Election Oracle, Manitoba edition

After the mediocre prediction posted in last spring’s federal election, you think Prairie Topiary would have the good sense not to come out of retirement once again to make an election prediction. Alas, old habits die hard.

This is my forecast for this Tuesday’s provincial election: 34 NDP, 22 PC and 1 Liberal. Yes, so that means an unprecedented fourth majority for Manitoba’s NDP and a first for Premier Greg Selinger, a slightly larger and stronger PC opposition under Hugh McFadyen, and Liberal survival as Jon Gerrard clings to perhaps the last bastion of Liberal support in his River Heights seat.

Expect the NDP to win a comfortable majority of seats but lose the popular vote to the Tories who tend to pile up massive wins in rural areas yet fall just short of victory in most of Winnipeg suburbia.

Throughout the campaign, the media has kept its focus on the battles in Winnipeg, which holds 31 of the province’s 57 seats and the bulk of NDP holds that the Tories have to win to form government. I think, however, that the races outside of Winnipeg are just as interesting, so let’s start there.

South-western Manitoba

In southwest Manitoba, which has eight seats, expect the Tories to win solid victories in Arthur-Virden, Spruce Woods, Agassiz and Riding Mountain. I’m expecting previously NDP-held Dauphin and Swan River to be close. Though incumbent and Finance Minister Rosann Wowchuk is not running again, I expect the NDP to retain their Swan River Riding. In Dauphin, the battle is much tighter given riding redistribution, which reduces the NDP’s 2007 lead to 900 votes. I predict Tory candidate Lloyd McKinney will score an upset victory here over the NDP’s Stan Struthers, taking the seat for the Tories for the first time since 1977.

Brandon’s two seats are also battlegrounds. Brandon East has been held by the NDP since 1969, though the party’s wins have been slimmer in recent years. Brandon West, though traditionally Conservative, went NDP in 1999 and 2003 before Rick Borotsik took it back for the Tories in 2007. Both races could go either way in this election, though I predict an NDP hold in East and a Conservative hold in West.

SW MB tally: 2 NDP, 6 PC

South-eastern Manitoba

This region has 14 seats, most of which elect Conservatives. The NDP is hoping to hold its seats in Interlake, Gimli, Selkirk, and Dawson Trail, with Tory challengers strongest in Interlake and Dawson Trail. I predict defeat for Ron Lemieux in Dawson Trail against Tory Laurent Tetrault but NDP holds in the other three, with Interlake the narrowest of these. I may not be right – in 2007, I wrongly predicted defeat for Lemieux.

The only other seat worth watching is Portage la Prairie, which has never elected a New Democrat MLA, a goal the NDP has nevertheless been coming closer and closer to achieving in recent years. With redistribution, the 2007 Tory margin is only 400 votes and their incumbent is not running again while the NDP’s James Kostuchuk is. I’m not predicting it, but this may be one of the few places the NDP can make gains despite slippage in their vote elsewhere. Expect easy Tory wins elsewhere in this region.

SE MB tally: 3 NDP, 11 PC

Northern Manitoba

I don’t see any surprises here. Provincially, the NDP has long ruled northern Manitoba and should take all four seats again in this election.

Northern MB tally: 4 NDP

Winnipeg

Let’s get the strongholds and easy wins out of the way. The Conservatives will easily win Charleswood, Tuxedo and McFadyen’s seat of Fort Whyte (3 seats). Expect easy NDP wins in Wolseley, Minto, Logan, Point Douglas, St. Johns, Burrows, Elmwood, Concordia, Kildonan, The Maples, Transcona and Greg Selinger’s seat of St. Boniface (12 seats). And though the Tories may be eyeing the following seats (as they should), they’ll also remain safe for the NDP in this election: Assiniboia, St. James, Rossmere, Radisson, St. Vital, Fort Garry-Riverview and Fort Richmond (7 seats). That leaves nine Winnipeg battlegrounds to consider.

Kirkfield Park and Southdale: In 2007, these were the site of shocking NDP gains in Tory heartland. While the Conservatives are putting up stronger campaigns in this election, the organizational resources of the NDP combined with the incumbency factor of the MLAs likely mean NDP holds. Either way, these will be close races.

Tyndall Park and Fort Rouge: These represent the only true Liberal-NDP battles in the city. As Inkster in 2007, most of what is now Tyndall Park was strongly Liberal. Redistributed results, however, put the Liberals only 400 votes ahead in this seat and, without now-MP Kevin Lamoureux as their candidate, the Liberals will almost certainly see the seat return to the NDP fold. Liberal Paul Hesse is putting up a strong campaign in Fort Rouge against the NDP’s Jennifer Howard and it’s their only chance – albeit a long shot – of actually gaining a seat in this election. With Liberal vote fizzling in this election, I predict an NDP hold.

River Heights: Liberal leader Jon Gerrard is fighting to hold his own seat against Marty Morantz of the Conservatives. With redistribution, he would have won 4,448 to 2,407 votes in 2007, which is still an impressive margin of victory. Despite the Liberals’ plunge in the polls, I think the good doctor can eke out a victory here. This seat was traditionally Conservative until Sharon Carstairs took it in 1986 and they have struggled to win it since, succeeding only in 1995.

Riel, Seine River and St. Norbert: These three NDP seats in southern Winnipeg are being strongly targeted by the Conservatives. Under redistribution, the NDP would have won them last time by 2,200, 2,100 and 500 votes, respectively. With a close margin of victory and no incumbent running for the NDP, St. Norbert is ripe for Tory picking and I think they’ll do it. My gut tells me the margin of victory is too much for the Tories to overcome in the other two seats, though, even for popular former City Councillor Gord Steeves, who hopes to knock off Health Minister Theresa Oswald in Seine River.

River East: Conservative Bonnie Mitchelson barely held on to this seat in 2007, in what was a surprisingly strong result for the NDP. Under the redistributed boundaries, the NDP would have actually won the seat by 70 votes instead of losing it by 52 votes. I think the NDP’s numbers will drop here, like in most areas of the province, so that the Conservatives hold the seat.

Winnipeg tally: 25 NDP, 5 PC, 1 Liberal

Final thoughts

Of the 16 close races I’ve identified throughout Manitoba, I predict NDP wins in 9 (Swan River, Brandon East, Interlake, Kirkfield, Southdale, Tyndall, Fort Rouge, Riel, and Seine River), Conservative wins in 6 (Brandon West, Dauphin, Dawson Trail, Portage, St. Norbert, and River East) and a Liberal win in River Heights. Whether I’m right or wrong will come with Tuesday night’s news.

