Canada 2011 Official Thread

[minionofmidas]

Some more riding polls:

Pontiac: It can now be confirmed that the NDP is in the lead there, 39-33. Interestingly, Cannon hasn't lost any support.

Churchill River: Tories are in the lead here, 57-35 over the NDP. So much for my thoughts...

Juan de Fuca: Tories are ahead here 40-35 over the NDP in this open seat.

Nunavut: Tories lead the Liberals 71-20.

Oraclepoll Research for Project Democracy. Hmm... these look as dodgy as hell. I suspect if any are right (as in the picture, not the results) it'll be by as much chance as anything else.

Leona is a popstar in Nunavut. She'll win hugely.
Churchill River though? Unpollable without local expertise.

[minionofmidas]

Harper seems to be positioning himself for a coalition with the party which he spent years accusing of lusting for power via undemocratic coalition. How appropriate.

The Liberals shoot themselves in the foot a lot, but that would be more like shooting themselves in the head.

Let's look at the options the Liberals have, once they're trounced into third place and they hold the balance of power in a hung parliament:

1) Liberals forced to humiliatingly prop up Conservative confidence motions while their leadership candidates make anti-Harper rhetoric

2) Harper decides to kill the Liberals once and for all by offering goodies to a certain number of centrist Liberal MPs even when (what's left of) the Liberal leadership opposes them

3) NDP-led, Liberal supported coalition takes power, and within months the Liberals act like a jilted wife in a forced marriage; the Liberals get destroyed from the left if the NDP governs well or from the right if the NDP governs like Bob Rae

Realistically the only way the Liberals are going to survive in the long term is if they can afford to posture and make principled stands while cleaning out all Chretien/Martin flunkies, which depends on the Conservative Party winning a majority, which itself seems shaky.

Or the NDP winning a majority, of course.

Either way, the Liberals are in real danger to be no more relevant than the post-93 federal PCs were for the remainder of their natural life.

[minionofmidas]

I like it, but I fear it may look like porn come wednesday.

[minionofmidas]

I like it, but I fear it may look like porn come wednesday.

Tuesday, surely?

If it looks like porn on tuesday, it'll still look like porn on wednesday. Besides, tuesday is the day my little ten-day stay-home vacation is over, so I won't get a close look until the evening.

[minionofmidas]

Pretty sure of it.

[minionofmidas]

Western Conservatives might conclude that their grip is slipping and decide to ditch him for a more western leader.

It's hard to think of a more Western leader than Harper

Preston Manning.

[minionofmidas]

On eve of vote, Duceppe fighting for own riding

Back in March, who'd have thought a headline like that possible?

I've been thinking it possible ever since Thomas Mulcair's famous victory in the Outremont by-election...

Now. Likely. That is something else entirely.

[minionofmidas]

Yesterday was better for the NDP:
Conservatives 33.8%
NDP 33.8%
Liberal 19.9%
Bloc 7.1%
Greens 4.0%
Other 1.4%
(MoE +/- 5.3%)

Pretty sure that that would result in the NDP becoming strongest party in terms of seats.

[minionofmidas]

Why exactly has the NDP surged? Is it just the result of Layton's debate performance?

That was part of it.
Also, obviously, once the NDP outpolls the Liberals, a lot of tactical voters switch sides - Harper's support has basically been steady not just all through the campaign, but all through his premiership. He's very polarizing.
And then there's Quebec, which is a realignment (a genuine one, for once) that has been in the post for a few years, but that no one expected to happen that quickly.
In a nutshell.

[minionofmidas]

How about the German Greens? Have they ever elected someone under the FPTP portion of MMP and if so when?

There's one constituency in central Berlin that straddles the Wall which elects a Green, I think.

And then of course there's Baden-Württemberg.

And several in the Berlin state house, for quite a while now.

[minionofmidas]

Outside Québec, the NDP won 44 seats - exactly one more than their previous record.
Nova Scotia and Manitoba were disappointing. The rest of the Atlantic, Sas (thanks to the vilest map outside of France and America), Alberta, BC were good, decent, par results - what you should have expected (and hoped for a few random gains that then failed to materialize.) There are a few legitimate NDP targets left in BC on a minor swing and without complete destruction of the Liberal remnant (and the Greens), btw, though there are similar - slightly larger - numbers of NDP-held marginals.
In Québec, we've seen a realignment and it's unlikely to go away. Certainly the Harper Tories are not going to win the former Bloc heartland and the Anglo Liberals aren't either. No, it's much the most likely (not set in stone, evidently) that Québec returns to the pre-93 (or 84, technically) traditional state that prevailed since about 1900, except with the Liberals replaced by their successor as Canada's major leftwing party, permanently. What will happen in Anglo Montreal remains to be seen; the Tories are a very bad fit outside Lac-Saint-Louis. If as seems likely, the Liberals stay around as zombies for a while yet, a la the PCs in the 90s, Montreal may be one of the last places where they disappear.
That leaves Real Canada, ie Ontario. Where the NDP actually had another extremely good result, even if dwarved by Québec. So had the Tories though. And either result is dwarved by the size of the Liberal collapse. Which is very much centered here. And is a sight to see. And looks final(ish). A few problems: Where the Tories won in 2008, they are now typically around 50-55%. Most of these will be hard to dislodge. Where they won now thanks to split opposition, the Liberals are typically still in second place. Which suggests that 2015 will merely see the NDP move into second place in these kind of locales (as too many idiots still vote Liberal because they mistakenly think the Liberals are better placed to retake them), and 2019 is the year we supporters of Prime Minister Mulcair should be looking forward to.

[minionofmidas]

(the same guy ran in that same riding in a byelection in 2009 and got less than 5% of the vote!)

Lol.

[minionofmidas]

Nova Scotia and Manitoba were disappointing.

And what do those two provinces have in common? The NDP is in power provincially in both.

Kssh.