1,616 Days: Dividing Canadians

1,616 Days: Dividing Canadians « Framed In Canada
by Trish Hennessy
(part two of a series)

Excerpt:

Stephen Harper played the fear card and won, while the NDP made history by becoming the official opposition.

Some pundits suggest this means Canada has become an ideologically
polarized nation, but I say that’s premature. While we may be on the way
to becoming ideologically divided – pushed in that direction by a hyper
partisan, heavily ideological majority federal government — the 2011
electoral results suggest something more primal is at play.

As I stated in yesterday’s blog, the politics of fear can be
exploitative, distracting, and divisive. Here’s how it affected the
anti-Conservative choice in the 2011 federal election.

Let’s start with Harper’s preferred method of dirty pool: negative
advertising. Politicos take it on faith that negative advertising works
in election campaigns – that they’ve become a necessary evil.

It’s true that Canadians were exposed to some of the worst
American-style negative ad campaigns in our federal history. Towards the
end of the campaign, there were more than a dozen ads on the
Conservative Party website attacking either the coalition or Michael
Ignatieff. Those ads were repeated so many times, it would be hard to
find a Canadian who couldn’t recite the words “he didn’t come back for
you”.

Pundits are right to point to the
effectiveness of these ads in framing Ignatieff. In the post-election
hand wringing, some blame the Liberals for waiting too long to let
Ignatieff define himself to voters. Those who insist that negative
advertising works will point to the Ignatieff smear ads as an example
that they work. They will overlook the ineffectiveness of the Liberals’
attack ads on Stephen Harper, criticizing him for ‘contempt of
Canadians’ and more. They will overlook the role attack ads play in
sustaining the politics of fear. They will not necessarily tell you how
they work.

Negative advertising ‘works’ under certain conditions. Even if it’s
inflammatory, negative advertising has to have a ring of truth. It helps
if the attack ad speaks directly to a targeted, niche market of voters
that you know you can mobilize. The ads have to be seen repeatedly for
them to stick in the voter’s mind. And the party initiating the attack
has to have an answer for those who flee the person subject to attack.

Harper’s answer to the Ignatieff attack: trust me to manage the
economy. Polling indicates Harper was playing from his strengths and
speaking to Canadians’ undercurrent of worry about our economic future.

For those who didn’t trust Harper – those who fear what he might do with a majority government — they had four possible options.

As a counterpoint to the politics of fear, the Liberal Party appears
to have coasted on the fumes of “the Natural Governing Party” one
election too many. The Bloc campaign had a sluggish feel to it. Harper’s
politics of fear took advantage of these two parties in their hour of
disarray, reducing the choices for Canadians who truly feared a Harper
majority.

As for the discouraged voter — those who have given up
waiting for a leader to appeal to them and decided not to vote — they
might represent a quiet casualty of the politics of fear. Some Canadians
who decided not to vote in this election may have simply gotten turned
off of the toxic nature of the campaign. Some may have struggled to make
a decision that felt right.

Fear can be paralyzing, but fear is usually looking for someplace to
go, and sometimes the antidote to fear is hope. It certainly helped some
Canadians view Jack Layton differently in this election. Jack, with his
warm smile. Jack, with his Canadien hockey shirt, hoisting a beer.
Jack, risen from his sick bed to do what we all hope in the face of
health adversity: fight the beast down with grace, with pride, with the
fortitude it took to become an electoral David to Harper’s Goliath. In
Quebec, le bon Jack.

Jack Layton had captured, if for a brief moment in time, the
aspiration that resides alongside the slow simmering worry in Canada:
the hope that we can overcome adversity and thrive. That cane he hoisted
above his head at rallies became a symbol of strength; of defiance
against long odds.

And, for a few days, Canadians sat on the edge of their seat
wondering whether a phenomenon no pundit or pollster had predicted, this
NDP tide of support dubbed ‘the orange wave’, would crescendo into an
‘orange crush’.

Two things happened in the final days of the election that possibly
stemmed the NDP tide, and both were products of the politics of fear.

Click the link above to read the whole article.

The Politics of Fear: An election post-mortem

The politics of fear: An election post-mortem | rabble.ca
By Trish Hennessy

Excerpt:

(Part one of a series)

This blog post attempts to explain the power behind the dominant frame at play in this election: our economy in peril.

The frame was set by Stephen Harper, who spent 37 days dismissing the
democratic need for an election and focused with laser precision on
this message: Trust him -- and only him -- to manage the economy.

A minority of voters, 39.6 per cent, rewarded Harper with a majority
government. Nine million voters opted for the NDP, Liberals, Bloc or
Greens. Six million Canadians chose to sit at home while one of the most
dramatic election nights in our history passed them by.

