Canadian federal election, 2016 (campaign thread)

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Justin Trudeau responds to smears by the NDP in a tweet chain

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Endorsements for Turn Five

Conservative

John Tory
Mayor of Toronto

NDP

Gregor Robertson
Mayor of Vancouver

Bloc Québecois

Le Devoir
Newspaper

[wxtransit]

Endorsements for Turn Five

Conservative

John Tory
Mayor of Toronto

NDP

Gregor Robertson
Mayor of Vancouver

Bloc Québecois

Le Devoir
Newspaper

OOC: Is the turn over? If so, I have an extension to tonight.

[wxtransit]

Calgary Centre
February 4th

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Saskatoon—University
February 4th

Canvassing for the local Conservative candidate, talking with many local voters, and getting the Conservatives' message for reform to everyone.

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Re-run Ad #1 for the Conservative Party

To be aired nationwide

Canada is at a crossroads.
(Close up on girl running through wheat field to a road crossing)

(Girl looks in both directions)

One direction, change.

The other, the same old ways of every other government.

One advocates for keeping their promises and doing politics differently, and the other advocates to keep the Ottawa machine running.



One has solid plans for reform, and the other has just ideas.

One advocates for a better nation, and the other advocates what ever the focus groups say.



And only one advocates for a future.

(Girl runs to the brighter side)

(Cut to black)





It's decision time.

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Winnipeg Centre
February 5th

Canvassing for the local Conservative candidate, getting to know local voters, and getting the Conservatives' message for reform to everyone.

[wxtransit]

London North Centre
February 6th

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Hamilton Centre
February 6th

Canvassing for the local Conservative candidate, getting to know local voters, and getting the Conservatives' message for reform to everyone.

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Trudeau issues a tongue lashing on the Tories for their recent lies on the economy at a rally in British Columbia

As I've brought up before, economists have calculated that Steven Harper was the worst Prime Minister since World War Two on the economy. Today, our good friend Mr Scheer has decided to admit that unwittingly. He has attacked the state of the economy and blamed me for it. What he forgets is these recessions that we are recovering from occured under Harper. It is the Liberal party which is picking up the pieces.

He also spews an outright lie on taxes, saying that a Liberal government will charge exorbitant tax rates. This is simply false. Did he forget the tax cuts we passed for 9 million Canadians in December? We are clear where we stand on this. The only people who will see a tax increase is the top 1%, its time they paid their fair share.

What Scheer and the Tories clearly fail to understand is that we need investment in our economy to bring it back to speed. If you wanna see the results of the Tories' tax cuts, look no further than Harper. He cut taxes on the rich and he ended up with a terrible economic record.

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Toronto Centre
February 7th

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Trudeau issues a tongue lashing on the Tories for their recent lies on the economy at a rally in British Columbia

As I've brought up before, economists have calculated that Steven Harper was the worst Prime Minister since World War Two on the economy. Today, our good friend Mr Scheer has decided to admit that unwittingly. He has attacked the state of the economy and blamed me for it. What he forgets is these recessions that we are recovering from occured under Harper. It is the Liberal party which is picking up the pieces.

He also spews an outright lie on taxes, saying that a Liberal government will charge exorbitant tax rates. This is simply false. Did he forget the tax cuts we passed for 9 million Canadians in December? We are clear where we stand on this. The only people who will see a tax increase is the top 1%, its time they paid their fair share.

What Scheer and the Tories clearly fail to understand is that we need investment in our economy to bring it back to speed. If you wanna see the results of the Tories' tax cuts, look no further than Harper. He cut taxes on the rich and he ended up with a terrible economic record.

OOC: IIRC, the turn ended Friday, I received an extension to post until tonight because I was busy all throughout the week.

[wxtransit]

Ottawa Centre
February 7th

Canvassing for the local Conservative candidate, meet local workers in a factory, spread the Conservatives' message of change.

[wxtransit]

Ottawa Centre
February 7th

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[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Election Night
February 8, 2016

Mansbridge: . . .It is the end of an extraordinary campaign, and one that is certain to change the face of Canadian politics, at least for the next four years, if not many more to come. Justin Trudeau called this election thirty-nine days ago to expand his mandate after an inconclusive contest in 2015; tonight, we will see whether he has succeeded, or whether Andrew Scheer's Conservatives and Niki Ashton's NDP have kept him to a plurality in the House of Commons. Tonight is also the first test for the new leadership of Bloc Québecois, who are aiming to take second place tonight in Quebec after a disappointing performance three months ago.

After five weeks of anxious anticipation, we can now report the first result of the 2016 federal election.

