An upset in the making in Canada?

[Leader]

An upset in the making?

By PETER WORTHINGTON

Which poll to believe?

The Globe and Mail has the Liberals six points ahead of the Conservatives (34% to 28%), while the National Post has the Conservatives widening their lead and likely to win 126 seats to the Liberals 95.

What goes on here? That's quite a discrepancy.

Personally, I'm inclined to favour the unscientific America Online Internet poll, in which 51% of 5,527 subscribers said they intend to vote Conservative, 25% Liberal and 13% NDP. The Bloc Quebecois -- small potatoes in English Canada -- got 1% of the AOL vote, with 9% undecided.

Of the issues, government accountability was tops with 39%, health 28% the economy 18%. Defence and gun control were 4% each, gay marriages 7%. Unscientific, sure, but that's not a bad indication of what's happening in Canada.

The general election on Monday is the first since 1979 that seems a genuine contest. That was the one in which Joe Clark's Tories edged Pierre Trudeau's Liberals (136 seats to 114) for a few moments -- until Joe forgot he couldn't count and lost a confidence vote.

In 1980, Trudeau returned (147-103) until his walk in the snow and he allowed John Turner to be PM for three months. Then two elections of huge majorities for Brian Mulroney's Tories, before Kim Campbell inherited the PM's job in 1993 and promptly lost to Jean Chretien's Liberals (177-2). Liberals were blessed (or cursed) with no viable opposition. Until now.

The 2004 vote has, at this moment, an uncanny parallel with the mood of the 1980 U.S. presidential election, when the media (Canadian and American) mostly felt Ronald Reagan was something of a mad-bomber and a loony tune who had no chance against Jimmy Carter. (The Sun was an exception). Only the American people liked Reagan before he was elected president. The effete, self-adoring intellectual elite viewed him as dumb and dangerous.

Just as some today decry Stephen Harper's "hidden agenda," so 1980 pundits and press decried Reagan's platform. These same types once felt Bush shouldn't be president because he couldn't name the presidents of India, Pakistan, Chechnya. Well, every petty tyrant in the world now knows Bush's name -- as they quickly knew Reagan's name.

No one suggests Harper isn't smart. But the guy whom the media and others thought lacked charisma now gets rock- star treatment in the boondocks.

Political wiseacres know Harper won't win anything in Quebec. They say if elected PM he'll privatize health services, strangle the cities, relegate gays to the closet, be a bogeyman.

All nonsense and it's not catching on because, like Reagan, Harper doesn't come across as scary, doesn't rant or scream (like Layton), is courteous and doesn't grimace and make faces (like Martin). He listens to people and seems reasonable.

Mostly critics snipe at Harper for fear he'll emulate Alberta's health care which leans towards user fees and private clinics. This horrifies Eastern lefties. Yet independent surveys show Alberta has the best health care in Canada. Odd.

Canadians are conditioned to dread "two-tier health care" when, in fact, we already have two- and three-tiered health care. If you're at the bottom and need attention, you may die while waiting in line.

If you're an athlete, politician, celebrity, a big name, or if you know the right people, you get preferential treatment. That's not sinister, it's life. How many doctors go to the end of the queue? It's only if you have money and can pay for immediate treatment, that you can't buy it here but have to buy it in the U.S. Nutty. Making health care affordable and efficient should be the priority -- not pretending that everyone is treated the same. Back to the AOL straw poll. If the Conservative numbers stay steady, an upset seems in the making.

About time.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Column...pf-511586.html

[List]

That's an extremely silly article. It's hard to even explain how bad it is to someone who isn't Canadian/doesn't have a firm grasp of Canadian politics. It's sad that a Canadian would actually write something so dull.

First, those newspapers. Both are popular national papers, though the post seems to be in a constant struggle to stay afloat. The Globe and Mail is a tad left of center. They support the war in Iraq, however are socially liberal, and supportive of public healthcare, etc. They recently published an editorial analyzing both leaders of the two most popular parties(the liberal and conservative parties), and suggesting that it's safer to vote liberal, given the relative inexperience and nonexistant record of the leader of the conservatives. The editorial was entitled, "The Safe Choice Is To Do No Harm." In constrat, the National Post is extremely right wing. They recently published an editorial entitled, "On June 28, vote Conservative." One can sort of see why the newspapers would happen to release contrasting polls.

