Canadian federal election - 2015

[King of Kensington]

Sun News shutting down tomorrow:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/sun-news-network-shutting-down-friday-nearly-200-lose-jobs-1.2234296?hootPostID=56c28004322fdbdcecd787293a342de8

[King of Kensington]

EKOS poll: 33/32/19

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2015/02/13/the-ekos-poll-harper-loses-his-terrorism-edge-as-economic-fear-edges-up/

[King of Kensington]

Brutal.

http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2015/02/13/poll-gives-joe-oliver-big-lead-over-eve-adams-in-eglinton-lawrence.html

[King of Kensington]

How long will it take for Trudeau to blame Adams' inevitable loss on the NDP?

Inevitable loss to Marco Mendicino or inevitable loss to Joe Oliver? 

[King of Kensington]

Pretty interesting that Bruce-Grey has a contested nomination while in University-Rosedale the NDP candidate was acclaimed. 

[King of Kensington]

Except the loathsome Chrystia Freeland probably will, unfortunately.  Not a great time to be a Toronto New Democrat. 

[King of Kensington]

Tories are really on a roll today. Now, we got James Lumney (Nanaimo-Alberni) denying evolution.

His riding isn't nearly as much of a "Bible Belt" as Chatham-Kent-Essex.  Only 14% of his riding is made up of Baptists, Pentecostals and "other Christians" (compared to 25% in Chatham).  In fact his riding has a majority reporting no religious affiliation (50.1%)

[King of Kensington]

The Liberal candidate in Oakville North-Burlington, Max Khan has passed away.

Sad news.  A friend of mine was the NDP candidate in Oakville and though Max Khan was a very good man.

[King of Kensington]

Federal prosecutor Emilie Taman, the daughter of Louise Arbour, is interested in seeking the NDP nomination in Ottawa-Vanier and is currently challenging a Public Service Commission decision that denied her permission to run.

http://www.canada.com/News/politics/Federal+prosecutor+fights+decision+keep+from+running+federal/10947472/story.html

[King of Kensington]

Olivia Chow planning a comeback?

https://twitter.com/AndrewCash/status/580743088286478336

Would Cash resign his seat for her, or would she run in Fort York?  If it's the latter - on the one hand she does have more recognition and profile in the riding.  On the other hand, the optics could be terrible: "I resigned my seat last year but since my candidate didn't win and I bombed in my run for mayor, I want my old seat back." 

It would difficult for her to win Fort York against Vaughan, and it'll likely be an ugly, bitter grudge match. 

[King of Kensington]

Closer to home for me: Libman beats Dery for the Tory nomination in Mount Royal. Been wondering what a municipal Libman/Housefather race would look like for years, will get a federal answer: Housefather landslide.

Would Pascale Dery have been a better candidate? 

NDP vote is likely to drop off significantly in Mount Royal, so even if the Tories can retain their 2011 vote, the Liberals will have a larger margin of victory.

[King of Kensington]

I see that Housefather was endorsed by every single councillor in CSL and all but one in Hampstead.  I didn't see a single endorsement from an elected official for Libman on his page.

Can't see Libman getting more than negligible support in TMR and Snowdon, and Housefather obviously has significant support in CSL/Hampstead.  In other words, I don't see a path to victory for the Conservatives in Mount Royal.  

[King of Kensington]

Legault places both Libman and Housefather in the "angryphone" category - but certainly Libman has far more notoriety.

[King of Kensington]

Trudeau called for a tax increase on the "1%" (as well as for tax relief for "the middle class and those seeking to join it.")

A $3 billion tax cut would be paid for by a $3 billion tax increase on the "1%".

[King of Kensington]

What's the likelihood of Saskatchewan eclipsing Alberta as the province with the highest Conservative popular vote share?

[King of Kensington]

That's yet to happen in any poll, though. And if we were going to see it happen it would be now, but the Conservatives are still at the high 40's in AB and low 40's in SK.

Isn't Ekos the only pollster that separates Saskatchewan and Manitoba in their public releases?

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I'm pretty sure the Conservative vote will drop off in a lot of Calgary and Edmonton ridings.  It's not just the provincial election - I think they're trending away from voting as "Albertans" and more like urban voters elsewhere.

[King of Kensington]

In terms of vulnerable Conservative seats, there are probably 6 in Alberta - 3 in Calgary (CC, Confederation and Skyview) and 3 in Edmonton (Edmonton Centre, Griesbach and Manning).  

In Saskatchewan, Saskatoon West and Regina-Lewvan would have gone NDP last time. DMCR was quite close last time - but this time the NDP candidate Lawrence Joseph is running for the Liberals. The 2 other Saskatoon seats (which seem to have near-identical voting patterns) could also be lost to the NDP.

[King of Kensington]

Yes, they're the centrist party.  NDP partisans tend to see the Liberals as right-wing and "exactly the same" as the Tories, while Conservative partisans see the Liberals as a left-wing, tax and spend party and pretty much indistinguishable from the NDP.

[King of Kensington]

The main difference between Saskatchewan and Alberta is that Regina and Saskatoon are much smaller cities than Calgary and Edmonton and that Saskatchewan has much more wheat farming while Alberta is more cattle ranching and also the oil and gas sector is bigger in Alberta.

Wheat farming areas used to a bastion of "agrarian socialism" but today the political difference between them and the cattle ranchers is that they "only" vote 70% Conservative instead of 80%.

[King of Kensington]

Either Prime Minister Mackenzie King or Louis St. Laurent (it has been attributed to both) famously characterized the NDP's predecessor, the CCF, as "Liberals in a hurry."

[King of Kensington]

They're pretty much like mainstream Democrats in the US. 

[King of Kensington]

If the NDP keeps its momentum, Trudeau pushing right would be the best thing to have ever happened to the... NDP.
If you try to look at the Liberal perspective, it's a hard balance when it comes to stuff like taxes. But C-51 was an unmistakably poor move.
Hagrid, don't forget the Libs should at least be trying to win voters like me over. I feel as equally betrayed as you are.

C-51 was a major blunder for Trudeau.  Mulcair is looking better and better and his opposition to C-51 is his finest moment.  The childcare plan is a good one too. 

Trudeau's tax plan is just weird.  I agree with the call for a 33% tax bracket on $200K+ incomes (the "1%") - and I'm sure that idea is very popular in the NDP universe.  But then that "middle class" tax cut is nonsensical. 

Mulcair foolishly boxed himself in when he stated that marginal tax rates above 50% were confiscatory - and that's just when the tide was starting to shift in terms of public opinion.  But he's changed his mind before - for instance, he was adamantly against a coalition with the Liberals when he ran for leader, but now he's for it.  Nobody seems upset about his "backtracking", and most people in the NDP universe agree with some sort of cooperation to block Harper.

My feeling is that Trudeau is getting all sorts of different advice, and he's not very good at filtering out good advice from bad advice.

[King of Kensington]

Ekos I believe is the only firm that separates Saskatchewan and Manitoba in their releases.

[King of Kensington]

The NDP also came very close in the last election in the Prince Albert riding though they lost badly in the Moose Jaw area riding that for some reason is named "Palliser."

The Tories won Prince Albert riding by a 2-1 margin!

[King of Kensington]

So two relatively young men, Baird and MacKay, have called it quits, and Harper's most high profile minster is the 75-year-old Joe Oliver.  That doesn't exactly help counter the image that this is a tired government.