Canadian federal election - 2015

[DC Al Fine]

More than four in 10 Canadians, 44%, said they would vote Liberal in the next federal election, according to latest Forum Poll for the National Post, compared to 27% support for the ruling Conservatives and 20% for the opposition NDP.

The Liberals would claim 192 seats in the 308-seat House of Commons with that support, leaving the Tories with 77 and dropping the NDP all the way back to 37. (CP)

Trudeau was elected a month ago. He's still in his honeymoon. I remind you that Dion's Liberals achieved 40% in the polls and Ignatieff's managed 37% after their respective leadership elections. If the Liberals are still sitting at 40% in a year, I'll worry.

[DC Al Fine]

Also Trudeau is a noxious prettyboy who wouldn't even be a serious contender in his own riding if it wasn't for his last name. I'd vote NDP or Green before him.

[DC Al Fine]

Also Trudeau is a noxious prettyboy who wouldn't even be a serious contender in his own riding if it wasn't for his last name. I'd vote NDP or Green before him.

Papineau is still a stong place for NDP. He gets huge majorities in Parc-Extension and Saint-Michel, both immigrant areas which weren't there when his father was PM. He get clobbered and is a distant third in Villeray, through. It's a trendy hipster neighbourhood, which vote for QS provincially, so (but they have a Liberal MNA because they are paired with uber-Liberal Parc-Extension).

Through, as Villeray is growing, I wouldn't feel safe if I was him, it's not tranding in the right direction for him.

Sorry, should've been more specific. Someone Justin Trudeau's resume, minus his last name wouldn't be a serious candidate for the Liberal nomination in Papineau, much less a contender for Prime Minister.

[DC Al Fine]

Also Trudeau is a noxious prettyboy who wouldn't even be a serious contender in his own riding if it wasn't for his last name. I'd vote NDP or Green before him.

Papineau is still a stong place for NDP Liberals. He gets huge majorities in Parc-Extension and Saint-Michel, both immigrant areas which weren't there when his father was PM. He get clobbered and is a distant third in Villeray, through. It's a trendy hipster neighbourhood, which vote for QS provincially, so (but they have a Liberal MNA because they are paired with uber-Liberal Parc-Extension).

Through, as Villeray is growing, I wouldn't feel safe if I was him, it's not tranding in the right direction for him.

I actually think the NDP has a chance in Papineau.  Many who would have voted NDP last time around voted Bloc because they had a strong candidate (and former MP) running (and the NDP had basically a name-holder, and still came in 2nd).  I'm not sure if Barbot will run again for the Bloc here, but my thinking is that with a popular candidate, the NDP can garner the soft separatist vote, and consolidate the left vote.

The Liberals polling more than 15 points above what they got in Quebec in 2011 and you think their leader is going to lose his seat?

[DC Al Fine]

I think Mulcair and Trudeau are both pretty well ensconced in their respective ridings. They're good fits personality-wise and they have strong local organizations behind them to turn out the vote. They have both fought close elections recently (Mulcair was only reelected by 5 points in 2008) and regardless of how their respective parties are doing, they're both personally popular in the province.

A more interesting question might be will the BQ win a seat for its leader, Daniel Paillé. Paillé lost his seat in 2011 by 17 points and, considering the BQ's numbers lately, might have trouble finding any seat in the province that could be considered 'safe'.

On the other side of the country, Elizabeth May won her seat by a solid margin and is unlikely to lose it for the same reasons Mulcair and Trudeau won't.

Looking at regional polls, most of the Liberals gains have come at the expense of the NDP. Paille's best bet would be to pick a riding where the NDP didn't beat the Bloc by much and the Liberals aren't really a factor. His old riding fits these parameters pretty well.

[DC Al Fine]

Is there a swingometer somewhere to guess how many seats the parties would get with these numbers?

Canada is kind of hard to predict because it has so many parties and huge regional differences.

[DC Al Fine]

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.

[DC Al Fine]

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

And the Tory position is some form of elected Senate. This issue doesn't follow the standard left-right continuum.

[DC Al Fine]

Left wing
Noun
Members of a radical or liberal political party, or those favoring extensive political reform.

From dictionary.com

Damn, that's an unbelievably terrible definition. No wonder half of North Americans have no clue what left-wing actually means when dictionaries provide us with such bullsh**t.

