Canada General Discussion: Trudeau II

[DC Al Fine]

The McNeil government is imposing a contract on Nova Scotia Teachers Union. The union has been working to rule but has been threatening to strike if the contract is imposed. An interesting wrinkle in this case is the fight between the union leadership and membership, which has voted down leadership recommended deals three times.

[Hatman 🍁]

I love how Forum tries to spin a 416 tie as good news for Wynne. Last poll that had similar 416 # also had Brown +19 provincewide.

Why are pollsters so foolish when it comes to electoral commentary? Hatman is literally the only person I've heard who both works for a polling firm and understands political geography well.

Thanks

But a lot of professional pundits don't know anything about political geography, so it's par for the course.

Yes, that was odd reporting by Forum, something like "If the Conservatives want to form a majority government they need to be doing better than a tie in the city of Toronto."

How much can the Tories lose in the Toronto and still form a majority government?  Obviously the numbers can't be calculated in isolation, but my guess would be around by around 10%

We also have to acknowledge that Forum is particularly awful when it comes to political geography, which is ironic, because they usually do the most geographically granular political polling. Sad!

Keep in mind though, knowledge of political geography is not needed for most of my job as a pollster. It comes in handy occasionally for sure, but it's not crucial in the industry.

[Blue3]

About a year ago in this thread, I asked what Trudeau and his party campaigned on, what they wanted to accomplish, what the Canadian people were demanding.

What is the status of it all now?

(I vaguely remember some form of electoral reform that people thought was shaky even then, some infrastructure/environmental work with a small price-tag, a small budget deficit being reduced, and something about First/Native Americans)

TrudeauMeter is your friend. Deficits are gargantuan for the foreseeable future, Harper's GHG targets have been adopted and a federal carbon tax is coming. Aboriginal issues - inquiry into missing & murdered women (MMIW) held but otherwise not a yuge change from Harper, despite a better tone. Electoral reform is dead.

Thanks.

Though are those items I listed the "big promises"? Did I miss any "big promises"?
(223 is a lot to scroll through )

Kept the promise to make the Senate independent by forming an independent commission to choose the people to appoint.

Kept the promise on the (upper) middle class tax cut.

Brought in a new expanded child benefit that rolled some of the existing benefits into this one and eliminated others.  According to the Liberals, 90% of families will receive higher benefits.

Did away with the muzzle on government scientists and brought back the long form census.

Approved the Kinder Morgan Pipeline.

Also brought in a new law on assisted death after being mandated by the Supreme Court.

Prime Minister Trudeau has broken some promises and breaking the promise on electoral reform was pretty brazen, but overall I'd say this government is a major improvement in policy and tone and has significantly reduced the harshness and hyper partisanship from the Harper Conservative government. Not only is there no noxious person in the cabinet like Pierre Polievre but, in general, I'd say that the Liberal cabinet ministers are far more intelligent than the previous Conservatives.  

The overwhelmingly conservative mainstream Canadian media (at least in terms of the major editorials) has had to whine, for instance, that Justin Trudeau's line at some foreign event of "Canada is back" was nothing more than a boast of "The Liberals are back in power" when what Trudeau clearly meant was that Canada was going to engage in such things as climate change commitments and assisting the United Nations rather than taking disparaging shots at it after not getting a seat back on the Security Counsel.

Also, there will almost certainly not going to be a federal carbon tax as 8 of the 10 provinces and the three  territories already have or will have their own systems in place (either a carbon tax or cap and trade.)  We'll see what happens if Saskatchewan and/or Manitoba hold out (unless the Conservatives win the 2019 election), but I can't imagine whoever the Premiers of those provinces are by then would want to face the wrath of the other Premiers by forcing a national carbon tax.

Thanks.

I ask because I often wonder if Canadian liberals/progressives have a big list of policies to change, like they do in the United States, or if they're mostly happy and just want to do some tweaking.

It seems like the answer is the latter. The only "big things" they want deal with political process, like electoral reform and Senate reform. But as for everything else... it seems people just want to tweak some things, and make sure common-sense things like infrastructure are maintained and the deficit shrinks.

[RogueBeaver]

Liberals have been the Natural Governing Party (TM) for 120 years, easy to be relaxed when everyone works within your paradigm.

