Nice to see you again.

It has been a while. 

It’s not that I lacked the interest in politics but rather it’s been such a boring time for them.

Stephen Harper has his, Commons Majority, Senate Majority and his Supreme Court Appointment Majority, The Progressive Conservatives in Ontario have blown not one but two elections since, and a divided right in Alberta resulted in the majority of voters opting for Conservative politics but securing an NDP majority for their troubles. 

To start with Alberta I would like to welcome every NDP supporter across the country to the FPTP bandwagon, we have been expecting you! 

Watching the commentary from the election has been interesting; 40% of the population voted NDP whereas 52% voted for the Wildrose or PC parties respectively. Come October when the next Federal Election is scheduled do folks really feel that Alberta (Save for Edmonton) will go Orange?

Especially when you consider that turnout was around 58%.

It’s a nice story, it takes out any momentum that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals had with their middle class tax cut following by their middle class tax hike via the CPP reform but in perspective Alberta is still largely CPC country and as the only party who seemingly doesn’t want to shutter the oilsands I don’t see that changing.

Ah Ontario;

I have to admit I am very proud of the Progressive Conservatives in Ontario, it would have been so easy to elect the 3^rd place finisher in the last leadership race to become leader and forget all the lessons we learnt from the John Tory era of being unable to out Liberal the Liberals but the grass roots rose up and elected a Conservative.

I am still surprised, the seemingly clueless “party elders” of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario wanted one leader and got another and with a party base that was so depleted after years of failure I am shocked that Patrick Brown wasn’t able to just win but almost able to double the size of the party in the process.

After hearing Mr. Brown speak a few times I am impressed with the passion but now is the time to give alternatives. It’s easy to be against Liberal Policy given how utterly terrible it’s been over the last decade but it’s not easy to fix.

I look forward to Mr. Brown hopefully taking a page from the old Common Sense Revolution and going riding to riding and figuring out what Ontario needs rather than dictating what the Government thinks Ontario needs.

Then we roll into Federal Politics;

Which I will touch on eventually but the one thought I have been unable to shake over the last few weeks since the Liberals announced their additional forced CPP contributions;

What happens when someone with a fully paid CPP passes away?

At present if I were to pass away my spouse would be fully entitled to any savings and investments that I had accumulated to date outside the scope of the CPP;

With the CPP as written the "Surviving Spouse" at 65 is entitled to "60 per cent of the contributor's retirement pension, if the surviving spouse or common-law partner is not receiving other CPP benefits"

http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca.....sion.shtml

It’s a very interesting potential cash windfall for a Liberal Government, as I am required to pay into the program but there is no guarantee I will or my family will ever even see a dollar of it? 

With all the retirement tools available to Canadians be it the tax delaying RRSPs or the tax avoiding TFSA I am puzzled as to why the Liberals who are seemingly concerned with the well-being of folks in their retirement years wouldn’t simply force us to utilize an existing program which would assure we actually get to keep the money we pay in?  

It would be interesting to see how many Canadians over the last decade would have been screw out of their Federal Pension based on the conditions associated with passing it onto their spouse or family.

The Political Theater that is Ontario

What bothered me most about Michael Ignatieff was his attempt to show us just how smart he was. The dissolve of Parliament prior to the 2011 Federal Election is a primary example of that. 

It wasn’t enough to simply have a motion of non-confidence it had to be something historic, a government falling to a contempt of Parliament motion, the Liberals using their leverage allowing the Speaker of the House to set the table and then creating a situation where Ignatieff could do something that had never occurred in the history of Parliamentary Democracy. 

This was followed by Ignatieff making another kind of history on election night, but I digress. 

Ontario has rapidly entered into the same sort of theater that had me rolling my eyes federally a few years ago. 

Contempt of Parliament has once again reared its head, and the word “Prorogue” which the media had seemingly never heard of in 2008 is now commonplace and “within the right of the Premier”.  (Amazing how the folks in the media have become Constitutional Scholars all of a sudden)

However I bore of the opposition’s tact. 

Hudak wrote a stern letter, and Horwath seems to be thumbing her nose at the Premier. 

All this conversation about accountability and investigation and scandal. 

The reality is that no proper investigation can be conducted from the opposition bench, you can hold a “political trial” and win in the court of public opinion but the reality is without the strength that being on the government side of the aisle brings with it this becomes nothing more the bad political theater. 

