Canadian federal election - October 19, 2015 (Official Campaign Thread)

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1.I don't know if anybody mentioned this on the pre election thread but the only thing striking out from the CON ad on Thomas Mulcair is how brazen it is.

They criticize him as a 'career politician' for having first gotten into electoral politics in 1994 but Sleazy Stevie first got elected to Parliament in 1993 and first ran in 1988.

Also, Mulcair had a lengthy career as first a lawyer and then a top administrator in the Quebec Civil Service while he who cowers in closets has never had a non political job except working in his dad's company's mail room for a few months (though he may have been a lecturer in the economics department at the U of Calgary for a semester or two, though in this case any similarities between what is taught in economics at the U of Calgary and real economic theory is purely coincidental.)

2.Heir Harper is now saying that any deficit budget will lead Canada to Greek Tragedy. If that false dichotomy is the case, then won't this new CON home renovation program automatically lead Canada to Grant Devine like bankruptcy?

3.In regards to Alberta there are 3 NDP defeated provincial candidates who are running for the federal nomination: Lynn MacWilliam in Bow River Katherine Swampy in Red Deer-Lacombe and Mikhai Ion in Calgary-Forest Hills.

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Let's keep the excessive hyperbole and useless spinning under control guys, please (ie 'Heir Harper', 'he who cowers in closet').

1.You said nothing about referring to Justin Trudeau as 'Justin' which had been done in a previous post.

2.Stephen Harper cowering in a closet is a fact.  There is nothing on this board that says facts can't be stated if they are embarrassing.  In this case, it is highly relevant as Harper portrays himself as 'Mr Security' when this shows the reality is that he is an easily scared little boy.

Of course, it's often the case that the easily frightened tend to support police state laws like C-51.

If you have a different term you'd prefer me to use, fine, but unless you are going to ban me or delete my posts, I will continue to refer to Harper as 'He who cowers in closets' because it is true, there is no rule against it and because it is highly relevant to Harper's true personality.

And if you are going to either ban me or delete my posts, I want an explanation as to why a fact can't be stated here.

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Harper's retirement schedule: Ibbitson confirms what we already knew.

An obvious deception to tell voters that they can vote Conservative with Harper as leader because they don't have to worry about him staying on.

I want this in a notarized legal contract before I believe it.

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Adam, this is the best place on the Internet for discussing elections around the world largely because people refrain from inserting their own political views into discussion of elections. I don't need to be told how to feel about Stephen Harper; I already have my own opinion of Stephen Harper. I come here to read about the election. Your editorializing does not help.

Is it?
Then what about these comments:
1.#StandWithHarper

2.As usual, Nik Nanos is pushing his friend Justin.

We talk of a "pollster" who put the Liberals first long after real pollsters had them in 3rd place.

(Nanos was actually on tv today saying that his polling now finds the Conservatives with slight momentum.)

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Let's keep the excessive hyperbole and useless spinning under control guys, please (ie 'Heir Harper', 'he who cowers in closet').

1.You said nothing about referring to Justin Trudeau as 'Justin' which had been done in a previous post.

2.Stephen Harper cowering in a closet is a fact.  There is nothing on this board that says facts can't be stated if they are embarrassing.  In this case, it is highly relevant as Harper portrays himself as 'Mr Security' when this shows the reality is that he is an easily scared little boy.

Of course, it's often the case that the easily frightened tend to support police state laws like C-51.

If you have a different term you'd prefer me to use, fine, but unless you are going to ban me or delete my posts, I will continue to refer to Harper as 'He who cowers in closets' because it is true, there is no rule against it and because it is highly relevant to Harper's true personality.

And if you are going to either ban me or delete my posts, I want an explanation as to why a fact can't be stated here.

Nobody is going to ban you or delete your posts, so please calm down. As for the rest, this is a board for mature discussion of elections, and this board is well regarded for the high value of its discussions, and because I want to keep it that way, I would prefer if we could stay away from silly name-calling of politicians (i.e. calling people 'Heir' or something) which don't add any value or content to the discussion. There's no need to get on high horses about this.

I echo Xahar's excellent post.

