Canadian federal election - 2015

[DL]

Mulcair's more likely insofar as he's more likely to have a "star" challenger making claims to Outremont's "Liberal history" (would Cauchon try here, or elsewhere?)

Keep in mind that under redistribution Outremont loses anglo and allophone areas in the west that are where the Liberals do best in that riding - and gains areas of the Plateau that are heavily francophone Quebec Solidaire territory that would likely go 80% Mulcair against a Liberal.

[DL]

My parents are hardcore soveignists, but they vote NDP.
They are saying than independance will be done at Quebec City, not Ottawa. Independance lived before the Bloc and will live after the Bloc.

They are saying than, if we are stuck in Canada, as well try to improve it instead of propping an party which can't win, which only helps the Conservatives.

I think you're parents are very smart. People often forget that from the foundation of the PQ in 1968 right up to the creation of the BQ in the wake of the collapse of the Meech lake accord in 1990 - there was no sovereignist vehicle at the federal level and no one thought it necessary. In the early 70s Levesque suggested that his people abstain from voting in federal elections at all, then the PQ began to quietly back whichever federal party was seen as having the best chance of weakening the Trudeau Liberals who were the PQ's arch-enemy. In 1979 that meant giving some quiet backing to the Creditistes and PCs in some places. Ditto in 1980. In 1984 the PQ machine essentially went 100% behind Mulroney's PCs, then in the mid-80s when the NDP under Broadbent started to show signs of life in Quebec, the PQ started hedging its bets and being sympathetic to the rise of the NDP, then in 1988 the PQ decided it liked free trade and totally supported Mulroney (as did the Quebec Liberals).

In 2015, there is no question that Mulcair's position on Quebec's place in Canada will be cut from the same cloth as the Couillard Quebec Liberal position - it will be far, far more palatable to sovereignists that Trudeau's old style federalism...particularly since Trudeau seems to want to attack the NDP for being in favour of self-determination for Quebec.  I think in 2015 both the PLQ AND the PQ will be much more comfortable with Mulcair than with Justin Trudeau. Couillard and Mulcair are old friends so its a natural fit. The PQ will view Mulcair as the lesser of two evils compared to Trudeau.

[DL]

Yes and Couillard and Mulcair have both said they would like to work towards the goal of getting Quebec to sign the constitution. Justin Trudeau on the other hand says that any constitutional talks or attempts to reform or abolish the senate should be abandoned because its "too difficult" (sounds like a Barbie doll saying "math class is tough")

[DL]

Keep in mind that as recently as the 2004 federal election, the CPC took just 29% of the vote nationwide.

[DL]

Keep in mind that as recently as the 2004 federal election, the CPC took just 29% of the vote nationwide.

That was also an exceptional circumstance. The two conservative parties had merged quite recently. 35-40% is normal in the post Mulroney era for conservatives.
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The Liberals are swinging so far to the right under Justin Trudeau that the Liberals are now like a second conservative party threatening to split the rightwing vote.

[DL]

Trudeau also wants to keep the Senate exactly the way it is - so he can have fun some day packing it with his own coterie of friends and sycophants.

Its clear that the hard core CPC base doesn't like Justin Trudeau or the Liberal party or Tom Mulcair or the NDP - and would only abandon the CPC if there was a new Reform party style apostasy (ie: someone decides to create a Canadian chapter of UKIP). But that CPC hard core is only about 26% of Canadian voters. Then you have another large chunk of people who voted CPC in 2011 who had previously voted Liberal during the Chretien/Martin era...look at Ontario for example, the CPC in 2011 took 44% of the vote in Ontario, but we know that under the right circumstances the tory vote in Ontario can easily be driven into the low 30s - the Tories took 32% in ontario in 2004 and just 35% in 2006 and in the Ontario elections of 2003, 2007 and 2011 the Ontario PCs have never had more than 35% of the vote. There is a segment of 10% of Ontarians (ditto in other provinces) who voted CPC in 2011 but who would have to be considered low hanging fruit for the opposition parties. They are people who have voted Liberal in 04, 06 or even 08. They are people who vote Liberal or NDP provincially etc...

