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

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And so it begins ...

Interesting bit by the CBC on the respective campaign launches by the major leaders. Harper rally "sombre", Trudeau looking "liberated by election call", Mulcair "in a straight jacket," or more generously, "scripted".

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Seems like it was a draw.


Elsewhere on the internet, this is delightful

#HarperANetflixShow

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I picked up on that verbal tic of Harper's, too. If Trudeau or Mulcair or May had been really on their game they might have tried to use it to trip him up (i.e., "Are you able to answer a question without using the phrase 'let's be clear', Mr. Harper?")

Also, this is a good chuckle.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSf2__qpeGA

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Sure, a projection model certainly doesn't capture things like incumbency or big swings very well.  For example, claims that the NDP is set to lose Surrey-Newton to the Liberals strike me as ridiculous.

But I don't see the 905 swinging Liberal in particular if they're clearly the third party.

Certainly a 905 "sweep" isn't likely for the Tories.  The NDP is very likely to pick up Oshawa and Brampton East and quite likely to break further into Brampton/Malton.  Half a dozen seats or so for the Liberals seems about right, in some ridings where they were narrowly defeated last time and where the NDP isn't going to be a contender.

Peel Region could very well see all three parties represented.

By sheer coincidence, there's a poll that bring together the two main strands of conversation so far (the debate and the vote patterns of the GTA):

Trudeau seen as strongest candidate by Torontonians in 1st debate

An interesting snippet from it:

"Trudeau was especially strong with residents in North York (31 per cent) and Peel Region (27 per cent), while Harper scored well in Etobicoke (27 per cent)."

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Yeah, I'd agree the federal/provincial overlap is driving a lot of the support for the Liberals in Manitoba right now.

Added to that, however, there are long term factors that make Manitoba a little bit different than the other prairie provinces. A lot of them can be seen looking at one place: Winnipeg. It's a notably older settlement with a pattern of urban and demographic development that's more akin to the cities of Central Ontario than the rest of the prairies. It's had a longer and deeper history of union activity and radicalism than any of the other prairie cities, too; this helps the NDP most, of course, but it's also a sign that the rural individualism that characterizes the rest of the prairies (especially Alberta) has never been totally dominant.

Winnipeg's influence on Manitoba, moreover, is considerably greater than Saskatoon/Regina is on Saskatchewan or Calgary/Edmonton on Alberta. Winnipeg makes up more than 60% of Manitoba's population; those other cities don't even make up half of their respective provinces' populations (plus they're separate cities, diluting the urban influence somewhat).

If you're looking for a rough analogue to the United States for context, the situation of Chicago compared with Illinois/the rest of the midwest isn't a bad place to start.

P.S. Oh, and I forgot about the Metis: the descendants of aboriginal people and French trappers from the 18th/19th century who settled the area around Winnipeg. Nowhere else in the prairies has that (and francophones have been a generally more favourable demographic for the Liberal Party over the years).

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Aaah. That makes much more sense than Florida State University.

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Only a Conservative win would result in continued prohibition of cannabis. Whether it would be legalized/decriminalized by the end of the year depends on whether the Liberals or NDP get in (Liberals are, I suspect, slightly less eager to change the law) and how much control of parliament they have (any minority government situation will make the ruling party more cautious).

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Great articles!

That line from Ignatieff puts me in mind of something Ronald Reagan said. When he was running for president in 1980 a reporter asked him "How can an actor run for President?" Reagan replied "How can a president not be an actor?"

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Ipsos: 33/30/29.

Interesting because Ipsos/Reid usually gets results that favor the Conservatives.

If polls continue to show similar results such as these, I wonder if it will decrease the incidence of strategic voting as people will think that even if the Conservatives win the most seats, they won't be able to form a government.

If that is the case, it would make sense for the Conservatives to not bring up the coalition thing or the 'party that wins the most seats is the only party entitled to form a government' lie, while it makes sense for the NDP to bring up the notion that the Liberals might back the Conservatives in power.

Despite correcting his recollections of the Beauce riding, I'd sincerely be most interested in hearing Hatman's take on this.

I'm still wrapping my brain around the implications of the Conservatives being in third place. I'm not so sure they are yet, but they are at least in a statistical tie with the Liberals.

It seems that east of Ontario, the Tory decline is helping the NDP, while west of Ontario it is going to the Liberals.

Funny, you would think it would be the opposite of that given historical voting patterns.