1.I wasn't getting on any high horse.

2.I am always calm.

3.If Sleazy Stevie can't conduct a mature election campaign, I see no reason why I shouldn't detail his lies in kind and, as much as I abhor it, it's pretty evident his cynical dishonest campaigning has worked for him in the past.

4.I just showed that Xahar's post is factually inaccurate.

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1.If you read the substance of my post, you'll see that I did make, in my opinion, a definite contribution to the discussion both in my commenting on the absurdity of the CONS ad calling Mulcair a 'career politician' and on the absurdity that any deficit spending will inevitably lead to a 'Greek Tragedy, as well as pointing out the likely largely forgotten fact that it was a similar program that Harper is now proposing of rebates for home renovations that would have led Saskatchewan to declare bankruptcy had it not had it debts guaranteed by the federal government (to be sure, the Saskatchewan program was likely a much larger percentage of their budget than this program, but if Harper is going to outright state that any deficit spending will lead to a Greek type economic collapse, I fail to see why I should show context.)

On the ad thing, I just read over the pre election call thread and nobody commented on it.  Maybe most people here already know that Harper first got elected in 1993 and first ran in 1988 and has never had much of a job outside of politics both elected and non elected, but I doubt everybody here does, and I also believe it was worthy of discussion, in large part because it comes right out of the, I believe, Frank Luntz  Republican playbook of trying to make a strength by accusing your opponents of having your own potential weaknesses.

2.I strongly disagree with your premise that only an, I guess, university seminar type discussion is 'intelligent.'  High minded to be sure, but usually lacking in impact and frequently not interesting.  In my opinion "intelligent discussions" can and frequently do contain mockery, put downs and the like, and generally highly regarded intellectuals like William Buckley and Gore Vidal agree with me.

I would also point out that it was this sort of determination to be 'high minded' that is one of the main reasons Democrats lost most elections from around 1980-2008.

The West Wing "Good Political Advice"
https://youtu.be/PCSMyFWTjRc

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Adam, this is the best place on the Internet for discussing elections around the world largely because people refrain from inserting their own political views into discussion of elections. I don't need to be told how to feel about Stephen Harper; I already have my own opinion of Stephen Harper. I come here to read about the election. Your editorializing does not help.

Is it?
Then what about these comments:
1.#StandWithHarper

This is also a bad post.

2.As usual, Nik Nanos is pushing his friend Justin.

We talk of a "pollster" who put the Liberals first long after real pollsters had them in 3rd place.

(Nanos was actually on tv today saying that his polling now finds the Conservatives with slight momentum.)

I'm not clear what the issue here is, since it's obviously relevant to this thread if a particular polling firm is consistently pro-Liberal.

Per The Nanos Comment
1.It refers to Justin Trudeau as 'Justin.'

2.I agree that Nanos' poll tend to lean Liberal, but I'd say this falls into conspiracy theory territory as it:
A.Claims Nanos is not a real pollster, when he certainly is,
B.Suggests Nanos' polls are so comprised because he is a friend of either Justin Trudeau or the Liberal Party.

If questioning a pollster using that sort of language is acceptable, then pointing out that Harper's image of himself as "Mr. Security" is a fraud using my language is also perfectly acceptable.

Edit to add:
I mainly engage in repetition for mocking purposes.
I.E calling Harper Sleazy Stevie (which he is) in reference to CONs calling Mulcair Angry Tom (Which he isn't)

I got the idea for this directly from The Bible:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2011:1-9

The Tower of Babel

 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city..."

The Lord said "...Come, let us go down and confuse their language...”

So, if you want to call mockery 'unintelligent' you're calling God 'unintelligent'.

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It definitely seems like the Tory vote will hold up in suburban Ontario significantly better than elsewhere.

Have to agree with that.  The Liberals are too weak to be in a position to pick up a lot of 905 seats, but outside of Brampton/Malton and Oshawa the NDP are not likely to be a factor.  In contrast, the NDP can win most of suburban Vancouver, which lacks a York Region-type dead zone.  