Newfoundland and Labrador

Liberal		52%		7
NDP		38%		0
Conservative		10%		0
Green		0%		0

Mansbridge: A curious result, and not the least because of the split between the popular vote and the outcome in the ridings. Of course, the Liberals were always favored to carry the Atlantic provinces, but pay close attention to the margin: 52% for the Liberals, down eight points from the last election; the NDP at 38%, up thirteen; Conservatives at 10%, no change. A very good result for the NDP and Nikki Ashton if it's reflected across the nation, but very bleak for the opposition otherwise: not one of those seven seats flipped from the Liberals to NDP or the Conservatives. As we say, not unexpected, but something of a disappointment for the Conservatives; Andrew Scheer of course made a bold play for the votes of the Atlantic provinces early in the campaign, and it appears so far he has come up none the better for it.

In short, there's something for everyone to take heart in from these results: the Liberals so far hold all their seats in spite of an aggressive push by the Conservatives and NDP, while the opposition can take heart that the votes, at least, seem to indicate the possibility of future gains, if these trends are repeated around the country.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Mansbridge: We are now receiving results from the rest of Atlantic Canada.

New Brunswick

Liberal		52%		10
NDP		28%		0
Conservative		17%		0
Green		3%		0

Nova Scotia

Liberal		54%		9
NDP		27%		2
Conservative		15%		0
Green		3%		0

Prince Edward Island

Liberal		50%		4
NDP		33%		0
Conservative		17%		0
Green		0%		0

Mansbridge: An interesting set of results, which seems to confirm the trend we saw earlier in Newfoundland: the Liberals down slightly from their support in 2015, but so far without suffering major losses in terms of seats; NDP making a strong showing in the popular vote but loosing out in the ridings; and the Conservatives polling essentially as they did three months ago, with little to show for Andrew Scheer's efforts to make inroads in the region.

Barton: It's difficult to say at this point what these results mean as far as what to expect from the rest of the country. On the one hand, you see the Liberals performing notably worse than they did in 2015—down eight points in Newfoundland, down ten in Nova Scotia, down three in Prince Edward Island. If that is reflected across the country, it could be the beginning of a bad night for Justin Trudeau. The other way to look at this, is that the Liberals did not campaign aggressively in the Atlantic ridings, were confident that they would be the leading party here, and have in fact carried all the ridings declared so far but two. It will be interesting to see, once we begin to receive returns from Quebec and Ontario, whether this trend is reflected in the provinces that were fiercely contested by the Liberals, or whether there is yet cause to hope for a Liberal majority.

Mansbridge: Interesting to note that the closest seat to be declared thus far, Halifax, in the province of Nova Scotia, has been won by the NDP, 47% to 44% over the Liberals. And now, I believe we are receiving another result . . .

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Mansbridge: News has just come in that all seventy-eight ridings in Quebec have reported, and the result, simply put, is staggering.

Quebec

Liberal		38%		38
Bloc Québecois		30%		25
NDP		25%		8
Conservative		6%		7
Green		1%		0

Mansbridge: We said earlier that this could either shape up to be a good night or a very bad night for Justin Trudeau: the results from Atlantic Canada were inconclusive on that point; we are now receiving the beginnings of an answer in Quebec. Look at those numbers: the Liberals actually up seven points from their result in 2015, NDP down four, the Conservatives down eleven—though of course, there are other factors at play there. And the biggest gains by far go to Bloc Québecois, who manage to improve on their 2015 showing by more than ten percent, for a net profit of fifteen seats.

Truly a shocking result, and a massive blow to those hoping to topple Justin Trudeau from the prime minister's seat.

Barton: If anything, the results in the ridings are even more fascinating: Bloc Québecois gains fifteen seats, most of them from the NDP, but also a healthy count taken from the Liberals. The difference being that the Liberals manage to make up those losses with seats gained from the Conservatives, while NDP is left with very little to show for their near-quarter of the popular vote.

Take a look at some of the ridings that have changed hands. Laurier–Saint Marie, Gilles Duceppe's seat—was lost to the NDP in 2015, tonight reclaimed by the Bloc; Chicoutimi–Le Fjord, Jonquiere, Louis-Hebert, Québec, Trois–Rivières, Drummond, Saint-Hyacinthe–Bagot, Beloeil–Chambly, Longueuil–Saint Hubert, Montarville, Salaberry–Suroît, Laurentides–Labelle, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, Thérèse–De Blainville, all gains for Bloc Québecois. In a bright spot for NDP, Tom Mulcair manages to hold his seat thanks to the withdrawal of the Bloc candidate in that riding; but of course, the race that has everyone's attention is for the prime minister's own seat in Papineau.

Papineau

Justin Trudeau		54%
Maxime Claveau		43%

Mansbridge: And there you have it: Justin Trudeau is reelected to the House of Commons, 54 to 43 over Maxime Claveau of Bloc Québecois. A disappointing result for the opposition, to be sure—you'll recall NDP withdrew from this seat in the final weeks of the campaign, hoping Bloc would be able to topple Trudeau in a head-to-head race. That, it seems, has not transpired; Trudeau reelected by an increased margin over his 2015 result, up eight points since the last election.

