Talk Elections

A(nother) short story, with maps!

Could be interesting.

For the record, Ruth Grier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Grier) lead the Ontario NDP to government in 1990

As the 1993 election approaches, the NDP is down all across English Canada, due to the unpopularity of Grier's Ontario NDP government, which is seen as a failure, even within NDP circles. With Rae more than willing to play along and with the NDP gaining strong candidates for the coming election in Quebec, it will be an interesting election night for sure. The Bloc Quebecois continues to outpoll both the Liberals and the Tories in Quebec, but the NDP is ahead of all of them as the election draws to a close.

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With all the focus on the NDP and Quebec, the Tories were able to win seats


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Rae was narrowly re-elected in his own riding

Then Quebec results came in...

L 162
N 59
R 54
P 12
B 9

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2011 in 1993!

Bloc Leader, Jean Lapierre was re-elected, as were the other leaders save the Prime Minister. Jean Chretien was unable to win back his seat in Saint Maurice, and had to settle for Ottawa—Vanier in a by-election.

Lapierre moved the Bloc towards the centre, trying to be less of a separatist party and more of a pro-quebec party; this quickly ran him into trouble with some of his MPs
Michel Gauthier, from Roberval, became leader of this faction, supported by Antoine Dubé, and Gérard Asselin.
Supporting Lapierre were Stéphane Bergeron, Benoît Sauvageau, René Laurin, and André Caron.

The NDP had managed to get a few strong people elected in Quebec, including Paul Mercier, Stéphan Tremblay, and Réal Ménard. With only 5 MP's from outside Quebec, the new Quebec caucus of the NDP played a very strong role.


Many in the English media were quite pleased that the NDP destroyed the Bloc threat, however, upon seeing the Bloc take a pro-Quebec stand in the commons, and the NDP generally ending up taking very similar stances, lead to some calling the NDP the "Bloc QueNDP" and arguments that the NDP is "just as bad as the Bloc"

Rae, seen as having lost his power, resigned as NDP leader in 1995 and caused a leadership election. This was won by Jack Layton. Layton, who had lived in Toronto for some time, has a long history of family in Quebec and was seen as a good choice by the Quebec Caucus.

Layton's inability to win Rae's old Toronto riding in a by-election was an embarrassment for the NDP, however Val Udvarhely stood aside to allow Layton to be elected in a by-election in Lachine, his Father's old riding. By the time of the 1997 election it looked as though the NDP would not retain official opposition status...

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Alternate 1993

Lib 179
NDP 56
Ref 55
BQ 4
IND 1

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ALTERNATE 1997
Lib 154
Ref 80
NDP 67

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For this story to work, Harper has to decide not to run for CA leadership. The result is Brison gets the 3 votes he needs and wins the PC leadership. The above is the 2004 election. Note the CA logo is real, I took it from the Elections Canada website in the 2 months between when they updated the logo and when they dissolved their party. Any other "alternate" logos, to come, are not real.

Darned vote splitting.

2006 election...

The Tories pick up momentum in Quebec, but without Harper to scare people off, they gain a lot of seats.

Day gets tossed as Alliance leader, and the Alliance starts to move back to a more populist stance, as well as social conservatism, but less fiscal conservatism.

Dion becomes Liberal leader...

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Between this and the 2008 election, Dion gets replaced by Ignatieff, who takes a seat in 'toby North. The Alliance meanwhile continues to move in a more populist direction. The Bloc, loses it's traction with voters, especially after Mulcair wins a seat in a by-election.

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Between the 2008 and 2011 elections, a LOT happened.

The Bloc collapsed.

The Canadian Alliance decided to support a "Back to Roots" campaign, and became Reform again. (Note the logo used is the REAL Reform logo prior to it's becoming the Alliance)

The Liberals voted to merge with the NDP, but it was bloody, far more bloody than the PC merger into the Alliance in our timeline. Many Liberal MP's decided to jump ship and join the Tories. The Greens decide to get in on the action and Elizabeth May gets nominated as a candidate for Canso. After Layton's tragic death, Rae takes over as leader of the Liberal Democrats in time for the November 2011 election, that Brison called due to the economic problems and political changed.

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What if MacKay said no?

December 12 2003.

It's been a few months since the negotiations to merge the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party failed. Paul Martin was sworn in as Prime Minister earlier today, and has called a snap election. Polls show the Liberals are set to win an overwhelming majority, but there is some backlash over the idea of a winter election. All 5 parties began their campaign.