McGuinty has Prorogued Parliament hoping that the memories of Ontario voters are short and will fixate on something else, whereas the opposition is yet to use the term I demand to hear

“Non-Confidence”

This is very simple, Ontario voters’ wants answers the only way they will get answers is if the opposition in some form takes control of government. 

This is one of those rare times where the PC’s and NDPers have a common goal. 

Hudak and Horwath need to share a stage and agree on a singular matter.

That for the former Premier and his government to be held accountable there needs to be an election where the voters of Ontario decide how they want to move forward. 

Regardless of the outcome of the next few weeks there needs to be a clear understanding from both opposition leaders that the 40^th Legislative Assembly of Ontario is over, and that the Premier has left them no alternative but to vote no confidence in this government as its clear by the Premier stepping down he also lacks the confidence in his own government. 

There must be a clear line in the sand drawn. 

However both the PC’s and NDP are posturing and attempting to lap up support when they should be doing everything they can to get back to work and the only way to do that and investigate the government is with the strength an election will bring. 

Anything short of an election is conversation and a waste of time and energy.

Dalton McGuinty: The Single Greatest Threat to a 2015 Harper Majority

While Tories and New Democrats rejoice at the resignation of Dalton McGuinty, I look at it in an entirely different light. 

While we can all argue McGuinty’s current level of unpopularity the reality is that voters in Ontario have the memories of goldfish and in a Federal Liberal capacity he wouldn’t need to face the electorate till October 2015 anyway. 

Even at his lowest as Premier he still secured basically 38% of the popular vote in 2011, and that is higher than the Federal Liberals have secured in Ontario since Paul Martin in 2006 (39%).

He is also still popular in the 905 belt, which is the same region that gave Harper his majority in 2011. 

The beauty of Harper’s victories has been in its simplicity. 

If you look at polling from January 23^rd 2006 till now the one thing you see very very rarely (4 times in nearly seven years IIRC) is the Conservative Party of Canada sub 30% nationally. 

As Paul Martin left, and the federal Liberals made a mad dash to the left it has resulted in 30% of Canadians with no real alternative, Harper is the option on the center-right. 

Which really means that all Harper needs to do in order to win is secure 7 – 10% of the remaining 70% and he can govern as long as he pleases. As no one else federally has expressed any interest in that 30%. 

2011 brought another dynamic to the game, Quebec ceased to be politically necessary and with the passage of the Fair Representation Act became less so. 

The NDP could have secured all 75 seats in Quebec and the Tories would still have a majority. 

As long as the Liberals/NDP/Bloc/GPC all whacked each other over the heads to secure the 70% of the overall vote (including Quebec) the CPC was free to kick back and campaign almost exclusively to Ontario and its social liberal/fiscal conservative suburban voter. 

A Justin Trudeau led Liberal Party of Canada does nothing to change that dynamic; Quebec becomes the battleground as the BQ attempts to win back its ridings, the NDP look to maintain their ridings, and the Liberals look to add soft support and gain ridings. 

Basically it leads to a 2015 battle for 78 irrelevant seats garnering an epic political battle of which the winner goes the silver medal and the “privilege” of being able to sit as the official opposition in a Harper majority, as Harper sits back and campaigns to the 10%. 

It is as I have stated for months the easiest path of rebuild for the Liberals.

The problem with Quebec is their voters are manic who then become apathetic the second you do something they are not in favor of, and watching Thomas Mulcair beg to retain Quebec support at the risk of alienating every other NDP voter in Canada makes me wonder if the Liberals want to build their stronghold on sand, or in Quebec’s case quicksand. 

Dalton McGuinty changes that dynamic. 

He has won three straight elections in a Province that Blue Provincially from 1945 – 1985 and again from 1995 to 2003. 

I would imagine he instantly sucks the air out of Peel Region for the Tories; and at least allows for the Liberals to make significant gains in all 905 seats, and with 15 seats being added in Ontario and many of them likely in that region. That is bad news for the CPC as that’s the region that went blue in 2011 resulting in a CPC majority. 

This forces Harper to all of a sudden care about Quebec again, and caring about Quebec has been the undoing of far too many politicians in Canada. 

The other issue with McGuinty is that he is already defined in the minds of most Ontario voters, we know he is a lying, deceptive, scumbag but one who was re-elected twice when we already knew he was a lying, deceptive, scumbag.

This makes “defining” him a little more complicated in Ontario, and definition has been the single greatest asset the Tories and their war chest has provided against Liberal Party leaders. 