The Liberals under Trudeau and the NDP under Mulcair are not expecting to attract votes from hard core Tory voters who will vote tory come hell or high water - but they will both be going after "soft Tory" voters - people who swung to Harper at the last minute in 2011 but who have a history of often voting for other parties etc...

[DL]

Senate reform is in no way a left-wing policy. Harper attempted to reform the Senate, the Senate knocked back his Bill, he has subsequently appointed to the Senate people who support this policy. Senate reform doesn't sit on the left-right axis.

Except the NDP which is Canada's party of the left, has strongly advocated for senate abolition for 80 years. Abolition is the leftwing position. Trudeau wants the status quo in the senate which is a rightwing position. By any definition of left and right, it seems very rightwing to want to keep an unelected upper house full of appointed elites with lifetime jobs who regularly overrule the will of the people

[DL]

We also need to consider that if the Liberals enjoys a dead-cat bounce in Quebec outside of Montreal - in places like the Quebec City area those votes could also come from people who voted CPC in 2011.

Another things that makes Quebec unpredictable is the fact that by Oct. 2015 it is highly likely that the Couillard government will be extremely unpopular - they are already getting raked over the coals for their austerity measures and this is still just the tip of the iceberg...and that could also do some damage to the federal Liberal brand.

In other news the BQ is totally on life-support - an ex-BQ MP stated publicly over the weekend that the BQ should fold and that sovereignists should vote NDP as the "lesser of all evils" among federalist parties.

[DL]

Actually there has been a much more recent example of a coalition government in Canada that everyone seems to forget and its actually quite recent. It was in Saskatchewan from 1999 to 2003. On election night the NDP lost its majority and ended up with 29 seats, the Sask Party got 26 seats (and actually narrowly beat the NDP in the popular vote) and the Liberals took 3 seats. The NDP and the Saskatchewan Liberals negotiated a formal coalition that even gave the three Liberals MLAs cabinet portfolios. The NDP side of the negotiations was led by none other than Brian Topp who went on to negotiate the Liberal/NDP coalition of 2008 that Ignatieff turned up his nose to.

That coalition survived a full four years. The Saskatchewan Liberal party also fell apart and the three Liberal MLAs all ran as New Democrats in 2003 when the NDP regained its majority!

Coop maybe, no more than that. We've only had one formal coalition - which ended apocalyptically for everyone involved and nearly the country.

But that's not the case everywhere. BC has arguably had a coalition government for the last 14 years and had an formal one in the 1940s and 1950s, which was a very productive time (though it also ended terribly for both parties involved, for other reasons)

[DL]

so really what we're saying hear is that most Canadian coalitions result badly for at least one party?

Hard to say - we have little experience with coalitions between parties with similar (or close to similar) strength. If you look at the UK example, the coalition there has results in over half of Lib Dem voters deserting to the Labour party. In Europe the usual pattern is for coalition governments to be very bad in the next election for whichever party is the "junior" partner - what would happen in Canada if there was a hypothetical NDP/Liberal coalition is anyone's guess.

[DL]

but then the NDP propped up the Liberal minority 2004-2006 and went in to GAIN seats in the 2006 election so who knows

[DL]

ok another example, the NDP and the Liberals had an accord in Ontario 1985-1987 in the 1987 election both the Liberals AND the NDP gained vote share and though the NDP lost a couple of seats it did become the official opposition supplanting the PCs.

[DL]

"Coalition" is a dirty word in Canadian politics, and I don't think you will ever see it again, except in the case of a national crisis of some sort. Coalitions are disastrous for the junior partner in Westminster systems, if the UK is any indication.

What makes you say that? I have not seen any polling data since January of 2009 on what Canadians would think of a coalition between the NDP and Liberals where each party gets a share of cabinet portfolios. I think the public's reaction to that idea may be a lot more positive than you think.

[DL]

In Australia every time the "right" comes to power it is always a coalition between the Liberal and National parties and somehow they each always live to fight another day!

