Canada 2011 Official Thread

[DL]

Good question. Layton's only returned positive results for the NDP. Having never suffered a loss before (Winnipeg North being a possible exception) it's difficult to gauge how he'd be affected.

I think he's popular enough with the party that he'd be the favourite to win if there was a leadership challenge. But he's 60. There are questions about his health. And Thomas Mulcair wants his job. Kind of a coin toss. And Dippers want to comment?

I think most people think that this is Layton's last campaign - regardless of the results. It will be his fourth election, he will have been leader for 8.5 years and its a grueling job...especially when battling cancer and being treated for a hip fracture. The party would never push him out - he is extremely popular and runs well ahead of the party. Whatever the result, people in the NDP will unanimously thin that they did better with him as leader than they would have done without him. He will retire at a time of his choosing and most people think that he wants Mulcair to succeed him.

The latest round of polls has the NDP at 19% - with big gains in Quebec and that would actually be a slight improvement over last election when they had 18%. The NDP also tends to win more seats when the Liberals are doing relatively badly since there are a lot more Liberal/NDP marginals than Conservative/NDP marginals. As things stand now, the NDP would probably gain a couple of seats in BC and has one or two seats that are good chances at pickups in Sask, Ontario, Quebec and in Atlantic Canada. Of course there are also some vulnerable incumbents. If Layton's campaign catches fire and the NDP gets over the 20% mark - who knows what could happen - at this stage its likeliest that they will get a small increase to just over 40 seats. I think Layton would love to get 44 or more seats and beat the best ever NDP seat count of 43 in 1988.

[DL]

I've seen plenty of signs that the NDP will gain seats - I can rhyme them off - Surrey North, Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, Newton-North Delta, North Vancouver Island, Edmonton East, Palliser, Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Parkdale-High Park, Davenport, Gatineau, Dartmouth, South Shore-St. Margarets, St. John's South-Mount Pearl.

I'm not sure what "signs" you need to see that the NDP can and probably will gain seats. Most polls have the party slightly above what it got in the last election and a rising tide raises all ships.

[DL]

In 2008 the popular vote in BC was Tories 45%, NDP 26%, Libs 19%. Most polls now show the Tories falling to about 40-41ish and the NDP rising to 28-29ish (bear in mind that the NDP took 29% in BC in the '06 election. If the Conservative/NDP gap in BC goes from 19 points to about 10 or 11 points - seats WILL be gained.

[DL]

FYI, the "unknown white guy" you refer to as having been the NDP candidate in northern Sask was actually First Nation - though i agree not very well-known.

[DL]

Several new polls today:

Harris-Decima: Cons 38% (+4), Libs 24% (-4), NDP 19% (+2) and Greens 7% (-2)
Forum: Cons 41%, Libs 24%, NDP 19%
Abacus: Cons 36% (-2%), Libs 27% (+1), NDP 20% (+1)

There have now been 5 polls out since the government fell and all have had the NDP at 19% or 20% - which would be almost an all-time high

[DL]

PS: The NDP is also heavily targetting Hull-Aylmer where they are running the former President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada in a riding that is full of low level federal civil servants right across the river from Parliament Hill. If there is an NDP breakthrough in Quebec, Hull-Aylmer will be the next shoe to drop after Gatineau (and holding Outremont of course)

[DL]

The polls are very contradictory. Nanos shows a big Tory lead, but Harris Decima just came out with a poll showing just a 7 point margin C35L28N17 - which would mean nowhere near a majority!

[DL]

Nanos' daily tracking makes them appear to be the top pollsters above all others, when in fact they haven't been the top pollster since 2006.

Its kind of silly to even play the game of "top pollster" - in polling you're only ever as good as your last pre-election poll. Its really luck more than anything else that determines who ends up being closest to the final results.

[DL]

The most recent poll from each company; if already reported here it's in italics.

EKOS: Con 36, Lib 28, NDP 17, Greenies 9, BQ 9
Nanos: Con 41, Lib 31, NDP 15, BQ 9, Greenies 3
Forum Research: Con 38, Lib 26, NDP 20, Greenies 9, BQ 8
Environics: Con 38, Lib 25, NDP 20, BQ 8, Greenies 8
Angus Reid: Con 38, Lib 27, NDP 21, BQ 8, Greenies 6
Harris-Decima: Con 35, Lib 28, NDP 17, BQ 10, Greenies 8
Leger: Con 37, Lib 26, NDP 18, BQ 10, Greenies 8

Figures rounded, because I can.

...and now you can add one more to your list as Ipsos just released a poll: Con 41%, Lib 26%, NDP 19%, BQ 8%, Green 4%

[DL]

Two ridings in Montreal do have polls done of them:

Lac-Saint-Louis: Lib 46%, Con 26%, NDP 12%, Green 8%, BQ 7%
Outremont: NDP 47%, Lib 27%, BQ 14%, Con 7%, Green 5%

Obviously the record of constituency poll is bad just about everywhere, etc, etc, etc.

I'm not sure what makes you say that. We don't tend to see all that many riding polls in Canada - but when they are done - they tend to quite accurate.

[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%

[DL]

Everyone take a very deep breath - latest Angus Reid poll:

Conservatives 35%
NDP 30% (!!!)
Liberals 22%

This is REAL!

[DL]

Harris Decima phone poll April 20-27

CPC - 35%
NDP - 30%
Libs - 22%

Identical to Angus Reid at the national level and HD also has the NDP 20 points ahead of the BQ in Quebec!

Regarding the NDP having some NOB (name on the ballot) candidates in Quebec. Its not as if the other parties don't also have some dim bulbs running in unwinnable seats - the Liberals have a white supremacist who calls First Nation people "featherheads" running for them in Quebec. The Tories are even worse - they have elected MPs who are total crackpots - like Cheryl Gallant who is Canada's answer to Sharron Angle and few racist homophobes from the Prairies!

[DL]

I'm not that surprised about Trois-Rivieres. If it was in any other province it would a classic NDP seat to begin with. Its a very working class small city - not unlike ridings like Welland or Hamilton. The NDP candidate there Robert Aubin i actually one of the most impressive ones - he is a professor of music at a seminary and is a well-known local figure in the music and arts sub-culture.  It should be noted that Trois-Rivieres has always been considered a bellwether riding in Quebec. Whatever party wins there tends to carry the province!

[DL]

Actually, Forum has the NDP at 33% national not 32% - just a two point gap. Also, I think there is a mistake in that Quebec number its virtually impossible fpr the NDP to be at 49% in Montreal and at 33% in Quebec as a whol since Montreal is almost half the province and most polls have the NDP in the low 40s provincewide. I think there is a typo and that in fact its that the NDP is at 33% in "the rest of Quebec" and probably at about 41% in the whole province.

[DL]

Looks like the NDP may get one more seat and the Tories one fewer. There was a counting error in the rural Quebec riding of Montmagny-L"Islet-Riviere-du-loup-Kamouraska and the NDP candidate Lapointe now leads by 5 votes (the same guy ran in that same riding in a byelection in 2009 and got less than 5% of the vote!)