Canadian federal election - 2015

[mileslunn]

The election is 2.5 years away so a lot can happen.  Trudeau is more popular because many are tired of the Harper government and looking for an alternative so otherwise he means different things to different people.  Otherwise everyone expects him to do all this great things, but when he comes under the microscope his numbers should fall.  The Liberals could still win under him, but probably only a minority.  I also laughed at the part in the poll that put the numbers in Alberta at 46% cons to 42% Libs.  There is no way this is going to happen.  The Conservatives will get at least 55% in Alberta and the Liberals will be lucky if they can get 25% which they did get back in the 90s under Chretien.

[mileslunn]

I should also note even if a dual citizen, you cannot vote in Canada unless you have resided in the country during the past five years.  The reason for this is we don't vote for PM, we vote for local MP so only those in Papineau get to vote for Justin Trudeau just as only those in Calgary Southeast get to vote for Harper.  Rather the leader of whichever party wins the most seats becomes PM.  Its not like most countries where dual citizens can vote or we have overseas constituencies like France or Italy.  However if a dual citizen you can vote upon taking up residency in Canada whereas if not a citizen you have to wait until you become one which is a minimum of 3 years.

[mileslunn]

Also Trudeau is a noxious prettyboy who wouldn't even be a serious contender in his own riding if it wasn't for his last name. I'd vote NDP or Green before him.

Papineau is still a stong place for NDP Liberals. He gets huge majorities in Parc-Extension and Saint-Michel, both immigrant areas which weren't there when his father was PM. He get clobbered and is a distant third in Villeray, through. It's a trendy hipster neighbourhood, which vote for QS provincially, so (but they have a Liberal MNA because they are paired with uber-Liberal Parc-Extension).

Through, as Villeray is growing, I wouldn't feel safe if I was him, it's not tranding in the right direction for him.

I actually think the NDP has a chance in Papineau.  Many who would have voted NDP last time around voted Bloc because they had a strong candidate (and former MP) running (and the NDP had basically a name-holder, and still came in 2nd).  I'm not sure if Barbot will run again for the Bloc here, but my thinking is that with a popular candidate, the NDP can garner the soft separatist vote, and consolidate the left vote.

The Liberals polling more than 15 points above what they got in Quebec in 2011 and you think their leader is going to lose his seat?

Not now, but lets remember Ignatieff was polling ten points higher than the 2008 results in Ontario when chosen as leader yet he lost his seat.  I agree its highly unlikely Trudeau would lose his seat, but its definitely possible.  Ironically Harper is probably the only leader who I can say with almost certainty will win his seat.  Even if his party fell to 40 seats, he would still easily win his seat.  In fact it was I believe in their top 10 best one's in the country.  Harper could only lose his if another right wing party emerged much like how the Reform Party snatched that seat from the PCs in 1993 and the WRA came very close to winning most of the ridings here over the PCs who held them in the last provincial election.

[mileslunn]

Who has a better chance of losing their seat, Mulcair or Trudeau?

At the moment Mulcair, but a year ago I would have said Trudeau.  In 2015 who knows.  Both are from Quebec where the electorate is even less predictable than in other provinces so its anyone's guess.  One thing I know for sure is the Conservatives will lose both ridings badly, otherwise no defeating the leader like they did with Ignatieff in 2011.

[mileslunn]

I am pretty sure it will be a minority, although if someone stuck a gun to my head and asked me to make a prediction, I would predict Tory minority, but considering how unpredictable elections have been of late, I wouldn't put too much stock into that.

The reason I give the Tories the advantage.

1.  They will present a balanced budget with tax cuts and whatever the merits of this I suspect it will help to some degree.

2.  Justin Trudeau has a strong tendency to stick his foot in his mouth and while this is not fatal in between elections or even in the early parts of an election, if done in the final two weeks it almost always hurts the party.  Of the three leaders he is by far the most likely to stick his foot in his mouth.

Now Why I don't think the Tories will get a majority can be explained by doing a regional analysis.

