My Fearless Predictions

There are going to be three by-elections in September. The seats are now held by the Liberals and the Bloc. If the status quo holds, the Liberals will crow and say that the NDP is dead. The Conservatives will say it is no big deal since the seats were never theirs and the NDP will declare it a moral victory. The Bloc will say they are back, baby.

If the status quo doesn't hold and the Liberals manage to lose one seat (or God help them, two), they will blame the NDP (but not the Greens) for splitting the vote and claim it is a dark conspiracy to prop up the Tories. The Tories will crow (especially if they manage a miracle in Guelph) and will egg on the Iggynauts to overthrow Dion. The NDP will crow (if they manage a miracle in either Guelph or Westmount) and will claim that the NDP is now the only alternative to Harper. The Bloc will say they are back, baby. The electoral results are unpredictable, but the reactions to the results are as predictable as the sun rising in the morning.

Recommend this Post

Voter Turnout

The voter turnout numbers look very, very, grim. The highest turnout was in Quadra with 33.9% and the lowest was Willowdale, with 24.4%. So that means that Bob Rae got the support of about 16% of the electorate and Martha Hall Findlay got about 14%. Even in Quadra, the winner had the backing of roughly 12% of the total electorate. Pitiful.

Recommend this Post

Well, That Went About As Expected

You will not see a better analysis of last night's by-elections, than at IP's place. I was waiting to see whether and where parties would be stealing votes from. As IP shows, it all depended on the location of the riding. I think the biggest story to come out of last night is the continuing polarization between rural and urban Canada. To me that trend is very troublesome and it will have consequences for the country as we move along.

Recommend this Post

Facing Facts

This is a point I just made at Greg Staples place. Liberal supporters are going to have to face the facts. Harper and Layton are going where the votes are in Quebec and that is where the Bloc resides. Harper is going after the right wing of the Bloc coalition and Layton the left. The Liberals are stuck in their enclaves of ever shrinking Trudeauism. It is not hard to imagine sometime soon, an electoral map where the Montreal area is orange and a little red and the countryside is blue. In other words, Quebec is becoming a lot more like the rest of Canada, but for its own unique reasons. Does that make the Liberals irrelevant? Well, the fact that the Tories and NDP are looking elsewhere for votes, should tell you something.

Update: And though Andrew Coyne is a much more subtle guy than I am, I think he agrees with me.

Recommend this Post