If I am right, the NDP will be jubilant even if stung by a few of their losses, Conservatives will devastated even if in a stronger position to win in 2015 (with a similar seat count to the NDP’s before they took power in 1999), and the Liberals will be relieved to be alive even with the soul searching that undoubtedly lies ahead for them.

---

Photo: A ballot from Afghanistan’s 2006 legislative elections. Large numbers of Manitoba voters will hopefully exercise their own right to vote on October 4.

A leisurely rant

I was considering live-blogging my attempt to register for some of Winnipeg's Leisure Guide courses Monday morning, but my readers should be thankful I didn't. It would have looked very much like this, only much, much longer:




9:00 Web page tells me too many users are trying to access the system. Can't get in.
9:01 Registration by phone impossible. 311 number busy. Can they not use some queuing software?
9:05 Repeated attempts to access the website and 311 line prove fruitless.
9:11 Now, even the City's "too many users" webpage won't load.
9:15 Back to the regular error message.
9:22 Ditto.
9:29 Still no luck.
9:37 Same thing.
9:50 Ditto.

*snip*

10:57 Same thing.
11:00 Ditto.
11:01 Wow, just got in. Okay, first step after clicking "English" is to log in. How to do so is not so obvious. Found help page which told me I have to click "my basket" as the first step. Okay, in. Found my course and clicked register and got... oh no, the "too many users" error message. I've been booted out after trying all morning to get in.
11:25 Trying the website continuously for 20 minutes. No luck. 311 still busy.
11:34 Registration by phone still impossible. 311 number busy.
11:39 Ditto.

Finally, sometime shortly after 12, the e-gates opened and I was able to register. It was hardly a hassle-free process, though, as finding and registering for a few courses took me nearly 30 minutes. A few of my experiences:

- Some of the courses listed in the Leisure Guide had incorrect ID numbers, which meant having to manually search for them to find the real numbers.

- Often, clicking on the "details" button for a course provided no information or gave me an error message.

- When clicking to register for a course, the site took me to my shopping basket where the next step was to choose the "client" or course taker, assuming you have more than one person in your account. For one of the courses I added, I had to click the name of the course-taker more than 20 times before the site would accept my selection -- it would otherwise load a blank webpage; browsing back to my basket showed the person selection still not yet made.

- After selecting one course brought me to the "my basket" page, I chose the user and was informed by the site that the course was no longer available (yet checking it showed many spots still open).

Now, I love taking the fabulous courses that are offered in the Leisure Guide each year and find the quality of instruction to be very high, but can we not get a proper registration system? The site and process would have looked and felt archaic ten years ago. And the 311 phone line -- can I not just be put on hold, even if I am kindly told by an electronic voice I will be there for 30 minutes?

Websites have been around for over 15 years. While we can afford to suffer the bugs of brand new technology, there's no excuse for having a website that wonky. The standard these days is that sites are user friendly, bug-free, and linked to databases thoroughly checked for errors. With hundreds of colleges and universities in this country that take course registrations every day, there are sure to be some best practices that can be emulated.

In the meantime, assuming the folks that went through what I did didn't just give up in frustration, you can bet that the courses in anger management, blood pressure control, and meditation are now all full.

Building mosques as economic strategy

This Globe article makes for some thought-provoking reading: it details how Prince George, BC is building a mosque and Islamic cultural and educational centre in the hopes of luring in the high-skilled workers it desperately needs.

Interestingly, this comes at a time when some citizens of the western world – in a decade likely to be defined by 9/11 and the sudden economic downturn near its close – are being taken in by the dark side of xenophobia and anti-immigrant finger-pointing (see this week’s European Parliament election results).

While it was undoubtedly in the works for some time, Prince George’s announcement dovetails nicely with Barack Obama’s recent overtures to the Muslim world. His message of peace – eloquently quoted from the Koran last week – was no doubt expressed also in the hopes of achieving not just social objectives, but economic objectives: in this case, economic stability, improved trade and access to markets, and an end to the costly and controversial military conflicts that continue to rage through many Islamic regions of Africa and Asia.

The likely role that Prince George’s mosque will play in its future might also bear some comparison with the role the Winnipeg Central Mosque (or WCM) plays in the West End neighbourhood’s development. Open in 2004, the mosque is a resource and prayer centre for the local Muslim community, which must be quite large if the crowds that can be seen coming to and leaving the centre are any indication. The WCM, along with the Halal food shops I also see opening up in the neighbourhood, likely represent both a sign of and a draw for local and immigrating Muslims.

While Winnipeg continues to face its own significant skilled labour shortages, there is also hope that the WCM, along with other West End developments, represents a new wave of community pride in the neighbourhood, which many suburban Winnipeggers may have long written off as lost to prostitution and crime. Along with neighbours such as the Ellice Café & Theatre, the Black Sheep Diner, and the new West End Cultural Centre, the WCM is one of a number of growing spaces of vibrancy in an area long characterized by its pockets of vibrancy.

If Prince George’s strategy works to its benefit – and I think it will to some degree – this will only fuel the debate over what religious, cultural or artistic investments a city or region can make to successfully lure and then settle new migrants to ultimately benefit its own economy (take note, Richard Florida).

Governments of course have a long-running preference for investing in large "bricks and mortar" type projects that have more finite, predictable, and mathematically-derivable estimates of economic impact than something more indirectly beneficial like a mosque. Of course, those same "bricks and mortar" projects usually bring in office drones who extend the morning Tim Horton's lineups even further down the street but who, like clockwork, quickly desert the neighbourhood to the shadows a moment after 5 pm.

Maybe building mosques and other types of community centres is a better strategy for developing thriving neighbourhoods and healthy economies.


Photo: Istanbul's Blue Mosque, also known as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, was built between 1609 and 1616. It is renowned for its more than 20,000 handmade blue ceramic tiles and six minarets.

PT turns two!

Prairie Topiary turned two today, an event worth celebrating! (somehow, I managed to completely sleep through the blog’s first anniversary.)

While the posts here tend to be wordy and infrequent, they also tend to be well received by readers.

In two years since this blog has started, the local politics-oriented blogging community has changed somewhat. Missed are Blackberry Addicts and Comments Closed. Great new additions to the community include PolicyFrog and The Don Street Blog. A host of others continue to provide regular, valuable contributions. My blogroll provides a selection of the blogs I follow regularly and that are worth checking out.

