New Canadian Opinion Poll (SOM) - Liberals massive lead, NDP 2nd - CBC

Harper is favourite to win United Right leadership
Liberals - 57.5%
NDP - 17.5%
United Right - 12.6%
Bloc - 8.8%

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/12/02/cbc_poll031202

I'm sort of up on the PC - Alliance proposed merger.

My Canadian boyfriend is telling me that there's a slew of Alliance party members obtaining PC memberships...right before the merger.

Sounds like there's a real possiblity this merger may happen. Although, it also sounds like Peter MacKay is committing political suicide doing this.

Doug, my b/f, is involved with the PC...with David Orchard's movement. Doug says that there's a good chance a new party could be formed in the aftermath of this debacle.

Not sure what Mackay gets from it. Stephen Harper will be leader.

MacKay broke faith with him on merger talks. His delegates accounted for 1/4 to 1/3 of the total at the leadership convention, And his supporters' political philosophy makes it very unlikely they'll stick with a united right dominated by the Alliance.

It could mean a new party - remember Mel Hurtig's anti-free trade National Party? - with some supporters bleeding away to the Liberals and the NDP.

I can't wait to see a "united right" steered by the likes of Harper. It'll be cherry picking for the left.

I've been keeping up a little on this:

I know Joe Clark is vehemently against this merger. As well as a lot of rank and file.

I don't know how someone like Scott Brison can stay in a new United Right party.

Just this American's opinion, but...it looks as though a new United Right party will be marginalized. How can it do well in the East, for instance?

I've never really understood why Joe was a Tory in the first place, he seems like a liberal to me, same goes for Brison and John Herron. They won't join the new party.

And its western base will be eroded by Martin's crossover appeal and an energized NDP. It won't be much more than an Alberta rump party.

The "unite the right" dream supposes that one right-wing party can pool Alliance/PC support. Wrong. Especially since this process is more like a hostile takeover by the far-right Alliance. There are many moderate Progressive Conservatives, even a "Red Tory" tradition, and if their party dissolves they would sooner go elsewhere.

ie PC plus CA equals more than the sum of their parts.
It's just as likely that 2+2=3, or even 2+2=2. This sort of simple political mathematics is too simplistic for reality.

that will guarantee that the new/old Alliance will remain in the toilet as far as the polls go. They can change their name, take over the Conservatives, etc, but they will still be a homophobic, anti-immigrant, right-wing party.

It's pretty crucial in terms of potential seats for the NDP. I assume a good deal of the growth has come from Ontario and BC.

It's heartening to see the NDP jump firmly into second spot, and pretty much what I'd been sensing.

Apparently, 87.4% of Canadians aren't mentally deranged. Thats a pretty respectable number!

is the state of their American model.

Harper and his followers are virtually embarassed that Canada is a sovereign nation, and hold that the closer we are to the United States, the better. That vision never had broad appeal, but the Bush years have done a lot to sour it further for most Canadians. Truth is, we're doing better than our neighbours, and we're proud of it. Better relations is one thing - Martin already owns that message - but giving away our birthright won't sell.

is actually progressive.

This is the time when you'd want to get something like a green party together that appeals to some of the sentiments that the far right fails to represent among working and middle class conservatives. Know what I mean?

though it's certainly not cultivated by the Liberals.

The NDP is a member party of the Socialist International, supported by organized labour and social activists. When the Alliance (formerly Reform) came along in the early '90s, it had a populist appeal in the West which cost the NDP much of its rural protest vote, particularly in BC. Hope finally the tide's beginning to turn back.

I don't know what the Liberals would stand to gain by cultivating a progressive opposition.

I think that the meaning was "liberals", not "Liberals". You know, that strange word that USAmericans use to describe good people or bad people, depending on their POV. ;)

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should cultivate an opposition they can live with. If they just act like a bunch of people taking advantage of their majority status, it just cultivates resentment and sooner or later the minority party will exploit that and be back in power.

The ideal political system is one that is narrowly divided, that goes back and forth, where both sides feel that they're very close to having power and are will to behave and work hard to represent the interests of 51% fo teh population. But, more important than a closely divided population, you have to have two parties which actually represent the interests of about 50% of the population. We don't have that in the US. The republicans represent about 1% of the population, but the media has convinced another 49% that their interests are the same as that top 1%.

If I were the leader of a party that had 66% of the electorate in a country where the opposition party was a bunch of dangerous fascists, I would pick an opposition party with which I was willing to deal (in the US, the Green Party, for example), and I'd do everything within my power to let out some of the air from my party, and make sure it went into building up the oppostion party in a way that took not only 15% from my party, but also say 20% from the RW parties, so that the fascists parties dropped all the way down to 5% or less. And I'd try to draw some of those Right wing constituents to my party too without compromising core liberal principles.

