Election 2008

A Plea for Good Rallies

Jared Wesley — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:45:00 -0700

I was heartened to hear that both sides in the current constitutional debate will be staging public events to drum up support for their causes. Beyond a suggestion to dress warmly, I want to offer a quick blessing, and caution, to both sides as they plan to attend a series of rallies later this week. If John McCain's recent presidential campaign offers any lessons, be wary: keep the most ignorant among you from upstaging the event. Cameras from the media and the opposing side will be on the lookout for acts of anger and zealotry, like burning effigies or inflammatory statements. That's what will air on the evening news and Youtube.

This said, best of luck to all. Keep the messages positive, and be sure to dress in layers!

Opinions on Both Sides -- a review

Jared Wesley — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:33:51 -0700

I spent 12 hours Christmas shopping and listening to talk radio shows yesterday, as I made my monthly drive from Winnipeg to Calgary. If the media buzz is any indication, it seems almost everyone in Western Canada has an opinion on the quagmire on Parliament Hill. From Canadian Tire to Suzy Shier, Tim Horton's to Starbucks, pundits to academics, leaders to followers - everyone appears to have chosen sides between the government and the coalition. With each side talking past each other, viewing moment-by-moment events through their own unique set of partisan lenses, it's not difficult to see how we've come to this point. For Canadians just tuning into the saga, finding "facts" and "truths" amid the rhetoric can be challenging and frustrating.

The reason: beyond the opinions, there are few real "facts" or "truths" to be had. This is not because both sides are being entirely dishonest or disingenuous. It's because both the coalition and government have valid arguments - so valid that the other side refuses to address them. Consider the following main points of contention:

Who started it?

Government - The opposition had been plotting for months (if not longer) to orchestrate a takeover of power.

Coalition - The government "poisoned the well" with it's "F.U." Fiscal Update last Thursday, provoking the opposition with promises to cripple them financially by removing their public subsidies, and provoking the NDP with promises to revoke the public sector's right to strike.

Who's anti-democratic?

Government - The coalition is proposing to govern without a "mandate" from the people, with the Liberals having renounced the idea of joining forces with the NDP during the campaign. Also, the government alleges the opposition is attempting to overturn the results of the October 14 election.

Coalition - By pushing back the date of a confidence vote (from Dec. 1 to Dec. 8), and by hinting at asking for a prorogation of Parliament, the government is thwarting the will of elected MPs.

Who has "confidence"?

Government - The government has the confidence of the House, having passed its Throne Speech earlier in November.

Coalition - Combined, the coalition (plus the Bloc Quebecois) have enough MPs to overthrow the government on an impending confidence measure.

Who has the best economic plan?

Government - The government has introduced preventative measures, and promises prudent planning, future stimuli (in a January budget), and short-term deficit financing to deal with Canada's recession.

Coalition - The government is not doing enough, and not acting quickly enough, to address the economic downturn. The coalition promises an immediate $30 billion stimulus package.

Who's being ideological?

Government - The coalition's solution amounts to "crisis socialism".

Coalition - The government's solution amounts to "crisis capitalism".

Who's "in bed with the separatists"?

Government - Under the coalition arrangement, the Bloc Quebecois ("the separatists") hold a veto over all future initiatives.

Coalition - Right-wing parties from Mulroney's PCs, to Day's Canadian Alliance, to Harper's Conservatives have struck deals with Quebec nationalists in the past.

Who's reaching out to opponents?

Government - The government is willing to work with any opposition party willing to rip up the coalition accord.

Coalition - The coalition, itself, demonstrates the willingness of its members to reach across party lines.

Most of these arguments are opinions, and many mix fact with rhetoric. At this point, most who have chosen sides in the debate appear to be interpreting events using their own predispositions as filters. They hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see. They speak to their "allies" in friendly environments, be they blogs or radio talk shows. When they do engage the other side, they talk past their opponents (who they label as "traitors" or "despots").

