Canadian by-elections, 2016 (next event: Quebec provincial byelections [Dec 5])

[DC Al Fine]

The candidate list for the byelection caused by Darren Fisher's election in Dartmouth-Cole Harbour has been finalized.

1) David Boyd - Perennial candidate
2) Tony Mancini - Son of former NDP MP Peter Mancini and NDP MLA Marian Mancini.
3) Don Smeltzer - Pre-amalgamation councillor for part of the district. Leans right.
4) Matt Spurway - Robert Chisolm staffer.

My prediction is for Mancini to win. The district is quite poor, so I think the odds of the left splitting their vote and allowing Smeltzer to win aren't great.

[DC Al Fine]

Ugh, the Ontario Liberals are just terrible:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/01/06/kathleen-wynne-radio-ad_n_8923440.html?utm_hp_ref=canada-politics&ir=Canada+Politics

no by-election called yet and they have radio ads out (is that not illegal?) worse, she is spouting bold. faced. lies about energy (go figure, seeing that the partial privatization by the OLP is supported but almost no one)

According to this iPolitics article, it's legal. Of course, the ad itself is nonsense.

[DC Al Fine]

Burrill hasn't said anything yet, but Halifax Needham would be about as good as it gets for a by election. The rural seats were all narrowly won and their MLAs all have strong personal followings. Dartmouth South was only recently won in a byelection.

The only other plausible option for Burrill IMO is his former leadership rival Dave Wilson's seat in Sackville Cobequid.

Also, MacDonald's resignation is apparently health related but no specific details have been released.

[DC Al Fine]

Nenshi confirms he has no interest in running for Harper's seat.

I do love the naivety of folks who think every seat is winnable.

Wonder who the Tories will run. It's an awfully plum seat for a star candidate.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm thinking Trudeau pulls the trigger on all three vacant/future vacant Alberta seats for the same day... probably looking at a late October / November date depending on when Harper and Kenney resign.

That would be the most tedious set of by-elections in quite some time

[DC Al Fine]

Stephen McNeil has called a by-election in Halifax Needham for August 30th. Should be an interesting race. Safe NDP seat barely retained in 2013 by a popular MLA. The Liberals are polling high but lost a seat in the last Halifax by-election.

[DC Al Fine]

Scarborough: Brown says a PC government would rewrite the sex-ed curriculum.

Pandering to immigrant voters.  What happened to the Conservative view of 'If  they want to come here, they should adapt to our ways"

What happened to it? Well, they actually want to start winning elections, so...

There's not enough die in the wool racists in Canada/Ontario for this to be a winning strategy. After all, they're mostly voting Tory anyways, so no need to pander to them.

I'd argue this does pander to the traditional socon/populist groups. Obviously the primary aim is to be a wedge to pry immigrants away from the left, but it has the happy side effect of appealing to devout  socons and nominal Christian populists as well.

I don't event think they're doing any dog whistling.

How much successful dog whistling is there these days? The media watches speeches like a hawk. It's not like only 60 year old men from Red Deer picked up on the 'old stock' comment.

[DC Al Fine]

Halifax Needham votes today.

[DC Al Fine]

It looks like the NDP are back, in Halifax at least.

[DC Al Fine]

Beautiful result. Must confirm that the NDP must be dead outside Metro Halifax, though.

True. Incumbency is a big deal in the rural Maritimes. There are a lot of rural seats where an NDP incumbent got 30-35% in 2013 that they won't come anywhere close to matching next year.

[DC Al Fine]

This is pretty big. Remember that the Tories couldn't even win this seat with Mike Harris or Stephen Harper. It hasn't voted Tory since the 1980s, when the riding was presumably mostly White.

True, although we should note that the Tories are doing much, much better among Chinese-Canadians and worse among well off whites than they were in the Harris era.

[DC Al Fine]

Medicine Hat: count me extremely skeptical this will be remotely competitive.

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Very true. I think if the Socred candidate pulls ~20% of the vote, the Liberals might be able to pull this off again

[DC Al Fine]

So, a 19 year old won the PC nomination (and thus will become the next MPP) in Niagara West-Glanbrook. He beat out a city councillor and a former MP too.

So what happened there?

[DC Al Fine]

So is the PCPO (not Brown) officially the most inept political party in the world?

Nah it happens to everyone from time to time, with different groups. It's pretty easy win a nomination this way if the other candidates aren't expecting a fight.

