Apolitical Staples

I think this is the new normal. The polls have been pretty much steady for three years. The sooner the political class gets its collective mind out of its ass and accepts this, the sooner we can bring in electoral reform and get on with things.

Why do we need electoral reform? We already have gridlock and a vapid, lowest common denominator parliament. You think the addition of Elizabeth May’s crew would alleviate that? Whose head is up whose what?

Alan, if we had electoral reform we would no longer have gridlock. That’s the difference. We would have stable coalitions. And yes, I do think the Greens should be in Parliament. Why should 10% of voters have no say in what is going on?

As a Conservative this is so disheartening. We should just have an election and get it over with! Oh yeah the Opposition is afraid to go there. It must have something to do with the strong grassroots support, or lack thereof.

Polls only count on election day, if the poll numbers were important the Opposition would jump at a chance to crush the Conservatives. Anyone see that happening?

The Opposition knows as do most Cnadians that Mr. Harper is giving us competent government. Despite the media’s best efforts to portray otherwise.

Last week’s doan fiasco shows the irrelevance of Dion, Duccepe and Layton.

“Why should 10% of voters have no say in what is going on?”

That is such a bogus reasoning for electoral reform. It assumes that polls tkaen with no election in sight have relevance.

Whenever I am polled about anything I tend to give whimsical answers. hey are wasting my time, I waste their money. In the polling booth it is a different situation, I vote for competence.

Conservatives used to brag that HArper was a chess player and was 8 steps ahead of everyone else.

He is now seen as conniving with a dark cruel streak.

He’s done.

I think the interesting part of this poll is the LPC did not pick up any support after more then likely the most horrible two weeks a govt could have if you exclude the Adscam mess. If I was Mr. Dion, I would be wondering how we have disconnected so badly, the CPC has lots of time to bring its numbers back up and that is what worries me.

The numbers aren’t surprising. The Tories’ new Green Plan, while improved over the last one, still isn’t strong enough to be a rallying point. And the Afghan detainee situation hits at what the Tories were portraying last year as their main strength: the idea that they had mastered their ministries. Clearly the ministries involved with Afghanistan weren’t talking very well with each other, which gave the impression that the Tories weren’t quite in control of the government.

Will the Tory numbers improve? Well, the Green numbers may drop, based on public reaction to May’s appeasement remarks, but I wouldn’t count on that since they’re relatively innocuous. Also the RCMP pension scandal may have some negative effect on the Liberals, but so long as no sitting members are implicated it’ll be well within the margin of error.

Prediction: if we get record-setting temperatures and/or wild weather during the summer, Tory numbers will drop another two points. That’s how weak the new Green Plan is.

The Liberals are actually polling better than 33%. In an election, the Green-Lib alliance will see Green votes (and NDP votes) move to the Libs which will net them an extra 8-10 seats in BC and Ontario.

The Liberals are effectively in minority government territory now. Thanks to the Bloc, however, they have no chance of bringing down the government.

Sorry Anonymous, perhaps some Greens will vote Liberal, but only if they are stupid enough to listen to their leader. NDP support has been solid for a couple of years. I don’t see them rushing to help the Liberals.

The only Reform we need is a return to the representation in the Parliament according to population by province. The West has far fewer seats than the pop warrants and the Maritimes has far too many. Restore balance and gridlock will be gone.

… and that’s why I like to leave all the Poll Posting in Greg’s capable hands. lol

Green-Lib alliance? Even “lets make a deal” May is stating that it is only a Dion-May alliance. In any case, this Green is going conservative anyways. I thought the Greens had decent ideas but not with May at the helm.

The Liberals would be foolish to ignore this article where more Greens thought Harper would be a better leader than May herself. Dion only was the best choice by 8.9% of Greens.

Good call, Duane.

I might also add another angle…how many conservative voters are excited with Harper these days? If going Liberal-lite was his hidden agenda then, oh boy, what irony.

Hopefully, he has determined that the way to a more true conservative government is through a majority that will only come by picking up seats from blue liberals. Mike Harris didn’t do it this way, but I guess he had the advantage of following the NDP horror show.

If Harper was to govern in a similar fashion with a majority, I might just be too busy contemplating my belly-button to get out to vote on election day.

The only Reform we need is a return to the representation in the Parliament according to population by province. The West has far fewer seats than the pop warrants and the Maritimes has far too many. Restore balance and gridlock will be gone.

If you really mean true representation (and that means re-balancing representation between rural and urban centres) by population, I absolutely, totally agree with that. It doesn’t totally satisfy me, but it is a damn good place to start.

Something to keep in mind is that there are a number of right wingers who are not impressed with Harper’s foray into the muddy middle and will express that in surveys, but when it comes down to voting day have no real alternate choice but vote Conservative.

Hopefully the Conservatives will see the signs and get back on track…

Also, the media have been unrelentless in their constant dumping on Harper and that has had an effect as well, perhaps it is the revenge of the press gallery.

But don’t worry too much. The RCMP pension debacle will reflect poorly on the Liberals and they will be back on the defensive again. A fresh scandal will spike the Conservative numbers when all the details come out…

“if we had electoral reform we would no longer have gridlock. That’s the difference. We would have stable coalitions.”

What’s preventing these stable coalitions from being formed now and what would be their effect on who forms government/cabinet?

What’s preventing these stable coalitions from being formed now and what would be their effect on who forms government/cabinet?

What is stopping them being formed now is the belief by the big parties that “if only we can shift 4% of the voters we can have a ‘majority’”. In other words they aren’t interested in coalition building. As long as that possibility remains out there, the notion of coalition building will be out of the question. If however, you remove the possibility of “majority” rule without majority support, coalition building becomes not only possible, but necessary.