And I wouldn't be worried about eventually losing to that power, so long as the future promised trading power back and forth between that new, liberall opposition party.

Canada's second party is the NDP, which is to the left of the Liberals.

and then moving to the right in the sense that they take, say 2/3rds of the voters to the right for themselves, give 1/3 to the NDP, and then let maybe 1/4 of their own supporters go to the NDP?

I don't care where a party is on the spectrum. I just care that they're debating on a policy axis that makes sense to me.

For example, say Liberals used to debate with the right on whether or not the government should protect the environment (insert any policy debate here). Well, now that the RW parties are weak, the Liberals could start a debate on how much environomental protection Canada should have, and they could turn to the NDP for that debate. The ultimate compromise would be way farther to the left of what Liberal vs RW debate axis would have ended up with, and that would be good for society. The cost is that Liberals would start looking a little too conservative for some. But that's a small price to pay for serious social gain.

"And I'd try to draw some of those Right wing constituents to my party too without compromising core liberal principles."

It's that same old problem; thinking that Liberals are "liberals", and in fact have any "core liberal principles".

The Liberals are not particularly interested in defending "liberalism" against a fascist onslaught. They are interested in defending their hold on political power, and the economy, against all comers. Socially, they may look like and even be "liberals". Economically, they are right-wing, even though when seen from the USAmerican point on that spectrum they look rather charming.

A strong right-wing opposition is in the Liberals' interests, because it allows them to portray themselves as the party of Canadian social values, and siphon off the left-wing vote of people who are afraid of the right wing.

Just as the Liberals got my vote in the last provincial election, although I hold them in complete contempt and don't trust them an inch (and my distrust is of course being borne out by events since the election) -- another term of the ultra-right-wing Conservatives in Ontario was simply unthinkable, and my riding was not likely going to vote NDP with me, but it was possible that a tight three-way race could have gone to the Tory. Strategic voting, at its most nose-holding.

The dynamics of a genuine multi-party system really are different from the dynamics of an entrenched two-party system. Both parties and voters behave differently.

The Liberals were far less concerned about "trading power" back and forth with the old Progressive Conservative Party -- which is what happened in Canada's more distant past -- than they would be about losing it to a party like the NDP.

So their tactic is simply to incorporate as much NDP platform into their own as they need to at any given time, to attract votes from people voting against the right wing who would otherwise vote for the left wing. That was what they did in 1988 when they vowed to ditch the free trade agreement, and the NDP lost votes in droves to a party that was of course just lying to regain power.

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...see my last post about how I suspect a lot of Democrats don't mind trading power with Republicans.

That's why I think it would be helpful to build up this sentiment I'm trying to explain from the grassroots up that people should not only care about what their party is all about, but that people should care about what the opposition is all about. So, when you're in a position where you're getting over 60% fo the vote, you should start thinking about the things you can do to cultivate a different kind of opposition. I think the RW parties have been doing that for years. It's time for liberal parties to think about doing the same once they get the demographic edge.

A party that appeals to sentiments that the far right fails to represent among working and middle class conservatives?

Yup. It's called the New Democratic Party -- the NDP. ;) The one that's second in the polls right now. The one that is composed of social democrats, democratic socialists, progressives (in the real sense) -- not "liberals"!

Nasty right-wingism among the working and middle classes -- voters for Mike Harris's Tories in Ontario, and the Alliance elsewhere -- is a pretty new and essentially rootless phenomenon up here. And one destined for the dustbins of history, one predicts hopefully.


Note to us Canadians: Ed Broadbent is to announce by mid-December whether he plans to seek the nomination for the federal by-election in Ottawa Centre, the seat now vacant as a result of the elevation of the filthy, stupid Mac Harb (long-time Liberal M.P.). Unfortunately, nice as it would be to have him, he's leaving the riding association in a bit of a lurch with his delayed decision. The Liberal will be Richard Mahoney, long-time president of the Liberal Party in Ontario and frequent panelist on TVO, quite a decent and "liberal" sort, but a big-time Paul Martin boy.

Ottawa Centre has a swing history -- for the NDP, Mike Cassidy provicially and federally, Evelyn Gigantes provincially, Marion Dewar as mayor (but she lost to Harb federally), and current Liberal MP, MPP and mayor. An NDP by-election win would be important for the party (and of course the country), and I think Ed would be the only hope to get it back this time. Cross your fingers!

Note to non-Canadians: Ed was the leader of the federal NDP from 1975 to 1979 -- a professor elected in Oshawa, a union town (autoworkers) -- whom large numbers of Canadians liked and respected enormously, even if they didn't vote for his party. He has since been doing international human rights work.