The Tories managed to attract a number of high-profile candidates, including Jim Prentice, and Grant Devine.

As the election date on January 19th 2004 approached, there was no question the Liberals would win a huge majority, but how the opposition would break down was anybody's guess.

extra post, trying to get to the next page for organization sake.

Another extra post. I will be having more text in between election maps so this wont be a problem in the future, but for now

2004

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Harper and the Alliance, despite losing half their seats, declared Victory. The party retained the Official Opposition. Harper said he would stay on as leader, and fight for "Principled Conservatism". Alliance supporters, though disappointed with the result, were pleased the party managed to retain second place in terms of seats.

MacKay and the PC Party was more pumped by the election. Despite a 5th place finish in terms of seats, the party managed 2nd place in terms of votes. In addition, the party managed to take a seat in every province, and one in the Territories. MacKay played this as the re-emergence of a truly "National" opposition party, and declared that despite the rules of Parliament, the PC Party would be the de facto "Official Opposition" and "Government in Waiting"

Layton and the NDP were also happy, finishing but a single seat behind the Bloc. Layton played this up as the first step to an eventual NDP government. Layton also pointed to Quebec, where the NDP managed to beat the Alliance in terms of popular vote, and said that his plan is for the NDP to replace the Bloc as the alternative to the Liberals.

Duceppe and the Bloc also declared victory. Some had expected the party to vanish, and Duceppe said that the Bloc faced it's strongest challenge in the past election. He was not going anywhere, and the Bloc was not either.

Paul Martin had perhaps the best line of the night. "All 4 opposition parties have declared victory. All 4. Combined, all 4 opposition parties will have somewhere around 100 seats. We have 200!" Martin went on to point out this is one of the largest victories in Canadian history, and that the Liberal Party had either won the popular vote and seat count in each province, or, came a close and competitive second.

February 10th, 2004.

Auditor General Shelia Fraser releases a report that reveals up to $100 of the $250 million sponsorship program was awarded to Liberal-friendly ad firms and Crown corporations, for little or no work.

Martin would take the advice of his political strategists and ignore the issue, despite the endless attacks of the opposition.

Martin came up with an idea. He shuffled around Liberals in the house; physically that is. He attempted to create an unofficial opposition modelled on the Frank McKenna "opposition" when he held all the seats in the house. 

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30 Liberals were chosen to be a part of this "unofficial opposition". They would not inform caucus of their questions. Considering all 5 opposition parties had decided to focus on Sponsorship, the idea was that it would be these questions that would make the media. It failed miserably, and the media ridiculed the plan and the idea of an unofficial opposition.

The Liberals would drop, at times, 20 points in the polls. Despite that, the party remained firmly in first place as voters could not agree on a single opposition party to replace the Liberals. Things would eventually stabilized into a "new normal" much like they had prior to Martin becoming PM.

Martin was unpopular as 2006 opened. The media determined that he was a "dithering" and foolish person. Martin had some crazy ideas.

He would let cabinet discussions to be very open. He appointed more opposition members to the Senate. And he increased his unofficial opposition to 38 members.

2007

Jean Lapierre's resignation, after a supposed disagreement with Paul Martin, lead to a by-election in Outremont. The by-election was won, very narrowly, by the NDP. More shockingly, on the day Mulcair was sworn in, Françoise Boivin crossed the floor to the NDP, giving the party two MP's from Quebec.

Martin's antics started to catch on with some voters, happy at the apparent refreshing and democratic-reform stances of the Prime Minister. Martin made a commitment to have a third of his Senate Appointments be from the opposition, and attempted to get other party leaders to agree with him.

Grant Devine was removed from the PC Caucus after controversy.

Polls started to show Martin doing very well in BC.

2008
The 2008 began with the Liberals riding high, but the polls would not hold. The Bloc and voters still upset about sponsorship. The NDP was on the up and up. The Alliance's leader, Harper, was their biggest asset, he connected with small c conservatives. MacKay and the Tories meanwhile were able to present a good argument to being the alternative to the Liberals.

When the results came in, the Liberals, had won an amazing victory. On a paltry 35% of the vote, the party managed a majority.

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With 157 seats, Martin's Liberals had won a majority, though a narrow one. The Tories and Bloc tied at 39 seats each, and both made a claim to the official opposition. Harper's Alliance, with 38 seats, was considered by some to also be a contender. Layton's NDP, with 35 seats, rounded out the opposition.