We've seen this before, of course. Similar lines were drawn over the Charlottetown Accord and two Quebec Referendums. A plea for both sides to talk to one another, let alone listen to each other, may be futile. For those who have yet to make up their minds, I would challenge you to listen to both sides. Unlike national snafus from decades past, Canadians today can watch different TV broadcasts, read different newspapers, visit different blogs, and attend different public rallies. Regardless of whether you're a voter, a leader, a journalist, or an academic - and regardless of whether you're settled in your opinions or not - I urge you to take advantage of the opportunity. Open minds make clear minds, and those are in short supply.

Party Platforms - Analyzing When Voters Research their Vote

Greg Farries — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 07:43:16 -0600

We use Google Analytics to monitor and analyze the traffic we receive on Maple Leaf Web. The level of detail provided by Google Analytics is simply astonishing and it provides a unique look into how people are using Maple Leaf Web to research important political topics.

Our 2008 Election coverage was a very popular section of the site during the 2008 federal election campaign. According to Google Analytics, over the course of the writ period Maple Leaf Web attracted over 166,149 visits and 656,913 pageviews. These traffic numbers provide some interesting insight into how voters were using the site during the 2008 election campaign.

The image you see above is the traffic to Maple Leaf Web (between the dates of Sept 7th and Oct 15) received from visitors searching for keywords containing the word "platform". As you can see, the traffic is fairly static from Sept 7th through Oct 4th (with less than 400 people a day finding the site with a keyword containing "platform"). However, from Oct 5th to Oct 12 we see a slight traffic increase at the beginning and then it falls off slightly at the end. Only on the day before the election and on Election Day do we see a huge spike in traffic - 2919 visitors and 6174 visitors respectively.

Interestingly - if you consider the traffic received by Maple Leaf Web to be representative of a broader trend - it appears a significant portion of Canadians wait until the last minute to research the party platforms of the major political parties.

Note: this graph only represents a small sliver of the website traffic we received during the writ period. Over the next few weeks I plan going over some other interesting website traffic trends. So please stay tuned!

If the Liberals thing replacing Dion will solve all of their problems, they're delusional. Or stupid. Or both.

Harold Jansen — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:15:01 -0600

For most of the parties on election night, there was some good news. The Conservatives and NDP both have larger caucuses, the BQ was revived againm and the Greens increased in votes and dollars from the annual state subsidy. For the Liberals, however, you had to look hard for good news. The party earned its lowest share of the popular vote in its history, had one of its lowest seat totals ever, and was down in almost every region of Canada. The bright spots? Well, Quebec was bit kinder to the Liberals than most people expected. Also, despite a pretty ineffective campaign, the party still has a significant degree of support. The Liberals may have reached bottom and the only way to go is up.

In the post-election post-mortem of the Liberals' mangled corpse, the media and many Liberals seem to be focusing all of their attention on Stephane Dion. I heard Jim Karygiannis' interview on CBC's the Current on Friday and all he could talk about was Stephane Dion's many failings. I've heard rumblings from Liberal insiders that they think that they can replace Dion, elect a new leader, bring down Harper in a year and get a majority. All of the media speculation is on Dion and how he didn't listen to advice, didn't communicate well and failed the party.

If only it were that simple. The problems with the Liberals run far deeper than leadership. This is a party that has neglected its party structures. The membership is disengaged and demoralized. The party is in a terrible financial position and the situation is only going to get worse; the drop in the popular vote means that its annual subsidy is now $1.6 million a year less. On policy, the Liberals have coasted for a couple of decades. A lot of attention has been paid to how disastrous the Green Shift was, but it was the first new and bold policy initative the party has brought forward in a generation (and maybe even two generations). The Liberals are like a rusted out car with no engine or tires. Those who think a change of leadership will fix everything are basically saying that by slapping a new coat of paint on this mess, Canadians can be convinced to buy it.