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and he's only two years older than Martin. Hope Layton has success recruiting a number of other star candidates.

(I think you meant to type that Ed was leader until 1989.)

You're right, I did -- went and looked up the exact dates, then typed "1979" instead of "1989".

Ed was of course shoulder to shoulder with Jack Layton during the NDP leadership campaign, so one assumes that Jack would want him in the House, even though it sounds like it might be awkward. Ex-leaders don't generally make a habit of sticking around when they're replaced, but in this instance Ed retired by choice and there have been intervening leaders.

I'm certainly not the biggest fan of the party's ... what's the word I want? The entrenched power-wielders, the party's right wing. Ed won the leadership in the first place because in 1975, "Canada wasn't ready" for a black, female party leader -- Rosemary Brown, who recently died, and would have been a fabulous leader. But if ya gotta be pragmatic, at least being NDP doesn't mean you have to hold your nose all the time. ;)

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he'd stepped down as leader. I don't think it would be awkward for Ed, particularly since he's been out for 15 years and supported Layton.

And you're right about Rosemary Brown. Wish she'd have made more of a contribution on the federal scene.

"Nasty right-wingism among the working and middle classes -- voters for Mike Harris's Tories in Ontario, and the Alliance elsewhere -- is a pretty new and essentially rootless phenomenon up here. And one destined for the dustbins of history, one predicts hopefully."

So rootless in fact, a few paranoids have thought that it might be a 'program' run out of somewhere?

In fact the only thing I thought Mulroney said that made sense was his keynote to the last PC convention?
He asked, "where did this come from?"...after all they HAD a Tory gov't dedicated to biz and free trade elected for two terms?

Old Conrad Black promoted the hell of it through his National Post and then up leaving the country was annoyed that Canada didn't have a healthy two-party system...he did his best to invent the New Alliance. Which brings up the point about how the old Reform under Manning was just gaining acceptance when 'factions' pulled it apart?

It never made sense...just a thought

It's the NDP.

as the legitimate voice of opposition.

So that they build up to 45-50%, even if it means Liberals drop down to 50-55%, so long as both the NDP and Liberals are drawing support from former constituents of the extreme RW parties.

if the ruling party was seen to be cultivating it.

There have been occasions when the Liberals and the NDP have allied to make a minority government work, but then so have Likud and Labor. When the accomodation to govern ends, the gloves come off.

And the choice of your opposition is designed as a way to define yourself.

Also, I'm not talking about meetings, and covert activity.

I'm talking about simply chosing what your issues are. Foreground issues you know will be resolved on the NDP-Liberal axis. Ignore all the issues that are left v. right., or at least, start arguing them on the NDP-Liberal axis.

You don't destroy the NDP's legitimacy by focusing on the issues that matter to the NDP.

Do you wait to see if society naturally evolves so that the left parties take over the whole spectrum?

James Brown said about celebrating in the endzone that you have to act like you've been there before. A party that gets 60% of the vote and then starts celebrating in the endzone is a party that is just inviting the public to resent it, and they'll resent it by voting back into part the far right wing parties who the percieve as the natural opposition to the liberal party.

That will happen again unless the government takes steps to cultivate an opposition party with which it wouldn't mind losing power to.

In the US, sometimes I think that thanks to our campaign finance system, some Democrats know that their big donors don't mind a world in which Democrats trade power with Republicans. I hate that world. I think that kind of world is so out of step with the best interests of 99% of Americans.

Know what I mean?

You have to pick your opposition and you have to make the fascists disappear.

"That will happen again unless the government takes steps to cultivate an opposition party with which it wouldn't mind losing power to."

You are assuming that the Liberal Party "wouldn't mind losing power to" the NDP. That is completely false, and based on a fundamental misapprehension of what the Liberal Party is.

Its name comes from long ago, when "liberal" meant what it means outside the US today, in economic terms: in favour of a "free" market, "free" trade, etc. etc. The Liberal Party was the capitalist-internationalist party, the Conservative Party was the capitalist-protectionist party.

The Liberals today hold to many principles that are "liberal" by USAmerican standards: the "liberal" position on various personal-freedom issues. Their actual commitment to the "liberal" position on those issues is suspect. They will abandon them in favour of retaining power and protecting the élite's economic interests, every time. Witness the retreat from drug-law "liberalization" in the face of US sabre-rattling.

With Jean Chrétien's protracted departure, you have been seeing an essentially personal drama being played out on a larger stage. The animus between Chrétien and Martin is personal, and whether any broad political conclusions can be drawn from Chrétien's recent acts is questionable. Yes, the Liberals kept us out of Iraq ... or, er, did WE keep the Liberals out of Iraq? Chrétien may have been the deciding factor there and in certain other matters, like same-sex marriage, but the mistake should not be made of inferring "Liberal" from "Chrétien".