No blog anniversary is complete without a look back on some favourite posts:

Are we bad eco-citizens? (January 2009): I asked this after coming across some Statistics Canada data that suggests Manitobans are behind most other Canadians when it comes to a range of environmentally friendly behaviours.

The prorogation and 2009’s limping victor (December 2008): We all remember the drama that played itself out before Christmas, with government and opposition battling it out for power. My take was that the prize wasn't much of a prize given the long hard road ahead either government would face, something that Ignatieff likely came to realize and that Harper is finding out.

A two-horse race and other pre-election myths (September 2008): Looking back to the eve of the last federal campaign, it seems obvious now that the Tories were strong, the Liberals were in disastrous shape and that the NDP hadn’t lost dramatic numbers of votes to the Greens. However, that’s not what you’d think from reading news reports and poll punditry at the time. One Liberal commenter took strong exception to my post.

The non-issue of crown donations to the human rights museum (May 2008): Policy Frog and I debated the merits and appropriateness of provincial crown donations to the CMHR, with me taking the side that the donations were appropriate.

New software does not an urban vision make (February 2008): I critiqued Sam Katz’s annual Chamber of Commerce mayoral speech, particularly for its lack of vision and obsession with the CrimeStat software program. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to Katz's 2009 one.

The endorsement game (January 2008): I had fun watching American celebrities line up behind their favourite candidates for the Democratic and Republican nominations. Who knew then that Obama would go on to trounce first Clinton and then McCain?

Canada’s shameful day at the UN (June 2007): I called attention to the federal government’s disappointing decision to withdraw support for the UN’s Draft Declaration on the Right of Indigenous Peoples after years of work promoting it.

Forward not back (May 2007): Manitoba’s voters elected a greater share of women to its Legislature than sit in the House of Commons or in the legislative assembly of any other province. Obviously, at 32%, we’re a long ways yet from gender equality among our provincial representatives.

Triumphant! (May 2007): While I love making election predictions, I can't say I’m always right. However, I did very well in Manitoba’s last contest, successfully predicting the result in 54 out of 57 constituencies, for 95% accuracy.

Tory justice: lock up the poor (May 2007): In Manitoba’s last campaign, the Tories came up with the ridiculous idea of denying legal aid to people who have a previous conviction for certain types of offenses. Not only did they throw the concept of being innocent until proven guilty out the window, but the plan would probably cost more in the long run than it would save. It's clear they didn’t think through that one very well.

Open consultation or sell job?

So, a firm by the name of Biggar Ideas has landed a $250,000 contract from the city to "engage the public, provide information and conduct consultations" about Winnipeg’s proposed new water utility. This follows City Council's plan to "explore" the idea of creating a new city water utlity, one rationale for which is that the city can then sell its water to neighbouring municipalities.

Sounds okay, right? The city has apparently not made any decision and is only "exploring," so we can be confident that it's legitimately seeking to hear all opinions on the matter, right?

Wrong.

The hired firm's marketing identifies its hallmark as "its ability to shift and shape public and stakeholder opinion." Sounds a little like someone in the mayor's office has already made a decision and is hiring someone to manipulate public opinion in the favoured direction, no?

If we're truly in the exploratory stage, then why hire a firm to sell the idea? And if the mayor truly believes this move would be best for the city, why doesn't he just say so and champion the idea publicly himself? Let's have a debate! Glen Murray, for all his faults, was never afraid of promoting his ideas openly.

The burden of proof will now be on the city and their chosen consultant to respectfully facilitate the gathering of public opinion. If anything less happens, those with tough questions will be right to see it as nothing less than a sell job.

It will also be incumbent on those pushing the idea to explain to Winnipeg citizens how the move won't amount to just fueling more urban sprawl at the city's own expense, as Christopher Leo and others suggest could be the case.

Jenny Gerbasi is absolutely right to be suspicious of this one.

Photo: Building the Winnipeg Aqueduct, which draws water to Winnipeg from Shoal Lake, Ontario (published in the Manitoba Pageant, Winter 1979).

My kind of urban renewal

In an era of yet more big box sprawl, fortress-style architecture, and heritage building gutting, it's nice to see some genuine urban renewal involving one of the things I love most: breakfast.

I frequently enjoy the food at two relatively new diners in the inner city. Both feature fantastic home-cooked food (including an abundance of real vegetables and fruit), warm and friendly service, pleasant atmospheres, and a comfortable sense of genuineness that's so often lacking in ordinary suburban chain restaurants. You can tell these newcomers must be doing something right by the healthy number of mostly under-40 customers who flock there on weekends.

The Tallest Poppy is on Main at Logan. Enjoy their hearty breakfast scramble and homemade bread and marmalade (all of it made with locally sourced ingredients, where possible) in an open kitchen-style atmosphere.

The Black Sheep is on Ellice at Langside. Enjoy their fantastic goat cheese omelettes, potatoes or fruit while admiring the LPs on the piano, checking out the unique salt and pepper shakers (a different set on each table), and examining your Art Hive (a refurbished now-non-carcinogenic cigarette dispenser) purchase.

Brunch never tasted so good!

Photo: The Tallest Poppy (photo originally posted by 1ajs at http://skyscraperpage.com/)

The non-issue of crown donations to the human rights museum

I've been following with some interest the controversy over four provincial crown corporations and agencies (Manitoba Hydro, the Manitoba Lotteries Corporation, Manitoba Public Insurance, and the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission) each donating $1 million to The Canadian Museum For Human Rights (see story here and responses by Dan Lett and PolicyFrog here).

I suppose eyebrows are raised because the organizations in question are owned by and accountable to Manitobans, and because two of them (MLC and MLCC) pour their revenues directly into those of the government. But are the donations in question unreasonable or inappropriate?

Q. If the crowns were private corporations, would they likely donate?

A. Almost surely, if the Museum's list of major donors is any indication (available in one of the Museum's promotional kits) -- the list of companies reads like a who's who of Manitoba's private sector. If Canad Inns, CIBC, HudBay Minerals, Friesens, Ben Moss Jewellers, and Bison Transport, to name a few, are all leading the way with big donations, is it unreasonable to expect that our crowns might pony up a few dollars? I think not. In fact, given the growing list of big ticket public, private and union donors, the crowns might well appear conspicuous by their absence if they chose NOT to donate.