This is not to excuse Dion for his part in the disaster on Tuesday night. He wasn't an effective communicator, the campaign his team ran was poorly organized and executed, and according to reports, he didn't take advice well or manage his caucus well. If the Liberals do manage to fix the car, it will need a new coat of paint. The frustration I have with the media and with some of the Liberals I'm hearing from is that they're looking for the quick fix. It sounds like some are not prepared to do the hard work of fixing what's wrong with the party. This is why I argued that a Conservative majority would be good for the Liberals. It would have given them the time to fix things and may have woken them up to the fact that things are actually worse than they seem.

One last point about the "Replace Dion and all will be well" camp. I think they're forgetting why Dion became leader in the first place. The way the 2006 leadership convention is sometimes portrayed, you'd think the delegates were all intoxicated and in a drunken stupor chose Dion as leader. There was a reason Dion won. There were big questions over both Michael Ingnatieff's and Bob Rae's abilities to lead the party, renew it and position it for the future. The delegates chose Dion because those other options didn't seem palatable. I'll leave it for those with better knowledge of the Liberals and those two men to say whether they've improved and/or allayed those fears. The quick move to replace Dion means it likely comes down to Rae vs. Ignatieff again and the party will face the same problem once more.

Stephane Dion is a decent, hard-working, honest and sincere man, whose commitment to Canada cannot be questioned. As this election showed, that isn't enough to lead a party. He probably does have to go. But the Liberals had better realize that leadership may be the least of the problems facing the party. Without a commitment to party renewal, a new leader may just be leading them in circles in the political wilderness.

Congrats to david_lewis and derekkim for Winning the MLW Comment Contest

Greg Farries — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:49:36 -0600

Congrats to david_lewis and derekkim - both commenters names were drawn for the two $50 Chapters.ca gift-certificates.

Thanks to everyone who contributed their comments on the Maple Leaf Web blog during the 2008 federal election, and stay tuned for more contests and giveaways in the future!

Considering the 2008 Election Results: Canada’s Electoral System Needs to be Replaced

Harold Jansen — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:53:11 -0600

I’ve been thinking over the election results since Tuesday night and I keep coming back to one thing: Canada’s electoral system needs to be replaced. I need to point out first of all that I’m not an electoral system ideologue. I don’t think there’s one abstract, theoretically derived system that works best in all countries and at all times. Canada currently has a single member plurality electoral system (often misleadingly labelled the “first past the post” system). This system works pretty well in countries where there are only two strong parties that are competitive with one in all regions of the country. That was the case in Canada from 1867 to about 1921. It hasn’t been the case for a long time and it’s a big reason why our electoral system needs reforming.

The reality is that Canada has a multi-party system and that fact isn’t about to change anytime soon. There was a lot of talk in this election about the vote-splitting on the left, which reminded me a lot of the discussions about vote-splitting on the right in the 1990s. I’ve seen some discussion about how we need to reduce the number of parties on the left, perhaps by having the Green party disappear. However, there are reasons why people started, joined and voted for the Green party rather than the NDP, just as New Democrats don’t want to be Liberals. I know plenty of former Canadian Alliance members who chafe at the principles they’ve had to see watered down as part of the Conservative party of Canada. Rather than reducing the number of parties to fit the requirements of an archaic electoral system, wouldn’t it make more sense to adopt a system that recognizes the diversity of political views that Canadians already hold.

This multiplicity of views means that the translation of votes into seats under our system is pretty erratic. Every election, I ask my students to predict how many seats each party will get in the election. I was struck by how poorly they performed this time. The reason is not that they’re not very bright, but that there’s a degree of randomness in the translation of votes to seats. As an example, I’ll pick the surprise in my own province. Conservative Rahim Jaffer lost his seat in Edmonton Strathcona. Hearing that, you might expect that he had fallen out of favour with voters. In fact, he received almost exactly the same proportion of the vote on Tuesday night (41.6%) as he did in 2006 (41.7%). What changed was the way all of the other parties’ votes divided (or didn’t). There are many examples like that to be found in the election results. It also helps to explain why small shifts in the overall popular vote can have a significant impact on seat totals, such as we saw with the Conservatives and the NDP on Tuesday night.

