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.