Election Oracle 2008

Prairie Topiary's Election Oracle is back!

I'll post detailed province-by-province predictions here on Monday afternoon after I take a glance at the last of Nanos's daily tracking polls.

This weekend's polls show the Conservatives recovering some of the points they lost to the Liberals in the past week. The Conservatives are still down significantly in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, while the NDP looks to be down a few points in BC. Nanos shows the NDP's numbers holding strong at 22% nationally, which is probably the highest they've been all campaign. I suspect that the NDP pretty much neutralized any strategic voting lure of the Liberals, though a decline in their numbers tomorrow might suggest otherwise.

Of course, accurate predictions require something more than just poll numbers. They have to include consideration of regional swings, the influence of "star" personalities and the added recognition factor that comes from being an incumbent, as well as the role of strong local organization and "top of mind" brand status (e.g., Greens are less "top of mind" and tend to worse than the polls suggest on election day, while the opposite is often the case for the Liberals). Anticipating last minute shifts in support can also be key.

I may yet change these numbers, but right now I'm predicting the following:

Conservative minority (141 seats)

Liberal Official Opposition (76 seats)

Bloc (49 seats)

NDP (40 seats)

Independent 2

Green 0

That's a notable increase in seats for the Conservatives and NDP at the expense of the Liberals. It's not inconceivable that the NDP could surpass its highest ever popular vote (20.4% in 1988) and seat count (it held 44 seats following a win in a 1989 byelection). Passing the Bloc to become the third largest party in the House might also be possible, but passing the Liberals is unlikely, as that could only come through a Liberal meltdown in Toronto and Atlantic Canada, two areas where Liberal numbers appear to have been strengthening in the last week.

Stay tuned for more details tomorrow.

Photo: A female bowl bearer or mboko from the Luba culture in the Congo. Traditionally, bowl bearers are used by royal diviners to predict the future.

Independents, Greens to watch on election day

In this election, a number of ridings feature interesting independent and Green candidates. A few stand a legitimate chance of winning and several threaten to influence the final outcome on election day, but most will be simply noted for their colourful role in the campaign.

Here’s a summary of the independents, in rough descending order of anticipated impact on the final election result.

• Portneuf–Jacques-Cartier, QC
  André Arthur, the only independent MP elected in 2006, is a virtual shoo-in this time around. The right-wing former radio host votes with the Tories so frequently that they decided not to bother running a candidate against him. For all intents and purposes, this is a Tory candidate, though he’s likely too much of a maverick and too controversial (some say racist over his remarks about African students) to ever join the Tory caucus. Other parties nominated candidates only at the last minute. Expect Mr. Arthur to be easily re-elected.

• Cumberland–Colchester–Musquodoboit Valley, NS
  Bill Casey is a the Conservative MP who was booted out of caucus for voting against the 2007 Conservative budget, given his belief that it betrayed the Atlantic Accord with his province and Newfoundland and Labrador. Very popular locally in this typically safe Conservative riding, he is likely the candidate to beat in this election.

• Rimouski-Neigette–Témiscouata–Les Basques, QC
  Louise Thibault was a socially conservative Bloc MP who quit the party over differences with left-leaning leader Gilles Duceppe. She’s running a strong campaign as an independent, which is likely to split the Bloc's vote and make this race what may be one of Canada’s first five-way races (the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP are all contenders to some degree). With the Bloc recent resurgence, I anticipate a loss to the new Bloc candidate, Claude Guimond.

• Welland, ON
  Past NDP candidate Jody DiBartolomeo decided to run as an independent after losing the nomination to Malcolm Allen, a local councillor, deputy Mayor and CAW rep. The poor sport, who put in a very impressive second place showing for the NDP in 2006, threatens to split the NDP vote in this very tight three-way race.

• Cardigan, PEI
  Larry McGuire, brother of Egmont Liberal MP Joe McGuire, is running as an independent in Cardigan. Larry McGuire is known for controversially suggesting in 2006 that “fat-cat, well-heeled Tories” in provincial government jobs would be replaced by Liberals if that party was elected to government in P.E.I. The Liberal leader refused to sign his nomination papers, after which point he decided to run provincially as an independent, earning 19% of the vote. He’s back at it again and, while he stands little chance of winning, there is a possibility he could draw enough votes from Liberal MP Lawrence MacAuley to cause him to lose to the Tory candidate.

• Kildonan–St. Paul, MB
  Ex-Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes is now running as an independent after being turfed from the Liberal party over a column she wrote a number of years ago. While she’ll likely pull in several thousand votes on election day, her presence in the campaign is unlikely to have any effect on the final outcome in this race, where Tory MP Joy Smith is expected to be re-elected.

• Calgary Northeast, AB
  Local cab company founder Roger Richard decided to run as an “independent conservative” after losing the Conservative nomination to replace MP Art Hanger. He alleges “unscrupulous nomination practices” are to blame for his loss to winner Devinder Shory, a lawyer. Despite running a relatively high-profile campaign, Richard is likely to come up short against Shory, whose party took 65% of the vote in 2006.