Those are the facts. My disappointment with the plethora of federal
election post-mortems stems from this: many pundits are simply reciting
the facts and borrowing them as conclusions.

click the link to read the full post

More recent immigrants and youth voted NDP

Accidental Deliberations: The future coalition
Excerpt:
In figuring out the likelihood that the NDP can keep up the momentum
that's propelled it to official opposition status, one of the major
questions figures to be whether votes last week will translate into
additional support in the future. And there's more great news on that
front: in addition to winning the support of 41% of recent immigrants, the NDP also nearly doubled its opponents
when it came to attracting the youth vote (after a period of years
where support had generally been split four ways among Canada's national
parties).

The Honeymoon Will Be Cancelled

The Election 2011: The Conservative honeymoon, if there is one, will be short | rabble.ca
Excerpts (Read the whole article at the link):

The results of the 2011 federal election have sparked a flurry of
responses, most of them marked by mixed emotion. Many of us on the left
are celebrating the dramatic surge of the NDP and its historic win of
102 seats. But the NDP's success has been tempered, even overshadowed,
by the election of a majority Conservative government.

So what does that mean for the left? Are we doomed for the next four years?

Far from it.

In fact, the prospects for the left are quite good, although not
without many dangers. But it all depends on what we do in the days and
weeks ahead. If the left can tap into the progressive sentiment that
propelled the NDP from fourth place to Official Opposition, it has the
potential to build deeper, stronger and more confident movements -- even
under a Harper majority.

But first: let's look at the Tories' victory

Conservative support increased by less than two per cent -- about
633,000 votes, most of which came from the Liberals. Over 60 per cent of
the popular vote was against the Tories. Voter turnout was only
slightly up at 61.4 per cent. This means that Harper won a majority with
just 24 per cent of the electorate -- hardly a shift to the right.

Harper's success comes at the expense of the Liberals, who have lost
roughly 850,000 votes in each of the last two elections. Their collapse
is part of a broader trend. In the last five elections, the total
combined vote for the Conservatives and the Liberals -- both corporate
parties -- has steadily declined: from 78 per cent in 2000 to 58.5 per
cent in 2011, a drop of almost 30 points.

These figures contradict the mainstream consensus that Canadians have
become "more conservative." The opposite is true: more people than ever
are rejecting the corporate parties.

That represents an opening for the left, not a setback -- despite the
outcome of the election. Without a doubt, the Conservatives will govern
as if they have a massive mandate, but their majority is not without
contradictions. The left can take advantage of these.

For example, the incoming government is not a new one: just a
slightly bigger version of the last one. That means it won't escape the
scandals of the previous Parliament, the way a freshly elected
government would. As more information becomes available, as it surely
will after the election, Harper will face criticism over the Auditor
General's report on G-20 spending, declassified documents on Afghan
detainees, funding cuts to Planned Parenthood and the Canadian Arab
Federation (CAF's case is still before the Federal Court) and
skyrocketing costs for new F-35 fighter jets -- to name just a few.

It's true that the Conservatives have so far managed to deflect much
of this criticism, but they no longer have the opposition parties and
the minority Parliament to blame. As a majority government, the Tories
should now prepare for the criticism to stick. The honeymoon, if there
is one, will be short.
...

The election of a Conservative majority government is nothing to
celebrate, but neither is it reason to despair. The Tory victory is
fraught with contradictions that actually represent opportunities for
the left to reach a much bigger audience, and to convince more people to
become involved in the social movements -- especially on the labour
front. The NDP's rise to Official Opposition status could dramatically
accelerate this process -- if the left seriously engages the NDP base
and connects to the surge that sent a record number of NDP MPs to
Ottawa.

The next four years don't have to be miserable. In fact, they could
be quite exciting. But it depends on whether the left can move past the
immediate sense of demoralization (that many of us are feeling in the
wake of Harper's majority) and seize on the tremendous opportunities
that exist to engage the growing desire for change.

That desire needs expression both in Parliament and in the streets.
When it comes to stopping Harper, at least one campaign slogan still
rings true: "Together, we can do this."

Who really benefited from vote splitting?

Who really benefited from vote splits this election? - The Globe and Mail

Here is the reality: The parties that benefited least from vote splits in this election were the Conservatives and the NDP. The party that benefited the most from vote splits was the Liberals.

Read the link for the full analysis.

Harper's Majority: What's Left for us

Harper's majority: What's Left for us | rabble.ca
Excerpts:

What was shocking for people throughout the first three weeks of the campaign, before the strange, detached euphoria of the NDP surge, was that so many Canadians -- hovering near 40 per cent -- could support a government that was not only conservative in policy terms but virtually a rogue government in terms of its blatant and unapologetic trashing of democratic institutions and conventions. It did not seem to matter a whit that Harper harboured thugs in his inner circle, was found in contempt of Parliament, and lied without hesitation whenever it suited him.
...

