Canada 2011 Official Thread

[MaxQue]

Well, Duceppe will need a new strategy.

Since three days, he is saying of voting for Bloc to not split the progressive vote.
Well, that argument seems against him, for now.

Yesterday, he attacked Layton's smile, too. I doubt it will convince anyone (well, it may convince people of NOT voting Bloc).

[MaxQue]

I'm speachless.

Well, imagine the head of Duceppe went he will hear that poll.

He will be speechless, I think. Well, it is his fault, he was too negative, I think.

[MaxQue]

Nanos. Again a big swing from the Liberals to the NDP, for the second day in row

Conservative	39.0%	-0.1
Liberal	26.7%	-1.7
NDP	22.1%	+2.3
BQ	7.5%	-0.2
Green	3.4%	-0.5

For the record, they have the NDP at 23% in Quebec, down from 2 from yesterday.

[MaxQue]

If the NDP allows for some reason a Tory majority I'll be pissed. And if the NDP allows my retard MP to be reelected they can all go DIAF.

It is not the NDP fault if Liberals are selecting inept leaders...

[MaxQue]

If the Conservatives make gains in the Toronto suburbs and are mostly unaffected by the NDP surge in Quebec... that would suck.

Exactly. If the NDP's vote increases everywhere, even where they're weak they'll only serve to split the non-Purgatory vote and allow them to be reelected or gain seats. And, that, my friends, wouldn't be good. If the NDP can gain seats off the Purgs, then all the power to them but if they use to split the vote and elect more Purgs they can go DIAF.

Well, I don't see NDP saying to its voters "Vote Liberal to not split the anti-Tory vote". Neither I see the Liberals doing that, either.

Our electoral system is bad, don't blame NDP for it (they were never in power), blame Liberals and Conservatives.

[MaxQue]

Does the Bloc differ much from its British counterparts, Plaid and the SNP?

Well the SNP and Plaid are very different, so what do you think?

The Bloc is very different though; remember that separatist politics in Quebec started at provincial level through the PQ and that the BQ and PQ remain separate parties (though with extremely close informal ties, of course). While both the SNP and Plaid now view elections to devolved bodies as being more important, it doesn't change the fact that they were shaped by their parliamentary representatives and by political activism outside electoral politics. So you have that massive difference in terms of political culture.

Language is the elephant in the room...

Well, yeah. I still find it so alien seeing footage of the Canadian HoC and they just use French and English interchangeably.

MPs have earplugs, hearing all in the language they choose.
Same thing, on the Commons website, when listening in direct, you have 3 sound tracks (French, English and Floor).

[MaxQue]

Anglos: NDP 45%, Cons 26%, Lib 20%, BQ 4%

Sample is probably very small, but, if that true, Liberals would lose some safe seats in the west half of Montreal, the ridings "whose would elect a red post box".

Which riding Notre-Dame-de-Grâce is in? It is a poor very English area, I suppose it would fail.
Would also mean than Jeanne-Le-Ber is a NDP-BQ race, then, I think.

Teddy, I know than there was very long lines for early voting in Quebec City and the parking of the early voting in Val-d'Or was full, today.

[MaxQue]

Will Canada's weird laws on election coverage affect us at all?

Us?  No.  This isn't a Canadian website and those of us who aren't in Canada cannot be bound by the weird, anachronistic Canadian laws on election night coverage.  We can repeat whatever we hear from tweets and elsewhere.  Early results from Atlantic Canada and that one Quebec riding whose polls close an hour early always manage to get posted on the Internet somewhere.  It's just a question of finding it.

Well, honestly, I think it will be the last election with that law. I don't see that law staying in the books for long. Harper promised to repeal it, too.

Thanks, Smid, I'll check.

[MaxQue]

Well, looking a map shows me than Notre-Dame-de-Grâce has been slipt in the halves.

One is Westmount--Ville-Marie and one with Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--Lachine.

In English Canada, those would called gerrymanderers! Putting poor areas in ridings where there are outvoted by the wealthy communities.

They did the same thing to Côte-des-Neiges (multicultural poor riding). 2/3 in Outremont (but with trendy Mile End, they are able to outvote wealthy Outremont Borough, and 1/3 in Mount Royal (which is a very wealthy English city).

Joe: The solution would be universal voting hours. But West voters wouldn't like and Eastern media, neither.

[MaxQue]

No Nanos polling on Good Friday, so no new numbers today.
Polling resume today, new numbers on Easter.

[MaxQue]

There are so many issues with Teddy's map, I don't know where to start.

Vaudreuil-Soulanges voting Tory?
Saskatoon-Humboldt voting NDP before Rosetown-Biggar?
The Liberals picking up Churchill River?

The first is an error, the second two are correct on the math

Hmmm?

Saskatoon-Humboldt, 2008: CON: 53.8; NDP: 27.8
Saskatoon-Rosetown, 2008: CON: 45.4; NDP: 44.5

I fail to see how "the math" would have Humboldt fall first.

Same for Desnethe. 2008: CON: 46.7; LIB: 30.3

Are you really predicting a big swing from the Conservatives to the Liberals?

Pankiw

I can't believe than more than 100 persons want to vote for that crazy drunkard!

[MaxQue]

cinyc, it was published by the Globe and Mail on Tuesday, but it was in other neswpapers during the weekend, if not before.

And people aren't dumb. They know than paper candidates exists and even vote for them.
See ADQ in 2007. People are voting for Layton and NDP, not the random local candidate.

NDP in Quebec has a true problem, it is than some candidates in Quebec doesn't speak French.
It is not a problem. It already happened with PC in 1984, and the person just learned the language.