"In the US, sometimes I think that thanks to our campaign finance system, some Democrats know that their big donors don't mind a world in which Democrats trade power with Republicans. I hate that world."

And that is the world that the Liberals would actually like to see -- a world without the NDP.

Except that the NDP does in fact provide a convenient place to "park" left-wing votes when they don't need them -- in times when they can pursue right-wing policies overtly, to get or keep right-wing votes, without worrying about losing elections to the left; and a place to siphon them from when they do need them -- when they need to present themselves as the bulwark against the right wing in order to remain in power.

So in that sense, the Liberals *do* "cultivate" the NDP. They use the NDP as a sort of cheap labour pool, which they can draw votes from and deposit them back in, as circumstances require or permit.

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I only ask you to consider it.

I'm not making predictions. I'm not even talking about the NDP specifically so much as I'm talking about what any party should do if confronted with the situation of a large majority and a very week RW.

I'm not so interested in whether this is likely to happen in Can., so much as I'm saying it would be best for everyone if it did happen.

The Chretien/Martin feud has been the political story here for years. It's a big enough tent it needn't look outside for credible rivals.

Our traditional right-wing party, the Progressive Conservatives, has had - at least federally - more in common with the DLC wing of the Democratic party than with the Republicans. Even Mulroney, as reviled as he is here, had what would be termed in the US a progressive social policy, and was a leading anti-apartheid figure.

The far-right Alliance, formerly Reform, splintered from the PCs in the late-80s/early '90s partly because their social conservatism was not represented in PC policy, but it won most of its appeal as a voice for Western Canadian alienation. At its height it barely registered east of Manitoba, and its base is shrinking. It will never crack Quebec, and without Quebec it will never govern.

perhaps you've already reached the position I imagine as the ideal (which I wish would happen in places like the US and the UK).

"powerful fascists". ;)

Read up on Paul Martin. The CBC did a good hatchet job a few months back; if only more Canadians watched the TV their tax dollars provide them with ...

http://www.cbc.ca/disclosure/archives/030401_csl/main.html

He's a millionaire who exploits third world labour and circumvents international law in his own interests -- and arguably influenced Canadian tax law for his own benefit when he was Minister of Finance. And it nauseates me that he will be my next Prime Minister.


Minstrel Boy has it right about the Liberal Party succeeding by making itself the "opposition".

I've recounted the tale of the dinner I had at the home of one of my best friends' new boyfriends. (We're all 50ish.) He's a Liberal backroom boy. He spent the evening trying to convince me and my two NDPer companions that we should join the Liberal Party in order to support Alan Rock, the "liberal" candidate for the leadership of the party at the time.

He was SO obviously a Martinite (although he would not declare), and this was SUCH a transparent ploy to co-opt REAL opposition by getting it into the fold, where it could be dealt with by neutralizing it, that we could barely eat for snorting.

I finally just made an impassioned speech about how it was time that Liberals acknowledged that the Liberal Party is not Canada, and how I really didn't give a shit who the leader of the Liberal Party was, that this was their problem and not mine.

Yes, in real life, they who elect the leader of the Liberal Party do elect the Prime Minister; that is the kind of power that the Liberal Party has right now -- that the rest of us need not even bother voting in an actual election at all, we should just let the Libs elect their leader and sit back and accept it.

But no, I am not going to take my dissent and hand it to them and let them cover it up in some flap of that tent -- or worse, hoist it up as a banner to show how Canadian, how inclusive, they are.

And no, we have *not* "reached the position <you> imagine as the ideal"! -- unless you really do regard the Liberals' economic policies in Canada as ideal, which I don't.

We have certainly reached a position that *Liberals* imagine to be ideal, though.

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Article headlined on Yahoo today describes the divide between Canada and the US. Interesting stuff.

Your sig reminds me of a Steely Dan song... what's that from, anyway?

or the poll was done only in Ontario......I can't read it now I have to go, I'll reads it when I get back

I doubt it was done across Canada. I may be wrong, but I don't see them getting such low numbers if the West was properly surveyed.

It is a Quebec based pollster of course.

"1501 répondants. Sa marge d'erreur est de 2,6%, 19 fois sur 20.
Au Québec, 400 personnes ont été interviewées."
http://radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Index/nouvelles/200312/01/013-sondage-SOM-SRC.shtml

400 respondants from Quebec out of 1501 sounds about right.

These breakdowns don't factor in the undecided voters:

Quebec:
Liberal 49%
BQ 33.2%
NDP 8%
United Right 4.1%

Ontario:
Liberal 63.7%
NDP 14.5%
United Right 11%

http://radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Index/nouvelles/200312/01/013-sondage-SOM-SRC.shtml

I don't think this poll is to accurate...wish it was though.