The other significant reality of Canadian politics is the regional disparity in support for the parties. We see this most evident with the Bloc Quebecois, which only runs candidates in Quebec. But we also see it with other parties. Because only one party can take a seat, it means that for supporters of a minority view, elections are an exercise in frustration. Ask a Liberal supporter in Alberta how satisfying it is to vote; ask a Conservative supporter in downtown Toronto the same thing. The problem with our electoral system is that it exacerbates these regional differences. Six out of every ten voters in Quebec did not vote for the BQ on Tuesday night, but they took two-thirds of the seats. About a third of Albertans don’t vote Conservative; you’d never know it looking at the election results. A different electoral system is not going to suddenly revive Liberal fortunes in western Canada, nor is it going to help voters in urban centres fall in love with the Conservatives. But there are systems out there that will more accurately reflect the true reality of party support at the regional level.

So, what’s the alternative? Well, I’d suggest a form of proportional representation, and if you want my specific recommendation, it would be a mixed-member proportional electoral system. This system was pioneered in Germany and has increasingly become the consensus choice of experts on electoral reform. MMP is seen to provide the “best of both worlds,” because it combines some of the best elements of the SMP system with the proportional overall outcomes of proportional representation. Under the system, voters elect an MP to represent their district, exactly as we do now. Voters would also get to cast a second ballot for the party they support (which may or may not be the same as the party of their preferred candidate). What we do then is give parties additional MPs from party lists so that their total number of MPs equals the number they should get based on their percentage of the vote.

How would the results on Tuesday night have been different under an MMP system. The first table has the actual results on election night.

Province	Conservative	Liberal	BQ	NDP	Green	Independent
N.L.	0	6		1	0	0
PEI	1	3			0	0
NS	3	5		2	0	1
NB	6	3		1	0	0
QUE	10	13	50	1	0	1
ONT	51	38		17	0	0
MAN	9	1		4	0	0
SASK	13	1			0	0
ALTA	27	0		1	0	0
BC	22	5		9	0	0
NORTH	1	1		1	0	0
TOTAL	143	76	50	37	0	2

The following table shows the hypothetical results of the election under an MMP system. If you want the assumptions and technical details I used in making the calculations, you can consult the fine print at the end of this post.

Province	Conservative	Liberal	BQ	NDP	Green	Independent
N.L.	1	4		2	0	0
PEI	2	2		0	0	0
NS	3	3		3	1	1
NB	4	2		3	1	0
QUE	16	18	29	9	2	1
ONT	42	36		19	9	0
MAN	7	3		3	1	0
SASK	8	5		3	1	0
ALTA	19	3		4	2	0
BC	16	7		10	3	0
NORTH	1	1		1	0	0
TOTAL	119	81	29	57	20	2

The result is a House of Commons that more closely corresponds to how Canadians actually voted on election night. The biggest change comes for the BQ; no other party in Canada benefits more from the distortions of our SMP system than them. The seats they would lose in Quebec would be divided among the other parties, but the Conservatives and NDP would especially benefit in that province. Overall, the NDP would be a net beneficiary of the system with better representation across Canada, but especially in Quebec. The Green Party would have elected 20 MPs from every province except Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island. Those gains obviously come at the Conservatives’ expense as the party now gets the typical SMP leading party bonus. For most of Canadian history, though, the Conservatives have been the second place party and the electoral system has not been especially kind to them. The other key thing about this for the two major parties is that they are decidedly national, with MPs from every region of the country.

There are many criticisms of proportional representation systems, but I’d argue that most of them either do not hold up well to critical scrutiny or are problems we already face in Canada. One common criticism is that we would never see majority governments under PR/MMP and that all governments would be minorities or coalitions. How is that different than what we have right now? A lot of people are arguing that as long as the Bloc is getting 40-50 seats, a majority government is almost unattainable. Furthermore, if Canadians are divided over the direction of their government, why should we artificially choose one of the parties to be able to direct the government in its entirety? Another related criticism is that we would see more frequent elections under a PR system. Again, I can scarcely see how we would do worse than how we’re doing now. We have had three elections in four and a half years and will likely see another one in two-three years. This last election was triggered because Stephen Harper and the Conservatives thought they could get a majority if they called it when they did. Under a PR system that incentive would be gone. The Conservatives would have gained around four seats over last time, hardly worth bringing down the government for. The flaw with all of these arguments is that they equate minority or coalition governments and more frequent elections with effective government. The only really good study of this found this not to be the case. Another frequent criticism is that extremist or anti-system parties can basically use their position to get what they want in order to keep a government in power. Again, that’s what we have now. I would define a party dedicated to breaking up Canada as an extremist party and our system right now gives the Bloc Quebecois inordinate influence in the House of Commons.