[DL]

There has been some talk of moving towards an Australian-style preferential voting system in Canada as well - the Liberals favour it and the NDP would likely regard it as better than the status quo...if that was brought in by an NDP/Liberal coalition government, it could lock the Tories out of power for the next century!

Its hard to say how an actual coalition might play out. If the NDP was the senior partner and Mulcair was PM it would be a win-win. If the NDP was the junior partner it could be a disaster where the party would lose its identity and the coalition would be a step towards merger or it could be good if NDP ministers established a distinct style in government and Canadians got used to the idea of NDP cabinet ministers doing a competent job.

[DL]

I deally Canada would move towards a form of proportional representation, but AV would still be a vast improvement over the status quo and its hard to come up with a good reason why voters should not be given more choice. Why not be able to rank ballots?

[DL]

with an added layer of individual scrutiny.  You can't really examine the timeservers and hacks of the party list

Doesn't have to be that way - in many countries with PR they have "open lists" where let's say i cast my PR "list" vote for the NDP in Ontario - i then get to rank the NDP names on the list as i see fit - so I the voter get to choose who on the NDP list is "top of the list" for the allocation of PR seats.

[DL]

Tonight is the NDP nomination is Scarborough-Rouge Park (not sure who the candidates are though).

Rumour that the NDP will nominate a famous Tamil cricket player!

[DL]

Ha! There are no famous Canadian cricketers. A coup nonetheless, considering I'm not aware of any athletes who have ever run for the NDP.

There was also Mad Dog Vachon the pro wrestler who ran with "equipe Broadbent" for the NDP in Brome-Mississquoi in 1988 and Bruce Kidd the olympic track and field star ran for the ONDP in 1971 and was active in the Waffle movement. Also Emery Barnes was a former pro football player for the BC Lions who became a BC NDP MLA and eventually speaker of the BC legislature and his daughter Contance is running next year in Vancouver Centre. I think there is also a Manitoba NDP MLA who was once in the NHL too.

On the female side I seem to recall the NDP running a female Olympian in vancouver Centre in 1993 against Kim Campbell.

[DL]

I knew there must have been some, and was secretly hoping you would give me a list. Still though, it is rather short compared to the other parties.

Is it? I honestly can't think of all that many pro athletes in Canadian politics period. Not from any party.

[DL]

In 1972 the Liberals ran former NHL player Dick Duff against NDP incumbent Arnold Peters in Timiskaming. Peters beat him by a big margin.

I suspect that some former pro-athletes are used to a lot of adulation and and are narcissistic so there is an attraction to politics as a post sports career possibility. If you are someone who just likes the idea of being popular and you don't actually believe in anything then the Liberal Party will be your natural home since you don't have to think too hard about anything. You can just smile and tried to cash in on fame and just try to be all things to all people (kinda like the current leader of the Liberal Party but i digress). Interestingly while a number of pro athletes have run for public office in canada - they have not been particularly successful. The one exception is Ken Dryden

[DL]

I know that hard core conservative supporters think "coalition" is a dirty word, I see no evidence that today in 2014/15 the rest of the population has a problem with parties forming a coalition. In fact I think they rather like the idea of parties working together

[DL]

I know that hard core conservative supporters think "coalition" is a dirty word, I see no evidence that today in 2014/15 the rest of the population has a problem with parties forming a coalition. In fact I think they rather like the idea of parties working together

Look over to here in the UK to see why Coalition's terrible for trust in politics.

Then again in Australia anytime the "right" forms government it is inevitably "the Coalition" meaning the Liberal and National parties - and no one in Australia seems at all troubled by that.

[DL]

So, will there be 6 podiums on the debate stages?

I predict that the networks will find a way to exclude the leaders of the the three "micro-parties" and have a debate just between the "big three"

[DL]

Seems rather unfair to change the rules as the campaign is starting. They can change for them for the election after this one (whether that's 2016 or 2019), but I think, for 2015, Mario Beaulieu, Jean-François Fortin, and Elizabeth May should all be included along with the top three.

I doubt than Mario Beaulieu would go to the English debate if included.

Beaulieu actually speaks English quite well and would relish the chance to be as disruptive as possible in the English language debate if given the chance