Barton: But I want to talk about the Conservative margin for a moment. You'll recall earlier we mentioned the Conservatives have dropped eleven points from their result in 2015; in fact, that figure is somewhat misleading. Hoping to give Bloc Québecois a clear shot at Trudeau, the Conservatives did not run candidates in most of the seventy-eight Quebecois ridings, which accounts for most of that drop in the provincial vote we noted. In the twelve ridings where they had incumbent MPs running for reelection, their vote is about what it was in 2015; though they still loose five seats due to Liberal gains in the province.

Mansbridge: Fascinating; and now, I believe, we are receiving returns from Ontario. . .

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Mansbridge: The count has just finished in the province of Ontario; one-hundred twenty-one ridings up for grabs, and here are the results.

Ontario

Liberal		49%		94
Conservative		31%		19
NDP		19%		8
Green		1%		0

Mansbridge: Perhaps the most shocking return of the night, and an appalling result for the opposition: the Liberals win 94 of the 121 ridings, with an overall swing of nine points in the popular vote. Conservatives in second place with 31%, down five; NDP in third with 19%, down two; the Greens take up the rear, 1% of the vote, down two points from 2015.

And with that, it's very difficult to conclude that we are looking at anything other than a Liberal government of some kind.

Barton: We always knew if the Conservatives were going to stop Trudeau and the Liberals from winning a majority, they were going to have to do well in Ontario. In the last week, you saw both Niki Ashton and Andrew Scheer here in the province fighting for votes—and it hasn't worked. Instead, a massacre: the Conservatives loose almost half their seats from 2015, down from just over thirty to now under twenty. NDP manage to mostly hold their own in the ridings where they are the incumbent, but nothing like the gains some in the party had hoped for.

Worth noting that the first-past-the-post system has worked to the advantage of the Liberals here: in riding after riding, you see Liberal candidates edging out Conservative incumbents by narrow pluralities—44% in Milton, 43% in Huron–Bruce, 42% in Perth–Wellington. The Conservative member for Niagara Falls looses his seat by less than half a percent, the Liberal challenger there winning with just above 38% of the overall vote. Add them all together, and the Liberals carry more than three quarters of the ridings in Ontario with just under half the vote.

Mansbridge: We'll get to the 'why' of that in a moment, but first, take a look at the result from the riding of Simcoe–Grey.

Simcoe–Grey

Kellie Leitch		42%
Mike MacEachern		42%
David Matthews		12%
JoAnne Fleming		2%

The Conservatives have held this seat since 2004; they carry it again tonight, but the margin is disquieting: by two votes—yes, two—incumbent member Kellie Leitch is returned over Liberal challenger Mike MacEachern in what is likely to be the narrowest result of the night so far.

But to your earlier point: this is unquestionably a very disappointing result for the Conservatives. Clearly the voting system has played as part in that, but there's something else going on here to.

Barton: I'm sure there will be no shortage of analysis of just what these results mean over the next several weeks, but in the immediate aftermath, there are three things that come to mind. First, the Liberals absolutely poured their hearts out in Ontario: from the very beginning this province was the center of their campaign, and they've flooded the airwaves and just about ground the sidewalks to dust canvassing, running ads, doing everything they could to ensure a good result. The first week of the campaign, when Andrew Scheer was campaigning across the Atlantic trying to win converts in New Brunswick and Newfoundland, Justin Trudeau was knocking on doors in Ontario.  In the last few weeks, you saw the Conservatives and NDP attempt a midnight raid to drum up support in Toronto and Upper Canada, but it just wasn't enough to overcome the Liberal ground game. From the moment this election was announced, our Liberal contacts have been telling us that Ontario was going to hand them their majority; it appears they may well have been right.

Second, Andrew Scheer's message failed to convince voters that his party deserves to be returned to government just three months after Stephen Harper was turned out of office. Maybe you can chalk that up to the Conservative platform—all that talk about Scheer not having a clear position on the economy—or to the infamous "social conservative" gaffe, but more than anything I think it was just to soon for the Conservatives to make the sort of comeback they were hoping for. Over and over again, we heard Andrew Scheer say that he "wasn't Stephen Harper," but fairly or not the voters seem to be punishing him for his predecessor's unpopularity.

Third, by far the most unpopular thing in this election was instability. This is what the Liberals were betting on: some voters might have liked Andrew Scheer more than they liked Justin Trudeau, but at the end of the day that desire for stability and certainty won out. Again, there are sure to be a wide variety of interpretations of exactly what happened tonight, but I think a lot of what we'll be hearing is that a vote for Andrew Scheer was seen as a vote for a hung parliament, and to most voters that simply wasn't worth it.

