Canada 2011 Official Thread

[You kip if you want to...]

Eugh, I hate how centre-left parties seem to be doing so badly, all over the world.

[You kip if you want to...]

Eugh, I hate how centre-left parties seem to be doing so badly, all over the world.

Such blanket statements are never accurate. At best they're true for a small subset of the world.

At any rate, the Liberals aren't really of the left in any sense.

I know that, but if you look at the Canadian party system in a completely black-and-white sense. Oh well, i'd never vote for the Canadian Liberals, i'd just prefer them to the Harper Tories.

[You kip if you want to...]

What's the absolute best case scenario for the NDP? I take it that even with Layton cashing in on being the most likable federal politician for the past 3-4 years official opposition status is way out of their reach?

It is out of reach, although there's a chance that Duceppe could become Leader of the Opposition should the Liberals be destroyed.

[You kip if you want to...]

I don't see why all talk must always be that this will be an epic Liberal rout, that the Liberals are doomed and so forth. Sure, Ignatieff is a poor leader and the odds aren't good. But Ignatieff is probably a marginally better leader than Dion - who also had sh**tpoor leadership numbers and when expectations are so low anything marginally positive can boost you up. Remember 1988.

At any rate, a Tory majority would be awful for this country; but if the people are retarded enough to go for it, then maybe the idiots should suffer the consequences and live with it afterwards. But for those who aren't idiots, it will be awful.

To be fair to Canada, even if the Tories do win a majority, it'll be with something like 55 to 60% of the country voting against them.

That's first-past-the-post for you... I don't know about Canada, but the government never winning a majority of the popular vote is hardly ever an issue in the UK. Even Blair and Thatcher missed 50% by a fair bit.

[You kip if you want to...]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=6322728

The US should follow suit and ensure that the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates don't interfere with the MLB playoffs

Didn't the Australian debate between Gillard and Abbott get moved last year because it interfered with Masterchef...?

[You kip if you want to...]

Tories steady, Grits drop, dippers on a roll.....

The Dippers' "Not So Great Canadian Moments" ads are very good - true comparison ads that start negative, but end positive.  The Conservative's ad campaign is also good, but more negative.  The Liberals' ads stink - disjointed with no coherent message.

I wish party advertising was allowed in the UK...

[You kip if you want to...]

Not a fan of Party Political Broadcasts?

3 over the course of a month long campaign isn't as... interesting.

[You kip if you want to...]

This is probably a bigger issue in B.C. than elsewhere - except perhaps, Quebec, where immigration from non-French speaking areas isn't very well liked.  Quebec wants full control over immigration there - but that's a whole different issue.

"Notre région au pouvoir" (Our region to power) in French.

What does "Our region to power" mean? Or does it just not translate well?

[You kip if you want to...]

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

[You kip if you want to...]

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.

[You kip if you want to...]

Language is the elephant in the room...

Absolutely, yeah. Even when compared to Plaid.

The Welsh language in Wales isn't really the same as French in Quebec, obviously.

[You kip if you want to...]

Ipsos Reid... Con 43, NDP 24, Lib 21, BQ 6

What's more significant? Dippers in second or the fact that the poll doth scream 'Tory Majority'?

I'd say Dippers. A majority for Harper's always been a possibility, NDP finishing second, not really.

What would the popular vote have to look like for the NDP to finish second in terms of seats? What is the reason for this surge btw?

[You kip if you want to...]

Those attacks on Jack layton seem a bit like what the UK parties tried to do to Nick Clegg during the Cleggmania of the debates. Once the momentum's started, it doesn't work.

[You kip if you want to...]

Those attacks on Jack layton seem a bit like what the UK parties tried to do to Nick Clegg during the Cleggmania of the debates. Once the momentum's started, it doesn't work.

It worked during Palinmania (which had McCain leading Michigan at its height).

Not really the same. Couric killed it for her, and "In what respect, Charlie?"

[You kip if you want to...]

Meanwhile, the Liberals have a new ad attacking the NDP from the right on the economy and from the left on gun control, and most strangely, having "26 years as a career politician" appear in the exact same point in the screen as the immediately previous attack "inexperienced", all the while flashing an inexplicable yellow traffic light on the screen.

The economy point of that ad is fair enough. Third parties generally spout insanely expensive/populist promises, assuming they'll never have to put them in place anyway.

[You kip if you want to...]

Quick question, is electoral reform a make-or-break policy for any NDP involvement in a coalition, as it is for the Liberals in the UK? Would a Liberal/NDP coalition with Bloc support mean likely electoral reform? I assume the Bloc and the Tories would be against a move to PR.

[You kip if you want to...]

Wouldn't it be stupid for them to get rid of FPTP at a time where it would work in their favour if they are to replace the Liberals as the major leftwing party and could ultimately result in a NDP Majority government within a very reasonable amount of time? Yes, I'm being overtly optimistic here.

It would, tactically. The NDP is not really disadvantaged by FPTP except insofar as FPTP hurts smaller parties. Unlike the Lib Dems, the NDP is solidly on the left and thus not nearly as evenly distributed across the country. The Lib Dems could win more votes than Labour and still end up far back in seats, but the NDP would easily pass the Liberals in seats if they won more votes.

I see. So, if these polls play out and the NDP finish second, it's likely that Jack Layton will become Leader of the Opposition, right?

[You kip if you want to...]

Rumours - stress on that word - of an Angus Reid poll showing the NDP on 30.

Go, Jack!

(Should be noted that it's 35, 30, 22 apparently.)

New NDP ad aswell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag__Nvw_M68
Makes me feel like a LibDem, circa May 2010.

[You kip if you want to...]

The Angus Reid poll has Harper's approval at 36%-50%... in a normal political system he'd be headed to a landslide loss.

Ignatieff has the Michael Howard problem - the PM is hated, but you're hated even more.

[You kip if you want to...]

Any seat calculators?

[You kip if you want to...]

Probably an idiotic question, but why are the NDP surging? And what's all this about the Bloc being left with a single-digit seat count...?

[You kip if you want to...]

Hmm... UK 1983, anyone?

The NDP have been around for decades.

Not to mention that the SDP/Liberals had momentum until about a year out from the election (Falklands). Their fortunes had been falling as the election approached. The NDP could realistically come first if things keep up, the Alliance didn't have that possibility less than a week from election '83.

If anything, UK 2010 would be a better comparison... and even then, it's dodgy.

[You kip if you want to...]

Also, this is the same nation that gave the world the 1993 election.

Yeah, I don't know too much about Canadian politics, but I notice their elections can generate massive swings which wouldn't happen in other Westminster systems.

[You kip if you want to...]

The difference between the NDP and the LibDems is that this surge had been (relatively) steady, as opposed to the (literal) overnight surge and emergence of Cleggmania. As people have said, the NDP has room to grow, the LibDems peaked about the time of the last debate which was a week before the election.

[You kip if you want to...]

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.

Basically, whoever the next Liberal leader is, they shouldn't become a Canadian Nick Clegg.