• Edmonton-Sherwood Park, AB
  Another riding with controversy over the Conservatives’ nomination process features an independent candidate. James Ford, a former Tory, is running against Tory Tim Uppal, in protest against rules that allowed the Tory to win by announcing a run at the last minute and stacking the meeting with supporters. In 2006, the Tories won with 64% of the vote, far ahead of the next closest rival with 14%. Expect an easy Tory win despite the controversy.

While the Greens appear unlikely to elect any MPs on October 14th, they will put in an impressive showing in a number of ridings across the country, particularly in suburban/exurban Ontario and BC. Here’s a summary of the ridings to watch, including all those in which they earned at least 10% of the vote in 2006. If the Greens were ever to shoot up further in the polls, these are the seats they'd be most likely to start winning.

• Central Nova, NS
  Green party leader Elizabeth May is running against Conservative incumbent Peter MacKay and NDP candidate Louise Lorefice in what, by all accounts, is an uphill battle for her. In 2006, the Green candidate received only 671 votes, a mere 1.6%, in what is a traditional Conservative riding. Recent polling also shows Green Party support lower in Atlantic Canada than anywhere else but Quebec. Still, with their leader running here, this remains one of the Green Party’s best hopes for electing an MP.

• Dufferin—Caledon, ON
  Ard Van Leeuwen is the Green candidate in a riding in which they earned an impressive 10% in 2006. Gains made largely at the expense of the Liberal Party in this Tory riding may push Van Leeuwen over the 20% mark.

• Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound, ON
  Dick Hibma is running for the Greens in a riding where their 2006 result was 13%, which was one of their strongest showings in the country. In the last provincial election, the party won a whopping 33%, a result which put them second to the Conservative candidate. In this election, they stand a strong chance of placing a distant second behind Conservative MP Larry Miller.

• Guelph, ON
  Mike Nagy ran a strong campaign during the by-election that was superseded by the current federal campaign. The federal campaign inevitably focuses on two or three national leaders, which will probably result in lower support for Nagy than the by-election, where the focus is much more on the strength of the local candidates, would have. Near the close of the by-election, a Green Party-sponsored poll placed Nagy’s support at 24%, behind the first place Liberal. The race nevertheless remains one of four serious contenders, with the Liberal and Tory most likely to duke it out for first place.

• London North Centre, ON
  Mary Ann Hodge is running for the Greens in the riding in which Elizabeth May captured 26% of the vote while running as the candidate in 2006. Without such a high-profile candidate, expect the Greens to sink back down to a respectable 10% to 15% of the vote this time around.

• Ottawa Centre, ON
  The Green Party’s deputy leader, David Chernushenko, won 10% here in 2006 and was set to run again, but withdrew as the party’s candidate. While Jen Hunter, the party’s new candidate, is likely to carry her party’s share of the vote to a higher echelon, the result in this relatively safe NDP riding is unlikely to change.

• Peterborough, ON
  Emily Berrigan is the candidate in Peterborough, an area the Greens cited as having the fastest growing membership in Ontario in early 2007. While the party is likely to see an increase from the 5% it received in 2006, the Conservative MP is likely to be re-elected, while the Liberals and NDP fight it out for second place.

• Calgary Centre-North, AB
  Eric Donovan is the Green candidate in a riding that voted 13% Green in 2006, making it one of the party’s strongest ridings in one of its strongest cities. Like in the other Calgary ridings, expect the Conservative candidate to be elected in a landslide while the other candidates duke it out for second place.

• Calgary Centre, AB
  Kim Warnke is the Green party’s candidate in Calgary Centre, where the Greens received 11% in 2006.

• Calgary West, AB
  Randall Weeks is the Green party’s candidate in Calgary West, where the Greens received 10% in 2006.

• Wild Rose, AB
  Lisa Fox is running in Wild Rose, a riding that includes Airdrie, Cochrane, Canmore, and Banff. The Greens came in second place in 2006, with 11% of the vote.

• British Columbia Southern Interior
  This currently NDP seat includes left-leaning communities of BC, such as Nelson. Those same communities provide some base for the Green Party, which earned 11% here in 2006. Andy Morel is the Green candidate in this election.

• Saanich–Gulf Islands, BC
  This seat may offer the Greens their most likely opportunity for winning a seat in the wake of NDP candidate Julian West’s withdrawal. Green candidate Andrew Lewis, the Party’s Deputy Leader and perennial local candidate, first made a splash when he achieved 25% in a local provincial constituency. In this election, he is facing off against Liberal candidate Briony Penn, a popular former member of the Greens and incumbent Conservative MP Gary Lunn. With Conservative numbers up in BC, the Liberal and Green candidates face an uphill battle to defeat the Tory, even with the NDP now out of the race.

• Vancouver Centre, BC
  Adriane Carr, the former provincial leader and another Deputy Leader of the federal Greens is running in what has been billed as a high-profile four-way race. The incumbent, Liberal Hedy Fry, faces academic Michael Byers of the NDP and former provincial politician Lorne Mayencourt of the Conservatives, in addition to Ms. Carr. With such high-profile candidates and a mere 6% 2006 base to build on, Ms. Carr faces long odds in this race.

