Canadian by-elections, 2012

[canadian1]

Coderre's riding doesn't overlap Tomassi's; it includes all of Beauchamp's and some of Lisette Lapointe's (Cremazie).

I have my doubts that the NDP could "easily" win Bourassa federally. I think that the LPC would probably have something of a leg up on the Dippers when in comes to candidate recruitment--much longer-established party organization in that part of town (plus I'm not convinced Coderre's style has been an asset to his party; a new candidate might prove more popular). On the other hand, there's no reason why the NDP couldn't find itself a high-quality candidate given the current political environment under Mulcair, and they have to be considered the overall favourites. But I don't think it will happen. I think Coderre will likely stay put for the time being, and if he bolts, I'm not sure it will be to provincial politics.

[canadian1]

Even if the riding boundaries were changed, Sid Ryan would be a poor choice of candidate for Oshawa. Even in the "downtown", there has been so much gentrification that his heavily rhetorical style of politics is liable to seem outdated. I do think that there is a difference in the amount of populism Ontarians like to see in federal vs. provincial politics: Ryan may still be a viable candidate provincially, as he was in 2007.

[canadian1]

I can think of a few reasons why the NDP would probably just as soon see the Supreme Court quash the lower court judgement and for there to be no Etobicoke Centre byelection.

1. If there is a byelection, the Liberals would be heavily favoured to win if only because byelections tend to go against the party in power and the tory win in that seat was seen as a bit of an unexpected fluke last year. The last thing the NDP needs is for the Liberal party to get any oxygen or momentum as a result of picking up a seat in a byelection.

2. If the court upholds the lower court ruling - it will actually help the Conservatives in the long-run and hurt the NDP in the long-run since it will set a precedent for a very high bar in terms of voter ID on election day etc... just the kind of "vote suppression" that the GOP is pushing for the in the US. If the courts rule that everyone needs photo ID and documentation to vote - it will dissuade younger, poorer, more transient people from voting.

Photo ID isn't at issue. What's at issue is the documentation that's already required in the Elections Act--specifically, proof of citizenship. But I agree that the lower court ruling set too high a bar; it will probably be impossible to meet in the future.

I also agree that the NDP would lose political capital in an Etobicoke Centre by-election.

[canadian1]

I also agree that the NDP would lose political capital in an Etobicoke Centre by-election.

That is, if they had that much political capital there to begin with.

But AFAIC, the fright-of-Liberal-oxygen thing is a petty throwback to bad old ways, and it really belongs more to the extreme liquidate-the-Liberals wing of the NDP (or, for that matter, the more traditional liquidate-the-NDP wing of the Grits).  As I see it, at worst they'd lose as much capital here as the Conservatives did in the Toronto-Danforth byelection--and of course, if a Etobicoke Centre byelection was bunched with several others where the NDP has a greater chance of, at least, overtaking the Liberals, the net "lost political capital" could be more negligible than some are fearing...

But as far as I can see, the "liquidate the Liberals" wing has taken the reins of the party. In the absence of a merger, which I don't see happening for some years, what other mantra could the party leadership adopt?

Everything I've seen from Mulcair suggests he's quite keen on taking power at some point.

[canadian1]

I also agree that the NDP would lose political capital in an Etobicoke Centre by-election.

That is, if they had that much political capital there to begin with.

But AFAIC, the fright-of-Liberal-oxygen thing is a petty throwback to bad old ways, and it really belongs more to the extreme liquidate-the-Liberals wing of the NDP (or, for that matter, the more traditional liquidate-the-NDP wing of the Grits).  As I see it, at worst they'd lose as much capital here as the Conservatives did in the Toronto-Danforth byelection--and of course, if a Etobicoke Centre byelection was bunched with several others where the NDP has a greater chance of, at least, overtaking the Liberals, the net "lost political capital" could be more negligible than some are fearing...

But as far as I can see, the "liquidate the Liberals" wing has taken the reins of the party. In the absence of a merger, which I don't see happening for some years, what other mantra could the party leadership adopt?

Everything I've seen from Mulcair suggests he's quite keen on taking power at some point.

Which party doesn't want power?

Exactly--that's why I think the NDP must be pursuing a "liquidate-the-Liberals" strategy. It's their best shot at taking power.

[canadian1]

Exactly--that's why I think the NDP must be pursuing a "liquidate-the-Liberals" strategy. It's their best shot at taking power.

Except that that sounds a little too much like the Liberals' "liquidate the NDP" strategy of yore.  And it's a little beneath whatever Jack-Layton-farewell-letter principles.