Trusting the AOL poll is extraordinarily stupid. It seems, for example, to leave out the Green Party of Canada. Our Green Party, unlike those found in many other nations, is actually quite conservative overall. They just have a number of pro environment policies. They also have around 6% of the popular vote, and a decent chance to win at least one seat in the house of commons in the upcoming election.

The Bloc Quebecois, considered "small potatoes" in English Canada, are huge in Quebec. Quebec happens to have almost a quarter of the Country's population, and at the moment, the Bloc is likely to win most of the seats in Quebec. In fact, the bloc will probably win around 20% of the total seats, despite what that rediculous poll implies. If a minority government results from the upcoming election, the leading party will likely require support by either the Bloc or the NDP to get things done.

The NDP is Canada's ultra left wing party. It's currently hovering at around 17% support in the polls, more than the Bloc, however it will likely get far fewer seats due to our election system. In the 1960s, a Liberal minority under Lester Pearson was forced to rely on NDP assistance in parliament. This time saw the introduction of Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, and a new flag, among other things.

The Liberal party is somewhat deceptively named. While the Liberal party of the 60s, 70s, and 80s drove the country into debt running huge deficits, the Liberal party of the 90s was a whole different story. The Liberals under Jean Chretien, with Paul Martin, our current prime minister, as finance minister, turned a ~50 billion a year deficit into 7 straight years of surplus, paying ~50 billion off the debt. They also provided Canadians with the largest tax cut in history. Unfortunately, during this time, healthcare suffered, and the Liberal promises for childcare went unfufilled. One of the major reasons voters have turned against them is the so called sponsorship scandal, which wasted in the range of 100 million dollars. Some Canadians are also upset of the gun registry, which went way over budget, costing well over a billion. It must be understood, however, that the liberal's major problem right now isn't so much losing seats to the conservatives, though they are. Their problem is that they're going to lose tons of seats in Quebec to the Bloc. Quebec, combined with Ontario, makes up more than half the country. Without excellent support in both provinces, it's hard to get a majority government.

The Conservative party of Canada is actually an amalgamation of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives. The article mentions Brian Mulroney, which is good, because he is often mentioned as being one of the worst prime ministers in Canadian history. Elected under the assumption that he would fix the deficit/debt run up during the Pearson and Trudeau administrations, he actually managed to make things worse. He eventually stepped down, and was replaced by Kim Campbell, who proceeded to get absolutely destroyed by Jean Chretien's Liberals. The Reform party, a more right wing piece of the progressive conservatives, separated, and eventually became the Canadian Alliance, which merged back with the progressive conservatives to form the Conservative Party of Canada.

The Conservatives promise to revive the Canadian military, even expand it, and indeed, they intend to put more into the military than the Liberals. Unfortunately, neither party is willing to put in close to enough to accomplish this goal.

This article makes a number of mistakes when analyzing the Conservatives and their leader, Stephen Harper. Firstly, they don't currently have the intention of privatizing Canada's healthcare system. In fact, their healthcare package is remarkably similar to the Liberal's. (As a slight aside to this, Canada still has one of the best healthcare systems in the world, despite all the complainers.) They do, however, want to give more independence to provinces. Next, it compares Stephen Harper's popularity, and chance of an upset, to Reagan. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of Canada and its people, the same kind that could lead to the belief that the AOL poll could actually be even close to accurate. Most Canadians aren't even willing to vote conservative. Harper fails to represent the views of too many urban Canadians. He's socially conservative, which is a big no-no in Canada, and he's said that he would have sent Canadian troops to Iraq. 2/3rds of Canadians did not want to send troops to Iraq, and it wasn't done. While the Liberals have lost a lot of their support, most of that support went to the NDP and the Bloc, both of which are fairly left wing. The conservatives actually aren't doing much better in the polls than the alliiance/reform was in the last election.