[2952-0-0]

In other news, infrastructure minister Amarjeet Sohi read out condolences to the bus driver in Winnipeg who was stabbed to death. He started by pointing out that he was a bus driver, after which the Conservatives guffawed in a sneering and elitist attitude. House leader Candace Bergen refused to apologize for that disgrace.

[Blue3]

Liberals have been the Natural Governing Party (TM) for 120 years, easy to be relaxed when everyone works within your paradigm.

But I wonder how much is elitism/complacency/out-of-touch... and how much is that almost every liberal dream has been accomplished already in Canada.

[RogueBeaver]

Liberals have been the Natural Governing Party (TM) for 120 years, easy to be relaxed when everyone works within your paradigm.

But I wonder how much is elitism/complacency/out-of-touch... and how much is that almost every liberal dream has been accomplished already in Canada.

The latter is what I'm getting at.

[136or142]

I love how Forum tries to spin a 416 tie as good news for Wynne. Last poll that had similar 416 # also had Brown +19 provincewide.

Why are pollsters so foolish when it comes to electoral commentary? Hatman is literally the only person I've heard who both works for a polling firm and understands political geography well.

Thanks

But a lot of professional pundits don't know anything about political geography, so it's par for the course.

Yes, that was odd reporting by Forum, something like "If the Conservatives want to form a majority government they need to be doing better than a tie in the city of Toronto."

How much can the Tories lose in the Toronto and still form a majority government?  Obviously the numbers can't be calculated in isolation, but my guess would be around by around 10%

We also have to acknowledge that Forum is particularly awful when it comes to political geography, which is ironic, because they usually do the most geographically granular political polling. Sad!

Keep in mind though, knowledge of political geography is not needed for most of my job as a pollster. It comes in handy occasionally for sure, but it's not crucial in the industry.

How much political geographic knowledge does a person need to know that Toronto is normally a very liberal (and Liberal) leaning city?

[Hatman 🍁]

I love how Forum tries to spin a 416 tie as good news for Wynne. Last poll that had similar 416 # also had Brown +19 provincewide.

Why are pollsters so foolish when it comes to electoral commentary? Hatman is literally the only person I've heard who both works for a polling firm and understands political geography well.

Thanks

But a lot of professional pundits don't know anything about political geography, so it's par for the course.

Yes, that was odd reporting by Forum, something like "If the Conservatives want to form a majority government they need to be doing better than a tie in the city of Toronto."

How much can the Tories lose in the Toronto and still form a majority government?  Obviously the numbers can't be calculated in isolation, but my guess would be around by around 10%

We also have to acknowledge that Forum is particularly awful when it comes to political geography, which is ironic, because they usually do the most geographically granular political polling. Sad!

Keep in mind though, knowledge of political geography is not needed for most of my job as a pollster. It comes in handy occasionally for sure, but it's not crucial in the industry.

How much political geographic knowledge does a person need to know that Toronto is normally a very liberal (and Liberal) leaning city?

Especially when said polling firm is based in Toronto?

[MaxQue]

The former NDP, then BQ MP for Jonquière, Claude Patry is now a regional leader for a far-right organisation called "La Meute" (The Wolf-Pack).

[DC Al Fine]

Here's another example of pundits knowing nothing of political geography.

Ignore McParland's main point (which is fine) and focus on what he says about political geography: 

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Ignoring McParland's main point (which is fine), lets take a look at what's wrong with his political geography:

1) It's a pretty universal trend that the party in power underperforms in 'midterm' elections. The Tories have been out of power for a year in a half. Give it time. The Liberals had few provincial governments at this point in Mulroney and Harper's administrations

2) B.C and Quebec's conservative situations are complicated to say the least. As every Dipper knows, BC Liberal does not equal federal Liberal.

3) Citing Jason freaking Kenney as an example of how bad the Tories have it is silly to the least.

[Blue3]

I posted this in OT, but you guys might like this too:






Which Millennial Tribe are you in?
 (geared towards Canadians, but could probably apply outside Canada too)

http://environicsresearch.com/insights/meet-millennials/

After taking the quiz, apparently I'm a "Critical Counterculturalist" (I don't think it's the best description of me, but whatever, it was a fun personality quiz)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The others are "Engaged Idealists," "New Traditionalists," "Bros and Brittanys," "Lone Wolves," and "Diverse Strivers."