Mansbridge: Whatever the reason, the Liberals have now won 162 of the 338 ridings up for election tonight—just eight short of the 170 seats they need to form a majority in the House of Commons. In a moment, we'll hear from Western Canada and see if there are any bright spots for the Conservatives and NDP in what has so far been a disappointing night for the main opposition parties.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Mansbridge: While we await the result of the election in the Western provinces, let's turn to the Northwest, where the Liberals are defending three seats they won in 2015.

Northwest Territories

NDP		44%		1
Liberal		31%		0
Conservative		25%		0

Nunavut

Liberal		46%		1
NDP		28%		0
Conservative		26%		0

Yukon Territory

Liberal		50%		1
Conservative		26%		0
NDP		24%		0

Mansbridge: Nothing groundbreaking here, with only three seats at stake: the Liberals hold on to Nunavut and Yukon by convincing margins, while in the Northwest Territories Dennis Bevington of NDP regains the seat he lost to the Liberals three months ago. An encouraging sign for NDP, perhaps, who need a strong showing in the West to avoid massive losses in the next parliament.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Mansbridge: We are just now getting results from the province of Manitoba. Let's take a look.

Manitoba

Liberal		44%		7
Conservative		29%		5
NDP		24%		2
Green		2%		0

Mansbridge: The Liberals add seven seats to their column, winning just over half the ridings in what is likely to be their best result in Western Canada. We note a reasonable swing toward Mr. Trudeau's party—the Liberals up four, Conservatives down nine, NDP up five—but nothing approaching the massive gains we have seen earlier this evening in Ontario and, to a lesser extent, Quebec.

Barton: We've known from the start of the campaign that the Liberals were going to have their weakest result in the Western provinces, and this seems to be the first indication that those predictions were correct. Certainly this is a result that Andrew Scheer would have welcomed had it come from Newfoundland; at this point in the evening, it comes too little, too late.

Mansbridge: And with that, CBC can now make the following projection.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Mansbridge: . . . And I am told the count has just concluded in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Alberta

Conservative		60%		29
Liberal		25%		4
NDP		14%		1
Green		1%		0

Saskatchewan

Conservative		54%		11
NDP		29%		2
Liberal		15%		1
Green		2%		0

Mansbridge: There it is, the silver lining in what has otherwise been an appalling night for the Conservatives. What Andrew Scheer could not do in the rest of the country, he has done in his home province of Saskatchewan, where the Conservatives come within a hair's breadth of a clean sweep: 11 out of 14 ridings declare for the Conservative Party, with 54% of the overall popular vote, actually up four points from 2015. The picture is equally as bright in Alberta: 60% of the vote and 29 of 34 seats declare for the Conservatives, roughly what they got three months ago as well.

And of course included in those Saskatchewan riding's is Scheer's own Regina–Qu'Appelle, where he manages reelection by a sizable majority.

Regina–Qu'Appelle

Andrew Scheer		51%
Nial Kuyek		34%
Della Anaquod		14%
Greg Chatterson		2%

Barton: It comes too late to effect the result, but it's worth restating that the Conservatives held their ground in Alberta and actually improved over their 2015 result in Saskatchewan. All said and done, the Conservatives will have 40 members from just these two provinces going into the next parliament—more than half their total. What that means for the direction of the party as it looks to rebuild after tonight's disappointing result we'll leave for the politicians and their constituents to answer.

Mansbridge: In just a moment, we should be receiving results from British Columbia, our final outstanding province tonight; please stand by.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Mansbridge: From the reports now coming in, it appears counting has concluded in all forty-two ridings of the province of British Columbia, and here are the results.

British Columbia

NDP		35%		20
Liberal		34%		17
Conservative		25%		4
Green		5%		1

Mansbridge: As many had expected, but none were quite able to predict, NDP just edges out Justin Trudeau for just under half the seats in this province, almost doubling their count.

Barton: A very satisfying victory for the NDP, who barely carried this province over the Conservatives in 2015, 31% to 30%; their up four points tonight, though the margin is still quite close; certainly they benefited from the collapse of the Greens in the final weeks of the campaign, who initially looked to poll as high as 13% in this province, and many in the field are crediting Gregor Robinson's eleventh-hour endorsement for pushing the party over the line.

In all, a very similar story to what the Conservatives are facing: NDP will enter the next parliament with more than half their members from ridings in Western Canada, most of those from this province alone. It's not enough to completely offset losses in Quebec and Ontario, but it does stop the bleeding.

Mansberidge: This concludes our coverage of the 2016 federal election. From all of us here at CBC, thank-you, and good night.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

National Results

Liberal		41.0%		193
Conservative		26.7%		75
NDP		23.7%		55
BQ		7.0%		25
Green		1.6%		1

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Scheer: "We will persevere"



Regina-Qu'Appelle
February 8, 2016

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