[MaxQue]

Haute-Gaspesie-La Mitis-Matane-Matapedia was a very close BQ-Liberal quasi-tie in 2008 because of a Liberal star candidate (who's running again) and an archaic BQ incumbent who has since retired. If the poll is accurate, it seems as if it was close in 2008 only because the incumbent wasn't popular. It isn't the traditional Liberal area of Gaspesie, so it makes sense. Low NDP is fishy, though.

Poll was done between April 6 and April 13.

[MaxQue]

Hmm. I don't think anyone saw T-R as a possible pick up. Ok, so what does this mean?

More than 10 MPs for NDP in Quebec and trouble for Duceppe?

[MaxQue]

I heard rumours of a candidate not speaking French. Is it her? I also heard that those rumours were lies and that infact the candidate is bilingual.

A local radio who called said her French was too bad to be broadcasted.

[MaxQue]

The wedding is going to consume media coverage tomorrow and then it's the weekend... bit late for a media attack to do much of anything.

If true, the NDP should thank a monarchy than a big (?) part of the their voters dislike?

[MaxQue]

La Presse/Toronto Star/Angus Reid

Cons: 37%
NDP: 33%
Libs: 22%

Quebec

NDP: 45%
Bloc: 26%
Libs: 16%
Cons: 13%

Ontario

Cons: 41%
NDP: 27%
Libs: 26%

British Columbia

Cons: 42%
NDP: 39%
Libs: 12%

Only 57% of the Liberal voters of 2008 plan to vote for Liberals in 2011.

[MaxQue]

If it were found that John Boehner (or Steven Harper) had been discovered naked in a "massage parlor" by police, do you think the Atlas lefties would have pooh-poohed it quite so fast?

Well, Harper and Boehner are campaigning on moral values.
You know, campaigning on morals and being stuck in a moral scandal is hypocrisy.

To my knowledge, Layton never campaigned on moral values.
We are talking of a party which wants to legalise pot, please!

[MaxQue]

If it were found that John Boehner (or Steven Harper) had been discovered naked in a "massage parlor" by police, do you think the Atlas lefties would have pooh-poohed it quite so fast?

Well, Harper and Boehner are campaigning on moral values.
You know, campaigning on morals and being stuck in a moral scandal is hypocrisy.

To my knowledge, Layton never campaigned on moral values.
We are talking of a party which wants to legalise pot, please!

He wanted to ban lap-dancing, so I'd say he deserves whatever's coming to him.

Well, the Sun is the Sun.
It is a right-wing newspaper.

About lap-dancing, I don't know.
True than banning it is against freedom.

But are those women are there by their own will?
Do they are really paid?

Those places are well-known forced prostitution places and are sometimes related to human smuggling.

I support legalizing prostitution, but there most be solid ways of insuring than the prostitutes are willing and are not used as a way of financing mafia or criminal groups.

My city is going under the trial of a criminal group, related to the Hell's Angels, which used prostitution as a way of financing themselves, from what I heard.

The world isn't black or white, wormyguy. The government isn't perfect, but neither are individuals and businesses. We must reach the equilibrium between government and businesses which provide the better well-being for the population with the least intrusion possible, which is another equilibrium in itself.

The perfect political system doesn't exist. Neither extremes are good.

[MaxQue]

I think yesterday was the last day for polling under Canadian law.  I guess pollsters will now have a very convenient excuse if their last poll (likely released Friday or Saturday) overstates NDP support.

I don't think so.

The law states than the last day for releasing polls is on Sunday, May 1st.
But I don't think there is anything about polling?

Earl, you work in that area, can you confirm?

EDIT: I want to add than Layton has not control over the party. His personal views can be different of the caucus or of the party members. They won't follow him mindlessly, I suppose. From the outside, parties seems united and always vote according to the party line in Chamber, but in caucus, it can be quite divided.

In the last years, we heard about fights in the Liberal and Conservatives caucuses. I suppose the same happens in BQ and NDP caucuses. Even, during the Liberals reign, about an intended bill which was dropped, since the caucus was not liking it. It is rumors, sure, but I suppose they aren't created out of thin air.

[MaxQue]

My gut says this story is too blatant to gain traction among any undecided voters. If the rumours circulated for a week among Twitter before Layton responded then it may have worked.

It may backfire, too.
From what I hear around me, Duceppe attacks on Layton made some NDP-BQ undecided persons than I know choosing the NDP.

Another element is "Do voters care?"

[MaxQue]

I think yesterday was the last day for polling under Canadian law.  I guess pollsters will now have a very convenient excuse if their last poll (likely released Friday or Saturday) overstates NDP support.

I don't think so.

The law states than the last day for releasing polls is on Sunday, May 1st.
But I don't think there is anything about polling?

I think you're right.  A 1994 report to Parliament said federal law prohibited disseminating new poll results in the final three days of an election campaign - but the last polls were conducted two and even one day before the election in 2008.  So that law must have been changed in the interim.

Canada adopted a new Electoral Law in the end of the 90's.

[MaxQue]

I've been to a "massage parlor" before. Who. F**king. Cares.

Not me. He admitted it, too, which will kill that in the egg, normally.
People like honesty, I think.
He didn't tried to hide it.

[MaxQue]

Voted.

Took 45 minutes, lines were long at the polling station.

[MaxQue]

Also it's well run enough that you wouldn't see those ridiculous long lines

Voted.

Took 45 minutes, lines were long at the polling station.

Anecdotal evidence of really high turnout? How long do you normally wait to vote Max?

First time I vote.
But my mother said than lines are usually long there, but not so long.
It is a office workers precinct, so, everybody is going to vote at 5PM.