Q. Are the amounts the crowns are donating unreasonable?

A. Hardly. A million bucks is peanuts for Hydro, which has annual revenues exceeding $2 billion. And if Wawanesa Insurance can afford to be in the $1,000,000 to $4,999,999 donor category, surely fellow insurer MPI can do the same. And MLC and MLCC will directly benefit from the new museum as any additional tourism will boost casino/VLT traffic and liquor sales, so it makes good business sense for them to chip in for the cause. That $2 million that might otherwise have ended up in government coffers doesn't seem like an unreasonable investment.

Q. Is it unusual for the crowns to support the community through sponsorship?

A. Not at all; show up at any event in town and you'll see they do it every day. I didn't see any complaints registered over MLC's sponsorship of the Manitoba Marathon nor of Hydro's support for the Winnipeg Folk Festival. And I've never heard any boos for the crown sponsors at any of the Bomber games I've attended.

Q. Is it inappropriate for the provincial government to direct the crowns to support the human rights museum?

A. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't the very rationale for having crowns that they enable us to achieve social ends that might otherwise not be achieved in their absence? In MLC's case, they advertise very publicly their specific mandate to direct moneys to support the community through donation and sponsorship. In this case, the crowns are supporting a project likely to boost tourism to the city, generate significant economic spin-offs, and educate people about human rights.

The opposition might have had a point if the sums being given were so huge as to threaten the financial well-being of the crowns in question or to risk putting the government in a deficit position, but the donations are entirely appropriate and reasonable. And, to be frank, they might just help to put Winnipeg "on the map" with a much more realistic plan than trying to revive a long-gone NHL franchise.

The saddest part is that, as this same opposition grasps for straws in any attempt to find anything to pin on what's been a fairly resilient administration, it's the Canadian Museum of Human Rights itself that gets caught in the crossfire.

When I contrast the scale of corporate and well-to-do backing for the museum with the provincial Tories' pooh-poohing of crown support for the museum, it makes me think it's probably a good thing the Tories aren't so reliant themselves anymore on corporate donations.

The Museum website: http://www.canadianmuseumforhumanrights.com/

Photo: artist's conception of The Canadian Museum of Human Rights, to be located at The Forks, in downtown Winnipeg.

Drawing Winnipeg's new electoral divisions

Like clockwork, that decennial ritual has begun again. The creaks and groans of the long-cold body can only mean it's beginning to stir. Soon, arisen, it will reclaim the mantle it once knew and the power it can still taste. That’s right; as readers of Curtis Brown's blog will know by now, the Electoral Divisions Boundaries Commission is back, and it will be sure to draw amazement from some and strike fear into the hearts of others.

Cheesy metaphors aside, I noted last year in my post-provincial election post that the redistribution of electoral boundaries will set off some pretty intense jockeying among incumbents over who gets to run where, particularly in regions where a seat has been eliminated. For example, in a region where five MLAs of one party see their seat count reduced to four over the same geographic region, you can bet it'll lead to some heated poll number-scanning, political organizing, and quiet deal-making. It’s Survivor: Manitoba for political junkies - literally, provincial politicians will be getting voted off the island.

I’m too intrigued by the whole process to wait patiently for the Commission to come up with their first set of proposed maps, so I’ve taken a close look at the numbers they've provided, which are based on the 2006 census data, to speculate on what they're likely to propose. While southern Manitoba is likely to see some dramatic redrawing of boundaries, I started first with my observations on Winnipeg. I'll consider non-Winnipeg and political implications of the demographic changes in future posts.

Winnipeg overview

I stated in my post last year that I thought the City of Winnipeg would see its share of the 57 seats go up from 31 to 32. However, based on the numbers, I no longer think that will be the case.

Based on the 2006 census data, the population of the city’s current 31 seats divided by the population quotient provided by the commission gives the city 31.44 seats, on average. Given that seats north of 53° (of which there are currently four) are allowed to be significantly below the quotient (with all other seats within 10% of 21,147), Winnipeg should stand a little above the quotient, which means the same 31 seats it’s had for the last ten years. By 2018, the number will likely move up again.

Within the city, the seats with the largest populations are Fort Whyte (a whopping 47% over the quotient), Southdale (22% over quotient), Seine River (15% over quotient), and Kildonan (7% over quotient). The smallest is St. Norbert (7% below quotient). What I found most interesting was that inner city seats are all very close to the quotient. It seems to me that in the last couple of redistributions, the inner city lost considerable numbers of voters and saw seats disappear as a result. This time, with an apparently more stable population, the inner city thankfully isn’t likely to lose any MLAs.

So if it’s clear that south Winnipeg -- driven by Fort Whyte, Seine River and Southdale -- must see improved representation, but that the city will stay at 31, where will the extra representation come from? The only reasonable answer is that existing constituency boundaries will be dragged southward to accommodate the growth in the south. My map's arrows (click on the map to get a larger, more readable version) and accompanying discussion illustrate what I speculate will happen.

East Winnipeg

On the east side of the Red River, there are 11 seats. Of these, seven (River East, Rossmere, Concordia, St. Boniface, St. Vital, Riel, and Transcona) are about 1,000 below the quotient, while Elmwood is close to the quotient, Radisson is above by about 1,000, and Seine River and Southdale are considerably up.

If the seven that are below quotient expand to their quotient level of voters, this will almost exactly match the amounts by which Seine River and Southdale need to shrink. This likely means that Radisson will move southward to become much more of a Windsor Park constituency; much of its northern portions will become part of expanded Rossmere, Concordia, and Transcona constituencies. Then, by taking of more of Windsor Park from Southdale, the old Radisson constituency allows the former to shed voters to achieve a near-quotient level.

Seine River also needs to shed voters to new constituencies. To achieve this, St. Boniface will likely expand southward, which will push St. Vital southward and Riel southward into former Seine River territory.

Southwest Winnipeg

In the southwest, things get interesting: Fort Whyte is 9,000 voters over quotient, which means it’s grown to nearly the size of 1.5 constituencies. How to rearrange the seats here to accommodate half of a new constituency? The one that seems an obvious answer is to take the south half of Fort Rouge (the only constituency to be divided by a river, something to be generally avoided in the creation of constituencies, I would argue) and turn it into a whole constituency. This generates the additional half a constituency needed to accommodate Fort Whyte’s growth.