• West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast, BC
  Blair Wilson, originally elected for then turfed from the Liberal Party for alleged spending irregularities, is the Green Party’s first MP, having joined the party just before the current election campaign. Facing a likely Tory win, he is unlikely to be elected under his new party’s banner.

• Nunavut
  Peter Ittinuar is the Green Party’s candidate in Nunavut and is best-known the first-ever Inuit person elected as MP. He brings quite a storied past, which may hamper his ability to draw votes. First elected as a New Democrat MP in 1979, he later crossed the floor to become a Liberal. When he lost that party’s nomination in 1984, he ran as an independent but was defeated. Two years later, he was convicted for assaulting his wife. He sought to run again for the NDP in 1993, but was refused the opportunity. An Ontarian these days, he also recently ran for the Green Party’s nomination in Brant, but was defeated. In this election, he has acknowledged his past mistakes and is running a strong campaign. However, he faces very strong candidates for each of the other three parties, all of whom are targeting Nunavut this time around. The Greens received 6% in this riding in 2006.

Which polls are most accurate?

Here's an interesting post from Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, a keen blogger who's analyzed the seemingly inexplicable gaps in party support that we see between pollsters' numbers, particulary between the Liberals and Greens. He illustrates why poll watchers will be wise to trust Nanos's daily releases most.

If I were a rich man...

I wonder if this scene from the musical Fiddler On The Roof is what Dion had in mind when he announced on Tuesday that he's not a rich man.

It does make me wonder: did the Liberals not see this campaign coming? First, they were forced to scramble to secure a campaign plane (and ended up with a real gas guzzler). Now, they've suddenly realized that Dion's image needs a makeover and are trying to recast him as just a regular guy -- why didn't they do that a year ago?

Some other thoughts and observations on the campaign thus far:

• You have to wonder about Ontario Liberal Premier McGuinty's decision not to endorse his federal counterparts. Apparently, he doesn't want to worsen his already abysmally poor relationship with feds. If that doesn't tell us how far ahead the Tories are in this campaign and how unlikely the Liberals are to win, I don't know what does.
  
  
• The puffin poop Tory ad that was all over the new today blew up in the Tories' faces, as it well should have. Have they forgotten how their ad making fun of Chretien's paralysis backfired several years ago? Perhaps the Tories' punishment should fit the crime -- straight to bed with no dessert, plus grounding for one week.
  
  
• I was somewhat surprised that May was barred from the televised debates given that the criteria for entry has always been to have a minimum of one MP, which the Greens have now met. Ironically, the Liberals, who pushed for May's inclusion, would likely have the most to fear from May's participation, as polls show it's them bleeding the most to the Greens, particularly in Ontario (confirming some comments I made previously).
  
  
• One new EKOS poll puts the Liberals at the historically low level of 24%, only narrowly ahead of the NDP, at 19%. Similarly, a second poll (by pollster Segma Unimarketing, which I've never heard of until now) put them at 25% to the Conservatives' whopping 43%. The federal Liberals, one of the most successful political parties in the western world, have only received that low a share of vote once -- in 1867! In 1984, their next worst performance, the Liberals converted 28% of the popular vote into just 40 seats.
  
  
• The NDP might be the only party to run a full slate of 308 candidates in this election. The Tories have bowed out of Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier to help Independent MP André Arthur in Quebec, while the Liberals are of course not running against Elizabeth May in Central Nova, whose party isn't fielding candidates against either Stephane Dion in Saint-Laurent-Cartierville or former Conservative Bill Casey in Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley.
  
  
• On Monday, Young Liberals heckled Jack Layton for borrowing Liberal votes in the last election instead of focusing on Harper. They claim that attacking the Liberals in 2006 split the anti-Harper vote and helped elect him. Now, if they really believed that, would they not be busy heckling at Tory rallies instead?
  
  
• With PQ leader Pauline Marois undergoing surgery, the Bloc loses an important campaign ally (Marois had planned to stump for Duceppe). That party is desperately struggling to stop the loss of support to the Conservatives and, to a lesser extent, the NDP (a just-posted Globe article suggests the Bloc may have slowed the Tory momentum in Quebec).
  
  
• New Stephane Dion website: http://www.thisisdion.ca/. I wonder how many fans looking for this website will accidentally wind up at the Liberal leader's site.
  
  
• Finally, there are some great online resources for political junkies who just can't get enough. Pundit's Guide is an amazing database of candidates, contests and results. Paulitics and niXtuff provide regular tracking of polls. The Globe's, Canwest's and the CBC's sites provide additional articles, polls, and punditry. Independent sites nodice.ca, Election Prediction Project are also great resources. Democratic Space will launch its election coverage on Sept. 14.
  
  
  

A two-horse race and other pre-election myths

Today's Globe and Mail pretty much stole the headline I was planning for a blog post: Harper Tories On The Brink Of Majority. This might come as a shock to some pundits who keep looking to tied polling numbers as the be all-end all source of election analysis, so let's bust a few pre-election myths.