While I certainly think he can be beaten; it makes the path to a 2015 victory a lot more complicated than running against nearly anyone else who has been rumoured for the job.

Now Everyone Try and Act Surprised…

The first Quebec NDP MP has gone running for the hills!

71 year old first time NDP MP Lise St-Denis has announced while flanked by Bob Rae and Denis Coderre that she was leaving the NDP and joining the Liberal Party of Canada

Her explanations were colourful:

"I wasn't named a critic and I was sat in the back row because of my last name, which starts with S, so I had lots of time to look and listen to everyone,"

Asked about voters in her riding and whether they voted for the NDP or for her, St-Denis said simply "They voted for Jack Layton, but Jack Layton is dead."

Thanks to CBC for the quotes found here

Let’s be realistic;

The NDP walked into the 2011 election polling at by some estimation (Nanos April 8th) around 13% and they finished with 30% completing one of the most impressive and entertaining rises in political history while the Bloc and Liberals enjoyed one of the most tragic falls in political history.

With all that said;
The “love in” wasn’t going to last forever.

While many on the Liberal side of the fence will argue that Ms. St-Denis is 71 and this is about a genuine desire to join a renewed party and has nothing to do with her seeking re-election at the age of 75, the reality is that we just spent the last two weeks fighting over if Irwin Cotler who is also 71 years old was a fair target to assume would retire before the end of his mandate, so its not that unreasonable to assume she may very well be seeking re-election and even if not I would be interested to see where she lands afterward in terms of position.

The NDP by some estimation has fallen around 15% from their peak within Quebec, and the Bloc seems to be rapidly filling that vacuum, there just isn’t a lot of positive news if you are an NDP MP in Quebec.

We knew sooner or later one of them was going to cross, it wasn’t a matter of if but simply when, the NDP rose too quickly and was bound to come down a little bit within Quebec sooner or later, I assumed the first MP to jump would have come a lot later maybe after the NDP lost its lead in Quebec however while the timing may be a surprise the fact that it happened shouldn’t be.

For the Conservatives;
This is simply Christmas coming a few weeks late.

The NDP nominated a no-one to go toe to toe with a potential Liberal Party rockstar in the Toronto-Danforth by-election and now a New Democrat has crossed the floor to join the Liberals (What I suspect will not be the last)

I expect blows to come between both opposition parties for the next few weeks, and a battle of public relations fought in the media over who is truly the party to “stop” Harper.

With the loss of Ms. St-Denis and the Toronto-Danforth By-Election coming it could very much cause some panic within the ranks of the NDP which could very well shake a few more MP’s loose.

However it’s all gravy for the CPC.

A civil war on the left is exactly what is needed for the CPC to enjoy the same sort of unfiltered ease of electability the Liberals enjoyed when the right was turned in on itself from 1993 – 2004.

Who is talking about the Conservative Senators who just further stacked the Senate in the Conservatives favor for years to come?

No one.

The NDP and Liberals are going to be clubbing each other over the head for weeks over this floor cross, and then I suspect for the month after over the Toronto-Danforth by-election.

I have to wonder how big the smile on Stephen Harper’s face was this morning when he heard the news?

When will we hold the NDP to a higher Standard?

I am glutton for outragous-ness.
From time to time I get a rise out of reading the CBC comments section within their news articles.

As I am sure most readers know;
Our friend NDP MP Pat Martin dropped the "F-Bomb" on a twitter poster pertaining to the Government

He stated:
“This is a f—ing disgrace … closure again. And on the Budget! There’s not a democracy in the world that would tolerate this jackboot s—,”

This is from a Member of Parliament who was elected in 1997, and has been collected a paycheque from the taxpayer for roughly 14 years.

I am not offended by swearing, I do so daily.
However I once again find this situation as the Canadian media not holding the NDP to the same level of scrutiny as the Conservatives or Liberals.

Had John MacKay or Peter Van Loan made similar comments there would be cries from the NDP that they should resign or publicly apologize.

However with the NDP the most common response I get is "Its Pat Martin, what do you expect, he is a spirited guy"

Stockwell Day was a "spirited guy" and I don't think we would have given him the same "meh" reaction had he dropped an F bomb in regards to the Liberals passing legislation in the same manner when they had a majority government.

It appears that the public doesn't quite take the NDP seriously yet;
They still get the treatment as though they are the same 3rd opposition party with 19 seats as they were in 2004.

