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

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It's ironic that although the NDP is touching majority status, only the third place party is fully national in scope.

FWIW, my mother who is (was?) a member of the CPC and actually campaigned in previous elections, is voting Liberal this time because she is tired of Harper. She still thinks the NDP are closet commies who will nationalize all lemonade stands and send welfare cheques like pizza coupons, though.

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The more I think of it the more I believe Mulcair is more similar to Harper than he wants to admit. Both are assholes and proud of the title. Both are not very friendly with the media, and both prefer to keep their teams under control.

Update on Anonymous: They hacked Donald Trump's homepage and replaced it with a tribute to Jon Stewart, and invited Joe Oliver to cover the election. Enough journalists from different mainstream media outlets are now following the Twitter feed, giving much more respectability to the John Baird allegations. We'll see where that goes.

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So the debate has begun. Justin looked smart, Lizzie looked goofy, Tom looked dignified, and Steve looked creepy.

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Steve didn't look at the camera when responding with an understandable argument. That's not good for him.

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If this was a job interview (where we instantly make first impressions which are subsequently confirmed), I'd rank as follows:

1) May: Thoughtful and stickler to the facts
2) Mulcair: Has the voice of a nice wise uncle, even if he danced around the pipeline issue
3) Harper: Seemed angry and insincere much of the time, but had some good points
4) Trudeau: A nice guy, but doesn't seem quite..well..ready

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With these numbers it's hard for the NDP to gain many seats in Ontario. The cities in southwestern Ontario such as London, Hamilton, KW, Brantford, and Sarnia are competitive. A few more points makes rural SW Ontario in play. 905 seats are out of the question, however.

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For starters, Harper can present himself as a more likable person. He could try strolling into Tim Hortons unannounced and talk about peoples' concerns over the economy where he still has some (diminishing) advantage. He can then prepare a dignified response when someone inevitably shouts abuse at him. Then, he can seize the initiative by releasing his party's grand vision for the country (something along the lines of a strong economy with a strong middle class under a strong government which keeps them safe, or something) 10 or 20 years from now, and how a re-elected government will implement it.

But, so far all Harper campaign announcements have been boutique tax credits. It's too late to play visionary.

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The "GTA CPC Candidates Exposed for Unprofessional Conduct" trifecta now complete: http://www.pressprogress.ca/conservative_candidate_shares_advice_on_drunk_women_latent_homosexuals_and_being_a_man

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If I were Trudeau's strategist I'd urge him to point this as Harper's campaign being in such dire straits that he can't find any Canadian willing to work for him, and that his campaign chief is "just visiting".

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It's not more dishonest than the Conservatives' insinuating Ignatieff was "just visiting". And the only reason to do so is to add to the perception (so far entirely driven by a few journalists) that the Conservative campaign is in trouble. If the Conservatives base their campaign on appealing to low-information voters and demoralizing their opponents (precisely Crosby's modus operandi), then so can the other parties. Pleading that "everyone does it" smacks of desperation by this stage.

Remember last week when the NDP basically accused Stephen Harper of personally drowning Alan Kurdi in the Mediterranean? Their claims weren't entirely correct, but by the time the media discovered the nuanced truth, the damage was already done. It simply added to voters' perceptions whether or not it's entirely true.

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Following the leak from Foreign Affairs, Anonymous is promising something big early next week, but won't reveal whether it's about Baird per se.

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FWIW - the EKOS IVR poll was in field Sept 2-8 and the Forum one was in field Sept 9-10 - so its possible that there is a trend...

But hasn't Forum been ridiculously pro-NDP for months? I don't think the crank calling and cup peeing Tory candidates shifted many peoples' minds.

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This Baird thing is hilarious.

Apparently, in Canadian politics, 'joining the private sector' = 'I am dying' or 'I am becoming a professional pederast'.

As promised, Anonymous did release some information. See for yourself: https://twitter.com/OpAnonDown

Normally, claims made anonymously on Twitter without concrete proof aren't worth examining. But the list of followers includes so many senior figures from all of Canada's major news outlets that something concrete must exist.

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In an otherwise forgettable (aside from the malfunctioning timer) debate, Harper mentioned "old-stock Canadians".

For some reason I thought of Tim Hudak's comments about foreign workers during the 2011 Ontario election. Already, Justin's people are busy.

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Frank Graves claims Harper's dog whistle comment is working to win back lost support, and the other parties should just let it go.

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A result that close probably means another election very soon again.

Doubt it. No one wants to be seen as responsible for forcing another election. At this occasion the probable outcome will be a coalition, where both the Liberals and NDP do all they could to be seen as equals. It would last its full term, because the only thing keeping it together will be hatred of you-know-who.

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There's no love or trust between Mulcair and Trudeau. It would be too fragile of a coalition.

There was even less love or trust between Stalin and Churchill/FDR.

Yes, probably a Godwin, but the point stands.