My French is ok, but not that good!

but we haven't seen the representative sizes of their samplings in provinces other than Quebec.

typical

Talked a bit about the concerns of Canadians too, 50 per cent have helathcare as martin's no 1 priority.

I want to knwo where this poll was conducted.

"I want to knwo where this poll was conducted."

Where do you *think* it was conducted??

SOM is a major polling firm. It was retained by Radio-Canada and the CBC to do the poll -- i.e. with those tax dollars. Who exactly might be trying to pull a fast one on whom here??

I couldn't get SOM's site to respond: http://www.som-inc.com
So I put the url in google's search box, and looked at the cached version.

Did the same for the English link I found: http://www.som-inc.com/SiteSOManglais/index_ang.htm

And then for the link to polls:
http://www.som-inc.com/SiteSOManglais/SondagesPublics%20-%20ang/sondagespublics_ang.html

SOM is one of the main polling firms in Quebec and, for this reason, our surveys are regularly reported on or published in the media. However, the results of most of our surveys are the property of the clients for whom they were conducted and can only be made public by these customers.

In this section, we present the detailed results of surveys published in the media. Keep an eye on this section as new surveys are added regularly.

No details of the poll in question seem to have been posted yet; I would imagine they will be. Print media reports might also contain more details, if SRC/CBC release them -- and I would certainly expect that they would, since they were paid for with public money.

400 of 1501 respondents were from Quebec -- as has been pointed out, that is proportionate to population. Is it reasonable to expect that all the others were from Ontario? There was "no mention of the west" in the *reports* about the poll that have been quoted -- these (early) reports are not the *poll*, obviously.

What I don't get is what is supposedly so spectacularly bizarre about the NDP having 17.5% of the vote. Here's good old Tory Jeffrey Simpson writing in the good old Tory Globe and Mail in 2001:

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.ArticleNews/relatedstories/gam/20011123/COSIMP23

In elections from 1972 to 1988, the NDP won 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the national vote, averaging just a shade under 18 per cent. In the past three elections, the NDP captured 9 per cent, 11 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively, for an average of just over 9 per cent. The latest Ipsos-Reid poll put the party at 9 per cent.

17.5% looks to be just about exactly where the party was 15 years ago -- and isn't it received wisdom these days that the Canadian electorate has swung back leftward?

And might that just not also mean that there isn't quite as much interest in protesting against all things Liberal -- by expressing Reform/Alliance support in polls -- as there was 10 years ago?

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I wanted to know if it was telephone polls or in the mall or whatever. ANd in what areas of the country.

And also the reform/alliance support just doesn't come from an anti-all things liberal attitude. If you are talking about the party. It's a generally more right wing area..if you honestly think that the alliance is only getting 12 per cent support I wish I lived in your world.

so I'd have to see more details from the pollsters about this.

to me. They poll badly on national polls given that Ontario and Quebec are the provinces with the largest population. Alliance is only a regional party, they are only in 4 provinces.

hang tight I'll find it

http://www.georgetown.edu/pdba/Elecdata/Canada/parl97.html

this shows the alliance at around 20 per cent...I don't know if they dipped seven per cent out west or not like this pollis indicating...but.....with martin coming in and all that ya never know

it was at 17%, then it dropped to 14% and now to 12. I suspect they will go between 10 and 14% for quite a while.

It will be interesting to see what they will garner in %votes in 04 given that the Conservatives received 18%. I suspect they may have a bump up from 20% to 25% but that's about it.

... that ALL Reform/Alliance votes were "anti-all things Liberal". However, some of them plainly have been: they are simply reactionary, protest votes looking for a home. And I doubt that there are as many people in that mood as there were 10 years ago. Many people really are not party stalwarts of *any* party, and think nothing of voting radically differently from one election to another, as a matter of mood more than anything else.

Here's an interesting summary of polling results just before the 2000 federal election, showing the kinds of variations that occur:

http://www.nupge.ca/news_2000/News%20Nov/n02no00c.htm

The "west" (even if we include Manitoba) accounts for about 30% of the population of Canada: http://www.canadainfolink.ca/charttwo.htm
And only Alberta is governed by a party that is part of this unite-the-right crap.

I don't find it at all surprising that *national averages* in poll results would not reflect strong support (for a particular party) that exists only in the west.

"if you honestly think that the alliance is only getting
12 per cent support I wish I lived in your world."

Well, in my corner of the world, it gets a lot less than that. Obviously, it gets more in other parts of it. It could get 50% support in Alberta (which it certainly doesn't) -- Alberta accounts for just under 10% of the population of Canada -- and that would still only give it 5% of the total national numbers in addition to anything it got elsewhere.