However if the voting public and the media don't hold them to the same standard, and don't take them as seriously as the Tories and Liberals,

Then I have to ask;
Why should the Conservatives?

Why the Liberal Party of Canada doesn’t get it

If I were asked why the Liberal Party of Canada is in the hole they are in now; I think the best word I could use to explain it would be “pride”.

The Liberal Party of Canada never really adjusted to the new political realities of 2003 when the Conservative Party of Canada was born, and nearly six years after being ousted from power they still seem to be struggling to adjust.

Sheila Copps in an interview with CBC stated that she felt that Bob Rae should be allowed to run for leader of the Federal Liberals.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/09/07/pol-liberals-sheila-copps.html

Even though Rae’s leadership index scores are lower then Michael Ignatieff’s.

Source: http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/2011-07-LeadershipE.pdf

We all remember Iggy right? You know, the guy who made John Turner look like a political genius in comparison.

Basically we find ourselves in a situation where Legacy Liberals are still pushing for Rae even though this guy is less popular then the guy they just ran out of the party on a rail for not being popular.

There are times where watching the Liberal Party “high ups” talk politics seems more like a Monty Python parody then it does reality. I cannot wrap my head around folks who seem to be so smart, can be so out of touch with any sort of political reality.

However despite all the missteps and mistakes; the Liberals seem to only be surviving on the mistakes of the NDP.

I look at a guy like Thomas Mulcair as a potential NDP leader who could suck the air out of whatever is left of the Liberal base; however I find some New Democrats referring him as a “Grapefruit” basically Orange on the Outside, Red on the Inside.

Let’s set aside the fact that nearly any new support the NDP found themselves with outside of Quebec since 2004 has come almost exclusively from former Liberal supporters, and now those folks who propelled them to respectability are somehow “bad”.

However if the NDP bungles their leadership race; it would open the door for the Liberals to potentially win back at least in part some of their original powerbase in Ontario, yet even though that potential exists there is an internal interest in making Bob Rae the leader of the party; perhaps the most unpopular man in Ontario politics.

I can’t even begin to wrap my head around the conservation that takes place at Liberal HQ that somehow lead themselves to believe that this is a good idea.

Or for that matter why waiting till two years before the next election is a good idea to select a new leader rather then doing it now and giving this party some direction.

This logic that it will give the Liberals more time to fundraise so they can fight off the attack ads defining their leader for the Tories is interesting; however the Tories could stop fundraising today, and I suspect they would still be in better shape then the Liberals in 2013.

My solution would be to elect a leader who already has definition;
However that seems too simple.

Will Obama Avoid the Need to Electioneer with the Jobs Bill?

Since President Obama made the announcement that some sort of action would be taken on job creation in September and the slight details being leaked every day or so by the democrats I have wondered something.

President Obama’s approval rating is in the toilet, its hard to argue that and even most Democrats have simply resorted to shrugging and saying something to the effect of “the election is a long way off”

Getting a second term as President is not rocket science, only 12 Presidents who served out their first term and ran for a second term failed to do so.

In the case of the Democrats and President Obama the opportunity these had was rare. When the President was sworn in; he was sworn in along side a super majority in the House and the Senate.

The Republicans didn’t need to be consulted to pass legislation let alone need to vote for it, it was as close to an absolute majority as can be granted within the American system of government.

The opportunity to show the American people an uncompromised Democratic vision of what the United States can become without any obstruction or compromise.

Being able to run for re-election on your record is the surest way to victory, if your record isn’t great is to rely on rhetoric and dogma in a hope to punch the other guy out.

My fear now is that this jobs bill is nothing more then a means to attempt to “shame” Republicans.

A big spending, no impact, no rationale, plan which the Democrats will table solely for the purpose of the Republicans voting against it.

More bad legislation and political chess playing at the expense of the American people.

A move solely to allow for a colorful attack ad claiming the Republicans are hindering job creation, more wasted time, more faux action, no results.

I am not giving the Republicans a free pass in terms of “political gaming” however I am concerned that the loss that was painted on the Democrats by the media over the debt ceiling will be avenged by the party brass with this potentially faux legislation.

I hope I am wrong, I hope it’s more then a paper bill tabled to be voted against for the purpose of 2012, but I am not hopeful.

The Plight of the Liberal Party

For every increasing loss the Liberals suffered in every election from 2004 till 2011 there seems to be a recurring theme.

