Canadian elections

[timrollpickering]

Since upper house reform is topical, we missed the other vote in Alberta - an election for "Senators in Waiting" to take the province's seats in the Canadian Senate (formally appointed by the Prime Minister). SiWs "sit" for six years until vacancies come up (the previous practice of waiting for vacancies was found to be impractical) although Liberal Prime Ministers have instead appointed their own choices.

The elections are contested by the provincial parties, though the Liberals and NDP boycott due to their opposition to either piecemeal reform or the Senate as a whole. To date all Progressive Conservative SiWs subsequently appointed have sat in the federal Conservative caucus.

The results so far are as follows:

results.elections.ab.ca/wtResultsSNE.htm

Doug Black Progressive Conservative 428,791 16% - ELECTED
Scott Tannas Progressive Conservative 349,396 13% - ELECTED
Mike Shaikh Progressive Conservative 308,339 11% - ELECTED
Rob Gregory Wildrose 299,511 11%
Raymond Germain Wildrose 299,415 11%
Vitor Marciano Wildrose 246,211 9%
Elizabeth Johannson EverGreen 150,193 6%
Len Bracko Independent 141,418 5%
Ian Urquhart Independent 107,559 4%
David Fletcher Independent 114,918 4%
Paul Frank Independent 94,154 4%
William Exelby Independent 81,489 3%
Perry Chahal Independent 65,434 2%

[Deleted]

Takes place on 4 September.

The last election result was:

Liberal 66
Parti Quebecois 51
Action Democratique du Quebec 7
Quebec Solidaire 1

Since then a new party has formed, Coalition Avenir Quebec, led by high-profile ex-PQ minister Francois Legault. The CAQ has performed well in the polls (leading in some following their emergence, though they have slipped back to third recently) and has won some defectors from PQ, and the moribund ADQ agreed to merge into it at the end of last year. CAQ is 'post-sovereigntist', looking to shelve the issue for the immediate future and unite sovereigntist and federalist voters in the meantime.

There is a smaller new party called Option nationale, a 'hardline' sovereigntist party whose founder/leader was elected as PQ in 2008. This has the support of another ex-PQ member although she has not joined the party formally (and is stepping down at the election)

So the current state of play is

Liberal 64
PQ 47
CAQ 9
QS 1
Option nationale 1
Ind (supporting Option nationale) 1
Ind 1

and one vacancy.

A summary of election issues here: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebecvotes2012/story/2012/08/01/f-quebec-election-campaign.html

[Sibboleth]

The Charest government has been a disaster and under normal circumstances would be about to be defeated in a landslide. Alas, the other parties are so actively uninspiring that another term may well beckon, even if that mutant cross between Harpo Marx and Jim Davidson probably loses his seat (finally) this time.

[Rose Tinted Lane]

If the NDP won the majority of seats in Quebec at a federal level, why do they not run candidates in the state legislature?

[timrollpickering]

The NDP's provincial wing broke away back in 1989 over a mixture of Quebec question issues and some other factors. Through mergers it is now part of Quebec Solidaire.

There hasn't been a great deal of interest in creating a new provincial wing (it's been floated at both national and Quebec section conventions of the federal party) and there'd be the major problem that some of the NDP's activists and organisers (of whom there are not many in Quebec) are members of other provincial parties.

Also a number of Quebec polls cover both federal and provincial voting intentions and show there isn't a direct correlation of voting intentions between the two levels or a sizeable would be NDP vote at provincial level.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Aug 2, 2012 8:37:25 GMT @trident said:

Seems a strange time of year to have an election - with campaigning taking place in the 'dead season' of August. Is Charest pinning his hopes on a low turnout?

Does Quebec have the same attitude to August as does France?

[comicbookguy]

Aug 2, 2012 8:49:53 GMT @trident said:

I also find it odd that the election is being called less than four years after the last one, which was in November 2008. If Charest is so unpopular, you would expect him to hang on for the full five years in the hope that the political picture will improve.

Perhaps he fears a Winter of Discontent.

[Deleted]

Aug 2, 2012 8:49:53 GMT @trident said:

I also find it odd that the election is being called less than four years after the last one, which was in November 2008. If Charest is so unpopular, you would expect him to hang on for the full five years in the hope that the political picture will improve.

The polls are probably not going to improve for him. Another year might just leave time for opposition to coalesce around either PQ or CAQ.

