meena Wong, COPE Mayoral nominee in 2014.  Federal NDP nominee in Vancouver South in 2011

3.George Chow, former City Councillor 2005-2011, Provincial NDP nominee in Vancouver-Langara in 2013 and NDP candidate for nomination in Vancouver-Fraserview in 2013.

4.Ellen Woodsworth, former COPE City Councillor

5.Niki Sharma, 2014 Vision Vancouver nominee for City Council.

6.Trevor Loke, Former Parks Commissioner 2008?-2014, defeated for reelection by 1,500 votes

7.Aaron Jasper, Former Parks Commissioner and Board Chair 2008?-2014

8.Sarah Blyth, Former Parks Commissioner, 2008-2011, 2015 Candidate for Federal NDP nomination in Vancouver-Quadra.

9.Ken Clement, Former School Trustee, 2008?-2014, defeated for reelection by 250 votes

10.Gwen Giesbrecht, 2015 NDP candidate for nomination in Vancouver East, 2011 COPE nominee for School Board and 2014 nominee for School Board

11.Scott McLean, 2015 NDP candidate for nomination in Vancouver East

Sorry to jump in late, but Trevor Loke is one of ours

Of course, who knows where provincial politics leads

[Citizen Hats]

I doubt it. Bad optics, anyway.

You get the impression that that woman has any sense of optics?