There is always an excuse that points any blame away from the fact that Liberal voters actually showed up on Election Day and voted for the Tories.

“Liberal voters just didn’t show up on election day”

In 2008, I simply had to give it to them. They just looked so sad and it was hard to argue with voter turn out being around 58.8%.

Yet when we get to 2011 the common cries I seem to hear are:

“Liberal voters didn’t show up or the NDP split our vote”

With voter turn out in 2011 higher then 2004, 2008, and even the pre-adjusted 2000 numbers its hard to argue that folks who have gone to the ballot box ever so loyally on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada were not out on Election Day 2011.

Those Jean Chretien loyalists were out and voting, the question is who did they vote for?

The easiest answer for the Liberals to swallow is that they “loaned” their vote to the NDP, and at first glace the increase in support for the NDP in many ridings the Liberal routinely dominated in the past could hold some water.

However upon closer inspection, that appears to not be the case.

Mississauga/Brampton was perhaps the last Suburban Stronghold the Liberals had left walking into 2011 the Liberals had secured 7/8 of those ridings in 2008, and the one that they had lost they lost by a few hundred votes.

In 2011 all eight ridings went Conservative,

The trouble for the “NDP split the vote argument” is that in many of the these ridings the Conservatives won by margins higher then even the Liberals enjoyed during their routine domination of these ridings.

Mississauga-Erindale was retained with 29,793 votes;
This was the highest amount of support ever given to a winning candidate in that riding.

In 2004 Carolyn Parrish won it with 28,246 votes and that was the previous high.

Mississauga South that had been represented by Paul Szabo since 1993 was won by Stella Ambler who secured 22,991 votes and won by more then 4000 votes over Szabo .

To put this into perspective;
Ambler won the riding with more votes then Szabo had retained the riding in any of the 2008, 2006, 2000, 1997, and 1993 elections respectively (Szabo secured 24,628 votes in 2004)

Brampton West saw Kyle Seeback elected with the most votes in that ridings history, same for Brampton-Springdale.

In Bramalea-Gore-Malton the Liberals found themselves in third place behind the Tories and NDP; even though Former MP Gurbax Singh Malhi had been in power since 1993.

This doesn’t appear to be an issue of voters staying home, or the New Democrats “stealing” Liberal votes, but simply a situation where regions overwhelmingly decided to reject the Liberals.

Even looking into Toronto Proper this is a trend that seems to repeat.
Joe Volpe had been in power since 1988 this is a riding that had been Liberal since its creation in 1979 and it went Tory by more then 4000 votes.

It appears that former Liberal voters gave up on waiting for the “old” party to return.

Holding off on a leadership race till 2013 certainly doesn’t help the Liberals in their attempt to “re-brand” themselves.

Leader X will have less time, money, and incumbent MP’s then either Dion or Ignatieff did when they attempted to defeat the Conservatives.

It’s clear the Liberals need to rebuild a powerbase;
The question simply becomes given their plight? Where do they even begin?

Will the NDP end up like the Social Credit Party

As I sat back and look over the political landscape that has been born from this election I have to ask myself if history will repeat itself once again.

If political leaders have learnt anything within Canada’s political history it’s simply that balancing the needs of Quebec and the needs of Canada are normally something that results in the destruction of your political legacy.

While pointing at Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives are the easy example, they put themselves in the position to destroy themselves by wading into the Constitution, something the NDP as the official opposition will have little opportunity to do.

However as I look at Jack Layton and his caucus of 44 non-Quebec MP’s and then I watch Thomas Mulcair soak up airtime like he needs to live promoting the 59 MP Quebec caucus, I can’t help but make the comparison…

Is Jack Layton simply the 21st century version of R.N. Thompson, and Mulcair simply his Réal Caouette?

While it’s easy to bask in the success of the NDP’s victories on May 2nd, it also results in us ignoring a few interesting facts,

The NDP caucus was made up of 35 non Quebec MP’s when the election writ was dropped, and on the day of the election the NDP found itself with a non Quebec caucus of 44 an increase of 9 MP’s.

Six of whom all came from Toronto.

What this means is that when we back out Quebec and the 416 we have a three seat increase across the balance of Canada.

Quebec delivered the overwhelming majority of growth at the expense of largely the BQ but the Liberals and Conservatives as well.

However the NDP was largely ineffective against the Conservatives across the country where they need to grow if they want to govern.

The Quebec NDP delivered, the rest of Canada did not.

Much as was the case during the 1963 election.