How then to redraw the boundaries in the south end? I think it’s likely the commission will fall on tradition and carve out a Crescentwood, which was first created for the 1970s, then vanished in the 1980s, was re-created in late 1988, and then vanished again in 1998. As with its 1990s incarnation, Crescentwood would likely take the eastern portion of River Heights, the “planets” portion of Fort Garry, and the western portions of Lord Roberts and Fort Rouge.

With the Osborne Village piece of Fort Rouge, Lord Roberts will become much like the 1990s-era Osborne constituency. River Heights would move several blocks west to accommodate Crescentwood, which would push some of Tuxedo southward to take up some of Fort Whyte’s current territory. The new Fort Garry, robbed of the “planet” streets, would also snatch some of Fort Whyte’s current terrain. St. Norbert, with its below-quotient voting population, would also expand into Fort Whyte to ease some of the latter constituency's excess numbers.

North and west Winnipeg

The downtown portion of the old Fort Rouge riding may mean the revival of the old Broadway constituency, if it gets merged with the eastern part of Minto. That would mean Minto would get pushed westward into St. James which, along with Assiniboia, is slightly below quotient. As mentioned above, most inner city constituencies aren’t below quotient and so won’t be so much enlarged as shifted around.

An alternative for north Fort Rouge is to merge into the southern part of Point Douglas, the northern half of which would then get merged into some new redrawn versions of St. Johns, Burrows and Wellington. Wellington would then probably take part of Minto from the north, which would get several blocks of St. James in return. Overall, below-quotient Assiniboia, St. James, St. Johns and Inkster are likely to see some growth to balance the addition of Fort Rouge’s Downtown into its neighbours and the accommodation of over-quotient Kildonan.

Photo: Map of Winnipeg consituencies, from Election Manitoba's 2007 Statement of Votes, with arrows suggesting 2008 boundary movement.

A quick guide to Winnipeg protests

I'm a regular reader of David Watson's Waverley West and beyond blog and find it engaging, well-written and a valuable addition to the community. Lately, however, I've been following with some amusement his attempt to uncover some grand scheme behind last week's P3/city budget protest, made notorious by one attendee's ignorant attempt, via a sign, to put Mayor Sam Katz on par with Hitler.

Watson seems desperate to find a smoking gun showing that the provincial NDP or some other political organization organized the protest as part of some larger strategy to take on Katz. Is offensive sign holder Steve Mack an "NDP operative," he asks? Is protest spokesperson Mike Lennon an NDP-paid-for "protest leader"? (oops, he's already scratched that one off the list). Is the fringe Canadian Action Party "involved with the Katz defamation"? What if the "agent provocateur was sent by someone else in City Hall?" Watson also wonders, as he seems to struggle with just why Katz would be hiring people to film the protestors, is the plot "why Sam Katz was having the protestors photographed"? The drama has all of the twists and turns of a good conspiracy theory movie and I'm almost disappointed to see each new lead turn up with, well, nothing surprising.

It's been some time since I've attended any sort of political protest and I wasn't at the one at City Hall, but what happened seems pretty straightforward to me -- along the lines of the many hundreds this city has seen before:

1. For obvious reasons, unions and their allies dislike contracting out, P3s, privatization, and right-wing politicians who support such things.

2. Political demonstrations are not all that effective in swaying public opinion. Unions and other organizations organize protests to communicate with the public and with political leaders when other avenues are limited. If you can elect your people to public office with ease or get what you want through negotiation or simply by asking without having to protest publicly, why would you go to all the trouble?

3. The provincial NDP, especially when in power, does not bother to organize demonstrations as a political strategy because they have other, far more effective avenues for getting things done. If the provincial NDP decided that Katz was a thorn in the province's side (which they do not), they'd use their communications machine to back it up or recruit someone sufficiently high-profile to run against him.

4. No political organization or protest organizer with any brains or experience directs people to compare politicians they dislike to Hitler. How much ground did Katz's political opponents gain after the incident? Absolutely zero. If anything, the incident lost them ground. It's obvious that the sign was not the brainchild of any organization seeking to defame Katz.

5. Rallies against political policies are usually open invitation events held in public spaces. As a result, they may attract all sorts of people, including political organizers, members of any number of major or fringe parties, activists who regularly attend protests on any number of issues, people elected to public office, people who want to be elected to public office, people who have lost or who risk losing a job should proposed political changes pass, people whose philosphical or ideological sympathies are consistent with the protest's objectives, people who like crowds, lonely people, smart people, dumb people, people who are there for the free coffee, etc. For this reason, it seems pretty reasonable that lone individuals attending a protest cannot be said to speak for or represent the protest organizers or the entire collective body of protestors.

6. People attending political protests are motivated enough to take time out of their day and hang out for an hour or two regardless of the weather or other committments they may have. It shouldn't be surprising then that many attendees are dedicated political activists who are also avid participants in the political process in numerous other ways to support a range of causes or organizations.

7. Filming or photographing participants of strikes and political protests is nothing new. It's an extremely well-established and often-used technique throughout Canada and the US and elsewhere for (a) making participants feel "watched" and uncomfortable, so that they'll keep a low and non-militant profile and hopefully stay home next time; (b) discourage bad behaviour, by ensuring that photographic evidence will be available if things get out of hand; and (c) provide beautiful opportunities to shift attention away from the policies being protested to the protestors themselves when, for example, some clown shows up with an inappropriate sign.

8. As much as City Councillor Lazarenko is right to be shocked and offended at the sign one protestor chose to bring, trying to ban or limit protests isn't going to solve anything. Lazarenko, who according to the CBC, feels the city may have grown too lenient over the years in terms of what it will tolerate in a demonstration, is quoted as saying, "It gets to be like a mini-riot. It comes to a point where we lose control. The courtyard is for a peaceful demonstration."

Settle down, councillor; it was a peaceful protest, like one of many that happen in Winnipeg all the time.

Photo: A less-recent protest at City Hall. Depicted is a crowd gathered outside old City Hall, at Main Street and William Avenue, during the Winnipeg general Strike. Visible on the left are the Union Bank of Canada building and Leland Hotel.

The devious Mr. Katz

The mayor's office has released its detailed Service Based View of the budget. The document, which is available here, outlines a range of cuts to city services.

Shockingly, it was released just before the long weekend and a mere six days before the budget vote on the council floor. Its release also comes days after a public meeting in which citizens were invited to express their views on the budget. The Free Press covers the story here.