In other words, we’re getting all of the supposed disadvantages of PR without any of its advantages, such as higher voter turnout (although there are many causes of turnout decline that are unrelated to the electoral system) and greater representation of women. Canada’s society and party system would more appropriate be served by a proportional system. I’d argue that’s been the case since 1921 and the situation is only worsening.

What are the prospects of electoral reform? Probably not great, since the parties who control our choice of electoral system all have a vested interest in the system. The only hope for a Conservative majority is through the assistance of the electoral system. For the last six elections, the BQ has been the biggest beneficiary of the system. Historically, no party has been helped by the system more than the Liberals. They’ve governed most of the time since 1921, but have been doing so on an increasingly small proportion of the popular vote, as Richard Johnston has noted (PDF link). All of these parties have a vested interest in keeping the system how it is. No party has been hurt more by the electoral system than the NDP, but the party has been incredibly ambivalent in its commitment to reform. No NDP provincial government has ever introduced electoral reform. When the Liberals have relied on the NDP in a minority government situation, the NDP has never demanded movement towards electoral reform as its price for its support. Why? When the party’s leader says, “I’m Jack Layton and I’m running for Prime Minister,” he knows that the only way that’s ever going to happen is with a big helping hand from the electoral system.

It’s going to take citizen education, action and pressure to accomplish change. And it’s going to be a long and uphill struggle. But our political system is showing the cracks of an electoral system that no longer serves its needs.

The fine print: My MMP projections are based on the assumption that roughly half of the seats in each province are elected in single member districts and their breakdown is the same as what we saw on election night. I decided that in the case of the two independents, that they would have had enough appeal to have been elected even under the larger districts in an MMP system. I also assume that there is no “split ticket” voting; in other words, the voter would support the same party as the candidate they supported. Obviously, the assumption is also that people would vote the same under the PR system as they voted under SMP, which is likely true for the vast majority of people, but almost certainly not true for all people. We lack any data to assume or project other behaviour. The overall results treat each province as a district (I combined the North into one district) and allocates the seats using a largest remainders formula and a Droop quota.

Election 2008: Winners & Losers

Royce Koop — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 01:47:25 -0600

Winner: Stephane Dion. The snide comment he got off at CTV and Roger Smith ("...you understand?") was great, almost as good as Smith and Lloyd Robertson's breathless, wounded indignation afterward.

Loser: CTV. While results were pouring in from B.C., the network cut to a lengthy, chummy interview with Bob Rae, followed up by a simultaneous interview with Michael Ignatieff. I watched the B.C. results at the bottom of the screen while Rae and Ignatieff complimented one another and played coy over their leadership intentions. Lame.

Losers Again: Certain members of the media seem to think that the Canadian public is attuned to internal Liberal politics like it is a partisan version of Coronation Street. No sooner had the polls closed in B.C. that I was subjected to discussion of Liberal leadership politics. Does this sort of politics junkie chatter really attract viewers?

Losers: Hedy Fry and Ujjal Dosanjh. Both re-elected in B.C., they used their post-victory interviews to bitterly complain about how the N.D.P. and Green Party had split the vote and allowed Harper to be re-elected. The ferocity of these attacks really had to be seen to be believed.

Winner: Linda Duncan, who won in an Alberta riding. Did I mention that she was running for the NDP? Whoa.

Winner: Stephen Harper. Watching his speech tonight, I couldn't believe how much he's improved as a public speaker.