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where those votes are going...I can't see someone swing from Alliance to NDP just like that...so I assume it'll be all going to the Libs.

EDIT: I know what the poll suggest, but I mean I wonder how much of a difference it'll make in the election

a lot of Alliance - er, Reform - voters were initially disaffected New Democrats. The NDP won 19 BC ridings in 1988, many of them rural. In 1993 a lot of them went Reform, and it was because the NDP vote was swung by Manning's populist protest message.

I'm in Ontario, but isn't the right/left pendulum pretty much a fact of political life in BC?

Sorry didn't see this earlier...yeah it's kinda sad. You can always be sure of the big swing.

And c'mon, face it, Ontario counts big time. ;)

The Alliance had a moment of popularity among Ontario voters. Ontario elected Mike Harris twice, don't forget, and you don't get much more right-wing than that -- who needs Reform/Alliance, provincially, when you've got Mikey?

The votes didn't elect MPs -- first past the post and all that -- but they were there. The Alliance was ahead of the NDP in not a few ridings, I believe.

Here's an Environics poll from September 2002: http://erg.environics.net/news/default.asp?aID=494

It has the NDP at 16% and the Alliance at 18% -- down 8% from the 26% it got in the Nov 2000 election.

So yes, I'd say flash in the pan -- people who had traditionally voted Liberal switched to the Alliance in protest against something or other (and various things, of course) during the right-wing late years of the last century, and have now returned to their usual middling level of sanity and self-interest.

Remember, backing a winner is an important factor in Canadian politics, and one that the Liberals play for all it's worth. The Alliance/right wing have been made to look like big old losers ... well, they've certainly managed to contribute to that effort themselves. They do have their stalwarts -- the "social conservatives" (how I hate to see an honourable word like "conservative" applied to such people) and small-time right-wing fools (certain elements of the small business community, e.g.). But they can't hold onto protest votes, like those in Ontario really were, forever. Like, what's for those folks to protest about bloody Paul Martin??

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Being too sanguine, was I? Effete Central Canadian me.

Interesting analysis from Ipsos-Reid, pre-Nov. 2000 election, of polling results in Alberta:

http://www.ipsos-reid.com/media/dsp_displaypr_cdn.cfm?id_to_view=1102

National Liberal Strategy to Polarize Voters Galvanizes Support for CA (59%) and Liberals (26%), Leaving the PCs (7%) and NDP (5%) as “Also Rans”

The general theme referred to -- the Liberal strategy of polarization -- supports what I was saying about the Liberals positioning themselves on whatever side of the spectrum looks most likely to suck up the most votes at any given time. In this case, and generally, the winning strategy was/is to overstate the right-wing threat by attacking the right wing, and rallying lefter-wing voters to The Party.

Alberta's about the only place it doesn't seem to work. ;)

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So here's hoping.

but they have only broken out Quebec and Ontario.

I am basing my belief on these paragraphs:

Au Québec, les libéraux sont crédités de 49% des intentions de vote, le Bloc québécois de 33,2%, le NPD de 8% et la droite unie de 4,1%.

Partout au Canada, 51,4% des personnes interrogées pensent que la priorité de Paul Martin devrait être la santé, alors que 26,7% pensent qu'il devrait donner plus de pouvoirs aux provinces.

The rest of Canada was poorly represented in this poll. Why only give the breakdown on healthcare? WHy not give a breakdown on the political support?

Just seems fishy to me.

Spaz is right they may have done the whole country, but why are they only breaking down two provinces?

there is what I think is a mistaken impression that only those in Ontario and Quebec would bother to read and listen to it. That's a guess on my part though.

Edited to add: The mistaken impression I refer to is that only those in Ontario and Quebec speak French, they don't seem to note that New Brunswick is 35% French.

That's just barely French ;-)

Manitoba Has French as well as Alberta Sask and the rest of Atlantic Canada...just really small pocket communities like Zenon Park and French lake

are lower than the total reported, which must be raised by higher numbers from the West.

yeah right...maybe in Sask...god I hate polls

"The biggest spurt in growth for the NDP comes in British Columbia, where the party now has 26 per cent of committed voter support. The party continues to enjoy its highest popularity in its Saskatchewan-Manitoba base.

"'The switching of voters from Liberals to the NDP may be a precursor of a future trend as Liberal voters perceive Paul Martin to be taking the party more to the right,' said pollster Nik Nanos."

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2003/09/13/184755.html

Stupidity, most british columbians vote against whatever the in power party is en mass...right now all they know is they hate the provincial libs and eqaute them with the federal libs. Ignorance

The other eyeballs just keep glazing over ...