The Social Credit Party was lead by RN Thompson whose seat was in Red Deer, they found themselves winning 24 seats with 20 of them elected in Quebec.

Within Six Months the Ralliement Créditiste was born and Thompson was left to watch over a handful of Social Credit MP’s while Real Caouette led the balance.
I have to wonder how long Quebec NDP MP’s will take their marching orders from a leader in Toronto.
The Quebec caucus of the NDP could break away from the New Democrats and still be the official opposition expect would not need to compromise in order to placate the balance of NDP MP’s scattered across the country.
If the Bloc finds itself with officially party status, how long before a piece of legislation is tabled that divides the NDP?
It’s going to be an interesting few years.

Canada needs its own “Bob Rae”

As I watch the support of Jack Layton and the NDP rise in Ontario I am reminded that kids born in 1993 are now of voting age, I had a conversation about Bob Rae with a 22 year old the other day and he simply scratched his head and said “Isn’t he the Liberal guy”.

I can’t blame him; he never experienced Rae Day’s or the “Social Contract” he was six years old when Rae was voted out of power and the NDP Provincially became essentially a fringe party for nearly the next two decades.

As I watch the Liberals and the Conservative’s attack Layton for his policies and his platform in the midst of the rising wave and I am reminded about 1990.

Bob Rae is a good politician; I have no issue conceding that.
The problem in 1990 was that the NDP platform was an opposition platform, it appeared that David Peterson may find himself in a minority government, and much like 1985 the NDP prepared itself to prop up a Liberal government while shaking the Liberals down for a few treats for its supporters.

It was not a platform meant for governance; nor were an overwhelming amount of NDP candidates who ran in ridings the NDP never won prior and never won since expecting to become MPP’s.

We found ourselves in a situation with a leader who was never expecting to be Premier of Ontario, and a caucus full of people who were simply not expecting to be MPP’s on September 7th.

As I watch Jack Layton rise in the polls I am not as fearful as many of the other Tories or even Liberals or Bloc supporters.

If ever there was an election to be won by the NDP it’s this one.
The platform is 28 pages, many of those pages contain pictures of Jack Layton, and we have already started seeing them acknowledge that some of the promises they made that they may actually be expected to keep were not realistic.

An NDP victory is bad for Canada today; but good for Canada moving forward.

A prepared NDP with a charismatic leader like Jack Layton could fortify the left in a way in which we have never seen in this nation. However we are about to send 40+ NDP candidates from Quebec to Ottawa who didn’t think they had a snowballs chance of winning when this writ was dropped and that is ultimately where the downfall will be, just as it was with Rae.

The Conservative’s biggest folly by miles was continuing to attack Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals when it was clear they were toast.

The last week of this election should have been about a choice;

Bob Rae’s Ontario Vs. Stephen Harper’s Canada.

A man unprepared to govern Vs. that of one who has.

The devil you don’t know Vs. the one you do.

However instead we sit back and watch the NDP creep up in Ontario as a decades worth of voters have no memory of the NDP’s record in Ontario,

We watch history repeat.

I think Jack Layton in the context of a minority government leader is a good thing;
I think a Toronto politician on the national stage harms the left far more then it helps it.

David Miller salted the earth for Joe Pantalone
Bob Rae salted the earth for Howard Hampton

Now perhaps its time for Jack Layton to do the same.

I want Canada to have leader that I can point to for the next 20 years like I have been able to with Rae in Ontario.

Jack Layton appears to be granting me that wish.

Don’t you love the smell of an election in the morning?

Its budget day;
I find myself clicking refresh on any number of different news and political websites hoping to get some new information that will let us know if we will be heading to the polls in May or not.

People keep asking if I think there will be an election, and had you asked me last week I would have chuckled and said not unless the opposition wants to give the Conservatives a majority.

Today I still feel that even at 38% or so, if the double digit lead the Conservatives hold over the Liberals in Ontario is correct that will be enough to generate the seats required for the Tories to pull a 1997 and find themselves with a thin majority.

The question is why would the opposition want to allow this?

The answer I think is pretty simple;
If you are the BQ, there is a very real possibility that your leader who is the only real face of the party will be moving to Provincial pastures within the next 12-18 months and you are better off contesting an election with him, then having a bitter leadership race which may very well result in a leader Quebeckers are generally apathetic to.

Duceppe is a known commodity good for a 45 seat pop.

The balance of the Commons is when it becomes a bit more hazy.