Loser: The Kitchen Table. Could we possibly outlaw the use of this term as a slogan in future election campaigns?

Loser: Gilles Duceppe. The standard media narrative this evening was that every party lost except for the Bloc, which cleaned up. Really? The party made significant gains in neither votes nor seats, and Duceppe couldn't match the standard set by Lucien Bouchard in the 1993 federal election. The Bloc couldn't even prevent Justin Trudeau from winning in Papineau.

Losers/Winners: Liberals in B.C.. The party held on to several of its B.C. seats. But three of those - Vancouver South, Esquimalt, and Newton North Delta - were nail-biters and the Liberal incumbents were lucky to have held their seats. A slight shift in the last few daysmight have seen all three of these go to the Tories, and the result would have been a genuine disaster for the party in B.C.. In B.C., Liberal Joyce Murray in Quadra and Conservative Alice Wong in Richmond deserve special congratulations. They were both thought to be in tight races, but ended up running away with their wins.

Loser: Quebec. Harper twisted himself into a pretzel to appeal to the province in the last parliament, and tonight's renewed support for the Bloc was the result. Keep in mind that Harper once wrote that the only viable way to assemble a conservative coalition in Canada was to exclude Quebec. Given that the party has gained in pretty much every region besides Quebec in this election, is it possible that the province has left itself out in the cold?

Winner: Raymond Chan. The long-time Liberal incumbent was defeated in Richmond, but delivered a gracious and moving concession speech where he encouraged other immigrants to run for public office. It's not hard to see why Chan built up a solid support base of loyal Liberal activists in the riding. He'll be missed.

Quick Thoughts on the 2008 Election

Harold Jansen — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:46:19 -0600

We'll be talking about the results for a few days to come, I'm sure, but here are a few quick election night thoughts.

Melanee Thomas was right: The NDP won Edmonton Strathcona (as of this writing with 222/223 polls reporting)! This is big from an Alberta point of view. Who would have thought we'd see the NDP win a seat in Alberta and get shut out in Saskatchewan?
The story was really the Liberal collapse. This is their worst showing in percentage of the popular vote in their history. This will compound the party's problems as it will also have significant financial implications for the party.
Dion sounded strong and defiant tonight. He's a decent guy, but he's done. The Liberals do not tolerate failure.
If Harper and the Conservatives couldn't do it tonight, they have to be asking if it's ever going to work. They might want to blame the economy, but Quebec cost them the election.
Danny Williams is amazing. He owns Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Greens had the biggest gain in popular vote of any party. But still no seats. BC passed Alberta as the party's strongest province. But Alberta is still strong Green territory: they had several top three finishes and even some seconds here.
The electoral system is bizarre! There are lots of strange outcomes. But that's a post for later in the week.
Good night for the NDP, although they didn't do as well in the popular vote as many of the pre-election polls suggested. They leverged it well into seats, though. It shows the wisdom in NDP targeting of seats.
The pre-election polls also understimated the Conservative support. I suspect part of it is due to the fact that the Conservatives have a huge advantage in identifying and getting out the vote.
It looks right now that voter turnout will be below 60% -- my current quick estimate has it around 59%. A combination of election fatigue (three elections in less than four and a half years) and an uninspiring campaign and set of leaders is probably responsible.

There's more to come later in the week. It's time for bed!

Things to watch on election night

Harold Jansen — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:17:34 -0600

Election night is always interesting. There are lots of things to watch and it's easy to get lost in the flurry of numbers that will fly at you while watching the results come in. Here are a few things to watch for.

The magic number is 155. That's the number of seats needed to get a majority government. It looks like no one party is going to get that tonight, but it's worth keeping that number in mind. If by some chance, the combination of Liberal seats and NDP seats is more than 155, we have an interesting possibility for a relatively stable minority government. But that looks unlikely, too, at this point.