Can it all be coincidence that the mayor's office has released the bad news with virtually no time for the public to digest it, let alone debate it? Or, more likely, was this a sly attempt by our mayor to sneak some nasty cuts past the council floor when no one in the public is really paying attention? If the latter, it's more than just the usual lack of vision or fear of open debate; it's a wilful abuse of power.

Policyfrog has a great post on our mayor of "none" here. I'm personally keenly interested to see how each of our city councillors reacts to this one -- kudos to Councillor Gerbasi for drawing attention to the issue quickly.

Photo: Winnipeg's modernist City Hall (aka Civic Centre), completed and opened in 1964.

New software does not an urban vision make

I was at the Winnipeg Chamber function on Friday for our Worship's annual State of the City address. About 1,000 folks were in attendance, which is a pretty spectacular turnout, I think.

In the opening moments, I chatted with a few people at my table about the issues or debates Katz would likely raise in his speech. I thought he might touch on some of the big debates going on now, such as Asper's proposal for a new football stadium, the Upper Fort Garry heritage park plan, or Katz's own water park pet project.

I thought Sam might even take a leap forward and provide us with some vision of what our city could be: a glimpse of a new, more environmentally conscious city, perhaps; a proposal for rehabilitating our declining transit system into something many of us could use and be proud of; some vision of Winnipeg as a centre of urban Aboriginal culture and pride; or even his seemingly forgotten promise of enhancing our network of neighbourhood community centres so that kids everywhere can take part in recreational and sporting opportunities. I was to be sorrily disappointed.

Katz's entirely-memorized teleprompted and very slow-spoken address began with a whole lot of name dropping, thanking each city councillor by name, as well as the new police chief, Keith McCaskill, and a host of other folks. He later again thanked each councillor at least two or three times, perhaps trying to emphasize that city council is all one happy family these days.

While I wasn't really expecting to be moved one way or the other by the mayor's speech, I was completely flabbergasted by the huge amount of time he spent yakking about CrimeStat, the city's one-year old software program for monitoring crime trends by neighbourhood. The audience was treated to explanations of how the system works, PowerPoint slides showing real crime statistics for the St. James neighbourhood, and scenarios of how such data might allow for quicker police responses to crime trends.

It's fine to mention the new techniques for monitoring crime, but I'm astonished with the amount of hot air that was spent on what amounts to a software purchase and a cool website page. I have no problem with a system that allows police to better monitor crime trends -- it is, in fact, part of their job to do just that. But should it be such astonishing mayoral speech-level news that the police are given an upgrade on the tools they use to do their job? What's going to be the highlight of next year's address: how Excel formulas helped improve the city's accounting workload? How city vehicles slid around less after being installed with winter tires?

The problem with Winnipeg's political leadership continues to be one of narrow vision. While other cities guide their projects with visions of what their urban space should look and feel like, Winnipeg confuses one-off projects with vision by continuing to tinker with the accessories: a park or a downtown shopping mall or a redesigned bus shelter or a software program don't equal a vision. These are things that should be guided by vision. Where is Sam's vision? Where does Sam see us in ten years? In twenty? What will or should life be like for Winnipeggers? How will or should non-Winnipeggers view our city? Sam? Hello, Sam?

The real crime is that of hopes and opportunities lost: what might this city look like had we had fewer vision-less mayors? What kind of Winnipeg might yet be possible?

Photo: Portage Avenue, near Hargrave Street, in 1920.

Local blogs

I recently discovered a couple of punchy local blogs more than worth adding to my blogroll.

PolicyFrog is an interesting read. See for example this

post on what I see as the Free Press's maddeningly simplistic and analytically-poor editorial efforts (in a world of exploding online content, the Free Press still seems to think its competitors are limited to the Sun and the local TV stations - the grey pap it tries to feed us in editorial form just doesn't measure up against the quality news and editorial material I can access within seconds from elswhere, including from other major Canadian dailies). While PolicyFrog's flavour is overall a little to the right of Prairie Topiary's, it's certainly worth a regular read.

The Rise and Sprawl is a pretty fantastic, well-researched, urban-focused blog. I love the fantastic photographs of Winnipeg past and present and the great research on the city's history and architecture. I love too the cogent and biting critique of our urban space's management, which is sadly characterized more often than not by its lack of vision, ignorance of planning basics, and discarding of urban history. The world could use more blogs of this calibre.

Photo: "Drawing for a Typewriter, 06/23/1868," a printed patent drawing for a typewriter invented by Sholes, Glidden, and Soule.

New Winnipeg stadium: city boon or public bilk?

Photo: Montreal's Olympic Stadium

Quite interesting is the recently reported poll on whether Manitobans would support public funding for a new Winnipeg Blue Bombers stadium.

The proposal, as it now stands, calls for the provincial and federal governments together to put up $40 million, which would match the $40 million being put up by private investors. According to the Probe/Jory Capital poll reported in today’s Free Press, 50% oppose (32% strongly, 18% somewhat) while 43% support (20% strongly, 23% somewhat) the use of government monies for the new stadium.

The poll comes only days after yet more evidence questioning the value that public funding of such projects have for the city in which they are built. Academics Dennis Coates and Brad R. Humphreys report in their recent article (kudos to Richard Florida for his blog's link and discussion) that, “in stark contrast to the results claimed by most prospective economic impact studies commissioned by teams or stadium advocates, the consensus in the academic literature has been that the overall sports environment has no measurable effect on the level of real income in metropolitan areas. Our own research suggests that professional sports may be a drain on local economies rather than an engine of economic growth.”

An economic impact study of the Winnipeg stadium project apparently projects $17 million dollars in tax revenue for the province from the construction alone. Being no stranger to economic impact studies, I find that figure to be suspiciously high for an $80 million project. Coates and Humphreys would probably agree: they note in their article that “the results of these studies invariably reflect the desires of those who commission them, and advocates of stadiums and franchises typically produce impact studies that find large economic impacts, translated as benefits, from building a stadium or enticing a team to enter the city.” They go on to describe a number of flaws typically associated with such studies.

The debate is similar to the one that followed the demise of the Winnipeg Jets team and the subsequent True North/MTS Centre arena construction. Some of this is chronicled in Thin Ice, a book by Jim Silver, who took the position that no public money should go to fund luxuries such as professional sports when our society faces far more pressing needs. Personally, I think the MTS Centre is a beautiful, amazing and highly successful arena, though I wonder whether the economic and civic pride spin-offs of that project even come close to balancing against the $40.5 million contributed by taxpayers.