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There's no love or trust between Mulcair and Trudeau. It would be too fragile of a coalition.

There was even less love or trust between Stalin and Churchill/FDR.

Yes, probably a Godwin, but the point stands.

Even your Godwin example doesn't point to a stable coalition. It took what, two years for the USA/USSR to fall out after their mutual enemy was defeated?

And even during the war, they were understood to be vying for the supremacy of Europe.

The pundits will talk about how the coalition will fall apart soon, but I think it will last the full term if for no reason than their common loathing of the former government. The will have introduced some form of electoral reform. Then in 2019, they campaign separately, slamming each other for the coalition's unpopular decisions. Possible that the Conservative Party will have rebuilt itself into a force the Liberals could work with, after that election.

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Léger previewing Thursday's national poll, hints at important movement in BC/ON/QC.

I'm seeing red. The Liberals have been very convincing in running to the left of the NDP, who are trying too hard to look centrist and have in general run an uninspiring campaign. Their escalator ad is especially inspiring.

Also, the Bloc's ad claiming the NDP will build a pipeline transporting liquefied niqabs to Quebec might as well have a "Paye par le parti Conservateur" message at the end.

Next, in our series of CPC candidates exposed for hideous online posts: http://www.pressprogress.ca/this_conservative_candidate_is_not_happy_about_the_separation_church_and_state

Even the Greens aren't immune to candidate bozo comments: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/canada-election-2015-lyndia-briguene-niqab-ban-green-party-1.3239345

Robert Jago, for his part, promises to expose more CPC candidates, but only after the September 28 nomination deadline to force the CPC to take ownership.

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The days when the CPC was plagued by US stock photos and reeling from peeing/masturbating candidates, while having an agendaless campaign seem like an eternity ago.

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Mulcair looks all well and good on paper but in practice has thusfar ran a boring as f**k campaign.

Also Quebec responds well to racism, evidently.

That, and the NDP gambit of moving to the centre to become more electable backfired when the Liberals made left-ish promises about increasing public investment and health care spending.

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The Liberal platform actually calls for Health care cuts to balance by 2019 (about 2B if you listen the the federation of nurses)... but they won the "i'm more left-wing" debate thank's to Liberal news outlets like The Star since for some reason running huge deficits for 3 years then introducing massive cuts (which is indicated in their platform) to balance by 2019 is somehow considered Left wing.

Trudeau's considered very good debate performances, favourable media treatment of their platform (without much dissection) and the niqab mess has hurt the NDP. CBC reported the NDP is changing tack and going more now after both Harper and Trudeau and will focus on promoting Mulcair who is still ranked highest is approval for trust and suck in a number of polls

In general the NDP campaign has been complacent and uninspiring. It's the type of campaign best suited when they're in government and with a strong lead in the polls, but definitely not this one.

If the NDP starts attacking both Steve and Justin it will smack of desperation. And the "ABC" group will see the headlines and vote accordingly.

It will be interesting if Con gets 35%, Lib gets 38%, and NDP gets 23%. Presumably, Mulcair resigns when leftists blame his shift to the centre for the disappointing performance. Trudeau is invited to form government. I wouldn't put it past the Liberals to entice a few NDP defections to gain themselves a majority while demoralizing the NDP.

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What would be likely to happen if the result is like Con 36, Lib 33, NDP 26, the Tories don't have a majority, and Lib/NDP would have a majority? Conservative minority (trainwreck) government, Liberal minority government with outside NDP support, or a Lib-NDP coalition?

Harper will most likely resign. Mulcair will also probably resign, since the leftists in the NDP will blame his move to the centre for allowing the Liberals to steal their natural supporters.

Which leaves Trudeau as the undisputed Prime Minister. He would take full advantage of the NDP's troubles to keep it divided.

Assuming the Liberals then keep their promise to introduce Alternative Voting, they would be in a good shape to become, again, the Natural Governing Party. In any case, it would become mathematically impossible for a Harper-like politician who is openly disdainful towards the majority to get elected.

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I'm not so sure Mulcair would resign in that case, and personally don't think he should resign. Familiar opposition leaders tend to do better than new ones, and, especially in a minority government, having a familiar, well regarded leader is something that would benefit the NDP.

As an example, after Stephen Harper lost the 2004 election in what was seen as a big disappointment, he continued on, become PM, and now his familiarity has become a big strong point.

Harper at least gained seats in that election. If this goes on, the NDP may well fall back to high teens outside Quebec. The Liberals *will* repeat the same tactic which won the 2004 federal and 2014 Ontario elections. Tellingly, the same people who ran those two campaigns are also running this campaign.

And, let's face it: the NDP campaign has had no theme other than "we're the default anti-Harper choice, oh and C51".

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At least the Aussie Liberals know they can't be so openly disdainful towards >60% of the electorate that no one outside of their base will consider giving them any preference. That's why they switched leaders three weeks ago.