Canadian by-elections, 2012

[Linus Van Pelt]

Nice maps, Earl.

Too bad we can't have sexual orientation of the census, it would be really interesting... but people wouldn't want to answer the question.

The Toronto Star used to have a series called Map of the Week and one time it was about same-sex marriage in the city, since addresses are obtainable from the marriage registry. Of course many people (gay or not) are unmarried, but the patterns are likely enough to be similar. Here's gay men and here's lesbians.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Third parties have a tendency to collapse to almost nothing in by-elections closely contested by two parties. It happened to the NDP in Vaughan and to the Conservatives when Lamoureux picked up Winnipeg North - way lower in both cases than the general either before or after. By-elections are more dependent on actually having a local operation.

Meanwhile, two provincial by-elections have been called for April 19 in BC - Chilliwack and Port Moody-Coquitlam. Both are Liberal seats, but given recent polling the NDP should mount a strong challenge in Port Moody-Coquitlam, and if the BC Conservative surge is real then maybe even Chilliwack could be threatened.

[Linus Van Pelt]

the NDP now carry the heavy-weight candidate card, will it make the difference?

The chair of the local school board is not a particularly noteworthy candidate. This person doesn't even have a wikipedia page about her.

[Linus Van Pelt]

I don't deny she's a good candidate, in the sense that anyone who's been seriously involved in local administration and community work is a good candidate. But in this sense a lawyer who's on various charity boards and who came within 7% of winning last time for the Liberals is also a good candidate. All three candidates strike me as reasonably good candidates in this sense, but not the sort of "star" candidate that ordinary voters actually have a personal opinion of.

Fair point about the mayors on wikipedia, though, Max.

[Linus Van Pelt]

But she doesn't have a wiki page.

Definite proof that "candidacy matters"

I'm still not really convinced the individual candidates are affecting things that much - the NDP is actually doing very well in province-wide polls, in some cases better than the Liberals, and as you say adma, one might expect a larger swing here since there were strategic considerations in the general election that don't apply now. But whatever - I could also just be wrong about this case.

[Linus Van Pelt]

You should see the insane array of separately elected local positions they have here in the great US of A.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Are the provincial Liberals having some sort of rebound in Manitoba?

[Linus Van Pelt]

Man, Elections Ontario's website is ass.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Well, credit where due: excellent result for Fife and the party, obviously. I'll admit I didn't start out thinking it was likely.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Question: Why there is a Durham County?
I hope it's not about Lord Durham, the governor of the mid nineteenth century.

Southwestern Ontario was laid out to look like England by its original colonial administration. For it to work you have to flip it almost on its side so the Michigan border is the "south" and towards Toronto is the "north", with Lakes Erie and Ontario as the "east". Look at where London is on this orientation, and consider that it's on the Thames River in Middlesex County, that the next county downriver is Kent, whose main city is Chatham, and that on the other side, up the Thames River is Oxford County. Also observe where Norfolk County is. The Niagara region was originally Lincoln County, while Toronto was originally called York (preserved in the county name which was separated from the city itself in the 1950's). The river that empties into Lake Ontario in Etobicoke, which was then the countryside west ("south" on this orientation) of York is the Humber, and the county just past York is Durham, and then comes Northumberland...

[Linus Van Pelt]

This is obviously just very speculative guessing, but I wonder whether the reason the city is so un-polarized is that the Green vote skews both younger and more educated/upper-middle-class, which cancel each other out geographically. Meaning: in the more affluent professional areas on the south shore and the east by Oak Bay, the Liberal and Tory vote swung Green but there is a base of older public-sector/academic NDP voters, while in the cheaper areas inland and northwest towards Esquimalt the less well-off long-term residents vote NDP but the Greens won the students and other young renters.