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There's at least 4 Calgarians, so the total must be more like 50-100

with province, where I know it and am sure that the poster discloses it:

me (Ontario)
you
Spazito
glarius
Maple
HeYhEy
noon blue apples (absent for a while) (Ontario)
lisa
Minstrel Boy
TrogL (I think)
sephirstein (Alberta) (whoa, he's gone?)

More recently, in that dreadful "Shariah law" thread, I think we also have:
pink poodle

Then there's the woman in London Ont. whose name escapes me (apologies!) (and for not calling when I was there last spring).

And probably several more obvious ones I should be naming but who have slipped my mind.

Calgary would seem to be just bloody overrepresented! (Who did *that* polling??) Of Course, Calgary is the left coast of Alberta. ;)

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CanuckagainstBush
ConcernedCanuck
ironflange
Ex Cav (yes he counts!:-) )

damnit I can't remember all others.

Canuck AMok
Darth Kitten
Swede
Ironflange
I'm always suprised to see how many we have here maybe 30 or 40

Of course, Tommy's newish, so I'm forgiven, but the others I did miss.

And no, ExCav most definitely does not count. (Simply moving to a country, even as a permanent resident and in fact even as a citizen, where one is not committed to the values of the country and is in fact actively uncommitted to them, and maintains one's down-the-nose, outsider viewing posture as he very definitely does, does not a "x"ian make.) Nor does (Mr.) Jane Roe count, should you encounter him flying the maple leaf in his posts. He apparently was moving here last week, and I'm afraid he'll find the absence of any laws restricting access to abortion in any way a matter of great distress.

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*

Birthplace of the CCF and medicare.

I'm guessing that'll be another Canuck, eh?

Jack Layton's former city ward, and hopefully his soon-to-be federal riding. (Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, Dennis Mills!)

Sure, they have marginal support, but every little bit counts (and last election, in some Quebec ridings, the Marijuana Party outpolled the NDP). And it's all thanks to Layton.

Paul Hellyer's Canadian Action Party unanimously endorsed a resolution to join the NDP. http://www.canadianactionparty.ca/MainPages/PressReleases.asp?ID=314&Language=English

The leader of the Marijuana Party is urging members to support the NDP.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031111.umari1111/BNStory/National/

Forgive me for not remembering that Paul Hellyer had a party. ;)

What's worth noting there, of course, is that Paul Hellyer has been both a Conservative and a Liberal MP in the past -- including being Minister of Defence under Lester Pearson, and Deputy Prime Minister under Trudeau.

"There is too much talk about 'uniting the right' and not enough about 'uniting the rest,'" said Paul Hellyer, CAP's Leader. "After reading an account of Paul Martin's speech to the Metropolitan Montreal Board of Trade it is clear that his party should be renamed the conservative Liberals."

Imagine a Conservative/Liberal saying such things!

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I wish we were in similar situation south of the border. Go NDP!

I went to work and brought that up. Everybody just laughed and said he just cut his throat,what a moron,what a dork. There was no support for those views. Come on America join your progressive northern neighbour and make a better world.

but I would LOVE to see the NDP become the official opposition to force the Liberal party a little more left and it would be gleeful to see the Alliance/faux Conservative party become the rump it should.

You vote Liberal ... but want the NDP to have the power to force the Liberals to the left.

So ... why not just vote for what you actually want??

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but if the NDP were the loyal opposition, it would be my hope they would force the Liberals more left on those NDP policies I support.

Out here, we have to vote Liberal because in many places the NDP is miniscule.

but, I live in a, yuck, alliance riding. Being a Liberal here is like being a Democrat in Texas.

If everybody who says they support NDP policies but vote Liberal just voted NDP, think how much nicer the world would be!

Sephirstein (what did happen to him?) had an interesting theory. Because his overriding goal was to defeat the Liberals (and I myself voted Tory in 1973 for precisely that reason, in an NDP no-hope riding), and because the NDP has no hope in his riding, he would consider voting Alliance -- knowing that they could not in our lifetime win a majority in the House, but hoping that by helping to elect an Alliance member he would deprive the Liberals of a seat, and possibly even help to create a minority Liberal government instead of a majority -- which would then give the NDP more influence. I thought it an idea well worth considering.

The whole problem that I have with this notion of voting for the Liberals and wanting them to move left is that voting for them removes all incentive for them to move left. They've got your vote already; why would they do anything more to make you happy?! This is why I regret my Liberal vote in the Ontario election last month. The Liberals in the legislature are sitting on a lot of votes entrusted to them by NDP voters -- and how are we repaid? By denying the NDP official party status (although the NDP gave it to the Liberals when we were in govt. and the Liberals did not qualify), and backtracking on a whole lot of campaign promises.