Minority possibilities. Since a minority government is almost guaranteed tonight, the question is: who will form it? It looks at this point that the Conservatives will likely have the most seats, which means they'll continue on in government, right? Well, it's not necessarily that simple. If the combination of Liberal seats plus NDP seats is more than the number of Conservative seats, there are rumours that the two parties will work together to form a minority government. Of course, all of this depends on whom the Bloc Quebecois is willing to support. It's potentially a very fluid situation. It might be a very straightforward continuation of the last Parliament and government; it might get very messy and complicated.

Interesting battlegrounds: There are a number of interesting races across Canada, but some of the places I'll be watching are:

Newfoundland and Labrador: Premier Danny Williams has been on a mission to defeat Conservatives: what kind of impact will it have?
Central Nova: Peter MacKay is running for re-election for the Conservatives, but he faces Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party. There's no Liberal candidate here, as part of the Dion-May agreement not to contest each other's ridings. With all of those Liberal votes freed up, where will they go? Will the NDP benefit? I suspect MacKay will win, but who knows.
Quebec: This was the big hope for the Conservatives going into the election, but some campaign mis-steps and policies have seriously wounded the chances of the Conservatives here. Will they actually lose seats? What will happen to Michael Fortier, the Conservative cabinet minister/senator who gave up his senate seat to run? If he loses and there is significant carnage among Conservatives in Quebec, will this mean that the troublesome Maxine Bernier will be back in cabinet?
The 905 belt: For those of you not up on your Ontario area codes, the "905" area code is the suburbs around Toronto. The city itself is a bastion of NDP and Liberal strength. The Conservatives do well in the rural areas. If the party is going to make inroads and improve on its 2006 showing, it needs to do well in places like Mississauga, Oakville, Brampton, etc.
Wascana: Ralph Goodale, the lone Liberal in Saskatchewan and Alberta, held on here in 2006. The polls during this election have shown Conservative strength in these two provinces. Will Goodale fall this time?
Edmonton Strathcona: As Melanee Thomas noted, this is a close one and if the Conservatives lose a seat in Alberta, it will be Rahim Jaffer's. The NDP is pressing hard for this one. I spent some time in Edmonton this weekend, and the sign crews have certainly been busy.
British Columbia: The lower mainland is full of interesting three-way races. When every seat counts, like in this election, it will likely come down to the last province to vote.
Saanich-Gulf Islands: Conservative cabinet minister Gary Lunn could be in trouble here, with NDP candidate Julian West's troubles. The Liberals should benefit and this will have a big impact.

The electoral system: As has come up several times in our Mapleleafweb blog, Canada's single member plurality electoral system can do some odd things and tonight will be no exception. We could see the NDP improve its popular vote without improving its seat totals very much. We might see the Greens out-poll the BQ and get no seats while they Bloc gets about 50. Votes and seats often bear only a passing resemblance for the minor parties, and I suspect tonight will be no different.

Voter turnout: It's hard to say what it will do. As Jared Wesley noted, voting in the advance polls was down. Generally, close races like this election motivate higher turnout. However, national competitiveness can mask regional uncompetitiveness. Here in Alberta, for example, the Conservatives will likely take every seat and most of those contests will be absolute blow-outs. We're also coming off of a provincial election in the Spring, which had record low turnout. Furthermore, in Canadian history, when we have federal elections in fairly quick succession, it tends to drive down turnout. My suspicion is that turnout will be down a bit from 2006.

Women in Parliament: Many of the parties made concerted efforts to nominate more women as candidates. Will that translate into more women in the House of Commons?

It should be an interesting evening in front of the television and the computer. Remember to vote and to encourage your friends and family to vote. And check back here on the Mapleleafweb blog as we digest the results over the next several days.

Best and worst campaigns: and the winners are...

Harold Jansen — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 09:33:51 -0600

As we're in the dying days of the election, it's time to look back and see who had the best and worst campaigns in this election. It was an odd election, with events overtaking the best laid plans of political strategists and consultants. Just to be clear, this doesn't have anything to do with how these parties will do on election day. This evaluation looks at how well the party did, based on the resources they had and the goals they needed to accomplish.