Atlantic Canada: Harper is extremely unpopular here so even if their numbers recover a bit they will almost certainly lose seats here and likely the majority, albeit not all.

Quebec: Harper is toxic here so they will be lucky to hold the five seats they already hold.  Maxime Bernier will probably hold his, but that's about it.  At the same time the NDP has an edge as they have a better distribution due to their strength amongst Francophones whereas the Liberals tend to run up the margins in the heavily Anglophone and Allophone ridings on the island of Montreal.

Ontario: I want to wait until the provincial election is done as usually Ontario votes opposites but I would be quite shocked if the Tories held every seat they did.  Even if they win a majority in Ontario that won't be enough nationally as they need at least 60% of the seats if not 2/3 considering they will likely get fewer than 10 seats east of the Ottawa River and possibly fewer than five.

Manitoba/Saskatchewan: Tories should win the majority of seats but I doubt they will win 6 out of 8 seats in Winnipeg and likewise with the elimination of the rural/urban mixed seats in Saskatchewan and now just purely urban or purely rural, I don't think they will get 13 of 14 seats like they have in recent elections.

Alberta:  They should win the vast majority here and with six additional seats this will work in their favour although I doubt they will sweep the province.

British Columbia: A real wild card here as I highly doubt they will get 46% of the popular vote but depending on how things split they could end with as many if not more seats at 35% if they get the right splits.  Asides from Victoria and a few Vancouver ridings, they are competitive in most other ridings so a lot depends on how things are split between the other parties.  In 2004, they won 22 seats with only 36% of the popular vote while in 2011 they got 21 seats with 46% of the popular vote.  The Liberals should return to the 25-30% range they got between 1993-2006 while the NDP outside the Lower Mainland will be the Tories main opponent as well as they will win some in the Lower Mainland too.

The North tends to vote based on local candidates rather than party, so no comment here.

[mileslunn]

Any predictions for 2015 in the True North? While as of now it looks like it will be a minority government, my biggest hope is for the defeat of Stephen Harper. What are the chances of that?

If Harper is reduced to a minority he will be gone.  Either the Liberals and NDP will form a coalition or if they don't the party will get rid of him.  Up until now the party has increased their seat total each election so if they decline it will be tough from him to stay on.  Otherwise if the Tories don't get another majority, Harper will be gone as PM before the Fall of 2016.

[mileslunn]

My guess is Liberal minority.

Given the current political climate I wouldn't be surprised if we go 10 years before the next majority by anyone.

I would disagree.

The Tories won't likely get one with Harper as leader but if they get someone who is less arrogant, more likeable, and a bit more centrist I don't see why they couldn't.  Atlantic Canada is not anti-Tory, its anti-Harper as it frequently votes PC at the provincial level.  Quebec may be tough to win but I don't see why with a leader who spoke French fluently, was more moderate and sensitive to Quebec's needs couldn't win in many of the areas the CAQ did.  In British Columbia, outside Vancouver and Victoria, the Tories are competitive in most ridings so with the right leader and right splits they could easily get 30+ seats.

For the Liberals, they won't next time around since parties don't go from third to majority, but if they win a minority and the Tories and NDP are plagued by infighting while the Liberals do a good job, they certainly could win a majority the next time around.  The West may not be friendly Liberal turf, but a fiscally responsible one could win around 25 seats there while have similar results in Ontario to what Martin had in 2004 and McGuinty in 2003 while in Quebec win close to half the seats.  In 2004, had Martin held his Quebec seats, he would have won a majority even with the losses in Ontario so it is possible even with a united right (Chretien swept Ontario due to the division) and even without sweeping Quebec (prior to 1980, that's how they won the majority of their majorities) its still possible.  No doubt its a lot less favourable for them that it was last century which is why I doubt this next century they will enjoy the dominance they did in the 20th century, but I still suspect they will win some majorities and likewise I doubt the Conservatives will become the new natural governing party.  I suspect like most places, there won't be a natural governing party in the 21st century, but rather each party will be in for around 10 years give or take a bit and out 10 years.