Progressives need to come to grips with that fact that despite
consistent results from surveys suggesting two-thirds of people hold
socially progressive values, something profound is cancelling those
values out, neutralizing them. We live in society that is increasingly
conservative in its behaviour and actions. Forty-five per cent of people
in Ontario where a third of Canadians live, voted for Harper.

In the absence of community, in the absence of government that works
for people instead of against them, in the absence of strong, robust,
imaginative civil society organizations, people will turn to an
alternative that seems profoundly, frustratingly irrational on its face:
one that will dramatically roll back their quality of life. People will
find comfort and meaning somewhere, anywhere, if we don't provide it.

Progressive forces need to do a lot of soul-searching in the next
year. There are countless questions to be asked and answered -- or at
least addressed. My generation, more than any other, let this happen. As
much as we may lead the wailing and despairing over our country's
immediate fate, we never took the task of protecting it seriously. The
left-wing political class is middle class -- a way too comfortable, too
complacent and in my experience too lacking in a sense of urgency. It is
as if we think we can stop these powerful, frightening forces by
working at it part-time; by doing what we always do; and not giving up
any of the perks of our individual success.

If this election result does not shake people out of this
self-satisfied stupor then we are really in trouble. Why is it that the
Christian right gives till it hurts to destroy democracy while we think
we can defend it with a few pennies donated to good causes? Maybe what
we need is a Five Per Cent Club -- people serious about social change
willing to publicly commit to giving five per cent of their pre-tax
income to fight what is coming down the road.

We will need it. This will be a very long-term fight, a generational
fight, rooted in a serious and thoughtful collective examination of
where we have been, what we did wrong and what we need to do right. It
will be very, very hard as we will be trying to build a vision of a
better future, one that can truly inspire and engage people, while
conditions are getting dramatically worse and many people suffer the
consequences of this election. But there is no other way. Rebuilding a
progressive will be challenging, exciting and invigorating -- in other
words, something completely different.

Canada's Cold New Dawn

Canada's cold new dawn | Heather Mallick | Comment is free | The Guardian
Read the full article at the link
Excerpt:

Harper's Conservatives will pass an omnibus law and order bill within
100 days to make jail sentences mandatory for many offences, and begin
building super-jails, copying a system that even its authors, the
Americans, have begun to abandon. The huge purchase of fighter jets from
Lockheed Martin, which was an election issue, will now go ahead –
Harper says it will cost $9bn, government auditors say $39bn – as will
massive military shipbuilding.

The Evangelist Christian right is
at the heart of Harper's Conservative party, and after years of being
shushed, it will now demand an end to a number of things, including
abortion rights. Canada has no law against abortions, and they are
available free.

Corporate taxes will be cut almost immediately,
Bush-style. Political financing laws will change – parties now get money
for each vote – but this will end under the Conservatives, who will
have a huge advantage in terms of the amount they can solicit in
corporate donations.

What Happened To Canada?

How did the Conservatives end up with a majority when many experts were predicting, at most, a Conservative minority?

I think it boils down to an unexpected loss of 16 Liberal GTA seats to the Conservatives.

The NDP, Bloc and Green parties all ended up with seats in the range (or very close to the range) I was predicting. But, the Conservatives ended up with many more seats and the Liberals with way less seats than I and many were predicting.

Perhaps voters liked the Liberals less than they were letting on in the polls.
Now, did the Conservatives pick up these extra seats because of a split the vote in those ridings, or, did the Conservatives really get a lot more votes?

In all areas of the country, there was a bit of variation compared to the campaign polling results. But in Ontario, particularly in the GTA, mainly in suburbian Toronto, there were 16 seats that switched from Liberal to Conservative. Many of these seats were not seen as close races from polling data. Some were, yes, but many were not. After checking out the numbers and comparing the vote percentages between last election and this election in a number of these ridings, I found a common pattern. In most cases, a large percentage moved from the Liberals to the NDP. Now, all of these ridings were usually a contest between the Liberals and Conservatives, with the NDP in a distant third. In most of these ridings, there was a big vote swing from Liberal to NDP, also accompanied by a slight rise in the Conservative vote. Many of these ridings weren't especially targeted for strategic voting. There wasn't a big swell of Conservative support in Toronto, but the non-conservative support just spread out enough for the Conservative to win.

Maybe people thought that there would be enough of them throwing their support behind the NDP to get them elected in these ridings. I put it down to a combination of people not being happy with the Liberals performance as of late, dislike of their leader, and people liking what the NDP had to offer more, and a more likeable leader in Jack Layton.

This swing of votes DID end up working in these voters favour in 3 Toronto ridings that the NDP picked up much to my surprise: Scarborough-Rouge River, Scarborough Southwest and York-South Weston.

So, now we have a Conservative Majority.

See also:
iPolitics.ca: Is it time for pollsters to question themselves?