If the conservative party were to form the government, which is possible, it would encounter virtually insurmountable barriers, and would likely have to dissolve parliament and call another election fairly quickly. While the Liberals would have little trouble aligning with the NDP and/or the Bloc on a number of issues, the Conservatives appose the other three parties almost everywhere. They are bitter enemies with the Liberals, are entirely opposed on just about every issue by the NDP, and at odds with the Bloc everywhere except their view that provinces should be more independent.

Despite fears of the conservative social agenda, they would be utterly unable to pass anything on their rediculous childcare platform, nevermind abortion or same-sex marriages, at least not without a majority government. As I've previously stated, their aren't enough voters in Canada willing to consider voting Conservative to give them a majority. This is not a case of Reagan.

I hope I provided a more accurate, if confusing, picture of the current Canadian political climate. As you can see, the AOL poll he bases much of his article on cannot possibly be close to accurate. Any poll that gives the Bloc only 1% support cannot be taken seriously, and even if it could, that 11% missing support would most likely go to the Liberals, not the conservatives or the NDP. But really, it's an AOL poll, which wouldn't be representative of Canadians anyway. Few city dwellers still use AOL, which is one of the crappiest internet services available. Thus they can't possibly represent a good distribution of the population.

[Leader]

This explains a lot, thanks. And I agree with you on the AOL poll. From a statically stand point it is completely worthless. Real polls are randomize and stratified. I see voluntary response polls all the time those result are only useful in figuring out what the people who took the poll thought. Any attempt extrapolation to a large population would be waste of time.

[List]

A brief follow up, noting that some of the seats aren't finalized.

The Liberals did much better than expected, scoring in the 136 seat range, and getting around 37% of the popular vote. They managed to keep most of their seats in Ontario, the Atlantic provinces, and British Columbia. They lost a bit less than expected in Quebec, though they still took a massive beating. All in all they're in ok shape, given what was expected to happen. Only an alliance of the other three major parties can take them down, and they only have to convince one of the three parties to support any individual piece of legislation.

The NDP won big, increasing theirs seats from 14 to ~23. They were projected at 25-27 seats, so they didn't underperform that badly. They got around 15% of the popular vote. They will likely have a huge influence of Canadian politics in the next few years as the Liberals may come to depend on them in parliament.

The Bloc Quebecois did very well, going from ~38 seats to ~54. They were expected to get 60+, but they still managed a sizeable increase. They have 12-13% of the popular vote, obviously concentrated in Quebec. This is good news for seperatists in Quebec, and may renew the seperatist movement.

The Conservatives were the big losers, far underperforming the pre-election polls/seat projections. They're coming in at around 95 seats, with less than 30% of the popular vote. The only single party they can align with to pass legislation is the Liberals, and that is unlikely to happen. The NDP and the Bloc are opposed to the Conservatives in far more areas than the Liberals, and support from both would be required to circumvent the Liberas.

The Conservatives failed to win the seats they needed in Ontario, making no inroads at all in Toronto. They didn't dent Quebec, and actually lost support in the Atlantic provinces. This could be due to a number of issues. Their leader, Stephen Harper, sent out an unpopular memo suggesting that the leader of the Liberals supports child pornography. The premier of Alberta made unpopular comments about the privitization of healthcare. Towards the end of the campaign, Stephen Harper described the Conservatives as a western power party, which likely alienated key voters in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces, as well as possibly British Columbia. Also, a large number of people probably realized that while they wanted to punish the Liberals for past offences, they didn't want a Conservative government in power. People wanted a Liberal government without the Liberals, and no party properly reflected those needs. Harper's unpopular views on social conservatives likely hurt him in the end. Though they were required to keep much of his core support, they probably caused moderate voters to change course at the last minute. Lastly, the Liberal attack ads are being cited as being very successful in scaring Canadian voters away from the Conservatives. They also likely succeeded in scaring voters away from the NDP and Bloc, as votes for those parties in certain ridings could have helped the Conservatives win more seats.

[Ray]

It is said in the newspapers out here based on foreign sources that there will be a Coalition.

[ZFBoxcar]

I don't think there will be a coalition. It's so much more convienient for the Liberals to go it alone. If they want to pass tax-cuts/pro-US policies/defence budget increases they get Conservative support in Parliament. If they want to raise taxes/cut defence/start new social programs they get NDP support in Parliament. It's as if the Liberals never lost their majority! The Liberals have a strong enough minority that they only need 1 other party to back any given peice of legislation, making the opposition into rubber stamps.