[mileslunn]

Right now I think the only party capable of winning a majority will be the Liberals, and that will involve a perfect storm, resulting in Quebecers somehow flipping to Trudeau.

While I don't totally disagree, its extremely rare for a party to go from third to winning let alone a majority.  Usually most parties tend to retain between 67-80% of their support from the previous election as well as the kind of things that might bring over the NDP-Liberal swing voters aren't necessarily the things that will bring over the Tory-Liberal swing voters.  I agree Harper has too much baggage that I would be extremely shocked if he won another majority (I don't say with certainty as I didn't see the BC Liberals making the comeback they did, but considering what happened there is an exception rather than the rule, its probably fair to say Harper won't). 

Rather I go on the idea he steps down and there is new Tory leader in which case I still think they could pull of a majority.  Of those who voted Conservative last time around, I don't think they've permanently ditched voting Conservative, they just feel Harper has overstayed his welcome.  While this obviously won't happen next time around, about 45-50% of Canadians have voted for a centre-right party at either the provincial or federal level in the last decade meaning there is a large pool of potential voters with the right leader.

[mileslunn]

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

Its true that Trudeau lacks a lot of the problems Dion or Ignatieff does.  His main problem is he comes across as quite amateurish albeit very likeable and tends to stick his foot in his mouth frequently.  Thus if he runs a solid campaign and listens to his handlers, I tend to think your right, but I find he has a tendency to do stupid things which won't hurt him per se, but as the election draws nearer they can be fatal.  As for the West, the Liberals will probably pick up some seats in Winnipeg and the Lower Mainland, but I would be quite shocked if they get over 25 seats.  It will take a few elections to win over the West.  Now that doesn't mean the Tories will take all the rest.  In Saskatchewan the NDP should win some of the urban ones as well as Vancouver Island and some of the working class suburbs in the Lower Mainland look favourable for the NDP.

[mileslunn]

Quebec: Harper is toxic here so they will be lucky to hold the five seats they already hold.  Maxime Bernier will probably hold his, but that's about it.  At the same time the NDP has an edge as they have a better distribution due to their strength amongst Francophones whereas the Liberals tend to run up the margins in the heavily Anglophone and Allophone ridings on the island of Montreal.

I agree that Harper is toxic in Quebec, but the Tories ought to retain a few seats due to the vote splitting cluster f[inks] that 2015 will be.

Maxime Bernier should hold his seat, but beyond that any other wins will be tough.  The splits only work out if the BQ makes a comeback which could happen but seems unlikely.

[mileslunn]

I'm predicting another Tory majority, no idea who will be Opposition Leader.

I honestly hope this doesn't happen. Lord knows the ass whooping we'd receive if we're in power 13 years. Tory minority is my prediction right now.

Not likely.  Lets remember the Tory vote has pretty consistently fallen in the 30-40% range.  Only when they breakthrough in Quebec like 1958, 1984, and 1988 do they crack the 40% mark, and only when the right splits like in the 90s do they fall under 30%.  2004 is so far the lowest percentage ever for the right wing vote in Canadian history.  Now I agree due to the fact they haven't been in power for over 10 years since the late 1800s may be partly why so I could see them falling as low as 25%, but any lower would require another right wing party emerging.

[mileslunn]

So the Liberals are at record levels of support in BC. Is there any chance of them winning a seat outside of Greater Vancouver/Victoria?

The 308's most recent average had them beating the Tories by 4%. This exceeds their best results in B.C. (8% behind Reform in '93, 8% behind CPC in '04)

Looking at their past results, they haven't really come close to winning a rural BC seat even at the best of times Jim Gouk's riding in '93 excepted. They might win a seat around Kamloops next time, but I doubt it.

