Canadian by-elections, 2012

[lilTommy]

its sad/unfortunate when any MP/MPP has to step aside due to a health issue, but i' relieved thats the reason and not for any political reason.
So... i know its far too early but any thoughts on who might run for the seat for the NDP? or any other party. The city is full of current/former municipal dippers; who knows Carole James might want to try something new (not sure if there is still any bad blood there, but she probably will be in line for a cabinet post so maybe not)
And yup, safe NDP seat now-a-days. 88-93 was held by John Brewin then Liberal David Anderson, then since 2006 its been Savoie.

[lilTommy]

Speaking of Kitchener Waterloo, it's impossible to listen to more than ten minutes of radio without an ad from either the Liberals (OMG TEH TORIES OUT TO KILL OUR TEACHERS!1!!), NDP (OMG BOTH TEH PARTIES IDENTICAL!!1!), or PCs (OMG TEH LIBS DROWNING UR KIDS IN DEBT!!1!1).

Are the Liberals actually running ads saying that the Tories are out to kill "our teachers" Right now the teachers are all up in arms that its the Liberals who are hitting them with a two by four! There are literally bus loads of teachers going to Waterloo to help the NDP because they all hate Mcguinty so much now.

The Liberals couldn't have been more generous to teachers for 9 straight years. I have yet to hear a convincing argument why teachers (or anyone else) should be able to bank sick days.

The Liberals played politics for 9years... and now they are playing politics again. Anyway, banking is arguable... the problem is, if you ask teachers is not the freeze but the fact that this bill violates their rights of collective bargaining, which a number of lawyers have come out saying they will fight this and the gov't might lose over pieces of the bill that aren't talked about. Wages and sick days make all the headlines.

[lilTommy]

Are the provincial Liberals having some sort of rebound in Manitoba?

Nope.
The Liberal candidate has name recognition (his older brother Llyod was a Liberal Federal cabinet minister)
He is also the only candidate to actually live in the riding. The other candidates live nearby.

Also the Liberals have some history in the riding; outside of '11 where they only managed 7%, in 07 they had 14%, 05 by-election 21%, 03 was 19%... so no "stellar" but very good for the MAN Liberals i think. Demographics play into that 

[lilTommy]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1251330--ndp-is-on-track-to-win-kitchener-waterloo-by-election-poll-suggests#.UEc1g-GJ3cs.facebook

Forum Poll has the NDP@42%, OLP & PCs both at 26%

Really? i'm impressed, i've been hearing that the NDP has just had a stellar campaign... but 42%! i bought IF the NDP were to win that it would be over 40%, i find that high even for a by-election in a riding what only once held by the CCF! (43-45)

[lilTommy]

Forum was hinting towards a surprise (I assumed it meant an NDP lead) but whoa. That poll has me creaming my pants (Said that to bug Hash, he told me he's going to avoid by-election talk because of all of us dipper hacks )

why should that stop him? he should talk up Vaughan in that case then

The OLP Needs to win Vaughan now... and thats the race they can win, so at least they can come out with no losses, and the PCs have the bloodiest nose with a 1 less seat and a by-election loss

[lilTommy]

So Forum wasn't that far off then; it ended up being a battle (In KW) of the opposition with NDP 39%, PC 31% and OLP 24%... love to see a poll results map

[lilTommy]

Not sure where to place this... but after the By-elections looks like polls are even worse for the Liberals...

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/17/ndp-support-soars-while-liberals-plummets-poll?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=recommend-button&utm_campaign=NDP+support+soars+while+Liberals%27+plummets%3A+Poll

NDP 36% PC 35% OLP 22% ...Based on these figures, Forum projects a seat count of PCs, 48; Liberals, 30; and NDP, 29"... The NDP loses out since the vote is badly distributed, i suspect heavily centred in TO, other cities (Hamilton, Windsor, London, Ottawa) and the north, possibly seats in SWON too.

[lilTommy]

Victoria By-election...
The NDP have three running for the nomination:
- Charley Beresford (former School Board trustee, two time provincial candidate, director of the Columbia institute)
- Murray Rankin (Lawyer, environmental law expert, some big green credential backers)
- Elizabeth Cull (former deputy premier and finance minister, business owner, panelist)

Liberals:
- Paul Summerville (fmr NDP candidate in St. Paul in 06, economist)

Greens:
- have a nomination race going on, biggest name is Donald Galloway (Director of law school a UVic)

Tories:
- i haven't read anything from them.