In regards to suburban Vancouver, the NDP probably can't win  North Vancouver (not the Burnaby-North Burnaby riding but the North Vancouver riding), West Vancouver and Delta will be difficult as the South Delta part of the riding is heavily anti-NDP (unless a load of Liberals vote NDP to defeat the Conservatives.) The southern exurban ridings of Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Langley are also not viable for the NDP, though the northern exurban ridings of Maple Ridge and Mission (does anybody still refer to this area as 'Dewdney'?) are very competitive.

In addition to the 2 ridings the NDP hold in Surrey, Fleetwood-Port Kells is also a very good pick up opportunity for them.  Apparently star candidate and former very popular mayor Dianne Watts is not polling as well for the Conservatives in South Surrey-White Rock as she was expected to do, but this area also tends to be heavily anti NDP, and Cloverdale-Langley City is likely also not viable for the NDP.

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Don't forget Richmond as an NDP dead zone, too.  And I'm still not counting on the Cons in the 905--though that'd require the Grits using their brains over the next couple of months...

Hah. I was just going to edit my post to add that in.  And I live in Richmond too! The NDP has no hope in either Richmond Center or Steveston-Richmond East.

Not to stereotype anybody, but most in the Chinese community here would never vote NDP, although I'm sure there are some who would never otherwise who do vote for Harold Steves for city council.  There are a handful of high profile Chinese New Democrats in Vancouver and Burnaby, but I don't know a single one in Richmond.  The person from Hong Kong who ran for the NDP here in the last provincial election actually lives in Vancouver. Like most in the so-called ethnic communities, I would expect that the Chinese Canadian community will have voting patterns similar to the rest of the area once the second generation takes over.

In Vancouver proper, the NDP has no shot in Vancouver Quadra.  Vancouver Centre might be an exciting race.  Vancouver South might have been a potential pick up for the NDP had they nominated either the Chinese Canadian family physician who used to be head of the Vancouver Medical Association, or the Indo Canadian accountant who is a senior manager at KPMG or even the guy who used to be head of the B.C branch of the Canadian Cerebral Palsy Association, but instead they nominated a union staffer.  I personally am supportive of unions, especially the private sector unions, but I don't know that most voters of that riding feel the way I do.

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In my opinion the NDP is competitive in
Vancouver 3/6
1.Vancouver-Kingsway (NDP riding)
2.Vancouver East (NDP riding)
3.Vanouver Centre (Liberal riding)

Lower Mainland 5 or 6/10
1.Burnaby North-Seymour (New riding)
2.Burnaby South (NDP riding)
3.Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam (James Moore retiring riding)
4.New Westminster-Burnaby (NDP riding)
5.Port Moody-Coquitlam (NDP riding)

Could be competitive
1.Delta (NDP/Conservative riding)

Surrey 3/5
1.Fleetwood-Port Kells
2.Surrey Centre
3.Surrey-Newton

Fraser Valley 2/5
1.Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge
2.Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon

So that's 13 or 14 of 26.

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Darn. First I forget my own city, then I leave this riding off.

Thanks

So that's 14 or 15 out of 26.

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Wendy Yuan disqualified from Steveston-Richmond East LPC nomination.

Totally disgusting.  Joe Peschisolido is generally regarded as a joke in Richmond and I don't like him either.  As only the Liberals can defeat the Conservatives in Steveston-Richmond East there is no point in me engaging in strategic voting now.  I'll likely either vote NDP or Green.  I'd even vote Conservative if I like their local candidate Kenny Chiu the best,as unlike the present M.P for this riding Kerri Lynn Findley (who is running in the new Delta Riding) or Alice Wong from the neighboring riding of Richmond Center, he doesn't seem to be totally offensive.

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Liberal candidate Ken Hardie says the Conservatives will dump M.P Nina Grewal in favor of former Provincial cabinet minister Kevin Falcon.

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Ipsos: 33 (-1), 31 (-2), 28 (+3).

Mulcair confirms his participation in the Munk debate. Our first FP-only debate and IIRC, our first bilingual debate.

Seems we have the final list.

English MacLean debate (already done)
English Globe and Mail debate
Bilingual Munk debate on foreign policy
French TVA debate
French Radio-Canada/consortium debate (Harper finally accepted, as it seems he had no other choice for a debate in French).