Update:
Pundits' Guide - "Splits" Decisions: A closer look at vote shifts in Greater Toronto
Pundit's Guide attributes the switch from Liberal to Conservative in Toronto ridings to people switching voting from Liberal to Conservative, and that the NDP rise in those areas came mainly from a combination of Green and new voters. Looking at the raw voting numbers, I can see that some of the changes can be attributed to this, but not all. There is too much of a big drop in Liberal numbers mirrored by a big rise in the NDP numbers in some ridings. But, taking into consideration that the Conservatives were 2nd in these ridings last election, having Liberals switch to voting Conservative, just by a few percentages, would be enough to let the Conservatives win in these ridings.

The Elephant In The Room - The Conservative Supporters

The media - the mainstream media and the Canadian blogosphere - have dissected the NDP and Liberal voters. But, almost no-one has looked at what makes the Conservative supporters continue to support the Conservative party.

The only story I've seen so far is this one from the Toronto Star about Crowfoot, Alberta. Even though this community would be much better served by the policies of the NDP, they will still vote Conservative because, for generations, they always have. The question remains, why won't they change and vote for a party that will better serve them in government? Don't they know they CAN vote for another party; that they CAN vote for better government?

What makes people so dense to the facts staring them in the face? What makes people continue to vote for a party that has been one of the most blatantly corrupt, lying, cheating, thieving, racist, homophobic, women-hating, war mongering, anti-democratic, Canada-hating parties in the history of Canada? Why would people continue to vote for a party that has been THE worst at managing the economy, a party that has embarrassed us on the world stage and made it so that the rest of the world now frowns upon us instead of looking to us as a world leader on the issues of peacekeeping and environmental protection, a party that cares only about the rich and not a fig for most Canadians, a party that has gone out of its way to undermine the support mechanisms for farmers, a party that is hell-bent on tearing down democracy and setting up a fascist state, a party that is only passionate in how much it hates Canada, a party that would reverse all the progress that has been made in our country over the past 50 years?

Why?

The Grinch here is not Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, but the people who blindly continue to vote in these vicious thugs. As shown in many opinion polls over the years it is known that most of these supporters value what we have (or had until the Harper Conservatives took it away) in Canada. They value medicare, They value our social support system. They value helping each other out and the fact that in Canada we do help each other out. They value peacekeeping over war-making. They value the environment and would like to take better care of it. They value the diversity of the peoples of this country. They value equality. They value love not hate. They value our democratic system. They value fairness and openness. They value honesty. They value having a government that respects them. So, why won't they respect themselves and vote for a party that shares the same values? Why vote for a party that turns around and craps on everything they believe in?

The corporate mainstream media has definitely played a part at swaying people to support the Conservatives and paint the other parties badly. And, there are those, especially in rural areas of the country, who vote for the local candidate, regardless of what party they belong to. And, as mentioned, there are those who blindly vote for whoever their family has always voted for. There are those who vote like it's all a game, and vote for whoever they think will win the election; they feel good about voting for a party that wins, even though that party turns and stabs them in the back. There are gullible people, people who fall for propaganda and lies and shiny objects. Some people can't read, or don't like reading, and some people have short memories and short attention spans, so, they don't read, listen to, or watch enough to see what has been happening to Canada. Some people live in caves. Some people don't have any connection to the Internet, or read newspapers, or have TVs or radios, or talk to anyone. But, I can't believe there are so many of these people as to collectively amount to over one third of the committed voters in this Country.

Wake up people! Canada has been burning, and you set the fire.

Addendum
I am possibly underestimating my take on media persuasion in my post above. Check out the media endorsements for this election:
Conservatives: 31
NDP: 2
Bloc: 1
Liberals: 0
Green: 0
And Let Freedom Reign's take on this.

See also:
Harper's Majority: What's Left for us

Scott's DiaTribes: What we were up against (everyone who was anti-Conservative)
Excerpts:
That folks, comes from an obvious Conservative supporter from a very Conservative county, but that's the mindset of some of Harper’s supporters. It also shows the droning and droning of the economy obviously resonated with some of these folks – they didn’t care if Harper was in contempt of Parliament – they blamed the minority Parliaments for Harper’s failings. I can see similarities to the Harper voters and the George W Bush voters from 2004 – they voted for stability – and discretion’s were ignored.

From the comments:

I don’t know what’s worse; the ignorance, bordering on foolishness coming out of your landlord’s mouth, or the conbots postings here trying desperately to defend a corrupt Conservative government.

What we have learned with this election is that Conservative supporters are hypocrites when it comes to government corruption.
...
"It also shows the droning and droning of the economy obviously resonated"

Which is why I kept harping on media figures promoting the myth that the Conservatives have some special competence where the economy is concerned. That’s an area where the media overwhelmingly reinforces the Conservative narrative.