In the case of the current proposed stadium project, it will of course be incumbent upon the promoters of the stadium to prove that the project is worth the input of public funds. We should be open to an investment of public money into an asset that will be cherished and used by the province’s citizens, but certainly not to corporate welfare for the Asper clan. In other words, let’s not rely on a questionable economic impact study funded by the very folks who stand to gain from the development.

There should certainly also be a cap on the public’s contribution, a lesson learned most harshly by Montreal in the construction of their Olympic Stadium: built for the 1972 Olympics for a projected public contribution of $120 million, the project was finally only fully paid for in 2006, for a total tab of $1.47 billion.

The public debate over this project should be far more than just about the money invested, too. As our Premier noted in his response to the poll, a critical piece of the public debate is about whether the provincial government should enter into a public-private partnership with Asper, an issue the poll questions didn’t even touch upon. We certainly don’t want an arrangement whereby the private owners who run the stadium reap the bulk of the project’s rewards while the public sector bears the bulk of the project’s risks.

Election oracle, part 2: Winnipeg

Image: Temple of Apollo located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus near Delphi, Greece. The original location of the Delphic Oracle.

Here are the first of my seat-by-seat predictions for Tuesday's provincial election. This first series covers all Winnipeg constituencies. The next will cover non-Winnipeg constituencies, while my last series of predictions will cover any of the close "nail-biters" I've identified.

Winnipeg stronghold seats

I'm not going to spend time talking about seats that are party strongholds. It's a foregone conclusion that the NDP will dominate in the inner city, while the Tories will coast to victory in areas like Tuxedo. So, to make things short, here's a list of the "stronghold" wins I'm predicting right off the bat:

NDP strongholds (13): Burrows, Concordia, Elmwood, Kildonan, Lord Roberts, Minto, Point Douglas, Rossmere, St. Boniface, St. Johns, St. Vital, Transcona, Wolseley

PC strongholds (3): Charleswood, Fort Whyte, Tuxedo

Other seats are profiled in more detail below.

Southdale

From what I understand, Jack Reimer is a decent MLA and a super-nice guy. Apparently, he was well-respected in the 90s by members of both sides of the house. A couple of Southdale people I know have sung his praises.

While this doesn't have much to do with the current race in Southdale, I think Reimer's biggest shortcoming stems from his myopic tenure as Urban Affairs Minister in the Filmon government. The department was completely unable to accept what I'd consider to be basic urban planning tenets regarding growth, sprawl, transportation, and inner-city development. Beholden to the big developers and sprawl-friendly RMs, the department stalled in the face of public demands for a capital region planning vision by creating the Capital Region Review, an exercise with a whole lot of dialogue but structurally designed to provide very little value in way of planning recommendations. The NDP hasn't exactly been great in articulating its vision for the capital region, but at least there's some understanding of the issues as well as progress in areas like water stewardship.

In this race, Erin Selby seems like a great, dynamic candidate and I hope she wins. Unfortunately, I think Southdale is far too conservative a constituency for the NDP to pull it off. The NDP's fortunes will certainly rise there (over the 36% they won in 2003) as a result of her high profile and the weight of the party's organizational machine, but I'll be the most shocked of all if the NDP actually wins.

Prediction: 'A' for NDP effort, but a PC win.

Assiniboia

I think Jim Rondeau must be the hardest working MLA in the province. It's certainly paid off: his margin of 3 votes in 1999 turned into a margin of close to 3,000 in 2003. That's a steep hill to climb for former city council candidate Kelly DeGroot, the Tories' candidate there.

I happened to sit with Ms. DeGroot at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon once and chatted with her for a bit. Moderate, intelligent, articulate and organized, she seems like a great catch for the Tories as a candidate. Nevertheless, there's no way she's going to be able to knock off Rondeau in this election.

Prediction: NDP win

Seine River

After Fort Garry, this was the NDP's narrowest victory in Winnipeg in 2003: about 700 votes or 9% of the electorate separated the NDP from the Conservatives. If anyone else other than Theresa Oswald were the NDP candidate, I'd expect a close race. But Ms. Oswald, the current Minister of Health and a swiftly rising star in the party, is the candidate. Expect her to win with an increased level of support.

Prediction: NDP win

Fort Garry

Fort Garry was the closest race in Winnipeg in 2003, with less than 100 votes separating winner Kerri Irvin-Ross of the NDP and defeated incumbent Joy Smith of the PCs. Given that Winnipeg voting intentions are somewhere around the same place as in the 2003 election, this is likely to be another very close race (for the third election in a row).

Prediction: "nail-biter"

St. James

With a 54% to 33% victory over her Tory challenger in 2003, the NDP's Bonnie Korzeniowski will not likely have a hard time being re-elected.

Prediction: NDP win

The Maples

Preceding this election campaign and the last, there have been ugly battles for the NDP nomination in The Maples. When the dust finally settled after the most recent and controversy-laden race, candidate Mohinder Saran had defeated sitting MLA Chris Aglugub to stand as the NDP candidate in the provincial election. Saran is one of the candidates who had nothing to do with any of the controversy and he inherits a pretty strong constituency for the NDP: in 2003, the party took 68% of the vote, to 16% for each of the Conservatives and Liberals.

Prediction: NDP win

Riel

There's a lot of talk in Tory camps about how they're planning to take this seat with former West End BIZ President Trudy Turner, who also gave City Councillor Harvey Smith a tough run for his money in last fall's municipal campaign. Based on a rough glance at the campaign signs that are up throughout the constituency, Ms. Turner's inner-city credentials are selling well in the poshest riverfront properties near St. Vital Park, but not as well in the rest of the constituency.

Of course, it's an old cliché that signs don't vote. The real problem with Tory hopes is that, based on the numbers, Riel is now a stronger NDP constituency than is Seine River, St. Norbert, Fort Garry, or Radisson. Chances are that Riel will go Tory only after those other seats do, and that doesn't appear likely. Of course, Tories are hoping for some sort of localized groundswell of protest to defeat the incumbent, Christine Melnick, but that would require a protest sufficient to close a 1,300 vote gap. Pretty unlikely.

Prediction: NDP win

Wellington

I've already talked about Wellington in earlier posts. When your 2003 base is 74% and your closest competitor was at 15%, vote-splitting isn't much of a concern. Expect NDP candidate Flor Marcelino to win easily.

