Canada 2011 Official Thread

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An Official Decree From The Boardbashi

Everyone keep posting things related - even inane comments will do so long as vaguely on-topic - until we hit a new page. Diolch.

Edit: Hah! No need. It seems that I'm magick.

[Phony Moderate]

Any post-debate polls or whatever?

[Smid]

Speeding things up by keeping all the insets the original sizes... I can fit them around the place, that means it's mostly the rural ridings and coastlines that need updating, only.

EDIT: Finished Maritimes, Quebec and Ontario. 

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

The debate has produced one loser: Elizabeth May. The Debate was “interesting” and relevant, issues were discussed. Unlike the snorefests of past years, this debate had meaning. May loses by not being there.

[Meeker]

Does the Bloc actually win any votes from Anglophones?

[The Vorlon]

Nanos: - April 13th, 2011

Tories 39.9% (+.2%)
Grits 30.4% (-.8%)
Dippers 16.3% (-.5%)
Bloq 9.1% (+1.3%)

A couple notes:

Nanos calls during the day as well, so this sample has "about" half of 1/3rd of the sample being post/during the debate, but as of now.. it's steady as she goes.

A good Tories sample drops for tomorrow, so expect bit of a Grit bump in the April 14th result.

The big Bloq jump, at least part of it is just that a very good for the Liberals/Bad for Bloq sample dropped off the rolling three day total in Quebec.

The French debate is tonight - if, as expected, The BQ leader mops the floor with the other three, we may see both a bump to the Bloq and, likely, a bit of a migration to one of the Federalist parties. - Expect Layton to be hammered by the Bloq re Bill 101 as that is where the Bloq sees soft federalist votes as beng up for grabs.

[The Vorlon]

Does the Bloc actually win any votes from Anglophones?

A fair number actually.

The Bloc is a smart tactical vote for a Quebec citizen. -

Quebec is subsidized by the rest of Canada by roughly 11 billion dollars per year, or about $5500 per family of 4 per year.

Quebec uses this transfer to maintain some of the most generous social programs in Canada (cheaper post secondary education, state funded child care, etc...)

If you view elections as a game where you want to "win" (ie derive the greatest benefits from the system relative to your tax inputs) - Then the Bloc is a smart vote.

[Hash]

Does the Bloc actually win any votes from Anglophones?

There are a handful of Anglophone nationalists, maybe 5-10% of the overall voting block perhaps, who vote BQ/PQ. The PQ I know has traditionally had a few Anglo MNAs, like former Green leader Scott McKay these days. There was also Westmount's Equality Party MNA who crossed the floor to the PQ

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There are always a few oddballs, but the general pattern is what it is:

[Linus Van Pelt]

You have to be careful with people's names here, since with intermarriage there are people who are connected to both linguistic communities. Scott McKay had an Anglo father and a Franco mother, was raised in Montreal-Est, and both his degrees are from UQAM. He's basically a Francophone. Plus there are people of immigrant background who are sort of assimilated to both communities.

Among Anglophones who aren't also in a sense Francophone, there is essentially no vote for nationalist parties. Certainly a lower % than Black Republicans - maybe around the % Jewish vote for Hadash.

(This idea that the BQ vote is just a kind of cynical monetary blackmail is oddly popular among right-wingers in other provinces, but it has little basis in reality. It doesn't even make any sense anyway, since interprovincial equalization payments are just based on provincial GDP and Quebec actually receives less per capita than Manitoba or any of the Maritime provinces, notwithstanding their lack of separatist parties.)

[homelycooking]

Here's the Liberal collapse in Alberta: 2004-2008.

[ilikeverin]

Does the Bloc actually win any votes from Anglophones?

A fair number actually.

The Bloc is a smart tactical vote for a Quebec citizen. -

Quebec is subsidized by the rest of Canada by roughly 11 billion dollars per year, or about $5500 per family of 4 per year.

Quebec uses this transfer to maintain some of the most generous social programs in Canada (cheaper post secondary education, state funded child care, etc...)

If you view elections as a game where you want to "win" (ie derive the greatest benefits from the system relative to your tax inputs) - Then the Bloc is a smart vote.