My feeling is: yes, ideally, the NDP (or at least, the party's organizational braintrust) would like to usurp whatever they can of "Lib-left" support--but on their own terms and with a dab of swayable "Con-populist" and mushy-middle support as reinforcement (let's not forget that even a lot of recent Harper voters have been mushy-middle) and by picking their battles carefully and by minimizing embarrassment and injured egos.  So when it comes to Etobicoke Centre, what matters is not that they win; what matters is that they're "still standing" even in the event of a Liberal victory in a seat where, as everybody admits, the odds run heavily against the NDP.  The old "moral victory" thing, I suppose--long an NDP punchline, but actually a good, constructive way to handle loss, treating an election more as a litmus of real-and-potential support than as a raw you-win-or-you-lose proposition.  And it's not unlike what's led the *Conservatives* to power, deconstructing opportunities in apparent no-hope seats, etc.

As I see it, the NDP can absorb an Etobicoke Centre loss...at least as long as they hold close to their 2011 share; and even if not, they might absorb a loss in the same way that Labour in the UK has absorbed being relegated to a depositless third in strict Tory-Lib Dem races.  And of course, it helps if there are several byelections happening at once--now, if an "inevitable " poor third in EC is accompanied by either-or-a-combination-of a reversion to third place in Durham, falling even further back of the Liberals in Calgary Centre, and (the clincher) losing or even nearly-losing Victoria--*then*, cue the alarm bells.

Such a loss-absorption strategy is already in place in Ontario, where an "inevitable" poor third in the upcoming Vaughan byelection looks set to be counterbalanced by the ONDP significantly overachieving in the Kitchener-Waterloo byelection.

Thorough and insightful as always!

[canadian1]

Speaking of Kitchener Waterloo, it's impossible to listen to more than ten minutes of radio without an ad from either the Liberals (OMG TEH TORIES OUT TO KILL OUR TEACHERS!1!!), NDP (OMG BOTH TEH PARTIES IDENTICAL!!1!), or PCs (OMG TEH LIBS DROWNING UR KIDS IN DEBT!!1!1).

Are the Liberals actually running ads saying that the Tories are out to kill "our teachers" Right now the teachers are all up in arms that its the Liberals who are hitting them with a two by four! There are literally bus loads of teachers going to Waterloo to help the NDP because they all hate Mcguinty so much now.

The Liberals couldn't have been more generous to teachers for 9 straight years. I have yet to hear a convincing argument why teachers (or anyone else) should be able to bank sick days.

[canadian1]

Something tells me this "war on teachers" biz is playing right into NDP hands in K-W--and the only reason why it's not registering with the Libs + Tories is the old "aah, look at the 2011 results: the NDP can't win" fallback...

That riding poll from some time ago ought to have set them straight--it had the NDP a close second.

[canadian1]

Speaking of Kitchener Waterloo, it's impossible to listen to more than ten minutes of radio without an ad from either the Liberals (OMG TEH TORIES OUT TO KILL OUR TEACHERS!1!!), NDP (OMG BOTH TEH PARTIES IDENTICAL!!1!), or PCs (OMG TEH LIBS DROWNING UR KIDS IN DEBT!!1!1).

Are the Liberals actually running ads saying that the Tories are out to kill "our teachers" Right now the teachers are all up in arms that its the Liberals who are hitting them with a two by four! There are literally bus loads of teachers going to Waterloo to help the NDP because they all hate Mcguinty so much now.

The Liberals couldn't have been more generous to teachers for 9 straight years. I have yet to hear a convincing argument why teachers (or anyone else) should be able to bank sick days.

The Liberals played politics for 9years... and now they are playing politics again. Anyway, banking is arguable... the problem is, if you ask teachers is not the freeze but the fact that this bill violates their rights of collective bargaining, which a number of lawyers have come out saying they will fight this and the gov't might lose over pieces of the bill that aren't talked about. Wages and sick days make all the headlines.

Why did ETFO's leader walk away from the negotiating table in February? If they care so much about their right to collective bargaining, you'd think they would have made a strenuous effort to bargain collectively from the get-go.

[canadian1]

I would be willing to bet my life savings that if the ONDP gets 36% of the vote in the next Ontario election and the Liberals get reduced to 22% - the NDP will have MORE seats than the Liberals wayyyy more.

And Dalton's left looking like this

Clever.

I agree that that seat projection is wildly off the mark. Was there any sort of regional breakdown of those polling numbers? If not, it's almost impossible to believe those seat figures--not that I'm entirely convinced that Forum's popular-vote picture will hold up in a general-election situation.