[Njall]

I posted this in OT, but you guys might like this too:

Which Millennial Tribe are you in?
 (geared towards Canadians, but could probably apply outside Canada too)

http://environicsresearch.com/insights/meet-millennials/

After taking the quiz, apparently I'm a "Critical Counterculturalist" (I don't think it's the best description of me, but whatever, it was a fun personality quiz)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The others are "Engaged Idealists," "New Traditionalists," "Bros and Brittanys," "Lone Wolves," and "Diverse Strivers."

I got the same result - that was an interesting quiz.

[Njall]

Didn't see it posted anywhere yet, so here's the latest Alberta poll from Mainstreet.

Topline numbers are 38/29/23/5/5

Edmonton: 43/26/21/5/4
Calgary: 38/26/22/7/7
Rest of Alberta: 48/27/16/4/4


The federal political temperature in Alberta is also taken. The topline results for that are 67/24/6/4

Edmonton: 48/39/9/4
Calgary: 64/26/5/4
Rest of Alberta: 74/17/5/4

[DC Al Fine]

I'm a New Traditional, what a surprise

[136or142]

Didn't see it posted anywhere yet, so here's the latest Alberta poll from Mainstreet.

Topline numbers are 38/29/23/5/5

Edmonton: 43/26/21/5/4
Calgary: 38/26/22/7/7
Rest of Alberta: 48/27/16/4/4


The federal political temperature in Alberta is also taken. The topline results for that are 67/24/6/4

Edmonton: 48/39/9/4
Calgary: 64/26/5/4
Rest of Alberta: 74/17/5/4

The only way those numbers work is if by Edmonton and Calgary, they just mean the cities and not their suburbs.  That skews the numbers for the 'rest of Alberta' a bit I think, since the NDP hold all seven (or so) suburban Edmonton ridings.  There are only around 3 suburban Calgary ridings with Wildrose holding all of them.

NDP still look pretty decent in the city of Edmonton, but in the 2015 election, they received over 50% of the vote in all 19 city ridings.

I've been reading that the provincial ridings in Alberta are skewed in favor of rural areas as opposed to Edmonton and Calgary. There may be more rural ridings than is warranted by their population, but I don't see the big problem overall:

Total ridings: 87
Calgary and suburbs: 28
Edmonton and suburbs: 26
Smaller cities: 10
Rural: 23

Also, 7 of the rural ridings are large and remote northern rural ridings.

The 10 smaller city ridings are:
2 for Red Deer
2 for Lethbridge
2 for Grand Prairie
2 for Fort McMurray
1 for Medicine Hat
1 for Wetaskiwin-Camrose

[136or142]

I posted this in OT, but you guys might like this too:

Which Millennial Tribe are you in?
 (geared towards Canadians, but could probably apply outside Canada too)

http://environicsresearch.com/insights/meet-millennials/

After taking the quiz, apparently I'm a "Critical Counterculturalist" (I don't think it's the best description of me, but whatever, it was a fun personality quiz)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The others are "Engaged Idealists," "New Traditionalists," "Bros and Brittanys," "Lone Wolves," and "Diverse Strivers."

I got the same result - that was an interesting quiz.

Michael Adams, the President of Environics gave a lecture at the Vancouver Institute on January 14, 2006 with similar ideas.  

 Dal Grauer Memorial Lecture
Mr. Michael Adams, President, Environics, Toronto, Ontario
Fire, Ice and American Backlash: Social Change Above the Rio Grande

The lecture can be heard here: https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/12708/items/1.0102938

The first seven minutes is for introductions.  The audio on the website froze up for me, but it can be heard by downloading.

The lecture is about 1 hour long with followed with about 30 minutes of questions and answers.  Usually the speaker repeats the question.

I believe at this lecture Michael Adams commented on American voters something like "You are most likely urban liberal Vancouverites who think Republicans and Republican voters are terrible.  If you think they're extreme, they're moderate compared to many of those who don't vote because they feel disaffected."

That was the first time I heard of the idea of the disaffected right wing extremist that clearly Trump tapped into and got out to vote, in many cases, likely for their first time.

I'm also a member of the critical counterculture.  I don't know if Environics/Michael Adams had the same names for the 'tribes' back in 2006 as he does now, but the 'person' who he had as the avatar for that sort of group back in 2006 was Lisa Simpson who he showed a graphic of.