Myth: Harper's calling an election, but even he doesn't think he'll get a majority

Reality: The Canadian public are majority-wary and the Tories know this, so of course they're going to downplay their chances. Even if some polls show them hovering somewhere between 32% and 35%, that's only a few points short of majority territory, and they're extraordinarily well-organized and flush with cash. While they sure wouldn't mind a stronger minority and sticking it to the Liberals, as Tom Flanagan suggests, make no mistake -- they're gunning for a majority government and they just might get it.


Myth: The Liberals are neck-and-neck with the Tories and have a decent shot at winning

Reality: Party leaders rarely make gains in their first election campaign, and the odds are even worse for a leader going into the campaign with baggage in the form of a poor image, an unpopular campaign plank, fundraising challenges (now that the days of handouts from corporate Canada are gone), and close to a quarter of the caucus opting not to run again. Those who think the Liberals are in the game to win might want to ask why the party has done absolutely all it could in the last year to avoid an election.


Myth: The NDP is losing ground to the Greens

Reality: Most polls show the NDP holding all or nearly all of its 2006 levels of support and, while the Greens are still up a little over their 2006 levels, most of this added support is in Liberal-friendly suburban Ontario (though even that may vanish as the Liberals continue their fine tradition of "borrowing" the policy planks of other parties).

The NDP hopes to build on its 2006 support with a now-seasoned and well-recognized leader (no campaign gaffes as in 2004), the best-financed and most competitve campaign in the history of the party, a surprising number of "star" candidates who have emerged to run for the party in non-traditional areas, and Liberal slippage to the right (Tory success tends to throw NDP-Liberal battles to the NDP). This should produce new victories in Montreal and Gatineau, northern ridings, industrial Ontario (especially in the wake of news like this), and pockets of support in the West.


Myth: Winning or not, the Greens are more principled than the other parties

Reality: Desperate to do anything to meet the one MP threshold to join the leader's debates, the Greens recently welcomed into their ranks an MP who was kicked out of the Liberal Party for spending irregularities. With their hug-a-Liberal strategy backfiring as the Liberals steal their carbon tax plank, expect the Greens to make a lot of noise and gain a few points in the popular vote, but wind up with a big donut for seats.

A very rough early prediction:

Cons ~152
Libs ~85
NDP ~39
Bloc ~32

Image: Thomas Kelly, "The False Start," 1858. Hand-colored lithograph depicting Jerome Park Racetrack, New York City.

The odds on carbon taxes...

The high-stakes poker game that's leading up to the next election is playing itself out, with each party playing their hands well. The current round: carbon taxes.


The Liberals

Their "green shift" carbon tax proposal is a risky play of political strategy, but it's one that may well have saved them from losing a massive number of seats in the next election. With about a fifth of their caucus not running again, party debts and an apparent inability to fundraise (they're now third in the country in fundraising, behind both the Conservatives and the NDP), stagnant polling numbers, a perception of poor performance by Dion, and a couple of embarrassing byelection losses, many in the party were fearing historic and dramatic losses in the next election. Since the carbon tax proposal, things have cooled down somewhat.

The carbon tax -- even if it may be a tough sell for some Canadians -- finally gives the party the chance to differentiate itself from the Conservatives via a policy it can articulate. For them, that beats the non-strategy of reflexively opposing everything the Conservatives do, or worse, talking down the Conservatives but then tacitly supporting them anyway (the story for most of the past year). Differentiating itself from its opponent across the floor was something the party desperately needed after nearly a year of looking watery, timid and indecisive. What right-leaning voters would want to support a weaker, disorganized version of the governing party?

Differentiation is also something the Liberals need to fend off an attack from the NDP, who most benefits when it can paint the Liberals and Conservatives as interchangeable. The carbon tax proposal, combined with the Dion-May deal, also steals the thunder of the carbon tax-favouring Green Party. Suburban eco-conscious voters who would otherwise have considered voting Green will now find they have little reason to support that party when voting Liberal (as they likely did last time) will be just as likely to bring them "green" policy.

It's the same sneaky strategy the Liberals have used to curb the strength of the NDP for much of the past 50 years: steal the best ideas from their platform and use your organizational machine to take all the credit for them. The Greens have little on-the-ground organization to make up for having the carpet pulled out from under them, especially at a time of likely declining enthusiasm for what many perceive to be their core policy strength. Expect to see their numbers continue to slip to something much closer to the 6% they received in 2006.

Some might ask why Dion is trying so hard to sell the carbon tax in Alberta where the party has no seats and is unlikely to win any in the near future. Why? It probably has less to do with believing oil companies should get on board (suggested in Jeffrey Simpson's article on the carbon tax, Suncor and carbon capture technology) than winning more supporters in Ontario (as Chantal Hébert suggests, noting that this is the same strategy Dion used to win votes in Ontario by trying to sell the Clarity Act to skeptical ears in Quebec).

While I'm certainly no fan of the party, no matter how much they're down, the first rule in federal politics should always be to never underestimate the Liberal Party, one of western democracies most successful political parties.