[DC Al Fine]

So, a 19 year old won the PC nomination (and thus will become the next MPP) in Niagara West-Glanbrook. He beat out a city councillor and a former MP too.

So what happened there?

I guess he did a good job signing up members and the other candidates took him for granted?

Benzie said something on Twitter about socon revenge, no idea if that's true.

Word on my Facebook feed is that he's just some kid who was active in the riding association with no public leanings. Of course thats a friend of a friend who knows someone in the EDA. Take it with a grain of salt.

[DC Al Fine]

Seems in line with the polls. Tories more or less even with 2015, Liberals eat NDP vote.

[DC Al Fine]

CBC calls Niagara West for the little fascist

[DC Al Fine]

CBC calls Niagara West for the little fascist

Oh please, do you know how many times I've been called a communist for simply supporting the NDP?

On Atlas? I'd wager very few. 

After Trump's win last week, I have zero f**ks to give anyways.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

Words cannot describe how icky I feel about this boy. The kid's been homeschooled his entire life, holds reprehensible views

While it's sad to confirm you are a bigot against my culture, like large swathes of the left, that doesn't make him a fascist and you should know better.

and has little real world experience. And now he's an MPP? Christ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_Canadian_federal_election,_2011#Quebec

[DC Al Fine]

Not a by-election, but there was a referendum in Outremont, Quebec on banning places of worship on Bernard Avenue. Voters there supported the measure 1561 to 1202. Outremont's large Jewish population is outraged.

Since I've just been basically called a bigot I would have voted no for the record.

You used the f word, I used the b word. Let's call it even

So, what's the story here? I see the NO campaign was led by Hasidic Jews. Was this a case of tension with the Gentile community, or did people think they were banning mosques, or something else?

[DC Al Fine]

From what I gather, people don't like the fundamentalism of their orthodox Jewish neighbours (big families, insularity, misogyny, etc.) and have taken it out at the ballot box. I agree with their fears of course, but the whole thing seems unconstitutional.

And of course, by expressing their frustrations in this particular way, the whole thing comes off as mean spirited at best, and hateful and anti-Semitic at worst. Not the biggest PR coup. I know as an outsider, it appears to fulfill my worst stereotypes of Quebec.

Is using a bicycle on the Sabbath forbidden?

From what I gather, yes. For an ultra orthodox Jew, riding a bicycle would be forbidden on the same grounds that driving a car would be.

[DC Al Fine]

Why doesnt the Quebec government offer to give the Hassidim a plot of land in northern Quebec and have them build a Hutterite style closed community where everyone is walking distance to the synagogue and where they don't have to be in contact with the rest of society. None of them have jobs - they just pray and study all day anyways - so what does it matter to them if they are on the shores of James Bay or in the middle of Outremont...?

Seems to me that the problem with these religious freaks is that they want to live like an isolated religious sect/cult in the middle of a densely populated diverse urban area - its never going to work. Why can't they be like the Amish or the Hutterites and isolate themselves  to a remote place where they can live as they please with no contact with the rest of the world?

Why should Jews move if they clash with mainstream society? Are they not citizens?

[DC Al Fine]

There are virtually no secular Jews in Outremont.  The Mile End and Outremont were the heart of Jewish Montreal until the 1950s - then the bulk of the pre-war Jewish community moved out. Hasidic Jews moved in and today the Jewish population in Outremont is almost entirely Hasidic.

Outremont is basically: 1) francophone professionals and intellectuals and 2.) Hasidic Jews.  

Well, that only makes it worse.

Basically, as far as the ultra-religious Jews are conserned, a prohibition on synagogues is a prohibition of residence. If synagogues can only be built in commercial areas, that means those people can only live in commercial areas. And, I bet, commercial areas are zoned against residential housing: full circle.

Well, Bernard Avenue is a commercial area (and it makes sense, it's pretty much in the middle of the areas where the Hassidim are living). The Hassidim are not contesting the rule about no worship places in residential areas and quite agree with it. The issue is Outrement borough banning it in the commercial area of Bernard Avenue and asking to put new worship places in the north of the borough,  around Van Horne Avenue (which is the traditional place where most worship places are in Outremont, but isn't where the new generation of Hassidim is living).

Whatever. The non-Hassidic Outremont residents want to get rid of the Hassidim - and this should not be allowed, period.

Precisely. What's the point of a constitution if the quirks of bylaws mean some random municipality can discriminate against minorities?