Close NDP vs Conservative races

Here is a list of ridings across Canada where the NDP are running neck-and-neck with the Conservatives.
Get out and Vote NDP to help change the government!

Quebec:
Lévis--Bellechasse (in Quebec City)
Louis-Saint-Laurent (in Quebec City)
Lotbinière--Chutes-de-la-Chaudière
Mégantic--L'Érable
Montmagny--L'Islet--Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup
Roberval--Lac-Saint-Jean

Ontario
Essex
Guelph
Kenora
Simcoe--Grey

Alberta
Edmonton East

BC
Kamloops--Thompson--Cariboo
Nanaimo--Alberni
Pitt Meadows--Maple Ridge--Mission


[Based on April 29-30 polls from Nanos, EKOS, and Decima]

Minimum to Maximum Seat Projections

Here are my minimum to maximum seat projections based on polling data by each riding from April 28-30 polls from Nanos, EKOS, and Decima

Con: 114 - 151
NDP:102 - 138
Lib: 43 -70
Bloc: 0 - 6
Green: 0 - 1

Minimum = seats where, based on the above polls mentioned, the party has a good lead over the other parties.
Maximum = add in all the seats where the party is in a tight race with other parties. There are about 49 tight races across the country.

As you can see, we will end up with either a Conservative or NDP minority government, with one of those parties forming the official opposition. The Liberals will fall back to 3rd place, and the Bloc will become almost non-existent (it even looks like Gilles may loose his seat!). Elizabeth May is in a very tight race for her Green Party seat where so far the Conservatives are slightly leading.

If the NDP surge continues at the pace it has been going in the past few days, it will be a very tight race for who wins the most seats - NDP or Conservatives. If the surge increases even more, then we will definitely have an NDP minority government.

Not Rex: Humberto gives you many reasons to vote NDP

Not Rex: Orange crush | rabble.ca
Watch the video!

New Seat Projections as relating to the NDP surge

Here are my seat projections based on polling data from the EKOS and Nanos polls of April 27 and 28 only.

These projections are based on 3 different scenarios regarding the NDP surge.

1) If the surge levels off (at the April 28th level):

Con: 124
NDP: 118
Lib: 56
Bloc: 10

2) If the surge keeps going along similar to how it has been the past week:

NDP: 124
Con: 123
Lib: 54
Bloc: 7

3) If the surge rate increases significatly:
(this would mean if all the tight 2 or 3 way races (as seen April 27-28) that include the NDP would all go to the NDP)

NDP: 146
Con: 110
Lib: 48
Bloc: 4

Another NDP minority government prediction

Another word from our NDP conscience ... - The Globe and Mail
Douglas Bell:
A while ago I passed along a correspondence from
Liam McHugh-Russell . That missive turned out to be somewhat, sort of,
kind of prescient. Just a reminder: Mr. McHugh-Russell ran against
Michael Ignatieff in Etobicoke-Lakeshore as the NDP candidate in 2006
and again in 2008. He’s a law student at McGill these days and a pretty
sharp cookie. So here’s his latest. It’s worth reading right to the end
because his conclusion is a stunner.


Liam McHugh-Russel:

So I watched CBC's The National and I have three things to say:

1. The NDP surge is the story, two nights in a row. The first eight
minutes of the show were about how well the NDP is doing and how the
other parties are responding. Some people said some things about Québec
and the Constitution – and the response? Jack looked calm, smooth and
energetic talking about how his priority is making people's lives
better. Harper looked whiny, harping on the point. Ignatieff seemed
passionate, but only got five seconds on TV and the point he made didn't
stick.

2. The At Issue panel treated the surge as a fait accompli; we are,
in other words, no longer at the point of shooting milk through our
nose. Remember that thing I said about non-belief turning into belief,
Jack is not Ed, the word on the street living in 1988, all that we need
to know is that we don't actually believe what we think we believe?
We're way past that point. The surge is real, people realize it's real,
the other parties realize its real, the press treats it as real, and it
was already real on the weekend, when people came out in
disproportionate numbers to vote in the advance poll, 33-per-cent more
than in 2008. If that translated on election day, we're talking 75 per
cent of the population voting rather than 58 per cent. So we're talking
new voters, no doubt. Ignatieff's message today is that the Liberal
voters who didn't come out in 2008 are back, and he's right – they are
back with a vengeance, and they're voting NDP.