[Khunanup]

Aug 2, 2012 16:51:58 GMT @strinity said:

Aug 2, 2012 8:49:53 GMT @trident said:

I also find it odd that the election is being called less than four years after the last one, which was in November 2008. If Charest is so unpopular, you would expect him to hang on for the full five years in the hope that the political picture will improve.

The polls are probably not going to improve for him. Another year might just leave time for opposition to coalesce around either PQ or CAQ.

Yep he's doing what Gordon Brown should have done. Realised that it's as good as it gets now and any longer will result in ever worse results.

Threehundredeight covers things very well: www.threehundredeight.com/

[The Bishop]

Hmmm, not convinced that going to the country in 2009 wouldn't have been even worse for us (ditto Major calling time in 1996)

[timrollpickering]

The current projection on Threehundredeight reminds me a bit of the Alberta result. Maybe Charest's also been reminded.

[Sibboleth]

Threehundredeight is a joke.

[Deleted]

I do remember it getting the last federal result horrendously wrong because its model could not keep up with the NDP surge.

[Khunanup]

Aug 2, 2012 23:25:00 GMT @strinity said:

I do remember it getting the last federal result horrendously wrong because its model could not keep up with the NDP surge.

Did anyone's model get it anywhere near right though?

[Khunanup]

Aug 2, 2012 21:12:53 GMT The Bishop said:

Hmmm, not convinced that going to the country in 2009 wouldn't have been even worse for us (ditto Major calling time in 1996)

No I'm talking about Brown should have gone in 2007 after he was elected leader when he bottled it. My parallel with Charest is that he's going now because he can't forsee it getting any better for the Quebec Liberals before the end of the parliament. That is what Brown should have seen in 2007 because it was patently clear to an awful lot of people that his honeymoon period was going to be as good as it got.

[comicbookguy]

You have to remember that the polls were swinging towards the Tories when Brown was (apparently) on the verge of visiting Buckingham Palace. I think Labour would have probably lost their majority - there only needed to be a 2% swing against them for that to happen. If they had continued with a minority, then they could well have (rather ironically) been out of office sooner - likely within a year (the 10p tax row would have probably triggered another election).

Anyway, back to Quebec. The most recent Forum Research poll shows a big shift towards the two main parties:

PQ - 39% (+6)
QLP - 38% (+4)
CAQ - 14% (-4)
QS - 4% (-6)
GPQ - 3% (-1)

An outlier? Or have a lot of voters decided that only the PQ and the QLP have a chance of victory, so they might as well choose one or the another?

[john07]

Aug 3, 2012 23:40:41 GMT Khunanup said:

Aug 2, 2012 21:12:53 GMT The Bishop said:

Hmmm, not convinced that going to the country in 2009 wouldn't have been even worse for us (ditto Major calling time in 1996)

No I'm talking about Brown should have gone in 2007 after he was elected leader when he bottled it. My parallel with Charest is that he's going now because he can't forsee it getting any better for the Quebec Liberals before the end of the parliament. That is what Brown should have seen in 2007 because it was patently clear to an awful lot of people that his honeymoon period was going to be as good as it got.

An election win in 2007 would have been a real poisoned challis for any party. Imagine the result of a 2012 General Election for the incumbent party.

[tricky]

Aug 7, 2012 13:06:46 GMT john07 said:

Aug 3, 2012 23:40:41 GMT Khunanup said:

No I'm talking about Brown should have gone in 2007 after he was elected leader when he bottled it. My parallel with Charest is that he's going now because he can't forsee it getting any better for the Quebec Liberals before the end of the parliament. That is what Brown should have seen in 2007 because it was patently clear to an awful lot of people that his honeymoon period was going to be as good as it got.

An election win in 2007 would have been a real poisoned challis for any party. Imagine the result of a 2012 General Election for the incumbent party.

Yepp. You might have held Bootle but that would have been about the lot!

[The Bishop]

Hmmm, I don't think it would have been *quite* as bad as with the Canadian Tories in 1993 (to get vaguely back on topic But point taken........

[Sibboleth]

Trying to get properly back on topic, unless CAQ (apparently this isn't funny in Canada, which is a shame. Shades of CCRAP and all that) is really messing with things, the Liberals need to be ahead by a clear margin in the popular vote to have much of a chance of actually winning: back in 1998 the PQ won a big majority despite polling less votes than the PLQ. The PQ has only ever had a clear popular vote lead once; in 1976.