The speaker was asked to rule on who would become the opposition. The speaker cited various prior rulings, and made the PC Party the official opposition, but left the door open to the Bloc becoming the opposition should the Tories lose an MP.

It would not take long before just that happened. The Member from Portneuf passed away, and Martin called for a by-election. Parliament was out of session at the time but there was speculation about the Bloc returning to the opposition. The By-Election results changed everything...

The Liberals doing that well in Alberta is rather amusing.

Given what really happened during Martin's very short popularity (January 2004) he was doing very very well in Alberta, and IIRC, one poll even put him ahead, even vs a united CPC

MacKay and Harper sat down for negotiations, and within a week, had an agreement to merge the two parties. The new party would be called the Conservatives. Best of all, the two leaders had the unanimous support of their Caucus. The problem, however, was with the grassroots.

Lead by David Orchard, the left-wing of the PC Party did not go without a fight. Martin was able to skilfully add these voters to the Liberal Party.

Lead by Darrel Stinson, the right-wing of the Alliance also refused to join the new party. These voters however were very unwilling to join the Liberals, and an attempt was made to form a new right wing party that ultimately failed and went nowhere.

The new merged party came out of the gate strong however, being competitive with the Liberals in polls, but the party failed to attract real talent.

Jim Flaherty was elected as Conservative leader, and although competent and somewhat popular, his party would constantly trail his own personal ratings in the polls. It seems that after years of a Martin administration, many who consider themselves as small-c conservatives - especially fiscal conservatives - were more inclined to support the Liberals than this new Conservative Party. They viewed the Liberals are more moderate, more competent, and more electable. The party failed to gain traction in Ontario, and was even unpopular among the more moderate voters in Alberta. The idea of a centrist and moderate Liberal Party had become a part of the political culture across Canada, and the Conservatives found it hard to break though.

Layton and the NDP would ride this move to the political centre for the Liberals to occupy the political Left. With his new 3 person Quebec Caucus, Layton started to secure more and more support in Quebec. As the next election drew closer, there was some question as to who would come out as the new official opposition.

The stable political scene was broken in early 2011 when Paul Martin called a snap election.

2011

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The Liberals lead the polls the entire election, and the opposition was divided between the left and the right.

The end results, with another Liberal majority, and the Tories ending only 10 seats ahead of the NDP, would show the problems that either opposition party faced. The Liberals had been in power for such a long time, that they've been able to divide their opposition like never before. Beyond that, they were comfortably in the centre. It was accepted that Martin would pass the torch before the next election, and many Western Liberal MPs were looked at as possible successors. It seemed there might never be a way to break this deadlock the Liberals held on power.

In an interview a few months after the election, the media would hold a rare interview with Jean Chretien. Chretien would take credit for building up the Liberals, and say that the party had regained what it had once lost, and had now achieved, Eternal Greatness.

END OF STORY

Coming up: The Budding Greens.

so, the Liberals are to the left of the NDP? Bizarre.

START OF STORY
year: 2004

A small unassuming pipsqueak was swearing under his breath in French as he pulled out a cell phone and made a call. He informed the person on the other end that he had just missed his flight, and would be delayed. The man was able to use his 'premium' account to switch to another flight leaving in a few hours, and then plopped himself down in a seat to roll his eyes and wait.

Jim Harris, leader of the Green Party of Canada, happened by the man and sat down beside him, being apparently the only person in the airport to recognize this person. "Stephane Dion? The Environment Minister?" he asked. "Yes" the man answered.

The two would sit down and chat. They were getting on the same plane. Dion had been torn on some environmental issues, and this little chat would give him the little nudge he needed to bring up some of these issues to the Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Martin, however, had other concerns, and was unwilling to follow Dion's advice. Dion, already having a bad day, would lose his temper. Although nothing came of it on this day, the wheels would be set in motion.

Over the next month, Dion and Martin would continue to squabble in caucus. Eventually Martin, losing his cool in private with Dion, told him to "join the Green Party for christsake".

Dion decided to do just that.

The defection would grab the news for a while, but by the time of the election, was not a front-page issue. What did become an issue was the decision of the broadcasters to not include the Green Party in the debates. Harris had by now named Dion as deputy and co-leader. The plan was for Harris to take the English debate and Dion take the French debate. This would not happen. The issue would bring the Greens into the spotlight during the election. Rumour circulated that part of the reason the Greens were excluded as that Martin refused to debate with Dion. The official reason was that the party had no elected MP's - that their only MP, Dion, was elected as a Liberal. The Greens countered by pointing out that the Bloc, in 1993, qualified for a debate without elected MP's, but the broadcasters pointed to Duceppe. This seemed to set in stone the idea that a single elected MP is all you need to get into a debate.

