Canadian Federal Election 2015

[Whiskey16]

Drunk posting? Hardly number1...typing on a phone's web browser for some of my responses. That's your lame attempt to dismiss substianted logic, and accuracy supported by cited facts?

Lighten up. Fringe... LOL, 30% of the population is a fringe, ya right.
.... my "fringe" party is going to end up having a lot of influence in how Canada is run.

"Fringe" LOL

Yes, statistically and in practice a fringe of the electorate.

Why should a minority of the population decide and employ policy?

Unlike ~70% of the remaining population that have been and remain opposed to governance by the Conservative Party of Canada, and greater than 60% of the electorate would prefer a government by either the Liberals or the NDP.

So yes, the Conservative Party of Canada is not represntative nor supported by a strong majority of Canadians, and thereby governance by an outlier - a fringe.

Such undemocratic results are only possible in a greater than 2 party system where first-past-the-post more often than not permits the election of an MP with a minority of the total vote. Vote splitting rather than more fairly democratic and adequate representation of a riding.

With a greater than two party system where voters do have prefences for a second choice, election reform is necessary to ensure reprentatives are elected to parliament only after having attained majority support from their constituents.

We are far off from the 19th century of only the Whigs and Tories.

After election reform (preferably preferential rather than proportion elections), to retain power, the Conservatives will have to better represent Canadian ideals rather than only play with unwavering extremes to solidify the electoral fringe that is their base, while hoping the remaining parties continue to suffiently split the vote amongst the majority of Canadians.

Yet the Harper Conservatives are so miserably failing with a black marked record of governance, that despite even with vote splitting, they are now nationally polling in third place.....

 

[rommelrommel]

The only poll that counts is a good ways off as of yet.

 

[Whiskey16]

Gguess what, one way or the other, my "fringe" party is going to end up having a lot of influence in how Canada is run.

Down the pisser?

Conservatives need to retain their seats in Ontario. OOPS... In this single day, two of their candidates have been dropped:

Tim Dutaud 2nd Conservative candidate dropped over embarrassing videos

The Conservative campaign has dropped another Toronto candidate over offensive and embarrassing online videos.

Tim Dutaud, who was running for the Tories in Toronto-Danforth, was forced out Monday after he was identified as a man known as the UniCaller in prank YouTube videos that included him pretending to orgasm while on the phone with a female customer service representative and mocking people with mental disabilities.

Jerry Bance, Conservative caught peeing in mug, no longer candidate, party says

A service technician caught on hidden camera urinating into a coffee mug during a 2012 house call to repair a leaky sink before he became a Conservative election candidate is no longer running, the Tories said today.

Jerry Bance "is no longer a candidate," said Conservative spokesman

Stephen Lecce in a brief email to CBC News on Monday.
Lecce later confirmed to CBC News that Bance was dropped for not being truthful during the candidate screening process.

Lighten up.

Here we go:

• "Good to go..." - Nigel Wright
• He must be relieved...
• It was leaked...
• A case of pure yellow journalism...
• "This is the mugshot no one expected.." - Thomas Mulcair
• Justin Trudeau - Not ready to pee in your mug
• CPC candidate forces Harper to change course...midstream
• Harper says they have plugged the leak...
• Harper flushed this candidate...
• Where did they find these guys? Downstream...
• Time to bring in the number twos...
• This election is turning into a real pissing contest...

 

[Whiskey16]

I think the refugee crisis is a flash in the pan. Sure it get the leftist winning even more than usual but at the end of the day, it's just another election issue. The conservatives are going up in the polls and the NDP is going down, we can be grateful for this.

Oops... Your position is on the fringe. Number1, you don't quite have a pulse on this country do, do you?

Support for Conservatives dips on response to migrant crisis, poll shows

Support for the Conservative Party declined on the long weekend after a week that saw Leader Stephen Harper on the defensive over the economy and the government’s response to the international migrant crisis, a new poll shows.

The Nanos survey conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV News suggests many Canadians switched their voting intentions in recent days. The three-day sample puts support for the NDP at 32.7 per cent nationally (up 2.3 percentage points from a week ago), followed by the Liberals at 30.8 per cent (up 0.6 percentage points). Support for the Conservatives has slipped to 26.2 per cent (a 2.3-percentage-point drop).

..