3. The Insiders panel pretty much agreed with the At Issue panel:
the surge could be nudged but not reversed, but the other parties
haven't planned for this and they don't even have a plan to nudge them,
let alone reverse them. The numbers game, the candidates question: it's
just not going to make a difference. The At Issue panel and Peter both
talked about the surge building, the possibility that the NDP could end
up with even more votes, more seats than the current numbers show. Angus
Reid poll released a few moments ago? Shows the NDP at 30 per cent,
five back from Cons, 8 per cent ahead of the Liberals. What's going to
happen next? The NDP put up new ads in Montreal in bus shelters today
and the news cycle is going to be in a frenzy for the next three days
talking about wedding dresses and British republicans; Mansbridge isn't
even going to be in the country. In other words, with the election past
the last curve in the track, the NDP is not only ahead but still gaining
momentum and spending money.

Where does it all end? Check out people's first and second-place preference from today's EKOS poll:

I told you two weeks ago that the NDP would need just a glimmer of
hope to finally take off, and now they've gotten it. They're finally
heading toward their ceiling and that ceiling is high indeed: 130 per
cent the height of the Conservatives or the Liberals. You want a seat
count? NDP 115, Conservatives 110; Liberals 65; Bloc 18. In the end,
politics is possible and suddenly, so are these results. Me, I am still
rooting for the NDP because I believe they're serious about us having
the Canada we already have, except better. But it's also very exciting
that the result we do get five days from now will be determined by the
question I said mattered when this whole thing started: whether
Canadians believe it's possible for them to have the government they
want. And it seems increasingly like they can – and that they will.

***

These predictions are almost identical to my predictions 2 days ago:
NDP: 115
Con: 110
Lib: 55
Bloc: 28

No Surprises Here: The Globe Endorses Harper

Politics and its Discontents: No Surprises Here: The Globe Endorses Harper
Nope. No surprise here at all. Hats off to Politics and its Discontents:

As if to once more remind people of how hollow its claim to being
Canada's national newspaper is, the Globe and Mail has offered an
endorsement of Stephen Harper. Its reasons for recommending that the
electorate (or at least that portion lacking critical thinking skills)
give yet another mandate to Harper and his regime would be laughable
were the stakes not so high, and once more amply demonstrate the
journal's increasing irrelevance to the Canadian political discussion.


I am reproducing a small portion of its rallying cry for the Conservatives to illustrate. The bolded portions are my own:




Only Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have shown the
leadership, the bullheadedness (let's call it what it is) and the
discipline this country needs. He has built the Conservatives into
arguably the only truly national party, and during his five years in office has demonstrated strength of character, resolve and a desire to reform.
Canadians take Mr. Harper's successful stewardship of the economy for
granted, which is high praise. He has not been the scary character
portrayed by the opposition; with some exceptions, his government has
been moderate and pragmatic.


It is because of this kind of fatuous thinking that I have not spent a day regretting my decision late last year to cancel my subscription to the once venerable paper.


More:
Peace, Order and Good Government, eh?: When mediocre editorial boards go bad
The people who run the Globe have lost touch with reality.

Far and Wide: Shame on the Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail has endorsed the politics of fear, the notion of unaccountable democracy, the idea that a budget is fiction, the precedent that one can lie about military expenditures with no recourse, THIS IS WHAT an ENDORSEMENT means.

Polygonic: Oops they did it again
No intelligent being (and I include dolphins, puppies and bonobo chimps) can honestly consider Stephen Harper a sober steward of the Canadian economy. The historic deficit proves it wrong, and the simultaneous drunken sailor spending, with its “state secret” price tags to-boot, only underline it.

A Creative Revolution: Predictions were right
It wasn't rocket science to know that Corporate media are going to endorse the most corporate owned party.
No matter how many laws they break, how out of touch they are with Canadians, or how absolutely wrong it is for any media to take sides. They did it again.

Orwell's Bastard: "Find new ways to protect Parliament?" WTF?

Indeed. The Grope & Fail, claiming that the Conservatives are the best to protect Parliament is just insanely absurd. The Conservatives are the ones who have done more harm to tear down and undermine a democratic parliament than any other governing party in my lifetime. The Grope & Fail's reasoning for their endorsement of the Conservatives is a joke.

NDP rise to within 3 points of the Conservatives

Grits set to lose long-held bastions in Montreal and Toronto to NDP, says dramatic new Forum Research poll | The Hill Times - Canada's Politics and Government Newsweekly
The new Forum Research poll of 3,150 Canadians shows that the NDP have risen yet again and are now at 31%, 3 points behind the Conservatives at 34%.
They project that this will result in the following seats if an election were held today:
Conservatives: 137
NDP: 108
Liberals: 60
Bloc: 3

The NDP need to gain at least another 15 seats (and the Conservatives drop another 15 seats) for the NDP to reach minority government position. With the trend showing that they continue to rise in voter intention, it is a possibility.