Polls would later show that as many as 1 in 20 Liberals decided to switch their vote, and to vote for the Green Party. When the results came in, the Liberals had won a minority with 125 seats to the Tories 104, beating them with 34.8% of the vote to 29.6%.

2004

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All eyes were on the Saint-Laurent—Cartierville riding of Dion. The first results would set the tone for the rest of the night.

Stephane Dion (Grn) 4 votes
Jocelyn Coulon (Lib) 3 votes
William Fayad (BQ) 1 vote
Zaid Mahayni (NDP) 0 votes
Marc Rahme (CPC) 0 votes
Alex Neron (MJ) 0 votes
Fernand Deschamps (MLP) 0 votes
Ken Fernandez (CAP) 0 votes
Nilda Vargas (COM) 0 votes

30 minutes in, the results were as follows.

Coulon - Lib - 884 votes
Dion - Grn - 880 votes
All Others - 581 votes

Even late into the night the results were not yet clear.

Dion - Grn - 13,229 votes
Coulon - Lib - 13,214 votes
All Others - 9,442 votes

With one poll reporting everyone was on the edge of their seats

Coulon - Lib - 15,092 votes
Dion - Grn - 15,088 votes
All Others - 10,720 votes

And with the final poll... everyone on both sides were utterly shocked...

Coulon - Lib - 15,687 votes
Dion - Grn - 15,687 votes
All Others - 10,991 votes

A tie!

A Recount was held, and the results were nearly identical. The only difference seems to be a math error. The result was a victory, by a single ballot.

Dion - Grn - 15,687 votes
Coulon - Lib - 15,686 votes
All Others - 10,991 votes

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Dion would not have a huge presence in Parliament, but his election would qualify him for the next debate. In 2005, Harris had a leadership challenge and Dion was elected as leader. Dion's english was weak, and in addition, his "leadership" skills were not really up to par when compared with people like Stephen Harper or even Jack Layton. Fortunately, being leader of the 5th party and not hypothetical leader of the opposition, this was much more easily glossed over, and thus, Dion made an amazingly great leader of the 5th party.

2006

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129 CPC
88 Lib
51 BQ
34 NDP
7 Grn
1 IND

The Greens managed to win seats in parliament. People like Andrew Lewis, David Chernushenko, Shane Jolley, Adrienne Carr, and Mike Nagy. They did not manage to get status however.

Nagy would resign within a year due to personal problems, and Elizabeth May would win a by-election in the riding.

Martin resigned as Liberal leader, and would be replaced with Michael Ignatieff.

2008

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142 - CPC
56 - LIB
50 - BQ
45 - NDP
13 - GRN
2 - IND

The NDP had their best election ever, and the Liberals did awful, with many Liberal votes flowing to the Greens. The Green Party managed official status. Many say that Dion's presence in the debates was important, even if many had difficulty understand what the heck he was saying. Dion came across as a Whip and a Weakling; something that Green Party voters were more than fine with. Iggy would resign as leader.

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During the winter, Dion, Duceppe, and Layton held a press conference saying they'd support Iggy as PM in a coalition. This was termed the "coalition crisis", and not only failed to work, but caused the government's poll support to rise. The Liberals also got a small boost due to their lukewarm support for the idea.

As the term of Parliament continues on, none of the opposition parties seem to be able to break though ahead of the pack. By the time the 2011 election came around, people expected the next Parliament to look quite a bit like the last


However, they missed the Orange Surge...


Layton would go on to sweep Quebec and destroy the Bloc. Liberal Leader, Gerrard Kennedy could not gain traction, anywhere, and the Greens even began to outpoll the Liberals. Liberal flubs in the Debates did not help matters. By election day, people were worried the Liberals were done for.

2011

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159 - CPC
98 - NDP
46 - GRN
3 - BQ
2 - LIB

The Liberals were all but destroyed. Polls would later show that 61% of Green voters had considered themselves "liberal" in political philosophy. In addition to Urban voters and Suburban; the Greens were able to pick up the votes of Rural Canadians concerned with the Conservatives being too right-wing for their own good.

Dion would retire in 2012 and remain an MP until the 2015 election. Elizebeth May would win a leadership contest to replace him. The Greens would gobble up many Liberal supporters, and many other Liberals would head for the NDP.