The shift away from the Conservatives is such that pollster Nik Nanos says the campaign is looking as if it could be a two-way race for power between the NDP and the Liberals.

“What’s gone well for the Conservative campaign so far? Not much,” said Mr. Nanos, who believes the issue of Syrian refugees was the trigger for the party’s recent decrease in popularity.

“The one thing [that is] different about the Syrian refugee crisis is there’s an emotional, personal angle to this,” he said.

What a shame as Canadians face the end of the summer and begin to solidify their voting intentions.

Harper's record of governance and poorly received defensive plays are reasonably deterring a growing majority of Canadians away from voting for a CPC candidate:

Mr. Nanos said the Conservative numbers are likely due to the combined impact of three weeks spent responding to the Mike Duffy trial, followed by last week’s news that Canada experienced a technical recession in the first half of 2015 and then the unfolding refugee crisis.

There is more troubling news for the Conservatives in the Nanos poll in terms of opportunity for growth.

The proportion of Canadians who would consider voting Conservative has decreased to 36.1 per cent. In contrast, 52.5 per cent of those surveyed would consider voting for the NDP and 49.2 per cent would consider voting for the Liberals.

 

[cbrunny]

Oh wow is it ever not looking good for Harper & the CPC right now. I was away for Labour Day weekend and came back to this mess of problems. I bet he is wishing he resigned about this time last year!

 

[Whiskey16]

Oh wow is it ever not looking good for Harper & the CPC right now.

What a shame. Conformation for what I've posted throughout this thread:

National Post
..
There is no project the party asks the public to endorse, no ambition it invites them to share, other than that most inspiring of clarion calls, More Of The Same. To the question, why should the voters re-elect them, the Tories can offer no brighter answer than: Why not?

Not even their base is excited by that. And their base, let us recall, is all they have. Beyond the one in four Canadians who now say they will vote for them, the Conservatives can hope to appeal to another five per cent at most: the ones who now favour other parties, but mark them as their second choice.
..
...They could only choose to do any of these things if they were not the modern Conservative party — if they had not made a blood oath to one another to reject anything that smacked of a principled or coherent approach to governing, in favour of that random, expedience-driven drunkard’s walk that exalts itself as “pragmatism.”

The hell of it is that, having adopted at one time or another all of the policies of their opponents, the Tories find they can no longer even mount a convincing fear campaign against them. Are we to tremble at warnings of $10-billion Liberal deficits, from the party that added $150-billion to the national debt? Is it to be imagined an NDP government would meddle in the economy more egregiously than the party that promised to regulate the price of every good in Canada into conformity with its American counterpart?

This is the great achievement of the Harper government. Not only has it made itself unelectable, but it has made even conservatives indifferent to its fate. It did not invest its political capital in difficult but necessary changes to national policy. It frittered it away on pointless vendettas, sideshows and gewgaws, all the while congratulating itself on its cleverness. Yet for all its aimless vote-chasing, it has managed it make itself more unpopular than if it had actually done anything worthwhile — while still being cursed as unspeakably right-wing.

It is a remarkable feat, is it not — to have discredited conservatism without actually practising it.

 

[KMFJD]

I've only seen 1 person openly supporting the conservatives so far, at least that's a good sign.

 

[cbrunny]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-tom-mulcair-interview-1.3221183

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says his first acts as prime minister would include pulling the Canadian Forces out of Iraq and Syria

True to NDP ideology. Gotta respect that, but I don't agree with this decision. Between this, NDP stance on Senate reform.... Sorry, Tom.

So I can't vote Liberal, can't vote NDP, have no good reason to vote Conservative. I guess our local Green is getting my vote.

 

[KMFJD]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-tom-mulcair-interview-1.3221183



True to NDP ideology. Gotta respect that, but I don't agree with this decision. Between this, NDP stance on Senate reform.... Sorry, Tom.

So I can't vote Liberal, can't vote NDP, have no good reason to vote Conservative. I guess our local Green is getting my vote.

He also said he would decriminalize Marijuana the 1st day they are in charge....

 

[cbrunny]

He also said he would decriminalize Marijuana the 1st day they are in charge....

Mulcair did? I must have missed that. I know that's big for Trudeau.