[bodybag]

What was the deal ,when Harper was accusing Martin of supporting child pornography.

[Jay]

Lot of PIO's (People of Indian Origin) won...

"Most incumbent Indo-Canadians returned and the Liberal victory was due in the province of Ontario, which has the largest concentration of immigrant populations, especially Indians and Chinese. By 1 am on Tuesday morning, following election day, Canadians gave a rocking victory to the Liberal Party and to incumbent Prime Minister Paul Martin, who took the chance to declare elections under the cloud of a major scandal that shook his party's popularity."

http://sify.com/news/nri/fullstory.php?id=13510486

[List]

The Conservatives put forth press releases entitled "Paul Martin supports child pornography?" and "The NDP Caucus Supports Child Pornography?". Harper changed the title of at least the first one to "How Tough is Paul Martin on Child Pornography?", but he never apologized for the accusation. This was all in reference to the NDP and Liberals shooting down the Conservative(Alliance?) anti-child porn/abuse bill. These press releases were done right after the killer of a 10 year old girl in Toronto admitted that his child sex fantasies were fueled by child porn on the internet. This made the press releases seem opportunistic.

Besides, the Liberals and the NDP opposed the legislation for a number of reasons, none of which were that they supported child porn. Incidentally, Canada has some of the toughest child porn laws in the developed world, and new ones were being pushed along before the election was called.

As a side note, the NDP dropped down to 19 seats in the final count, and can no longer guarantee the Liberals a majority. A few recounts may take place in certain ridings, but it's unlikely they will change anything.

[bodybag]

Thanks for explanation .I think this was one of the main reasons that they lost.What the hell were they thinking?
Harper should stick just to finnances and all those liberal affairs.

[Confed999]

opposed the legislation for a number of reasons, none of which were that they supported child porn.

It allmost never is, but that is the nature of partisan politics. In Canada are they allowed to add other proposed laws to each other? Seems like that is an often used tactic to stop a law from being passed here, they just hook on something stupid nobody would vote for.

[List]

That wasn't the problem. The Conservative motion was aimed at closing a loophole in the existing law that allows for an artistic merit defence. It was shot down, I think, primarily because it would have outlawed so many legitimate present/future works of art. I believe the leader of the Bloc Quebecois said something to the effect that if the Conservative motion was passed, it would outlaw Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel because of the naked child angels on the ceiling. If I'm not mistaken, the supreme court of Canada has already strictly defined the limits of the artistic merit defence anyway, so it's unlikely that it could be used in its current form to defend child pornography.

[bodybag]

I hate those fat stupid yahoos from Alberta,BC,Saskatchewan,with their pickup trucks and cowboys hats.
.Over there is even worst than in texas.At least in Texas is nice and warm all year round.
They should make some law to prohibit some people from voting.
I feel anyway that conserves will win sooner or later and then we become
northern Mexico.

[Confed999]

That wasn't the problem.

I was just curious if they do that same stuff there. Canadian politics really doesn't affect me at all, except for having to listen to our huge Canadian retirement population complain.

[ZFBoxcar]

I hate those fat stupid yahoos from Alberta,BC,Saskatchewan,with their pickup trucks and cowboys hats.
.Over there is even worst than in texas.At least in Texas is nice and warm all year round.
They should make some law to prohibit some people from voting.
I feel anyway that conserves will win sooner or later and then we become
northern Mexico.

Lowering taxes and cutting social programs is how you increase economic growth, it doesn't take a country backwords as you say. It moves them forward. As Churchill said, a nation trying to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handles. Redistributing wealth can only decrease the wealth of the nation. Reducing federal influence can only increase it. Those "fat stupid yahoos" would like the word 'province' to be more than just lines on a map. Decentralization. Increase provincial power. And if the Tories hadn't made certain errors, a large part of Ontario would have stood along side them. And 31.4% of them did anyways. So did 32.3% of Newfoundland, 31.1% of Newbrunswick, 28% of Nova Scotia, 30.7% of PEI. But I suppose they all must be "fat stupid yahoos".