Guess that makes Russian oligarchs circa 1994 super lefties

[DC Al Fine]

The Conservatives are trying to keep the Saskatchewan "rurban" ridings in place? Ugh. I know it won't benefit them by having a more reasonable map, but it's still absurd to hack apart cities as the current map does. Their problem is that they cannot keep 13/14 ridings with a more reasonably drawn map. With cities intact, the NDP should easily win some seats in the province, which they haven't been able to do since 2000.

With that said, how do the other provinces gaining seats look?

I know Alberta is the Conservative fortress, but can the opposition make some gains? Edmonton-Strathcona seems to have been fairly solidified in the NDP camp. What would come next for them now? What about the Liberals? And can any other party potentially break into Calgary?

My other question is how thew new proposed maps ultimately deal with the balance of power. How do the proposed lines in each of Ontario, Quebec, and BC favour the parties?

1) It's funny because the rurban ridings were originally an NDP gerrymander . Turning the two major cities of Sasketchewan into urban and rural ridings ought to results in turning the map into 4 safe seats.

2) There are two seats in Edmonton that lefties could pick up (Edmonton McDougall & Edmonton Griesbach) with a united left wing vote, a good candidate and a swing against the Tories. Griesbach in particular seems like a potential pick up for the NDP because it's basically Edmonton East with some conservative suburbs removed. If a lot of stuff went wrong for the Tories, the Liberals might win a seat in Calgary.

3) I suppose they mostly benefit the Tories simply because the growth has been in Tory leaning suburbs. Most of that is notionally conservative only because the Tories won the last election though

[DC Al Fine]

1) It's funny because the rurban ridings were originally an NDP gerrymander . Turning the two major cities of Sasketchewan into urban and rural ridings ought to results in turning the map into 4 safe seats.

What?

Also, you would think lumping a massive amount of rural land with each of the four quarters of two cities would be considered a Conservative gerrymander. Am I missing something?

Well right now, Regina & Saskatoon each consist of 4 rurban ridings, most of which are varying degrees of Tory. Splitting each city into two rural and two urban ridings ought to change each area into two safe NDP seats and 2 safe Tory seats.

The gerrymander was originally meant to favour the NDP. Back in the 1980's, when the gerrymander was created, the NDP still had a prairie populist element. This made the cities safe NDP, and the rural areas only sort of conservative. By combining them together into rurban ridings, you got many marginal NDP seats. As time went on, the NDP lost the prairie populist part of their coalition and the rural areas became super conservative, which in turn flipped the gerrymander to favour the Tories.

[DC Al Fine]

I found the notional results for Sasketchewan. NDP pick up a seat each in Saskatoon and Regina. As expected, the rural areas are super safe Tory seats.

[DC Al Fine]

Back in the 1980's, when the gerrymander was created...

No, it dates from the 1990s. Of course there were rurban ridings before then, but not the peculiar quartering of the cities.

Ah, I see. Actually now that I look at the notional results of the 1993 election translated over the 1990's boundaries, it looks more like a Liberal gerrymander, especially in Regina.

[DC Al Fine]

Could I ask how the boundary changes are coming along (and by association calculation of the notionals from 2011 as well)?

The notionals are usually calculated by Elections Canada, once the map is finalised in all provinces. For now, it's finished in Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Alberta.

Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia are left (the three biggest provinces and the one which current map is a blatant gerrymanderer and than Government is fighting to keep).

Official website: http://www.redecoupage-federal-redistribution.ca/content.asp?document=home&lang=e

I have just phoned Elections Canada and they have said that they will send me the information about the new ridings when they are formally published however, they said that they had NOTHING to do with the notionals. Perhaps if I explain what I mean by notionals, someone will tell me where such information is kept.

"Notionals" in the UK are the name given to calculations done by the University of Plymouth (headed by Prof. Thrasher and Rallings) where each new riding is calculated as if it existed at the last election) as we had at the last election. It is THESE calculations that I am looking for

http://fed2013.pollmaps.ca/

This site has unofficial notional results. It should tide us over till the real ones come out.

[DC Al Fine]

The 308 has his May polling averages up.