BEST CAMPAIGN: Agree with them or not, I think it's clear that the NDP ran the smoothest, most focused campaign in the election. They had a clear message that they repeated and stuck to and one that worked in the changing economic environment. Jack Layton hit the right notes pretty consistently and got off the line that my students most remembered from the debate when he asked whether Stephen Harper's platform was under his sweater-vest. I'm not sure they were smart in ignoring the Liberals and esepcially the Greens, but overall they ran a smart, disciplined campaign. The only gaffes or scandals had to do with not vetting candidates properly and their ad campaign was extremely effective and well-produced. Unfortunately for the party, I don't think the increased support they've gained during the campaign is going to translate into many additional seats. It looks to me like people in areas that already like the NDP like them a lot more and that the party hasn't done much to improve elsewhere. Furthermore, I think there's a limit to the NDP's appeal, based on its policies and they're approaching that limit. That said, the party should be proud of its efforts during this campaign.

BEST CAMPAIGN (RUNNER-UP): The Green Party and Elizabeth May have also shown the most growth durign the campaign and also accomplished their goal: they got to participate in the debate and May showed she belonged there. The party is establishing itself as a real "none of the above" alternative to the three old parties. In Alberta and British Columbia, I think we could see some strong showings for local candidates. The party is close to doubling its popular vote showing from the last election. It was a big step forward. The big failing, of course, is that the party is almost assuredly not going to elect any MPs. It would be great to have Elizabeth May in Parliament, but running in Nova Scotia against Peter McKay was just a bad idea. May realizes all of this, which is why she said electoral reform, not action on climate change, would be her first act as Prime Minister. The key for the party now is to recruit some high profile candidates to run for them and to target those districts. Candidate recruitment generally contineus to be an issue for the party. Overall, though, the Greens should be happy with this campaign.

WORST CAMPAIGN: Sorry, Stephen, but the Conservative campaign, which was almost perfect in 2006, just didn't cut it this time. The party had everything going for it: it determined the timing of the election, it had a leader whose leadership ratings far surpassed all of the other parties, it was swimming in money to pay for the election and a ton of pre-writ election spending, and its primary partisan had money, organizational and leadership challenges. Here we are, five weeks later, and the party is limping to the polls, down from where they started the election. The Conservatives will blame the economy, as they were close to majority government territory before the market meltdown. All parties faced this challenge, but the Conservatives seemed to be caught flat-footed, not knowing how to respond. The economy also doesn't explain the series of gaffes from an over-eager war room in the first part of the campaign. It doesn't explain the evaporation of Conservative support in Quebec, which was a direct result of the party's policies on the arts and young offenders. It doesn't explain the lack of a platform for most of the campaign. It also doesn't explain Harper's limp performances in the two debates. It doesn't explain why the party continued to run negative attack ads, when people were looking fo rhope and reassurance. The economy killed them, sure, but the campaign was not terribly effective.

Conservative strategist and University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan gave a lecture here in Lethbridge last year where he talked about the way the Conservatives learned in their campaigns. He showed how the lessons they learned in the two Harper leadership contests and the 2004 election led them to run a very good campaign in 2006. One comment he made in response to a question from the audience still resonates with me. He said that the party would have to learn how to run a re-election campaign, something they've never done. There will be many lessons to learn from this one.

WORST CAMPAIGN (RUNNER-UP): It's tough to pile on here, but Stephane Dion and the Liberals were in the runing for the title of worst campaign until the last couple of weeks where Dion hit his stride and responded forcefully to the economic downturn. Much of the campaign was a disorganized mess, though. The party had trouble getting its message out and never gained traction. The Green Shift was an interesting piece of public policy, but the party never foudn a way to sell it or explain it well. Dion is a bright and sincere person, but was not a very effective communicator for much fo the campaign. What saved them was that Dion improved over the course of the campaign. The party showed the ability to react and think on its feet and responded effectively. It gave them a three point bump in the polls, so the campaign doesn't look that dismal any more, but the end result is that, barring some last minute shifts in opinion, this is going to go down as one of the worst Liberal party showings in history.