Highly unlikely, but possible.  Liberals leading in the polls is actually not that unusual in BC, but it seems for some reason it never materializes outside the Lower Mainland.  One thing about BC is its politics are unpredictable as we saw in the last provincial election as well as it tends to be fairly polarized between left vs. right so only if the NDP gets completely destroyed and they become the defacto left wing opposition to the Tories could I see this happening.  In fact the bigger danger is a strong Liberal showing will just split the vote and help the Tories win more seats.  In 2011, the Tories got 46% of the popular vote in BC, but only 21 of 36 seats, while in 2004 they got only 36% of the popular vote but 22 of the 36 seats so the stronger the split is the easier it is for them to win seats.  Now not all Liberal gains will come from the NDP, in fact just as much will come from the Tories, but if both drop equally it won't change the overall result as outside the Lower Mainland the Liberals at least at the moment don't have the ability to gain seats.  Now maybe 2015 will be an election where that changes, but history is not on their side.

[mileslunn]

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?

Basically in BC politics ever since the CCF emerged in 1933, the goal has been to keep the socialist hordes out of power.  From 1941-1952 the Liberals and Conservatives formed a coalition for that reason, while from 1952-1991 the two parties largely died off and the Social Credit emerged is the dominate party to vote for if you wanted to keep the NDP out of power.  After the disaster in 1991 the coalition fell apart, but by 1996 and going forward the BC Liberals more or less took on the same role as the Social Credit used to. 

And its largely worked as only 13 of the last 82 years were the NDP able to win.  The Liberals generally got around 20% while WAC Bennett was premier while NDP around 33% and Social Credit around 40%.  In 1972, the NDP climbed to the high 30s while the Progressive Conservatives with a youthful leader jumped to 11% and most of that came at the expense of the Social Credit.  In 1975, both the Liberals and PCs plunged again in support as they swung behind the Social Credit and in fact the NDP vote actually went up slightly in 1975 despite losing.  In 1991 the Social Credit plunged in support and most went to the BC Liberals (who at that time were more centrist like the federal Liberals) and the NDP won despite a slight drop in the popular vote.  In 1996 the BC Liberals picked up most of the Social Credit support, but just under 10% went to the BC Reform Party thus allowing the NDP to narrowly win again.  In 2001 they collapsed while in 2005 they came back and did better than either 1991 or 1996 but since the anti-NDP vote was united behind the BC Liberals they were unable to unseat them in the following three elections.

[mileslunn]

In terms of a coalition post 2015 election, if the Liberals or NDP win a plurality of seats, there will be no coalition, they will govern on an issue by issue basis never mind I doubt the Tories will be too eager to bring them down until they have a new leader in place.  If the Tories win a minority, it will depend on how close it is.  If they narrowly win or if they win the most seats but lose the popular vote, I could see either an informal arrangement like Ontario had under Peterson from 1985-1987 or a formal coalition.  However if the Tories fall just shy of a majority and win by a substantial margin, I doubt they will pull it off.  Also if Harper promises to step down, they will probably want to give the new leader a chance first before trying anything.

[mileslunn]

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


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

also ended terribly for both parties involved, for other reasons)

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

True each one was different although I would argue the Social Credit post 1972 had to change as the NDP used to only get around 33% as opposed to 40% so they needed to absorb some of the Liberals.  More importantly it seems the Liberal vote more or less split with the Blue Liberals going over to the Social Credit and progressive Liberals to the NDP.  With the BC Liberals is much the same in many ways.  True the Liberals federally were stronger from 1993-2006 in BC, but in 2008 and especially 2011 they did even worse than the 80s so much of the support was fairly soft.  The unpopularity of the provincial NDP government as well as the fact many especially in the Lower Mainland found the Reform Party too extreme and the PCs were pretty much non-existent in BC was partially a reason they did better.  Now I can easily see them coming back, but not so much because BC has a strong Liberal base but rather for those sick and tired of the Conservatives federally, the Liberals are less of a jump than going over to the NDP while many in the NDP want to see Harper defeated and will vote for whichever party is most likely to achieve this (and many pay attention more to national than local numbers).  The BC Liberals may include more open federal Liberals, but outside the Lower Mainland, I suspect most of its membership voted Conservative in the last federal election (the Liberals were in single digits in most non-Lower Mainland ridings), although many might have voted Liberal between 1993-2006.