Risks for the Liberals: Carbon taxes may sell well in some Toronto and Vancouver suburbs, but the party could lose a lot in the rest of the country where they're currently struggling. For them, the worst case scenario: Liberals hang on to Official Opposition status, but not by much. Dion is turfed as leader.

The potential prize: The Liberal strategy gains them few seats, but it also prevents any NDP, Conservative or Green growth. The Liberals come out of the election re-energized and Dion gains a firmer grip over the party leadership.


The NDP

The NDP has probably played its hand well -- at least strategically -- by opposing the carbon tax. It's betting that the negative impact of criticism by David Suzuki and other environmentalists (though many of them like the NDP's cap and trade proposal, and even Suzuki admits that a carbon tax would only be one of a host of solutions necessary to bring about a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions) will be offset by the gains made in non-NDP ridings of the sort where voters are unlikely to be enamoured with any sort of tax on fuel. In particular, the NDP is looking at potential gains in northern regions and especially northern Ontario, rural BC, Saskatchewan, Edmonton, Atlantic Canada, and hard-hit industrial regions of Ontario, such as Oshawa.

As the traditional party representing lower income folks, remote communities, and workers, the NDP is probably also right to put the onus on the Liberals to prove that the consumption-based carbon tax won't in the end hurt those most vulnerable. And, while many have criticized the NDP for preferring to target industry, it is industry that's responsible for the greatest share of emissions.

The risks: Despite some high-profile environmental candidates running in the next election and the party's emphasis on a cap and trade plan, they've allowed the Liberals to take the environment for themselves as an issue of perceived strength (too bad, given the whole lot 'o nothing the Liberals did when they were in government, including when Dion himself was environment minister). Even despite plans for a strong campaign, the NDP risks losing several seats.

The potential prize: If the Liberals fumble and run a disorganized next election, and the NDP manages to connect with voters in Ontario and elsewhere, it isn't inconceivable that they could pick up as many as 30 seats across the country. The party might also capitalize on the BC NDP's opposition to the tax (pity the carbon tax-toting provincial BC Liberals who share voters with the anti-carbon tax federal Conservatives), though that battle is still playing itself out.


The Conservatives

The Conservatives are betting that concern about the economy will take the environment right off the agenda and, where the environment is still an issue, will focus on leaving "market" (i.e., oligopolistic) mechanisms as the best vehicle for reducing carbon emissions. After all, how much will a carbon tax of a few pennies per barrel drive down emissions when the cost of fuel is up over 50% in a year?

Of course, Flaherty has tried to use the economy as a hammer to knock Premier McGuinty (of Ontario, the one place the Liberals are strong these days) with. That strategy's so far failed, but there are signs that the environment is being all but forgotten by voters given their growing economic concern. The Conservative strategy: bide their time while acting like a moderate group of managers, all the while raising big dollars, embarrassing and/or co-opting the opposition as much as possible, and hope that they'll be rewarded in spades come the next election.

The risks: "Wait and see" might be a tough strategy as the economy worsens -- governing parties don't typically do so well when the economy tanks. And now that they've let the Liberals find an issue with which to distinguish themselves, they may have allowed that party to climb back from the near death it would have found itself in had the election been held in early 2008. There's also potential that the NDP could cut into Tory support in certain pockets of BC, Edmonton, Saskatchewan, and Atlantic Canada, thereby offsetting any Conservative gains made at the expense of the Bloc or the Liberals.

The potential prize: The Liberals flounder and Conservatives pick up support in enough suburban and rural seats to make big gains, possibly so far as to claim a majority.


Thoughts and conclusions

Canada certainly needs to move toward curbing emissions. While a carbon tax is an intriguing idea, it's certainly just one tool in the wider toolbox of strategies that can and should be used -- the overwhelming focus on carbon taxes makes it appear as if it were the one and only option ahead of us.

If a carbon tax is implemented, the revenues should be used to alleviate the hit for low income and northern citizens as well as subsidize energy retrofits, mass transit, and green technology, rather than just given away in some supposed "revenue neutral" plan.

Either way, a cap and trade system should be implemented and looks like the way to go, given the support for such a system among most Canadian Premiers, the Conservatives and NDP, and both US Presidential candidates.

The environment certainly should be an election issue, though who knows which way the winds will blow by that time? Fears of economic meltdown may yet dwarf the environment as a primary concern in most voters' minds.


Further reading

By the way, for those following the carbon tax debate, I highly recommend the Progressive Economics Forum blog. Some of the posts on carbon taxes:

Where do greenhouse gases come from? It turns out that households emit one-fifth of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, while businesses account for five sixths of emissions.

Where do non-fuel emissions come from? Interestingly, Dion's carbon tax scheme has no impact on non-fuel emissions meaning that, for example, one-third of the oil industry's emissions would not be affected.

Responses to high gas prices How elastic is the demand for driving in response to fuel costs? In response to the overall cost of driving? Links to some articles with important implications for understanding behavioural change from driving toward other forms of transportation, such as transit.