Excerpt from the article:
If the voting intentions hold, the Liberals stand to lose at least four of the party’s Montreal fortresses to the NDP, including Westmount-Ville Marie, where former astronaut Marc Garneau is battling for re-election; Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine, held by prominent Liberal Marlene Jennings since 1997; and perhaps even Papineau, another longtime Liberal seat where Justin Trudeau, son of Liberal icon Pierre Trudeau, who is struggling to keep a Commons seat. LaSalle-Émard, once held by former prime minister Paul Martin, is also set to fall to the NDP, Mr. Bozinoff told The Hill Times. Incumbent Liberal Lise Zarac is fighting to win the riding.

Several Quebec Conservative seats and most Bloc Québécois seats are also set to be swamped by the surprising NDP wave in Quebec

An analysis based on the poll findings and voter intentions in key ridings across Canada show Mr. Harper and his Conservatives are set to lose three seats to the NDP in the Québec City region— Beauport-Limoilou, where Syvie Boucher, a prominent Tory, is fighting for re-election; Charlesbourg-Haute-Sainte-Charles, won by Daniel Petit, another Parliamentary secretary with the Harper government; and Pontiac, the West Quebec riding where one of Mr. Harper’s most high-profile MPs, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, is battling to win re-election. The Liberals are set to lose their long-held bastion of Hull-Aylmer across the Ottawa River from Parliament, held by Marcel Proulx, and Gatineau, where former Liberal MP Françoise Boisvin is set to oust Bloc Québécois incumbent Richard Nadeau.

In Ontario, although the NDP is set to win at least two Liberal seats in Toronto, Beaches-East York, held by Maria Minna, and Parkdale-High Park, where Liberal star Gerard Kenney is set to lose the riding back to New Democrat Peggy Nash, it is the Conservatives who are poised to gain from the Liberal implosion in the province. The poll results show the Conservatives are closing in on Eglinton-Lawrence, held by prominent Liberal Joe Volpe, a former leadership contender, since 1988, and at least four ridings from Liberals in the Greater Toronto Area.

In the Atlantic, Geoff Regan, the son of former Nova Scotia Liberal premier Gerald Regan, faces the prospect of losing his re-election bid in Halifax-West to the NDP. The NDP also stands to win South Shore-St. Margaret’s from Conservative Gerald Keddy and in Newfoundland and Labrador’s St. John’s-Mount Pearl, barely won by Liberal Siobhan Coady in 2008.

“With the NDP continuing to gain steam from coast to coast, and both the Liberal and Conservative parties’ support lagging, the key question now is whether the NDP have the ground troops to deliver their vote on election day,” Mr. Bozinoff said.

The results are based on an interactive voice response survey of 3,150 randomly-selected eligible voters across the country, on April 26, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 per cent 19 times out of 20.
The poll found the Conservatives have lost ground to the NDP in the Atlantic region, Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.

Why Layton's fit for office

Why Layton’s fit for office - The Globe and Mail
Brian Topp clears up some misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding Jack Layton and Quebec in Canada.

Layton's opponents have claimed "he sold his soul to Quebec separatists to obtain this [NDP lead in Quebec] result."

From the article:

A foolish thing to say, in the case of Michael Ignatieff. Mr. Ignatieff said substantially everything Mr. Layton has said on the question of Quebec’s constitutional status, essentially word-for-word, in 2006.

And a foolish thing to say, in the case of Stephen Harper – author of the House of Common’s “Quebec is a nation” resolution, flowing directly from Mr. Ignatieff’s 2006 statements.

So what is there is to say about this matter, one of many issues (by no means the most pressing) on the minds of those francophone Quebeckers, who are – maybe just maybe – a few days away from re-engaging with federal governance?

There is this: It remains true that the Quebec National Assembly has not ratified the 1982 amendments. This is an issue that will have to be addressed at some point. The time to address it is when we can be sure we will succeed.

There is this: One of the necessary preconditions to “succeeding” is having a new and better federal government that francophone Quebeckers see themselves in, and that is working on priorities they support.

There is this: In the 1998 reference case, the Supreme Court wrote the rulebook on any future referendum, should there be one but hopefully there won’t. Both then-Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard and then-prime minister Jean Chrétien welcomed this ruling at the time.

And there is this: Fewer Bloc MPs in Parliament is good for Quebec and good for the rest of Canada. Working to re-involve francophone Quebecers in the governance of Canada is what Canadians hope and expect an aspirant for prime minister to do. Acknowledging this issue, as Mr. Layton did when asked (as anyone campaigning in Quebec inevitably will be) is respectful of the views of francophone Quebeckers, and is therefore good nation-building.

Mr. Layton is making a remarkable contribution to Canada in this election by reaching out successfully to French-speaking Quebeckers – something that has eluded all other national leaders in Canada for over twenty years. He has addressed these issues responsibly and with due respect for Canada’s unity, our laws, our democracy and our respect for each other.

That’s what people who are fit for office do.