Hit me, please.

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Out here, we have to vote Liberal because in many places the NDP is miniscule.

Exactly! I live in an area that is going to be part of the Calgary-North Centre riding in the next election. The way this new riding is set up there will be a better chance of defeating the Reform-Alliance/Conservative candidate in the next election if all of the hardcore anti-conservative vote unites in the Liberal tent and some who voted Reform-Alliance last time vote Liberal or stay away from the polls. (Like that compound sentence?)
The riding I won't be a part of anymore, Nose Hill, doesn't have a hope of swinging the other way.
I was really happy when I found out that I'm going to be in the new riding.
I'm the exact defintion of someone who supports NDP policies but will vote Liberal.

Why vote Liberal to defeat an Alliance candidate when the Alliance doesn't have a hope in hell of forming a national government?

I voted Liberal in the Ontario provincial government *not* because I didn't want a Tory MPP, but because I didn't want a Tory provincial government. I wanted the Liberals to win, knowing that the NDP could not, and fearing for all our futures if the Tories won again.

But you're voting to increase the Liberal majority in the House of Commons. Why would you want to give those arrogant right-wing bastards an EVEN BIGGER majority than they'd already have??

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So, I am represented by a member of a nasty, un-Canadian party of rightist ideologues. I do not want to be represented by the Alliance. At the last election in my riding, the NDP got 3.7% and the Liberals 19.4%. Obviously I wish to vote NDP, but under our Electoral System, First Past the Post, the only possible way to get rid of Ablonczy is to vote for the Liberal (and that in itself is a long shot). I don't see them becoming a government, but I take personal offence at every single seat bar Joe Clark's being CA. The Liberals are way too centrist for me, but they are the lesser of two evils, and in a Province that, as you know, is so stacked in favour of right-wingers, if I want anyone who isn't a hard-core rightist representing me, I'll go Liberal.
My neighbouring MP is Rob Anders. Anders considers Nelson Mandela to be a vicious Terrorist, believes in arresting panhandlers, opposes adding gay-bashing to the statute of hate-crimes because he believes that it will lead to the banning of the bible, and, I have no doubt that he shares Larry Spencer's odious views on homosexuality. In the light of people like these, who make Joe Clark look like Che Guevara, can you understand why we choose to back Liberals?
All this could of course be solved by Proportional Representation. Then we'd certainly see the NDP better reperesented.

I don't like having extremists like Rob Anders representing me locally, regardless of the fact that the Liberals will win overall.

And hence below my radar screen and that of true Quebeckers. ;)

Federal Libs will scoop up a lot of seats from the Bloc this time around thanks to Martin.

What happened to the right up there? The Bloc is a left wing (albeit separatist party), the NDP is a left wing party, and the liberals a moderate center-left party (not much different than our Democratic Party). Total support = 83.8%.

Jes, I wish we had that kind of support.

party, they were moderately right, and we had the birth of our extreme right although they are still repub-lite compared to Bush's right-wing supporters. Canadians won't support right wing ideas, we did, at times, support moderately conservative ones prior to Mulroney.

What can we do to disabuse USAmericans of this notion that the Liberal Party is a "moderate centre-left party"??

The US political spectrum runs from moderate centre-right (Democrats) to way over on the right. So yes, on *their* spectrum, the Liberals are "moderate centre-left". NOT by anyone else's measure, really.

Universal health care is commie in the US; it is not even seriously (i.e. openly) opposed by the far right in Canada. So supporting universal health care doesn't make anyone "moderate centre-left" in Canada, it just makes them not stupid. Just for example.

Liberal economic policies -- upcoming Prime Minister Paul Martin having been the main instrument of them for a long time -- are **not** "left".

This really is not some classless utopia up here. We really do have an economic élite, and extreme poverty, and we really do have politicians who are part of the former and don't give a shit about the latter. If the Liberal Party were not the party of the economic élite and did give a shit about poverty, just for instance, wouldn't we expect to see a little less of it??

Hell, I think they were going to wipe out child poverty by the year 2000. I wonder what could have happened ...

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Canada isn't moving far left, it's the United States that's been moving far right. Americans can hardly see the left anymore.

"From the Left" James Carville? Carville's been advising Venezuelan putschists on their Chavez recall referendum. That ain't my left.

Especially at the provincial level. We all know the disaster that was the NDP in Vancouver and the PQ in Quebec that left us $4 billion dollars in the hole.

I prefer the Center over comfy little reality bubbles.

Vancouver is still waiting on COPE

http://www.electionprediction.com/

I spent a lot of time there during the 2000 election. The riding-by-riding predictions/comments are still archived. Naturally nothing yet for 2004, but when there is, I'll be there.