1.What about the TVA debate you also mentioned that will be in French?

2.Will Elizabeth May be in any of the remaining debates?

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From Vancouver Sun:

"Every member of the (Steveston-Richmond East) riding executive except one - who was on vacation -  resigned as Joe Peschisolido a former Liberal M.P for Richmond was acclaimed at a nomination meeting."

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This isn't so much a drop for the NDP as just being a more accurate poll than their last one, which was most likely an outlier.
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The provincial results on both the Forum Poll and the Ipsos Poll are also quite similar.

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Mainstreet Technologies shows a three-way race

Canada: Cons 30% NDP 30% Lib 29% Green 6% BQ 4%

Atlantic: Lib 43% Cons 26% NDP 24% Green 7%
Quebec: NDP 32% Lib 30% Cons 20% BQ 15% Green 3%
Ontario: Cons 33% NDP 31% Lib 31% Green 5%
Manitoba: Cons 44% Lib 34% NDP 17% Green 5%
Saskatchewan: Cons 46% NDP 29% Lib 18% Green 8%
Alberta: Cons 50% Lib 23% NDP 19% Green 7%
BC: NDP 40% Lib 25% Cons 22% Green 13%

These numbers are mostly consistent with the Forum and Ipsos polls except for the NDP in the Atlantic, The Liberals in Quebec, the NDP/Lberals in Alberta and the Conservatives in B.C.

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I would agree that Mainstreet will lose its credibility if they continue to show wild swings, but then the previous two Forum polls also showed wild swings, and Forum is regarded as the most credible polling firm in Canada.

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One thing that's been puzzling me is how surprisingly robust and enduring Liberal support seems to be in Winnipeg--granted, it may be a strong slate of candidates, three retired CPC incumbents, and continued Selinger backlash; but, still.  (How are the *provincial* Liberals doing, anyway?)

Manitobans will not vote for the federal NDP no matter how popular they are in other provinces, as long as they have an unpopular provincial government. See 1988.

The NDP said they had something like 6% support in Manitoba prior to Gary Doer being elected leader in 1988. This time around most polls of the provincial NDP still have them at around 30%.  They should easily hold their two seats and at least challenge for one or two more if they are able to get 30% federally.

Regarding Winnipeg, it should also not be forgotten that many suburbs were amalgamated into Winnipeg in 1972 (under the Schreyer government)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgamation_of_Winnipeg

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Tories will win the most seats in Ontario if it is a 3-way race, due to vote splitting.

This is the clear view of pretty much all the pollsters.

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This isn't a phenomenon limited to Manitoba. In general, in Canada, federal politics has little to no effect on provincial elections, but provincial politics can and does affect federal elections. Obviously this effect is strongest with the NDP, since the NDP is the most unified political party between the provinces and the Center. Dissatisfaction with the Bob Rae government torpedoed the federal NDP in Ontario in 1993, although (to be fair) it's not as if that campaign did better elsewhere. More recently, the only two provinces where the NDP saw no increase in its vote share in 2011 were Manitoba and Nova Scotia, which were also the only two provinces with NDP governments at the time. In the case of Manitoba, that NDP government wasn't even particularly unpopular at the time, since it was re-elected to a large majority just five months later, but the fact that it had been in power for twelve years killed the federal NDP's prospects all the same.

This year Alberta and Manitoba are the only provinces with NDP governments. The novelty of the NDP government in Alberta will probably help the federal party rather than hurt it (although a Mainstreet poll from a month and a half ago showed the provincial NDP trailing the Wildrose Party by a considerable margin), but now that the NDP government that has run Manitoba for the last sixteen years is genuinely unpopular it seems safe to say that the NDP won't be making many gains there.

The provincial NDP was very unpopular 5 months prior to the 2011 Manitoba election. They only gained traction over the summer, thanks to the revival of the Winnipeg Jets and their handling of the floods.

I think you will see the NDP lose ground in Nova Scotia this time. They may not be in government any more, but I don't think many Nova Scotians are too willing to go back to them so soon. I think Chisholm is at risk of losing his seat, but the most recent provincial by-election in Dartmouth may indicate that the NDP has rebounded in Metro Halifax, so I don't know. At this point, I don't think the NDP is in a position to gain any seats in Nova Scotia.