Vorlon! *hughughug*

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

The Bloc is big on this whole Quebecois as an ethnicity stuff. They get a ton of support from that group, but little from others. Frankly, I think the Bloc would do as well outside Quebec as they do with Anglos in Quebec.

[The Vorlon]

More Polling.

Tories destined for a majority: Pollster
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/CanadaVotes/News/2011/04/12/17974001.html

Compas:

The COMPAS poll surveyed 2,300 voters by telephone April 6-11, and is considered accurate within 2.1 percentage points.

Conservative 45
Liberals 24
NDP 16
Bloc 8
Green 7

FWIW (not much) This translates seat wise to:

Tories 178
Bloc 52
Grits 52
Dippers 26

Full poll release:

http://www.compas.ca/data/110413-NationalElectionPoll_Prt1-VoteIntentions-EPCB.pdf

Leger Poll

Leger polled 1,037 people selected from its online panel of 350,000 Canadians. The pollster only quizzed those who said they watched the debate. The margin of error is comparable to 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The PM = 37%
Iggy = 21%

Who won the debate?: Angus Reid Says:

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/decision-canada/Four+debate+viewers+think+Harper+poll/4605023/story.html

Harper 42%
Layton 25%
Iggy 23%
Bloc 2%

Full Release:

http://www.globalnews.ca/decisioncanada/POLL+Debate+fails+change+voters+minds/4604903/story.html

Bottom Line.....

Layton did very well
Harper did himself a modest bit of good
Iggy did himself a modest bit of harm...

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted exclusively for Global Television prior to and immediately following the English-language leaders’ debate on April 12, 2011.

The pre-debate survey was conducted among 2,615 English-speaking Canadian adults. The post-debate survey was conducted among 2,365 English-speaking Canadian adults who watched the debate.

Respondents were selected via the Ipsos I-Say Online Panel, Ipsos Reid's national online panel.

The sample was drawn from a pre-recruited panel of over 6,589 voters. Weighting then was employed to balance demographics and ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the population of English-speaking Canadian adults according to the latest Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe.

EKOS Poll

http://www.ekospolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/full_report_april_13_2011.pdf

 National federal vote intention:
¤ 33.8% CPC
¤ 28.8% LPC
¤ 19.1% NDP
¤ 9.0% Green
¤ 7.8% BQ
¤ 1.5% other

[cinyc]

I'm surprised anyone thought Iggy won the debate.  Whoever did must be a hard partisan.  I thought he came across as snarling, hyper and entitled.  Harper remained pretty calm throughout, and in that sense, he won for not losing his cool and looking like the Prime Minister.  He also stayed on message throughout - it's the economy stupid.  Layton probably scored more rhetorical points than the other 3 - though Duceppe had his moments too.  It's just that the overwhelming majority of people who watched the English-language debate can't even vote for Duceppe's party, rendering him an afterthought.

[bullmoose88]

I say this in response (that potentially could make me look very foolish) to looking at Vorlon's estimated seat totals a couple posts above showing the Grits and Dippers both with 52 seats.

Is it at all possible to see a situation where the NDP, akin to UK Labour, completely over takes the Liberals as the natural alternative to the Tories...rendering Libs sort of a rump in future parliaments?  Is that how people see this eventually playing out, or are things (as I'm guessing someone or some people will say) so fundamentally different that such a thing cannot, in all likelihood, happen.

[Meeker]

I say this in response (that potentially could make me look very foolish) to looking at Vorlon's estimated seat totals a couple posts above showing the Grits and Dippers both with 52 seats.

Is it at all possible to see a situation where the NDP, akin to UK Labour, completely over takes the Liberals as the natural alternative to the Tories...rendering Libs sort of a rump in future parliaments?  Is that how people see this eventually playing out, or are things (as I'm guessing someone or some people will say) so fundamentally different that such a thing cannot, in all likelihood, happen.

Look again. It's the Grits and the Bloc both with 52 seats.

That's also an extremely poor outcome for the Liberals that isn't being reflected in any other poll.