As to the effect, take a look at the experiences of Germany and New Zealand. In Germany in particular (since they have had MMP for 60 years), it has developed pretty stable coalitions of both left and right parties.

However, in Canada there is only one even remotely conservative party. Thus, no potential for coalitions, stable or otherwise. Effectively then, everyone who leans more statist gets a better deal. Everyone who doesn’t (and I would put that figure at roughly 25% of the country) gets the shaft in perpetuity, no hope of even a Red Tory government again. That’s nice for the collectivists. It doesn’t sit so well with me, since I pay half my money into the government wishing well. No wonder you want reform.

However, in Canada there is only one even remotely conservative party.

At the moment. But, I could see a Libertarian party with say Gerry Nicholls as its leader, quite easily being formed if people thought it could get seats in parliament. Under FPTP that is unlikely. Under MMP or STV, it is. I always thought that under electoral reform, the Reform Party and the old PC party could have attracted enough support to form a coalition government under STV or MMP. The parts always attracted more votes than the sum of the two.

That seems far less likely than perpetual Green/NDP/Liberal coalitions formed mainly in order to ensure that no conservative ever has his hand on the steering wheel again. Electoral reform sounds very noble, but it really boils down to power struggles.

That seems far less likely than perpetual Green/NDP/Liberal coalitions formed mainly in order to ensure that no conservative ever has his hand on the steering wheel again.

That assumes that current voting patterns stay true forever. It also assumes that conservatives have lost the intellectual argument for good and always. That’s way to pessimistic.

too I mean

Polls can move during a campaign… so hey, people aren’t so keen on the Conservatives right now.

Would enjoy watching a campaign soon, but we probably won’t see one for a while — both the Conservatives and the NDP want to give Duceppe time to switch to provincial politics, I think.

They are sagging in the polls because the base and some swing voters are recoiling from just how desperate they seem to pander for votes right now. Pork for Que and the Greenie nonsense in the budget ad nauseum ad infinitum as Frank says is likely driving people away from the party as they see that they are desperate for a majority. If they had of stuck to conservative principles as a party we would still have our dignity, a sound policy base and the poll results would likely have been better or at least no worse than they are now with all the recent boondoggling.

As an aside on lunatic Greenie pandering, they could have taken a hard look at the global warming issue and seen that Canadians are really only willing to pay lip service to it and will move to a party that also really only pays lip service to it. I draw this from the previous polling which shows that a clear majority (75%?) are concerned very few are willing to pay a dollar more per litre to do something about it.

I think there is movement to the Liberals because they have a clear track record of only paying lip service to this issue. The CPC bungled badly when they actually proposed doing something about it. Interfering with the automobile market and driving up the price of corn with ethanol subsidies were concrete actions that the majority of Canadians view with some healthy suspicion if not outright hostility (OK that’s really just me).

Before everyone gets too carried away on coalition-building, etc., two points you might want to consider.

!) Bothe this poll and the one on Afganhistan released a couple of days ago were conducted between April 26 and May 1. Sounds to me they were piggy-backed, and that certainly would not help the Conservatives.

2) Has anyone looked at the question asked ? “For those parties you would consider voting for federally, could you please rank your top two current local preferences? “. Top TWO current local preferenes ??? And this is supposed to be a kosher result ???

Terence Corcoran’s good enough to be a blogger.

All wind no change

The Conservative government now in Ottawa bears no resemblance to the smaller-government, tax-cutting, anti-leftist promise held out at the Winds of Change meeting a decade ago, where Stephen Harper spoke.

The last Tory budget was a sweeping continuum of Liberal spending, devoid of tax cuts. New spending records are being set by a Finance Minister who believes business is doing so well it doesn’t need tax cuts. Conservative support for farm marketing boards and ethanol subsidies fly in the face of sound free-market principles … The new green agenda … is filled with rank distortions and meddlesome programs.

… In 1996, a young man by the name of Kory Teneycke Young helped found Winds of Change along with Mr. Levant and Mr. Frum. Today, Mr. Teneycke Young is head of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association and chief lobbyist for ethanol subsidies … Another early player, Ken Boessenkool, is now a public-relations executive who lobbies for a drug company that stands to benefit from the government’s $300-million budget plan to fund a cervical cancer vaccine.

Tom Flanagan, the Alberta university professor who was once Mr. Harper’s intellectual guru … [now writes] “Too many years out of power have given conservatives an anti-government mentality.”

Ha. Fake conservatism can be berry, berry good. The rest of who are not cabinet ministers, lobbyists, bagmen, senior mandarins or well connected cronies are screwed.

Looks like the old Liberals are a margin of error ahead of the “New Liberals” and PMSH.

I am shocked.

If you sell out on Kyoto, can’t quite explain why you are in Afghanistan and increase the federal budget for no apparent reason other than you can, it is awfully hard for the poor voter to differentiate between “old” and “new” Liberals.

(Oh, less corrupt…which would explain the new Liberals current refusal to allow one of their Cabinet Ministers to answer questions about his, well, department, during Question Period in the Commons. Nothing corrupt about contempt of Parliament…nothing at all.)

But there is good news: nearly 70% of those polled supported the Liberals in one of their two flavours. If it was not so pathetic it might be funny.

Alan,

A Gerry Nichol’s Libertarian Party would always have a voice under proportional representation, which means they will always have a strong venue to communicate their ideas to Canadians. And that should hold out some hope that eventually those ideas will resonate with the Canadian public.

Under the current system, the libertarian voice gets drowned out by a big tent party scrambling to gather enough votes to give themselves a free hand in parliament.