Canadian federal election - 2015

[Hatman 🍁]

All I have to say is that I wish I had dual citizenship so I could vote for Justin Trudeau. 

Maybe not the best thing to say around here I can't say I know of anyone else who likes Mr. "Flaky like his mom" on the forums.

I am interested, pray tell, why would you vote for JT?

[Hatman 🍁]

Who has a better chance of losing their seat, Mulcair or Trudeau?

[Hatman 🍁]

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")

Another way that Justin is not like his father. Pierre was a visionary, JT is just... well, a Ken doll.

[Hatman 🍁]

From a political science perspective, Senate reform can be defined on a left-right axis.  The Tories are allowed to have left wing positions, and the Liberals right, you know.

Abolition is the far-left position
Triple E (with PR) is left
Triple E (with FPTP) is centre-left
Elected, but not equal - a la US is centre
equal, but not elected is centre-right
status quo is right
go back to no 75 year limits, and get rid of other reforms is far-right.

There, fairly simple. The Liberals have the right wing view, the NDP is far-left and the Tories are centre-left. I personally support option #2.  However (and I will upset my fellow dippers here) between abolishing and status quo, I support the status quo. Neither of those options are ideal though.

[Hatman 🍁]

Yeah, the Senate would become useful.

[Hatman 🍁]

You're right, the boundaries really hurt the NDP in favour of the Liberals

1993 results (transposed)
Reform: 4
Liberal: 8
NDP: 2

1993 actual
Reform: 4
Liberal: 5
NDP: 5

[Hatman 🍁]

Elections Canada doesn't use the term "notionals", so they probably had no idea what you were talking about. The term they use is "redistributed results" or a "transposition of results". They do publish this data. 

[Hatman 🍁]

No way the Liberals only get 152 seats with those numbers...

[Hatman 🍁]

No way the Liberals only get 152 seats with those numbers...

2 more reasons:

1: ThreeHundredEight has given the NDP the advantage in rural Quebec. Liberal power is heavily concentrated in and around Montreal, this knocked off a very, very large amount of seats, in fact, the Liberals are over 10 points ahead of the NDP in Quebec, but his projection is giving the NDP more seats than the Liberals.

2:The CPC's vote share is extremely effective. Rural ridings virtually all have a "perfect" vote share, at the point where their vote isn't concentrated and therefore wasted, but is also powerful enough so that even if the Conservatives have low percentages, they have just enough support in these ridings to win.

I believe 308 doesn't look at sub-provincial numbers at all.

[Hatman 🍁]

Those "sub regions" have to have a small sample size. And how are they even defined? Is Toronto the city or the CMA?

[Hatman 🍁]

Surely we have a thread on this somewhere...

Anyways, I'm predicting a Liberal minority.

[Hatman 🍁]

Right now I think the only party capable of winning a majority will be the Liberals, and that will involve a perfect storm, resulting in Quebecers somehow flipping to Trudeau.

[Hatman 🍁]

I think the Liberals take Halifax before they take Stoffer's riding.

[Hatman 🍁]

If Stoffer doesn't run, then yes- his riding will go Liberal.

[Hatman 🍁]

"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.

[Hatman 🍁]

"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.

Well, that whole period in Canadian politics certainly sullied the term. If one of the coalition partners had a plurality of the seats, the public wouldn't mind, but it would be terrible for the junior coalition partner. Of course, a simple "accord" wouldn't hurt the partner necessarily.

[Hatman 🍁]

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!

That's because they are essentially the same party. Plus, they don't have the same electoral system.

[Hatman 🍁]

I feel like the NDP would be fairly opposed to Alternative Vote. It is after all not proportional in any way, although the results would be closer to proportionality as it would force the Tories out of power. But at the same time, it would prevent the NDP from ever winning as well. Get used to Liberal power for a long time, or at least some sort of barely right of centre conservative party. (might cause the creation of a new reform party!)

[Hatman 🍁]

Party list is no different than what we have now: partisans choosing their candidates.

STV is probably the fairest system, but good luck explaining it to the population.

[Hatman 🍁]

This makes the baby Jesus cry

[Hatman 🍁]

Thanks Hash,

Nomination season is well under way, so I requested the two threads be merged so that we can "focus on nominations".

The pundits' guide (http://www.punditsguide.ca/) is keeping a list of all the future nomination dates.  For example, tonight is the NDP nomination in Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe (race is between Luc Leblanc and Joyce Richardson). The Conservative incumbent (Robert Goguen) has already been nominated there.

[Hatman 🍁]

Luc Leblanc (NDP candidate in the recent provincial election in Moncton Centre) won the nomination last night for Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe.

Tonight is the NDP nomination is Scarborough-Rouge Park (not sure who the candidates are though). This is a new riding that was a notional three-way race in 2011 (Liberals were first). The Liberals have already nominated Gary Anandasangaree, an Tamil layer.

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

[Hatman 🍁]

I'm aware of how big cricket is (it's a wonder why they don't show more of it on TV), but how "big" could a Canadian cricketer be? Well, we'll have to wait and see.

[Hatman 🍁]

Well, the only Tamil who played on the World Cup squad in 2011 was Ruvindu Gunasekera, who is from Toronto, so I wonder if it will be him? It seems from my quick research, that a lot of Canadian cricketers have ties to Scarborough (no surprise, really).

Canada of course has a long history of cricket. It was the most popular sport in the country in the 19th Century, until hockey and baseball became more popular.