I don't have any issue with decriminalization, though in my opinion it doesn't make sense right now for Canada to spend time, effort, focus, and money on regulation and sale of marijuana. Aside from there still being way too many unknowns, the examples set by Washington State and Colorado are not convincingly positive in my opinion. A lot of cons come with those pros and too many far more important things to worry about right now. Marijuana is a distraction from real issues.

But it also doesn't make sense to decriminalize without regulating & proper sale. Doing so only legitimizes the street market, which is a bad thing regardless of where you stand on the issue.

 

[KMFJD]

Mulcair did? I must have missed that. I know that's big for Trudeau.

I don't have any issue with decriminalization, though in my opinion it doesn't make sense right now for Canada to spend time, effort, focus, and money on regulation and sale of marijuana. Aside from there still being way too many unknowns, the examples set by Washington State and Colorado are not convincingly positive in my opinion. A lot of cons come with those pros and too many far more important things to worry about right now. Marijuana is a distraction from real issues.

But it also doesn't make sense to decriminalize without regulating & proper sale. Doing so only legitimizes the street market, which is a bad thing regardless of where you stand on the issue.

NDP will decriminalize and then work on making it legal, Liberals have stated they will skip the decriminalization part and just make it legal, both have different views on amnesty as well..anyway here's an interesting poll conducted by CTV/NANO

32.1% Liberal
30.6% NDP
28.6% Conservatives

http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/20150909 Ballot TrackingE.pdf

 

[cbrunny]

http://globalnews.ca/news/2209152/l...rio-b-c-according-to-latest-seat-projections/

Yeah the Lib jump is showing according to LISPOP as well.

 

[KMFJD]

 

[rommelrommel]

308 is probably the most accurate since he uses multiple sources of data and focuses on how each riding will go, and he very much has it as a three horse race.

 

[cbrunny]

308 is probably the most accurate since he uses multiple sources of data and focuses on how each riding will go, and he very much has it as a three horse race.

The method used by LISPOP is superior: http://lispop.ca/seat-projection/federal

It has also been peer reviewed by academics over the last 40 or so years.

LISPOP hasn't had an update since 24 AUG, so they're due, but their results have been on display here as well: http://globalnews.ca/tag/lispop/

EDIT: I just read through the method @ 308, and he basically just ripped off Dr. Kay's work.

 

[Spungo]

Upon this Federal election's vote compass:

I like polls like this. My results:
52% conservative
50% NDP
47% liberal
40% green

Don't worry, I'm not voting. I don't live in Canada at this time. I'm a little shocked how close all of those are. Does that mean my beliefs are in the middle of the spectrum, or does that mean all of the parties are basically the same?

I've only seen 1 person openly supporting the conservatives so far, at least that's a good sign.

That doesn't mean much. I don't think I know anyone who openly supported Mitt Romney, but he won something like 48% of the popular vote last time. People don't always talk about who they support or ideas they support. Most of the people you know have tried cocaine, but you'll never get any of them to admit it. Sex is another weird one that everyone participates in but refuses to talk about.

 

[cbrunny]

I like polls like this. My results:
52% conservative
50% NDP
47% liberal
40% green

Don't worry, I'm not voting. I don't live in Canada at this time. I'm a little shocked how close all of those are. Does that mean my beliefs are in the middle of the spectrum, or does that mean all of the parties are basically the same?

I don't recall all of my specific proportions but I was above the horizontal line by a small amount and juuuuuust to the left of the centre line. I was split exactly 57% Lib and 57% Con.

Each of the parties have a surprisingly different platform in my opinion. They're each pretty distinct. More than likely, you're like me and like pieces of all three of them, which plants you squarely in the middle.

I'm not a fan of Vote Compass or the like because of this exact reason. You don't get to pick and choose from all policies when you vote. You vote for one set of policies. I get that Vote Compass is supposed to be an education tool but still bugs me. It isn't a true education on how policies relate to one another or ideology or leadership or elections, even.

 

[Spungo]

I'm not a fan of Vote Compass or the like because of this exact reason. You don't get to pick and choose from all policies when you vote. You vote for one set of policies.

I think that's the reason they include importance. It balances out the number of policies against the importance of those policies.