Prediction: NDP

St. Norbert

The third closest NDP win in Winnipeg, this seat will be watched on election night. Current MLA Marilyn Brick ran here in 1999, but fell short of defeating Tory Marcel Laurendeau by about 700 votes. In 2003, she turned the tables, winning by 700 votes. It probably didn't help the Tories any that their sitting MLA had to be rescued from the trunk of his car after being put there by an unscrupulous associate. Talk about low points in one's political career!

As long as the NDP are polling the Winnipeg numbers they are, they should be able to hold on to south Winnipeg seats like this one. As a rule, Ms. Brick is staying away from her trunk.

Prediction: NDP win

River East

This seat represents the narrowest Tory win in Winnipeg in 2003. Longtime incumbent Bonnie Mitchelson hung on by 500 votes, which was a little closer than her 1999 victory of 700 votes. Electoral historians might note the NDP's 1981 victory in this seat -- its only win here ever -- but its then-boundaries included much of what is now Rossmere.

Given the lack of profile this race has had during the campaign, I suspect there's little hope of the NDP stealing it from the PCs. I fully expect Mitchelson to increase her margin of victory to something a little more comfortable.

Prediction: PC win

Fort Rouge

I'm actually talking about Fort Rouge (instead of simply chalking it up as an NDP stronghold) only to shatter Liberal pipe dreams about actually taking the seat. Liberals contend that with youthful candidate Paul Hesse, the lack of an incumbent MLA (Tim Sale, the former MLA for Fort Rouge isn't running again), and door-to-door canvassing challenges for NDP candidate Jennifer Howard, they have a shot at winning. They don't. Even if they were to double the 17% they were able to get in 2003, they'd still end up short.

Prediction: NDP win

Inkster

The Liberals' Kevin Lamoureux is quite a character, being known for his bizarre antics in the Legislature. He's represented the Inkster constituency in every election since 1988, with the exception of the 1999 to 2003 period, after he lost to the NDP's Becky Barrett.

The NDP are once again challenging, this time running impressive candidate Romy Magsino. My initial thoughts are that Lamoureux will hold on to this seat, but then again he did benefit in 2003 from the collapse of the local PC vote from 13% to 4% (while the Liberal vote climbed from 43% to 53%). A little bit of a Tory revival could steal those votes back from Lamoureux, putting him in a very close race against the NDP's Magsino. This one will be tight.

Prediction: "nail-biter"

River Heights

Jon Gerrard, leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party, is the MLA for River Heights. Of any area of the province, River Heights seems the most suited to voting Liberal. Made up of professional, well-educated, and upper middle class families, voters here are probably too well off to be entirely comfortable with the left-leaning character of the NDP, but yet too educated and cultured to have any affinity for the simplistic, sometimes angry, hard right ideology often voiced by Tories (including their current candidate). That leaves just enough room for Manitoba's highest-profile Liberal to run up the middle and eke out victory after victory.

Of course, Gerrard's victory isn't entirely in the bag. The Tories have won this seat before, most recently in 1995, and could do so again. In 1999, Gerrard took 45% of the vote to defeat incumbent Mike Radcliffe, who garnered 41%. In 2003, Gerrard won with 49% of the vote, compared to just 29% for the PCs and 20% for the NDP. Given that recent polls put Conservative support at around their 2003 level, they'll need to pull up their socks a little before mounting a more serious challenge for this seat.

Prediction: Liberal win

Kirkfield Park

The phrase "pulling a Kirkfield Park" might just become a new word in our political lexicon. I can just imagine picking up a copy of the next edition of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and finding the following among the new words the editors decided to include:

Kirkfield Park n. 1. a provincial constituency, first created in 1981, whose members elect a representative to the Manitoba legislature. 2. the act of an elected representative, especially a member of the Manitoba PC party, resigning part-way through the term they were elected to serve to the detriment of their party's political fortunes (after former MLAs Eric Stefanson and Stuart Murray, who resigned as representatives of Kirkfield Park before their terms were complete).

For a constituency that's never elected anyone but a Tory, it's surprising to see two Tory MLAs in a row resign, leaving the seat as vulnerable as it is to an NDP pick-up. And given that Kirkfield Park remains a Tory island in a sea of orange, I would have expected to see a heated nomination race between several high-profile candidates for the Tories. Not so, which is another bad omen for the PC's chances of governing in the near future.

Kirkfield Park remains highly vulnerable to the NDP. You wouldn't think so, based only on the 2003 results, when the PCs grabbed 47% to the NDP's 31%, and the Liberals' 22%. Of course, that was when PC leader Stu Murray held the seat. The advantage in terms of media exposure and organization that comes from being a party leader is immense and, barring some protest that seeks to make that leader a lightning rod for voter grievances, a party leader is hard to defeat. It's a lot of the reason that Jon Gerrard is able to win in River Heights.

What if, in 2003, the Tory candidate hadn't been Stu Murray? You can bet that the race would have been a lot closer. Add to that a great NDP candidate and an NDP machine that's working the riding hard, unlike in 2003, and you have yourself a battle. This will be one race to watch on election night.

Prediction: "nail-biter"

Radisson

I was originally going to call Radisson a "nail-biter," given the rising tide of PC vote in the area in the last ten or so years. A bizarre blend of Transcona, East Kildonan, St. Boniface, and Windsor Park, it is a traditional NDP seat.

In 2003, the NDP's Bidhu Jha beat the Tories' Linda West by 52% to 39%. That's a lot closer than in 1999 when the result was 55% to 33%, which is in turn closer than in 1995 when the result was 52% to 22%. The Tories are starting to think they're going to take the seat, and they just might do so one of these days.

Given that NDP and Tory support in the city is at about the same level as in 2003, the Tory tide still has to rise by a fair bit to put them over the top in Radisson. This is especially true now that Jha has the benefit of incumbency and voter recognition that he did not have in 2003. While voters here still have the potential to surprise on election night, my sense is that the outcome will look something like Gary Doer's recent joke, which paraphrases the party's 2003 slogan: "Much accomplished, more Bidhu."

Prediction: NDP win

Winnipeg prediction summary

In 2003, of 31 seats, the NDP took 23 seats, to 6 for the PCs, and 2 for the Liberals.

My 2007 prediction so far shows little change: 22 NDP, 5 PC, 1 Liberal, and 3 "nail-biters" (Fort Garry, Inkster, Kirkfield Park), which I'll call after I profile the non-Winnipeg seats.