Still NDP win i think... but depends on who the NDP nominates; some say Rankin is the Green NDP vote, Cull is the more old guard (but much needed cabinet experience); i'd like to see a woman win since the field is pretty deep both female candidates have elected experience but (not knowing much about Cull) on paper she seems like the better choice.
Any BC'ers input here?

[lilTommy]

It would have been much better for Forum to have regional breakdowns, that would give us some idea of what they meant by poor distribution.
If this becomes a persistent trend (like it is federally, strong NDP numbers, tied or very close to the NDP) i suspect your right adma, the NDP would indeed expand their resources beyond their primary targets and target ridings that would have been considered best-case wins, like Kitchener-Waterloo.

In the end its bad news all around for the Liberals, but also brings to debate the issue of if Dalton resigned would that change liberal fortunes?

[lilTommy]

The obvious thing to mention, really, would be 1990.

1990 results: NDP 37.6%, OLP 32.4%, PC 23.5% ... look familiar eh (except switch the OLP and PCs)... so we know the NDP can form majority governments with under 40% as long as the two other parties can sustain their support above 20%

[lilTommy]

ooh O'Connor would be great

O'Conner is exactly the candidate the NDP needs... it would the the highest profile candidate, a former MPP and Mayor, i don't think the NDP can not invest in this riding. It would be a huge steal and if the NDP managed to get 30+ that would be a huge victory in a strong suburban/rural Tory riding.

Oh Murray Rankin is the NDP candidate in Victoria, he had loads of local support (many MLAs came out for him)... i would have liked to see Cull been the candidate as she was a former finance minister and if the NDP wants to build a gov't in waiting they need experienced candidates. But i read she just didn't have the ground game.

Calgary Centre... Isn't Joan Crawfford (sp?) running? she's got a name but very polarizing... i don't see many moderates supporting her; CC is probably the home of most moderates but ya any win by the NDP or Liberals (any candidate there?) would be a huge surprise... but crazier things have happened.

[lilTommy]

Wait. Brock isn't even in the riding. Why would O'Connor run then?

About half of it looks to be in the riding; the southern portion of the township is in Durham, the Northern part is in York-Simcoe... unless i'm looking at that wrong

[lilTommy]

You must be. Durham consists solely of Uxbridge, Scugog and Clarington. No Brock.

My bad, Brock is in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-BROCK... simple enough right

His reasoning might be the riding he represented in 90 was Durham-York and when you compare the two  boundaries i believe only Uxbridge overlaps... still kind of a stretch but on paper he sounds like a good candidate. For ridings like this, stretching might be needed to get good candidates

[lilTommy]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1275508--hebert-federal-byelections-could-be-game-changers#.UIaDPoEBfGU.facebook

"On that score, any backlash over Harper’s take-no-prisoners approach to parliamentary debate should logically benefit the NDP.

The federal Liberals, whose governing cousins have summarily shut down the legislatures of Ontario and B.C., are in a poor position to give lessons in parliamentary democracy this fall."

If anyone else it to win Durham and Calgary Centre its probably going to be the NDP...

[lilTommy]

Over 50 in Durham, less in CC. Then there are some claiming the Greens will do well in Victoria...

Greens should finish 2nd in Victoria, but their best bet at winning a seat will be CC. A lot of would be Liberal voters pissed off about Trudeau/McGuinty might switch to the Greens.

Wont the Tory's who are voting Liberal cause they are pissed at Crawford cancel out the Liberals who will vote Green cause they are pissed at the Trudeau/McGuinty Comments?
My hope is they all give up and end up voting NDP, ya know the Official Opposition but thats wishful thinking (just like my hope for an upset in Durham)

[lilTommy]

Good to see he's doing the right thing, even though it was a campaign volunteer, and not himself, who did the wrong thing.

I HIGHLY doubt this was an "error" made by a volunteer (who happens to be well respected and experienced, CBC politics just debunk that).
He did wrong, took freebies and corporate donations... finally stepped up though cause he had to, legally.

Was a dogfight between the Liberals and the Tories last time; i'm going with three-way fight (due to the high level of support for the NDP in NFLD).