For the Liberals, as I have said for the last two years this is a party that needs four years in opposition to rebuild themselves. They don’t have the leader, support, will, or money to be in this constant state of election campaigning that a minority government provides.

This is a party that’s has problems that do not simply span from who the leader is, but simply a party that lacks direction or any identity. If you took the logos off the 2004, 2006, and 2008 Liberal Platforms someone with no knowledge of Canadian politics would be hard-pressed to assume they came from the same party.

They need direction and they need an end to infighting.
This is something that will not get done in the context of a minority government.

However I think there is just too much pride at stake for that to ever happen.

Yet we find ourselves with the Liberals polling somewhere between 23-27% nationally and a fairly consistent double digit gap between them and the Conservatives in Ontario.

Voting down this budget, or taking down the government on whatever ethical grounds they feel they may be going to the polls over seems more a leap of pride then of any real political strategy.

The Liberals needs to make fairly substantial gains to be anywhere near a position to consider forming a government.

The idea of walking into an election hoping that Canadians will value correct use of letterhead over the recovery of the economy is a stretch, yet its why we seem to find ourselves potentially at the polls.

I think the Liberals have just gone too far this time, its gone past the point of “Mr. Harper your time is up” and the Liberals almost have to go to the polls because abstaining from this budget will kill what’s left of their creditability.

Now we come to the NDP.
A party that wanted four very low cost concessions for their potential support.

A far cry from the billions of dollars they demanded from Paul Martin’s Liberals in 2005.

The Conservatives have countered with agreeing to two of the least left of center and low cost requests.

I have no idea how to even begin to gauge NDP support.
Polling has them at a support level that may cost them 15-20 seats then the next poll has them adding a couple.

However can the NDP really pass a budget with Corporate Tax Cuts?
I just don’t see it.

What I find all the more puzzling is that it appears that Thomas Mulcair seems to be the one rattling the saber to go to an election (at least by some online reports which we can very well take with a grain of salt)

Mulcair is perhaps the second most known commodity within the party,
And while he may very well be doing wonders within the party, I find it highly unlikely that he will be able to retain Outremont with Martin Cauchon running for the Liberals.

It’s not a slight at Mulcair, it’s simply a political reality of Quebec.

Outremont is a Liberal Stronghold, Mulcair was a Liberal Cabinet Minister in the Provincial Liberal Government, however he has hardly beat anyone of note in either election he has won, and now he faces a real honest to goodness and very personally popular Liberal.

I can see why the NDP may vote down the budget, but I just don’t see why many of them would be smiling while they do.

I guess we will find out shortly.

A By-Election Reality Check

As I watched what appeared to be a panicked Stephen LeDrew on CP24 ask anyone who would accept a microphone in their face if they considered a potential Fantino victory in Vaughan to be a “Fantino Victory” or a “Conservative Victory” I knew that the spin was going to be in full effect on Tuesday regardless of the result.

I like Stephen LeDrew, however when it comes to him reporting on politics it’s hard for me to forget for a moment that he was President of the Liberal Party of Canada for many years, and his coverage of the Vaughan By-Election was just another reminder.

Perhaps I am naïve, but any victory regardless of whom the victory is attributed to that adds another seat to the government side of the aisle is a Conservative Victory.

I found it very confusing and odd that Liberal strategist spent the better part of Tuesday mocking the small margin of victory that Fantino enjoyed in Vaughan, and that left me scratching my head.

Vaughan was pretty well the safest non-416 or 514 riding the Liberals have, it was a riding that the leader of the party could stop into once on his way to a battleground riding knowing that it was in the bag, the sort of ridings that parties that hope to govern need.

It has been won by the Liberals with 50-60% of the popular vote since the merger of the two Conservative Parties. Perhaps once again I am naïve but when you win a riding that is considered to be a Liberal Stronghold by even a single vote that is considered a huge victory, especially considering that Vaughan wouldn’t have normally entered the discussion for the potential top 50 ridings the CPC would be targeting in the context of an election.

What is also interesting is that in what is about as close to a head to head Liberal and Conservative battle (as the NDP was a non-factor) the Liberals still lost, and that really does take away much of the creditability associated with the argument that the NDP is stealing the Liberals votes.

In a head to head battle between the Tories and the Liberals,
New Democrats stay home.