Dion's carbon revenues How much do the Liberals propose to raise through carbon taxes and why do forecasts not show this to be a declining revenue stream (assuming that carbon taxes work)?

Carbon taxes, distribution and politics Should the carbon tax really be revenue neutral? Beyond relief for low income folks, perhaps it would be more effective if the revenues were used to subsidize mass transit, energy efficiency retrofits, and green technologies. See also Duncan Cameron's article.

The carbon tax we pay to the oil companies Jim Stanford notes that many of us get angry at the thought of the government taking a couple of cents a litre out of our pocket for a carbon tax, but yet calmly hand over the dough when it's the oil companies asking for 50 cents more per litre.

Dion's green plan or Mintz's tax plan? Is Dion's plan a sly way to simply cut income or corporate taxes? Does it adequately protect lower income folks?

Canada's ecological footprint by income decile Canada's richest 10% have a dramatically larger ecological footprint than even the next decile down, meaning that they may simply buy their way out of changing. Given this, is income tax cuts the most effective use of carbon tax revenues?

Some perspective on carbon taxes BC's carbon tax of $10 per tonne amounts to 2.4 cents per litre. In the past years, the cost of fuel has doubled -- the same as if a carbon tax of $270 per tonne had been levied.

Polling mysticism

So today's poll has the Tories "flirting with a majority." Now wait... didn't yesterday's poll have them in "a dogfight" with the Liberals?

Apparently, yesterday's competitive Liberals are now suddenly today's underdogs fighting even to stay above historic party lows (of which their reported 27% would certainly be). The NDP, whose 12% in today's poll put them well below their 2006 support levels, were just two weeks ago at 19% and apparently well-positioned to make gains. Back then, the Greens found themselves at 7%, a standing barely above their 2006 election result and far short of their apparent rapid ascendance to 13% in the latest poll.

As political observers, we all ooh and ahh at each new horse race figure that's printed in the papers, trying to read into the numbers some sort of truth about who's ahead and who's behind and who's going to be sorry and who's going to be rewarded. The art of poll watching has taken on an almost mystical quality, with its high priests quick to ascribe some dramatic trend or, in some cases, validate the various notions and myths their particular political tribe feels a need to hold on to (which includes partisan false bravado).

For political junkies, prognosticating election results after every poll makes for fun exercise, but it's fairly pointless, for a number of reasons:

• First, most of us who read about polls regularly know some of the reasons that poll numbers jump around: sampling (± a certain percentage, 19 times out of 20) and various sorts of non-sampling errors, and the way survey questions are asked (debates continue about what question wording best replicates how voters are likely to respond upon arriving at the polling booth, something that Blackberry Addicts were never exactly shy about raising).


• Second, polls taken in between elections are often more about party brands than they are about the true competitive standing of each party relative to one another. It's what I often call a "parking lot" effect, in which poll respondents instinctively "park" their vote in between elections. Asked by a pollster who they'll vote for and they'll tend to blurt out whatever party brand they roughly associate with or that happens to be top of mind. The Liberals and Greens tend to be beneficiaries of this tendency in most parts of Canada.


• Third, pre-election campaign polls don't take into account party organization, finances, gaffes or infighting, strategic positioning, the name recognition of incumbent "star" candidates, media exposure, and party messaging, all of which play a huge role in that complex game of chess that plays itself out in each election campaign.
  

For these reasons, the hype that follows most polls tends to be pretty hollow. A better analysis might take into account some of the above factors.

The Greens, currently buoyant in most polls, have considerably less ground organization, campaign experience, cash resources, star candidates, or media exposure than the other three national parties and will almost surely sink when the next election campaign goes live. Nik Nanos, of SES Research, suggests that the Greens typically drop 1/3 of their vote from the last poll to the actual election. That's after the deflation of the Green balloon that's likely to occur during the campaign itself.

The Liberals, in their current state of endless infighting, fundraising difficulties, mass retirement of MPs and loss of valuable potential candidates, to name just a few of their problems, had best shape up and fast if they expect to hold the 27% to 35% the polls currently peg them at.

Worse for the party is the unenviable position they keep backing themselves into: critiquing the government but then doing all they can to make sure it isn't defeated. For them, voting to defeat the government in a confidence motion means risking catastrophic losses in an election (for some of the reasons noted above), yet supporting the government or abstaining from confidence motions means branding themselves as a "weak" opposition that has little alternative agenda to that of the government.

A weak, indistinct, vision-less Liberal Party is one that's going to find itself wedged in an election between the Conservatives and the NDP when centre-right Liberals find they have no reason to vote for a "me too" Liberal rather than a Tory and when centre-left Liberals find that the alternative vision they're looking for lies only with the NDP. Is it any wonder, then, that the Tories and NDP are literally trying to goad the Liberals into an election, while the Liberals are finding ever new and interesting ways to contort themselves in an attempt to avoid just that?

We live in very interesting times.

Photo: a map of the 2006 federal election results.

May's Greens: rising tide?