Of course, this recording is strictly audio. I believe he mentions the names of all the avatars though.

[Njall]

Didn't see it posted anywhere yet, so here's the latest Alberta poll from Mainstreet.

Topline numbers are 38/29/23/5/5

Edmonton: 43/26/21/5/4
Calgary: 38/26/22/7/7
Rest of Alberta: 48/27/16/4/4


The federal political temperature in Alberta is also taken. The topline results for that are 67/24/6/4

Edmonton: 48/39/9/4
Calgary: 64/26/5/4
Rest of Alberta: 74/17/5/4

The only way those numbers work is if by Edmonton and Calgary, they just mean the cities and not their suburbs.  That skews the numbers for the 'rest of Alberta' a bit I think, since the NDP hold all seven (or so) suburban Edmonton ridings.  There are only around 3 suburban Calgary ridings with Wildrose holding all of them.

NDP still look pretty decent in the city of Edmonton, but in the 2015 election, they received over 50% of the vote in all 19 city ridings.

I've been reading that the provincial ridings in Alberta are skewed in favor of rural areas as opposed to Edmonton and Calgary. There may be more rural ridings than is warranted by their population, but I don't see the big problem overall:

Total ridings: 87
Calgary and suburbs: 28
Edmonton and suburbs: 26
Smaller cities: 10
Rural: 23

Also, 7 of the rural ridings are large and remote northern rural ridings.

The 10 smaller city ridings are:
2 for Red Deer
2 for Lethbridge
2 for Grand Prairie
2 for Fort McMurray
1 for Medicine Hat
1 for Wetaskiwin-Camrose

I assume that the Calgary and Edmonton numbers are just for the cities proper. That said, remember that while the NDP do hold a number of ridings surrounding Edmonton, their holds on many of them are much weaker than Edmonton proper. For example, the NDP only won the largely-suburban riding of Leduc-Beaumont with 38% of the vote, while the suburban (but within Edmonton) riding of Edmonton-Ellerslie (directly north of Leduc-Beaumont) gave its NDP candidate 62%.

At 43% in Edmonton overall, especially with a divided opposition, the NDP would likely still win most or all of the seats in Edmonton. It's possible that a handful like Edmonton-Whitemud or Edmonton-South West would slip away, but I imagine they'd retain at least 15 or 16 seats from Edmonton alone. The NDP's challenge will be elsewhere - aside from a few ridings like Calgary-Fort, Lethbridge-West, and Spruce Grove-St. Albert, they don't have particularly strong holds on the rest of their seats. The pending redistribution may change this a bit, but not enough.

As for the rural skew, that's mostly a myth in the modern day, and is largely based on how things in Alberta used to be. Ridings are allocated to the three "regions" of Alberta before being drawn: the City of Calgary, the City of Edmonton, and the "Rest of Alberta." The 2009/10 redistribution gave 25 seats to Calgary, 19 to Edmonton, and 43 to the rest of Alberta, which would result in average population sizes of 42,618 in Calgary, 41,181 in Edmonton, and 39,737 in the Rest of Alberta. The only way (aside from "rurban" ridings in Calgary or Edmonton) that the populations could have been equalized more would have been to transfer one additional seat from the Rest of Alberta to Calgary.

That said, the rural-urban disparities did used to be much greater. Before the 1995/96 redistribution commission began their work, for example, the average riding populations were: 38,404 in Calgary, 34,239 in Edmonton, and 27,824 in the Rest of Alberta.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I posted this in OT, but you guys might like this too:

Which Millennial Tribe are you in?
 (geared towards Canadians, but could probably apply outside Canada too)

http://environicsresearch.com/insights/meet-millennials/

After taking the quiz, apparently I'm a "Critical Counterculturalist" (I don't think it's the best description of me, but whatever, it was a fun personality quiz)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The others are "Engaged Idealists," "New Traditionalists," "Bros and Brittanys," "Lone Wolves," and "Diverse Strivers."

I got the same result - that was an interesting quiz.

I got this result too, but I don't really see myself in it--of the three demographic highlights, the only one I fit is "single man". I guess I'm too feminist and probably too much of a slob to fit their definition of a New Traditionalist.

[136or142]

Didn't see it posted anywhere yet, so here's the latest Alberta poll from Mainstreet.