On October 15th 2008 the Conservative Party of Canada was 12 seats away from a majority government; since that time they have added 3 Conservative MP’s at the expense of the opposition side of the floor in by-elections

I think most Conservative supporters could easily list off the 9 or 10 ridings needed for a majority which could very easily go blue in the next election; I would be interested to see if Liberal supporters can list off the 70+ seats they need.

Now of course as is always the case after by-elections we hear every analysis defending their party of choice with the words “Voter Turnout”.

Well my friends let be very clear,
Voter Turnout excuses are the mating call of the loser.

Where was the discussion of voter turnout when the Liberals retained a pair of ridings with less then 30% voter turnout in 2008?

Wasn’t a factor, because the Liberals won.

Willowdale was retained in by-election by the Liberals with 24.4% voter turnout, and they had no issue retaining the seat in an election later that year.

As a matter of fact, every single riding that has been won in a by-election since 2004 by a party has retained that riding in the next general election.

The Liberals winning Winnipeg North may have changed the story, but it doesn’t change the political reality the Liberals are facing.

They had an easy and safe riding in the 905 belt;
They lost it because the Conservatives were able to run the right candidate. The Conservatives are also +3 (having won 4 of 7) in By-Elections whereas the Bloc is -1, the NDP is -1, and the Liberals are sitting at neutral.

If the Liberals cannot pull out a victory in a riding that Paul Martin and Stephane Dion where able to retain by simply flying over it on the way to other ridings during General Elections in a by-election where all they needed to do was focus on three ridings,

What’s going to happen under this leader when the Liberals who are 1/7 under Iggy have to contest 308 ridings at once?

Sorry Jack, The Trap Wasn’t Meant For You…

Within this very blog I have praised Jack Layton for his leadership of the NDP since 2003. While I may not agree with his policies or stances more often then not I can respect someone who has been so successful within the political arena.

Only the Conservatives and the NDP have seen consistent growth in terms of seats and popular vote since the 2004 election.

The NDP in 2004 was a party of cities, Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, Halifax, Winnipeg, and Vancouver with a few sprinkles of rural and suburban ridings mixed into the equation. They were a party of 19 seats.

As of the 2008 election the NDP was a party of 37 seats. (36 currently due to the current vacant state of Winnipeg North) Where has this growth come from?

We often hear about the great growth in Ontario and the nearly legendary tale of Thomas Mulcair winning an honest to goodness seat for the NDP in the 514. What we don’t seem to hear about is Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Kapuskasing, Timmins, Northern British Columbia, Newfoundland, Northern Canada.

These are the areas that have vaulted in NDP from a party of 19 seats to one of 37.

Early this week an Ipsos poll was released that showed NDP support had fallen to 12% nationally. I am of the mindset that one poll can be wrong, or that one pollster can have a method of data collection that at some times can show either unrealistic drops or gains to particular parties so I didn’t think much of it.

However today’s EKO’s poll shows there may very well be some reality in that 12% as they have shown the NDP support to be @ 13.5%.

What I find off however is how this is being reported, an implication that the drop in support is due to Jack Layton allowing a free vote among his MP’s as it pertained to the long gun registry and how that somehow alienated urban voters?

I hate to say it;
But when it comes to the long gun registry urban voters don’t really give a poop. I mean they do, any issue where you can stick it to Harper is painted as a life and death struggle to snatch away power from the evil right wing overlord currently running the country…

However, the importance of that struggle only lasts a newscycle.
The Liberals threw a party to celebrate that Micheal Ignatieff was able to whip his MP’s into voting party lines and for once the entire party actually listened, heck they should have thrown a parade.

Yet no one in Urban Canada cares anymore, the vote is over, the registry is saved, and now they can fake outrage over the next “evil” Conservative plot.

However, in rural Canada where this issue actually affects the day to day lives of those Canadians they have had it.

The Conservatives had promised to do something about this long gun registry since 2003, and when they finally got into power in 2006 it only took them about 3 and a half years but FINALLY the time had come to get rid of this utterly useless long gun registry once and for all.

The NDP’s growth in Rural Canada came from a very simple principal from the old CCF, and that is respect your constituents wishes and represent them when you take your seat in Ottawa.

When a series of rural NDP MP’s opted to change their vote as it pertained to getting rid of the long gun registry all it did was reinforce a mentality that the NDP is run by the 416 for the 416.

I don’t envy Jack Layton,

The Conservative’s baited a trap for the Liberals, and sadly it was the NDP that got caught within it.

Should be interesting to see how Mr. Layton will attempt to get out of this one.