Globe columnist Lawrence Martin's latest piece on Elizabeth May and the federal Green Party was quite interesting. As many know, May is fighting to participate in the leader's debate and hoping to knock off Peter MacKay and win the first seat for her party. It won't be an easy task, but the Greens are feeling boosted by recent polls showing her party as high as 13% nationally and as high as 17% in Toronto's "guilt-ridden" 905 belt.

The big question is whether May can hold on to her poll numbers and translate them into votes at election time. It's likely that the Greens will be far outspent and outorganized by the three national parties, all of whom will be spending the maximum amount, and likely the Bloc too. Electoral history is filled with stories of overly optimistic parties driven by buoyant but ultimately ephemeral support levels.

A lot of folks assume that if the Greens do gain support that it'll be at the expense of Layton's NDP. According to the Martin article, some Greens even talk about merging with the NDP to create a new GDP (apparently that's short for "Green Democratic Party" and not "Gross Domestic Product"). However, Green gain at NDP expense isn't entirely certain. If it were, how might we explain the fact that the GP's greatest strength, when looking at all 500,000+ sized urban areas, lies in Calgary (9% in 2006, on average) and the 905 belt (17%, according to some poll numbers). These are hardly traditional areas of support for the NDP, which, at 10%, came in barely ahead of the Greens in Calgary and, outside of Oshawa, Hamilton and the Niagara region, struggles for votes in the 905 area that surrounds Toronto. Meanwhile, the NDP's two strongest cities, Vancouver (27% in 2006) and Winnipeg (28%) are actually two of the GP's weakest (5% and 4%, respectively).

My hypothesis right now is that the Greens are emerging as a or perhaps even the protest party of choice in regions where the NDP is relatively absent. Apart from a few BC ridings, wherever the NDP has a strong, well-managed campaign, the Green vote tends to be a non-factor, staying in the 2% to 6% range.

For the Greens, it certainly doesn't hurt that their message is more palatable for some suburban voters who feel a need to support a platform they see being ecologically-conscious, but who may be uncomfortable with the NDP’s traditionally pro-labour, redistributive policies (which the Greens tend either not to share or to keep awfully quiet about). If that's the case, the Greens may well be usurping more Liberal vote than NDP. Is that the reason behind the Dion/May hug-a-Green/hug-a-Liberal strategy? It's unlikely that, over the long run, they're both going to emerge victors from their quasi-alliance.

The Internet, being the ever-glorious provider of election study and polling numbers that it is, has given me quite a bit of interesting data to play with. That's one source of the tables I have above, which are simply summed riding-by-riding totals for each region. I've also found that the 2006 Canadian Election Study data files are freely available; that study consisted of interviews with thousands of Canadians before and after the election to gauge such things as party momentum, preferred second choices, and reactions to party platforms, campaign announcements and party leaders. In the lead up to the next federal election, I hope to share of the interesting findings from this data.

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At least one fellow Manitoba blogger, upon noticing my recent profile change (which states I've been a blogger since only January of this year), has concluded that my entire 2007 blogging history must have been written and posted all this month. It sort of conjures up the image of some wretched, hunched-over character in a dark, grungy basement cackling madly in between fits of wild typing to produce mass amounts of blog content (if only I was that prolific...). No harm done, but lest others make the same assumption, I thought I'd make it known that I merely changed the Gmail account I associate with the blog to a new one. For those using a Gmail address with blogger.com, it's easily done, as the instructions here, here, and here all attest. Of course, given the new profile date that'll appear by your name, you should be prepared to have any and all past election predictions challenged! Don't say I didn't warn you...

And the race is on...

Lots of posting today!

Tories fail to run full slate of candidates

There are sure to be some red faces in the Tory backrooms today. Nominations have closed and, after falling short in Flin Flon, the party was unable to field a full slate of candidates in the election.

Rightly or wrongly, the ability to run a full slate of candidates is almost always taken as a key indicator of whether a party is organized and serious about winning or whether it's a fringe party. Even the struggling Liberal Party, which was unable to run a full slate in 1999, was able to secure a name on the ballot in all 57 constituencies this time around. This is a big blow to Tories, indeed.

The race in Flin Flon will now be fought between NDP incumbent Gerrard Jennissen and Liberal challenger Garry Zamzow. That's if you can really call it a race: Jennissen took 73% of the vote in the last election.

The failure to run a full slate will be especially hard for the Tories' reputation in northern Manitoba. In some election campaigns, the Tory leader doesn't even visit the north. Now, long accused of neglecting and ignoring the north, the Tories won't even be offering residents of part of that region the chance to to vote for them.

Adieu, Monsieur Rocan

Longtime former Tory MLA Denis Rocan didn't follow through with his threat to run in the provincial election. He had suggested possibly running as an independent against Hugh McFadyen in Fort Whyte. The other obvious option for him would have been to run as an independent in Carman, where he was challenged and defeated for the Tory nomination. Frankly, running in Carman (where the Conservatives got 52% of the vote in 2003) would've been his best shot at winning.

