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

[Hatman 🍁]

Hill Times discusses the federal Ottawa-Vanier race.

I was cynically thinking Meilleur was going to run for the seat.

I kind of feel bad for Mathieu Fleury who will have to wait along time for this seat (provincial or federal) to open up again so that he can run. He's still young though, so he has lots of time.

[Hatman 🍁]

Speaking of Belanger, this has been bugging me... he was well known for wanting to change the anthem to be more gender equal, yet it appears his wife took his name [assuming it was her choice, does this mean she is not as committed to gender equality as her husband - or is she cynically trying to attach herself to his legacy through his last name]?  I only bring this up, because the article points out that there is speculation that she might run in the by-election.

[Hatman 🍁]

The latest province wide poll in Ontario has the Liberals crashing to 28% with the Pcs up at 42% and the NDP at 23% - the way the votes are distributed that could mean a PC majority and NDP as official opposition. Also if you extrapolate that trend the Liberals should be in deep danger of losing Scarborough-Rouge River!

Yes, but unfortunately it means a PC win there

Its hard to know how things extrapolate to that riding...In 2014 the Liberals came in first with the NDP a very strong second and the PCs not far behind...but a riding that is something like 65% made up of people born outside Canada and with a huge Tamil population is very difficult to poll and may or may not follow province-wide trends. Personally, if the NDP doesnt win that one, the next best thing is for the PCs to win...nothing will change the Liberal majority, but if they lose a suburban Toronto seat to anyone, it will create major panic and unrest within Ontario Liberal ranks...whihc means i can get out the popcorn!

It will be a true test to see the popularity of Brown among immigrants.

[Hatman 🍁]

For you RB:

[Hatman 🍁]

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

[Hatman 🍁]

Doesn't Forum usually do a poll for Ontario by-elections?  Did I miss the one for Scarborough-Rouge River?

The riding is impossible to poll properly (lots of new residents who wont be in sample, lots of immigrants who don't do polls), so maybe for the best.

[Hatman 🍁]

Speaking of nailbiters, I'm predicting one in Halifax tonight: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2016/08/halifax-needham-provincial-by-election.html

[Hatman 🍁]

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

[Hatman 🍁]

Here are the swings

NDP: 51.0% (+7.0%)
Liberal: 33.6% (-6.8%)
PC: 12.1% (+1.3%)
Green: 3.3% (-1.5%)
Turnout: 32.5%

Liberal swing to NDP: 6.9%

[Hatman 🍁]

We do have some polls from Scarborough-Rouge River:

Mainstreet:
PC: 35
Lib: 30
NDP 15

Forum Research:
PC: 36
Lib: 36
NDP: 23

As I said though, the riding is impossible to poll. I remember us having lots of trouble polling in Scarborough North (its federal counterpart) in the federal election... the NDP #s were deflated.

[Hatman 🍁]

Mainstreet: http://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/tight-race-in-scarborough-rouge-river/

Apparently the poll was weighted by ethnicity and also was conducted in Tamil, Cantonese and Mandarin, so we'll see how accurate they were.

Forum hasn't published their numbers, but they appear here: http://www.cp24.com/news/tory-and-liberal-candidates-in-close-race-in-scarborough-rouge-river-1.3052118

I doubt Forum weighted by ethnicity, since their riding polls have been awful in the past. Still though, I suspect they are somehow more accurate.

[Hatman 🍁]

Ahh, so Fleury's eyes are on the federal seat.

Exciting. If he runs/wins then residents in his ward will get a third by-election to vote in, in a span of probably 12 months.

[Hatman 🍁]

I believe Neethan is the only candidate who lives in the riding, so that may help him.

I don't think people really care about riding boundaries much.

Especially in Toronto.

[Hatman 🍁]

Ahh, so Fleury's eyes are on the federal seat.

Exciting. If he runs/wins then residents in his ward will get a third by-election to vote in, in a span of probably 12 months.

Is he any relation to the hockey player Theo Fleury?

It is a very common French Canadian name.

[Hatman 🍁]

My profile of today's race: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2016/09/scarborough-rouge-river-by-election.html

[Hatman 🍁]

Since we don't know where they're coming from, it's too early to call it. But it does look like the NDP won't win.

[Hatman 🍁]

Neethan Shan is trying to catch up. This is his 10th election, though he has actually won 2 of them. Probably won more votes combined than Turmel too.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Toronto Star calls it for Cho, HUGE!

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

[Hatman 🍁]

Wow.  That is a huge win.  If this trend continues up to the next provincial election, it's going to look more and more like a majority for the PCs next time around

Except remember how the Ontario NDP had some smashing byelections wins in the lead up to the 2014 election and they turned out to be totally non predictive of what would happen in a general election

They did hold on to all of their wins though, which was impressive. More than what could be said about the Tories.

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

Of course, we'll never know how Whites voted yesterday, considering how few of them still live in the riding. It is pretty obvious that Cho won the Chinese vote and the South Asian vote was split (It probably went narrowly NDP though; I'd assume that Blacks and Filipinos probably went Liberal)

... on a side note, is this the only riding in Canada where Black people outnumber White people?

[Hatman 🍁]

Here's Le Droit and Radio-Canada on Ottawa-Vanier.

It's almost as if there are no other parties running!

The NDP should make a play at the provincial seat. Not saying they can win, but considering how unpopular the OLP is.. one caveat is that no one cares about provincial politics in Ottawa, so the Liberals are probably going to be more popular due to the lack of outrage due to apathy.

[Hatman 🍁]

Scary. That's all the insight I can offer. Human weather vane Patrick Brown is a much better politician than Kathleen Wynne.

Worked for Michael Ignatieff. Oh, wait...

[Hatman 🍁]

It'll be interesting to compare the federal and provincial vote share for the Liberals in Vanier.

There'll be a YUGE NDP/Liberal swing, that's for sure.  Well, maybe not that big. Depends if the NDP bothers to try or not.

[Hatman 🍁]

Ottawa-Vanier. Vanier itself makes up only 15% of the riding.