I would like to see the math used to reach the conclusions. How big is the difference between slightly agree and strongly agree? I slightly agree that we should do more to improve the environment, but I strongly think torture should be illegal under all circumstances. How does one weight those? It shouldn't be 1 point vs 2 points. I think the torture issue would be 10x as important as the environmental one, so how do I convey that when there are only 2 levels of agreement? At least use an 11 point scale (0-10).

 

[cbrunny]

Yeah I agree that importance as is isn't sufficiently distributed.

 

[yllus]

I think the refugee crisis is a flash in the pan. Sure it get the leftist winning even more than usual but at the end of the day, it's just another election issue. The conservatives are going up in the polls and the NDP is going down, we can be grateful for this.

Poll Tracker: NDP's front-runner status at risk

I just ordered my Conservative lawn sign, Ill place it right beside ly wife's Liberal sign.....LOL

Yep, I agree. This is a topic du jour, but people vote with their chequebooks in almost every instance. The Conservatives don't have an incredibly strong record when it comes to management of the economy, but the incumbent always has a built-in advantage for being "known", whereas the NDP still give people shivers when it comes to actually governing, and Trudeau is a pretty unknown quantity.

What I find interesting is that Harper seems to be on record as saying he'd resign if given a minority to govern - that's what I see being the most likely outcome of this election. Would he follow through? Who might take over in his place - Kenney? Lot of interesting things going on this election season!

 

[Spungo]

What I find interesting is that Harper seems to be on record as saying he'd resign if given a minority to govern - that's what I see being the most likely outcome of this election. Would he follow through? Who might take over in his place - Kenney? Lot of interesting things going on this election season!

That means he wants to step down, but he wants to look like some kind of hero.

The finance minister in Greece did something similar. He said he would resign if the referendum went a certain way. It ended up going the other way, but he still resigned

 

[yllus]

That means he wants to step down, but he wants to look like some kind of hero.

The finance minister in Greece did something similar. He said he would resign if the referendum went a certain way. It ended up going the other way, but he still resigned

Interesting analysis - yeah, I could see that! He could be tired of governing and of seeing so many of his top people retire; it's felt to me like his cabinet has been full of second- and third-rate ministers for some time now.

I'm sticking with a prediction of a Conservative minority, but I could also see a NDP minority. I'm not totally dreading that, either - Mulcair's been around and the NDP seem like they could actually be ready for the big chair.

 

[rommelrommel]

The method used by LISPOP is superior: http://lispop.ca/seat-projection/federal

It has also been peer reviewed by academics over the last 40 or so years.

LISPOP hasn't had an update since 24 AUG, so they're due, but their results have been on display here as well: http://globalnews.ca/tag/lispop/

EDIT: I just read through the method @ 308, and he basically just ripped off Dr. Kay's work.

Cool, thanks for the link.

EDIT: Don't think he was "ripped off" by Eric Grenier as he complimented Eric's work back in 2011.

 

[cbrunny]

What I find interesting is that Harper seems to be on record as saying he'd resign if given a minority to govern - that's what I see being the most likely outcome of this election. Would he follow through? Who might take over in his place - Kenney? Lot of interesting things going on this election season!

Part of the CPC charter is that if the leader loses there is an automatic leadership review/selection/something. I think - that might be Ontario PCs, but one of the two has this. I don't know what constitutes "losing" in the context of going from a majority to minority vs. majority to Opposition. My money is on the Conservatives not forming government and Harper resigning. Cons could use some fresh blood I think anyway. There would probably need to be a convention if Harper resigns for any reason.

A leadership race inside the CPC would be fantastic IMO. I'd like to see Christine Elliott run for leader of the CPC.

I must have missed where Harper said a minority was a resignation... I'll have to look around for that one.

 

[cbrunny]

it's felt to me like his cabinet has been full of second- and third-rate ministers for some time now.

Fully agree.

I'm sticking with a prediction of a Conservative minority, but I could also see a NDP minority. I'm not totally dreading that, either - Mulcair's been around and the NDP seem like they could actually be ready for the big chair.

A Con minority is certainly possible, especially if the left splits the vote as they always do. Like you, I have a ton of respect for Mulcair, but I'm very cautious about some of the NDP policies.

Still a ways to go yet - just over a month - but I wouldn't be surprised to see one party start to take control - Could go any way really. A majority seems out of the question at this point, but then again it looked out of the question in the weeks ahead of the recent Ontario Election and that went Maj. Lib.