Topline numbers are 38/29/23/5/5

Edmonton: 43/26/21/5/4
Calgary: 38/26/22/7/7
Rest of Alberta: 48/27/16/4/4


The federal political temperature in Alberta is also taken. The topline results for that are 67/24/6/4

Edmonton: 48/39/9/4
Calgary: 64/26/5/4
Rest of Alberta: 74/17/5/4

The only way those numbers work is if by Edmonton and Calgary, they just mean the cities and not their suburbs.  That skews the numbers for the 'rest of Alberta' a bit I think, since the NDP hold all seven (or so) suburban Edmonton ridings.  There are only around 3 suburban Calgary ridings with Wildrose holding all of them.

NDP still look pretty decent in the city of Edmonton, but in the 2015 election, they received over 50% of the vote in all 19 city ridings.

I've been reading that the provincial ridings in Alberta are skewed in favor of rural areas as opposed to Edmonton and Calgary. There may be more rural ridings than is warranted by their population, but I don't see the big problem overall:

Total ridings: 87
Calgary and suburbs: 28
Edmonton and suburbs: 26
Smaller cities: 10
Rural: 23

Also, 7 of the rural ridings are large and remote northern rural ridings.

The 10 smaller city ridings are:
2 for Red Deer
2 for Lethbridge
2 for Grand Prairie
2 for Fort McMurray
1 for Medicine Hat
1 for Wetaskiwin-Camrose

I assume that the Calgary and Edmonton numbers are just for the cities proper. That said, remember that while the NDP do hold a number of ridings surrounding Edmonton, their holds on many of them are much weaker than Edmonton proper. For example, the NDP only won the largely-suburban riding of Leduc-Beaumont with 38% of the vote, while the suburban (but within Edmonton) riding of Edmonton-Ellerslie (directly north of Leduc-Beaumont) gave its NDP candidate 62%.

At 43% in Edmonton overall, especially with a divided opposition, the NDP would likely still win most or all of the seats in Edmonton. It's possible that a handful like Edmonton-Whitemud or Edmonton-South West would slip away, but I imagine they'd retain at least 15 or 16 seats from Edmonton alone. The NDP's challenge will be elsewhere - aside from a few ridings like Calgary-Fort, Lethbridge-West, and Spruce Grove-St. Albert, they don't have particularly strong holds on the rest of their seats. The pending redistribution may change this a bit, but not enough.

As for the rural skew, that's mostly a myth in the modern day, and is largely based on how things in Alberta used to be. Ridings are allocated to the three "regions" of Alberta before being drawn: the City of Calgary, the City of Edmonton, and the "Rest of Alberta." The 2009/10 redistribution gave 25 seats to Calgary, 19 to Edmonton, and 43 to the rest of Alberta, which would result in average population sizes of 42,618 in Calgary, 41,181 in Edmonton, and 39,737 in the Rest of Alberta. The only way (aside from "rurban" ridings in Calgary or Edmonton) that the populations could have been equalized more would have been to transfer one additional seat from the Rest of Alberta to Calgary.

That said, the rural-urban disparities did used to be much greater. Before the 1995/96 redistribution commission began their work, for example, the average riding populations were: 38,404 in Calgary, 34,239 in Edmonton, and 27,824 in the Rest of Alberta.

Yes, of the seven ridings suburban Edmonton ridings, the NDP only got over 50% of the vote in St. Albert and Sherwood Park.  Still, the NDP did much better in the other five suburban ridings than the 16% this poll has the NDP at in the'rest of Alberta.'

[RogueBeaver]

Wynne will try slashing hydro by 25% this year.

[DC Al Fine]

Wynne will try slashing hydro by 25% this year.

If anyone needed a sign that the government is in trouble, there it is.

[RogueBeaver]

Government and Mulroney are trying to secure the release of a Chinese-Canadian billionaire but the case is politically hypersensitive since he's caught up in CCP internal politics.

Oosterhoff is being challenged by someone he squashed for the PC nomination last year. Vote's tomorrow night.

[2952-0-0]

Good to see Mulroney becoming a point man to manage sensitive relations with the US, and also China.

[RogueBeaver]

Budget 2 weeks from tomorrow will focus on skills training and needless to say there's a political strategy too.

Ivison's hearing airport privatization will be included as he predicted.