Liberal: 40%, 152 seats
Conservative: 27.6%, 102 seats
NDP: 23.3%, 74 seats
Bloc: 4.1%, 2 seats
Green: 4.1%, 1 seat

Ugh, hopefully the NDP & Tories improve soon.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm predicting another Tory majority, no idea who will be Opposition Leader.

I honestly hope this doesn't happen. Lord knows the ass whooping we'd receive if we're in power 13 years. Tory minority is my prediction right now.

[DC Al Fine]

Here's my take on Atlantic Canada. I started writing out what seats the Liberals will pick up, but it's making more sense to just write out what the Tories & NDP will retain.

Newfoundland
St. John's East

Nova Scotia
Central Nova
Cumberland-Colchester
Halifax

New Brunswick
Acadie-Bathurst
Fundy-Royal
New Brunswick Southwest
Tobique-Mactaquac

The Tories will hold onto their historic strongholds and nothing else. The NDP will win where they have extremely popular incumbents (Harris & Godin), plus Halifax, which has all the prime NDP demographics.

Note that I did not include Peter Stoffer's riding in the NDP holds. Sackville-Eastern Shore was always more of a Stoffer riding than an NDP riding. The recent redistribution removed the outlying rural parts (which vote like BC) and tacked on some Liberal voting suburbs (Dartmouth East, provincially). I expect the Liberals to win the new Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook by a nose.

[DC Al Fine]

Quebec: Harper is toxic here so they will be lucky to hold the five seats they already hold.  Maxime Bernier will probably hold his, but that's about it.  At the same time the NDP has an edge as they have a better distribution due to their strength amongst Francophones whereas the Liberals tend to run up the margins in the heavily Anglophone and Allophone ridings on the island of Montreal.

I agree that Harper is toxic in Quebec, but the Tories ought to retain a few seats due to the vote splitting cluster f[inks] that 2015 will be.

[DC Al Fine]

Note that I did not include Peter Stoffer's riding in the NDP holds. Sackville-Eastern Shore was always more of a Stoffer riding than an NDP riding. The recent redistribution removed the outlying rural parts (which vote like BC) and tacked on some Liberal voting suburbs (Dartmouth East, provincially). I expect the Liberals to win the new Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook by a nose.

Though my feeling is that Stoffer's the sort whose magnetism migrates to whatever new territory he takes on--a little like how Peter Kormos used to operate in Ontario...

Stoffer isn't running again. Now don't get me wrong, the NDP still have a good sized base in the riding (I'd guess 30%), but I think a Liberal sweep with no NDP incumbent will flip the riding.

[DC Al Fine]

Taking a guess at Quebec

Liberals win the popular vote by 5ish pts, but tie the NDP in seats because their efficiency sucks.
Bloc holds onto a couple seats due to popular incumbents/vote splits.
Tories hold onto Beauce & Roberval-Lac St. Jean (assuming Lebel runs again).

Quebec will look something like this

PLC: 37
NPD: 37
BQ: 2
PCC: 2

[DC Al Fine]

I think ROQ will be very interesting, particularly given recent NDP gains and Mulcair's high popularity here.

Quebec & BC are going to be a pain in the butt to project

[DC Al Fine]

Lots of you are mentioning Tory minority governments; is it very unlikely that the NDP and the Liberals would form a majority coalition, given the opportunity?

Possibly, but I get the impression that the NDP isn't willing to play 2nd fiddle.

[DC Al Fine]

So the Liberals are at record levels of support in BC. Is there any chance of them winning a seat outside of Greater Vancouver/Victoria?

The 308's most recent average had them beating the Tories by 4%. This exceeds their best results in B.C. (8% behind Reform in '93, 8% behind CPC in '04)

Looking at their past results, they haven't really come close to winning a rural BC seat even at the best of times Jim Gouk's riding in '93 excepted. They might win a seat around Kamloops next time, but I doubt it.

[DC Al Fine]

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)

By "other reasons" do you mean that the Socreds showed up or do you mean something else?

[DC Al Fine]

"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.

All of the crap from being a government party, but with none of the prestige/major legislative achievements.

Makes you wonder what the Lib/NDP/BQ coalition would have resulted in. I'm guessing the Liberals & Bloc would've been ok, but the NDP would get screwed.