[bullmoose88]

I say this in response (that potentially could make me look very foolish) to looking at Vorlon's estimated seat totals a couple posts above showing the Grits and Dippers both with 52 seats.

Is it at all possible to see a situation where the NDP, akin to UK Labour, completely over takes the Liberals as the natural alternative to the Tories...rendering Libs sort of a rump in future parliaments?  Is that how people see this eventually playing out, or are things (as I'm guessing someone or some people will say) so fundamentally different that such a thing cannot, in all likelihood, happen.

Look again. It's the Grits and the Bloc both with 52 seats.

That's also an extremely poor outcome for the Liberals that isn't being reflected in any other poll.

Ah....better catch than I was able to make. The question still stands...any chance the NDP supplants the libs as the anti-tory party?  Not necessarily now...but in the foreseeable future.

[The Vorlon]

I say this in response (that potentially could make me look very foolish) to looking at Vorlon's estimated seat totals a couple posts above showing the Grits and Dippers both with 52 seats.

Is it at all possible to see a situation where the NDP, akin to UK Labour, completely over takes the Liberals as the natural alternative to the Tories...rendering Libs sort of a rump in future parliaments?  Is that how people see this eventually playing out, or are things (as I'm guessing someone or some people will say) so fundamentally different that such a thing cannot, in all likelihood, happen.

That projection with the Bloc and Grits both at 52 seats was based SOLELY on the one COMPAS poll, and based upon a uniform swing model applied region by region. (it is NOT my projection in any way)

I think this poll is an outlier on the high side for the Tories, I think the Ekos poll is a outlier on the low side for the tories.

There is a scenario wher the Implosion of the Grits/Rise of the Dippers takes place.

IF the country comes to the conclusion that a Tory majority will happen... and....
IF the more socialist wing of the party loses all faith in Iggy.. and ...
IF the red wing of the Liberals really likes the NDP leader..
then there is mass Grit defection to the Dippers and the NDP is the new #2 behind the Tories....

The reality on the ground is very hard to achieve however.  The NDP's vote distribution is very inefficient.

For example, if the Bloq bets 30% in Quebec and the three federalist parties spit the remaining 70% equally.. the  Liberals get 17 seats, the Tories 13, and the Dippers just 4....

In Ontario if there was a three way tie in the popular vote, the Grits would get 40 seats, the Torries would get 42, and the Dippers just 24...

The math on the ground is really hard to put together for the NDP to beat the Grits in seats....

[bullmoose88]

Yeah, my mistake...but what about the substantive question...can the more social-democratic party push the more centrist liberal party into a permanent rump position and be the natural opposition to the Tories...ala the UK?  Why or why not?  Likely or unlikely?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Grits, dippers... Where do all those silly nicknames come from ?

[Hash]

Grits, dippers... Where do all those silly nicknames come from ?

Grits dates from George Brown's Clear Grit reformers in Upper Canada. Quoting Wikipedia: "Clear Grit" was a complimentary term meaning tenacious or dedicated. The name derives from a quote by party member David Christie who describes the movement as "all sand and no dirt; clear grit all the way through", a reference to the type of sand preferred in the preparation of masonry.

Dipper seems to come from the acronym NDP.

[Bacon King]

Oooh, a poll that puts Bloc second place in seats? Official opposition for them again?

Granted, I know the poll was an outlier, etc., but I can't be the only one that finds humor in having the Bloc as Her Majesty's "Loyal" Opposition.

[DL]

For some reason the news coverage of the Leger poll neglected to mention that 29% thought Jack Layton did the best in the debate. But leave it to the media to always try to invent a two-way race in a four party system.

More Polling.

Leger Poll

Leger polled 1,037 people selected from its online panel of 350,000 Canadians. The pollster only quizzed those who said they watched the debate. The margin of error is comparable to 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The PM = 37%
Iggy = 21%

[Hatman 🍁]

Yeah, my mistake...but what about the substantive question...can the more social-democratic party push the more centrist liberal party into a permanent rump position and be the natural opposition to the Tories...ala the UK?  Why or why not?  Likely or unlikely?

Fairly unlikely, although it would be nice. I think a Green-NDP-BQ merger is more likely in the distant future.