NDP Still Rising

Tories Lead in Canada, NDP Firmly in Second Place Due to Quebec Strength | Angus Reid Public Opinion
Although this is an on-line poll, and generally deemed not as accurate, it still seems in sync with the other polling trends and is very close to the April 25th EKOS poll results.

Conservatives: 35%
NDP: 30%
Liberals: 22%
Bloc: 7%
Green: 5%

The trend of the NDP support has been a on a continual rise for some time now, growing faster as we get closer to May 2nd. With this trend, we may even see the NDP tie or surpass the Conservatives.

In Ontario, one area where the NDP rise was slowest to start out of all the provinces, The NDP are now at 27%, closing in on the Liberals with 30%. The Conservatives still lead in Ontario with 38%. The NDP started this campaign with only about 16% support in Ontario.

***

Poll on this blog
Interesting results so far on the poll on my blog. Here is the seat projection (proportionately) from that poll:
NDP: 272 seats
Conservatives: 24 seats
Green: 12 seats
(no seats for Liberals or Bloc)

Toronto Star makes things up and plays the FEAR card to try to bring voters back to the Liberals

Tim Harper: Majority so tantalizingly close for Harper - thestar.com
Incorrect Tim.
Actually, if you look at all the polls (except for the Ipsos-Reid polls), they all show the Conservatives in the lead, but only in minority territory. And, the latest EKOS poll (random landline/cell phone poll of over 3,000 adults across Canada - which gives it a very high accuracy rate) shows the Conservatives slowly losing support, while the NDP, in second place, quickly catching up to them.

What is usually a sure-fire way to get soft Liberal-NDP swing voters to line up behind the Liberals is to scare them with a possibility of a Conservative majority. This has worked in the past. But now, with the NDP well ahead of the Liberals in most areas across the country, this tactic is not working. And, it doesn't make sense either. The logic would be that to stop the leading party, you would want to shore up support for the party with the next highest support. Well, today, that is the NDP. Logic would now show that a vote for the Liberals would split the vote and let the Conservatives in.

Even their readers, in the poll at the side of the story, don't believe them. The question: Do you think the Conservative Party is on the road to a majority government? Out of 63,999 votes, 58% said No, and only 31% said yes.

If you are scared of a Harper majority, the only party in position to stop it is the NDP. The NDP continue to gain in the polls and are now only 6 points away from the Conservatives. The trend shows that the NDP continues to gain support every day. If those on the wall throw their support behind the Liberals now, it will split the vote and may give the Conservatives a majority.

So, put away your fear and vote this time for a party that actually shares your values and beliefs. Throw your support behind the NDP now and we may just get an NDP government, a government that actually cares about what you care about.

The NDP has a national public transit strategy

National Public Transit Strategy Still Missing from this Election - Torontoist
The Torontoist published this misleading bit of journalism today. Again, like most MSM, they only count the Conservatives and Liberals when speaking about the election. The Torontoist did include a mention of the NDP, who do have a national public transit strategy. So, why the misleading title of the article?

Excperpts from the article:
In addition to the FCM, the Canadian Urban Transit Association has called for a national transit strategy—something that the NDP’s Olivia Chow had put forward in the form of Bill C-615,
which had its first reading on February 3, 2011. The bill (aptly named
an Act to Establish a National Transit Strategy) called for all levels
of government to work together to establish and maintain permanent
federal funding mechanisms for public transportation.
Sadly, as we've already noted, a full slate of urban issues, including transit, is not getting very much airtime in this federal election.
...
As mentioned, the NDP is calling for an additional cent of the gas tax
to be dedicated to cities, which could be used for public
transportation. However, they are also calling for a National Public
Transit Strategy, and, given that Olivia Chow had proposed a bill
establishing this before parliament was dissolved, we can assume they
are taking this seriously.


Sadly, what is missing is not the platform items and the attention of parties, but the lack of coverage and the lack of attention given to certain topics by the MSM, and sadly, by the alternative media like Torontoist, along with the total discounting of the NDP, who, by the way, are now 2nd in the polls.
I expected better from Torontoist.


The NDP National Transit Strategy:
    * Provide a permanent investment plan to support public transit
    * Establish federal funding mechanisms for public transit
    * Work together with all levels of government to provide sustainable, predictable, long term and adequate funding
    * Etablish accountability measures to ensure that all governments work together to increase access to public transit.
(From the bill tabled in parliament by NDP's Olivia Chow this past winter)
See:
http://www.ndp.ca/press/new-democrat-tables-national-transit-strategy
http://www.ndp.ca/press/new-democrats-outline-new-national-transit-strategy
Also, from the NDP platform:
* We will enact a National Public Transit Strategy in order to maintain and expand public transit across the coutnry, with a clear mechanism for sustainable, predictable and long-term funding
* We will immediately allocate another cent of the existing gas tax to public transit funding for municipalities
* We will encourage transit use by providing a tax exemption for employee workplace-based transit passes