I have to say I think Denis Rocan is a pretty decent guy, having met him once in the 90s. I could probably never vote for him myself, but I've heard he was a solid representative and hard worker in Carman. It didn't seem to do him much good within the Tory ranks, however -- he was booted out first as the candidate when he lost the nomination race and then from the caucus after he broke ranks and supported the NDP's budget.

Wellington recap

The race in Wellington continues to attract a lot of media attention, especially now that former New Democrats Conrad Santos and Joe Chan are running as independents against their old party. Flor Marcelino, the NDP's candidate and editor of the Philippine Times, looks like a great candidate. She'll do well.

The little parties

In addition to the three most established parties, the Green Party and the Communist Party are running candidates. The Greens will be on the ballot in 15 constituencies, while the Communists will be an option in six. The voters in Fort Rouge will have the most choice in this election, with six candidates to choose from: a New Democrat, a Conservative, a Liberal, a Green, a Communist, and an Independent.

The Green Party leader, Andrew Basham, is running directly against Premier Gary Doer in his constituency of Concordia. Andrew Basham's mother, whose basement he apparently still lives in, is running in Wolseley, where the Greens captured about 19% of the vote in 2003. After the infighting that's plagued the Greens since then and the NDP's general dominance of the environment as an issue, there's little hope they'll be able to even come close to repeating their 2003 result.

Manitoba's Communist Party, a perennial competitor and probably the most active such party in Canada, is also running. Most of its candidates are the same names that appear on the ballot election after election.

I once spent a little while chatting with Darrell Rankin, the party's leader, after he happened to knock on my door in one election. As a candidate, he struck me as quite interesting, engaging and intelligent. I wasn't quite as impressed with the party pamphlet -- complete with a headline praising the regime in North Korea -- that he left behind.

A day at the races

I'll be posting some seat-by-seat predictions in the very near future. However, I may wait to see what the next provincial poll numbers are before weighing in on the really close races.

My guess is that, with the relatively sleepy pace of the campaign so far and the inability of the Tories to land any punches, the next poll will show an increase in NDP support over the last poll, with the Liberals and others down a couple points each, and the Tories holding steady. Then I expect the NDP to come out a few points below those numbers on the night of May 22. My assumption is that there are many fickle and wishy-washy voters who, once alone in the dim light of the polling booth, will vote for change regardless of who's in power or how well they've done.

The last poll before the campaign started showed the NDP and Tories neck-and-neck at 40%, with the Liberals at 15%, and others holding what's left. To compare, the NDP received 49% in the last election, with the Tories getting 36%, the Liberals 13%, and others 1%. If the poll numbers stay as they are when people vote, it's likely the NDP would be re-elected with a majority by winning a pile of Winnipeg seats by a small margin, while the Tories stack up giant majorites in places like Steinbach, Emerson, and Pembina.

In the next poll, the Liberal numbers will be the ones to watch: provincially, the Liberals almost always fall during the campaign, which tends to benefit the NDP. The Tories usually have the best chance of winning when centre-left voters are split between the NDP and the Liberals. If the Liberals buck the trend and creep upward, it may cut into NDP votes in southern Winnipeg and toss those seats to the Tories. In contrast, if the Liberals sink below the 13% they got in the past two elections, the NDP may be able to pick up Inkster from the Liberals as well as Southdale and Kirkfield Park from the Tories.

To compare with 2003, the pre-campaign polls then put the NDP ahead at 44%, with the Conservatives at just 30% and the Liberals at 21%. Mid-campaign polls showed the NDP surge to 51% and 55%, while the Liberal numbers dropped off and the Tory numbers stayed static. On election day, the Tories "pulled" their vote well and ended up with 36%, still well behind the NDP's 49%.

A second thing to watch in the next poll will be the Winnipeg/non-Winnipeg split in the numbers. The last study showed the NDP down 8 points in Winnipeg and down 15 points outside of Winnipeg compared to the last election. If the party picks up, will it be in one region or both?

Astonishing facts

Emerson and Springfield, now both staunchly Tory seats, were once NDP seats.

In 1973, Steve Derewianchuk, the NDP candidate in Emerson, took 2,374 votes, beating out the Tory with 1,937 votes and the Liberal with 1,768 votes. The victory was relatively short-lived, however: Albert Driedger regained the seat for the Tories in 1977. Driedger later went on to represent Steinbach in the legislature. In Emerson in 2003, the Tories took 59% of the vote to 21% for the Liberals and 19% for the NDP.

Rene Toupin won Springfield for the NDP in 1969 and 1973, but lost it in 1977. Andy Anstett narrowly regained the seat for the NDP in 1981, only to lose it to Tory Gilles Roch by 55 votes in 1986. Almost immediately after being re-elected as a Tory in 1988 (and being subsequently denied a cabinet post), Roch crossed the floor to join Sharon Carstairs's Liberals, which had just become the Official Opposition. The Tories easily regained the seat in 1990 and have held it ever since with ever-increasing majorities, which come largely due to an influx of wealthy Tory voters into new subdivisions in places like Oakbank. In 2003, the Tories won the seat with 61% of the vote, to the NDP's 31%.