Seems to me, too, that despite the wide spread of specific numbers all the pollsters agree the NDP is in first place, the Tories are not, and the Liberals are competitive (relatively).

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Ooh, these are fun! My results:

Green: 83%
NDP: 77%
Liberal:71%
Conservative: 36%

Not really a surprise, I guess, though I imagined I would be more NDP/Liberal and less Green this time around.

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Maybe you could get your friend to tweet that at Wells just for fun

When I read that piece I thought it was really simplistic, but then I wondered whether that was because Wells was pitching his 'analysis' to a broader audience - i.e. not the psephologist-level discussion we have on forums like this.

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Not coincidentally, Alexander makes a fool of himself in TV interview

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Yeah, Canada's kind of the paragon for using election signs. I like it more than the subdued ways they're used here in the UK.

Perhaps that will change, though, as online campaigning becomes more important.

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I think more Conservative candidate may soon be fired - several have been exposed as having ties to fanatical anti-gay hate groups.

Who?

Probably this lady

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Well, yes, in the same sense that the North American plate is headed toward the Pacific plate or that the sun is headed toward its red giant phase (i.e. so far in the future as to render the statement meaningless, if not outright misleading)

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"Both my wife and I have run small businesses"

Umm, exactly what small business has Harper ever run in his life? He's been a career politician since he was in his 20s. His time at the NCC couldn't count as it was a non-profit.

Either way, voters seem to be quite comfortable with Trudeau's economic policies

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Byrne has been sent back to HQ. I expect we'll get juicier details from Fife in 30 minutes. As for Nanos, all major pollsters are showing notable regional differences.

Out of curiosity, what's the record for this sort of shake-up actually working? Are there more examples of a campaign switching managers and then winning compared to ones that did the same and then lost?

Embarrassingly, the only example I can think of is fictional (from the West Wing). For what it's worth that campaign ended up losing.

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Tory candidates' failures now include racist stereotypes about First Nations peoples

This has graduated from disappointing into sad.

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Margaret Wente says Stephen Harper is 'toast'

Despite Wente being a terrible writer, this probably means that Harper has lost the conservative-leaning suburban mom vote (i.e. my mother's)

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Because it had been almost a week since a Tory candidate had to be let go ...

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I suspect the Star would endorse the NDP if they were tied with/ahead of the Tories and the Libs were a good few points back. Anything more competitive for the Libs and, yeah, they'll get the Star's nod.

The National Post always endorses the Tories. Not even worth discussing.

I'm not too sure about the G&M. They've endorsed the Libs before though only if the Tories have indisputably run an inferior campaign (1993, 2000, 2004, I believe). Judging from their editorials lately they're not too keen on the Libs deficit/investment plan, but they don't seem too enthusiastic about Harper either. It's a genuine toss up. They'll never endorse the NDP, that's for sure.

Personally, I tend to think the G&M and the Economist are the only non-local papers whose endorsement matters in Canada.

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... speaking of Riding level polling to be taking with a grain of sail, CROP has the NDP leading... Papineau
NDP - 46%
LPC - 35%
BQ - 10%
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/election/trudeau-in-trouble-in-papineau-riding-poll-1.2568576?hootPostID=7b14fa55793444883a6592832cbc868a

Junk poll!

I know it's a thing on this forum, but you don't accomplish much except annoying everyone by just shouting that. Do that on the US 2016 election boards, not here. You could at least have pointed out that the poll had a sample of only 375, which sets the MoE above 5%, which indeed makes it a rather dubious poll.

As if on cue, Mainstreet/Postmedia poll showing Trudeau ahead in Papineau

Libs: 41
NDP: 36
Bloc: 12
Cons: 11

These numbers seem about right, considering the strength of the NDP and Libs in the recent Quebec polling.

The cynic in me wonders whether the release of polling data like this isn't orchestrated as part of the campaign. i.e., the NDP wanted to unsettle the Libs so they arranged for a poll that would show their candidate in the lead in Trudeau's seat, but the Libs caught wind of it so they commissioned one of their own to show the opposite.

Now that I've typed it out, though, it seems more like a conspiracy theory than cynicism

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Libs pull ahead in Ipsos poll

Libs:33
NDP:30
Tories:27

Big gains for the Libs in Ontario, status quo for all in Quebec, Tories/Libs basically tied for second in BC.

Also, it's worth checking out the link for the unsettling manga renderings of the leaders' faces in the pie charts

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All the more reason to look forward to the EKOS numbers tomorrow, to see if the Tory slide and Lib gain they recorded last week continues.