As for Alberta, I don't think the NDP government is unpopular (yet?). Wildrose may be ahead in the polls, but that has more to do with people going back to their normal parties of support. A good chunk of people who voted NDP in the spring only voted NDP to kick out the Tories. Those people aren't necessarily left wing, and are now supporting Wildrose. These people were never going to vote for the federal NDP. Having said that, the NDP could pick up maybe 4 more seats in the province. 

The Manitoba NDP also won reelection in 2011 on their effective campaign against the Manitoba P.Cs alleged 'hidden' plan to privatize crown corporations.  The right called it a 'fear campaign.'  Funny how they never label their own campaign's that.

In regards to Alberta, I believe the final centre/right, centre/left split of 52-48  is a fairly accurate reflection of where the people of Alberta are.  There has actually just been one poll that has come out since the election, the one you mentioned from Main Street Technologies that showed Wildrose in the lead.  We'll get a better sense of how accurate that firms polls are in the upcoming Calgary byelection.

I agree that the NDP could maybe pick up four more seats, but they may also surprise in Lethbridge.  The "anti" oil sands comment from Linda McQuaig echoed by some NDP candidate in Saskatchewan may, for all the I know, hurt the Conservatives the most.  I suspect the vast majority of potential NDP supporters in Edmonton share McQuaig's sentiment, and the people in Calgary who might be driven away from the NDP will most likely vote Liberal. So, the Liberals could also win 2-3 seats in Calgary.

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Does the NDP have a full policy manifesto anywhere? I can't seem to find one.

I'm sure they will, but I'm also sure it hasn't been released yet.

These are the resolutions that were passed at the last NDP convention in 2013:
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/ndp-convention-the-final-resolutions/

This is from the NDP website:
http://www.ndp.ca/issues

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I could be wrong, but I believe other than the former pulp mill town of Powell River, most of the rest of the Sunshine Coast is quite wealthy, especially Gibsons.

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Manitoba NDP MLA and one of the 'Gang of 5' Erin Selby is reportedly considering running for the Federal NDP in the St. Boniface riding.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/st-boniface-gets-polled-on-possible-erin-selby-federal-election-run-1.3199851

St Boniface is the riding Greg Selinger represents provincially. If she becomes the federal candidate,  I wonder if they'll campaign together.

Should Erin Selby become the nominee, it would mean that at least one former NDP provincial cabinet minister is running federally in every province the NDP has held office in (except for Alberta of course.)

In B.C, Jenny Kwan was the Municipal Affairs Minister for the duration of the term from 1996-2001, although the portfolio was renamed midway through her term.  She was also Minister of Women's Equality for a while.

In Saskatchewan, Lon Borgerson was made a cabinet minister for a few months when Premier Lorne Calvert named every M.L.A who was planning on running again in the 2007 election to the cabinet except for the M.L.A who was the Chief Government Whip (Andy Iwanchuk I believe.)

In Ontario, Howard Hampton who was the Attorney General from 1990-1993 and then Minister of Natural Resources and Native Affairs from 1993-1995 in the Bob Rae government is running and two former Cabinet Ministers are already M.Ps: David Christopherson who was the highly regarded Solicitor General for a little over 2 years (and was the Minister of Correctional Services for the year before that, a position he retained until 1995.)  Also, Irene Mathyssen was a Junior Minister for a while in the government.

Finally, in Nova Scotia, the newly nominated candidate NDP candidate in Peter McKay's riding, Ross Landry, was the Attorney General for the duration of the Dexter government.

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There are two more former provincial cabinet ministers running for the NDP: Andrew Thomson In Eglinton-Lawrence and Thomas Mulcair in Outremont.

Forgot about Thomson, but he's not running in Saskatchewan and Mulcair was never in a provincial NDP government.

There was also Francois Beaulne who was a star Quebec NDP candidate in the 1988 federal election who became a P.Q cabinet minister shortly after that, but he lost the NDP nomination for this election.