Election 2015

[GAP]

The NDP is neither relevant, nor successful.

The vote in Quebec was not for the NDP. It was a vote against the Bloc.

The NDP will pay next election, for not delivering any major gains for Quebec.

Especially when Harper dissolves the marketing boards to meet the mandate of the TPP.....Quebec dairy/milk producers live high off those....actually most produces do well by them, and why not? We are paying up 2x the market value to support the supplier.

 

[a_majoor]

An interesting conum\ndrum for the NDP; what do they propose to do with the Senate?

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/06/25/john-ivison-ndp-singing-red-chamber-blues/

John Ivison: NDP drafting roadmap to solve party’s Senate conundrum
John Ivison  Jun 25, 2012 – 9:11 PM ET | Last Updated: Jun 25, 2012 9:32 PM ET

The NDP does not have a single caucus member in the Senate and, were the party to win government, it would be hard-pressed to even introduce legislation in the Red Chamber, since each bill requires a sponsor

Comments Email Twitter The NDP’s lead in public opinion was confirmed by a sixth national polling organization last week, when Ipsos Reid put the New Democrats three points ahead of the Conservatives, with 38% support.

It brought to mind an old joke by late British comic Bob Monkhouse, who once said people laughed at him when he said he wanted to be a comedian. “Well they’re not laughing now are they?”

Nobody is laughing at the prospect of Thomas Mulcair becoming Prime Minister in 2015, least of all the Tories, who released their first attack ad against the NDP leader’s “risky economic theories” and “dangerous economic experiments,” via YouTube Monday.

“We can’t afford Mulcair’s NDP” ran the Conservative line.

For the NDP this silver lining brings its own sable clouds. One topic that is beginning to concern thoughtful New Democrats is what to do about the Senate?

Both parties are packed with veterans in the art of running parliamentary interference The NDP does not have a single caucus member in the Senate and, were the party to win government, it would be hard-pressed to even introduce legislation in the Red Chamber, since each bill requires a sponsor.

Lillian Dyck, who was appointed in 2005 by Paul Martin, initially wanted to sit as an NDP senator but the party refused to recognize her as part of its caucus, in line with its view that the Senate has no legitimacy and should be abolished. She has since joined the Liberal caucus.

The assumption is that the Conservatives and Liberals in the Senate would not block legislation that had already passed through the House of Commons. To do so would hasten the Senate’s demise. But both parties are packed with veterans in the art of running parliamentary interference and a determined filibuster could bring the NDP’s legislative agenda to a standstill.

Mr. Mulcair has asked veteran MP, Joe Comartin, to look at the Senate conundrum. “Mulcair is very serious about this,” said one senior New Democrat, adding that Mr. Comartin has been asked to draft a roadmap for the party.

No one in the NDP is keen to talk on the record about the options, claiming they are focused on winning the next election and don’t want to get ahead of themselves.

But, as NDP MPs will admit privately, the secret of their silence is they haven’t got the foggiest clue what to do. The NDP has favoured abolishing the Senate, yet to do so requires opening the Constitution and winning the support of seven provinces and 50% of the population.

Still, an NDP government would quickly restore party discipline among the Tories As Stephen Harper has discovered, even relatively modest reforms — such as the introduction of term limits — have faced opposition from the provinces.

Quebec has threatened to take the issue all the way to the Supreme Court.

The prospect of the eastern provinces agreeing to the abolition of an institution that grants them power disproportionate to their population is roughly the same as the England soccer team winning a penalty shoot-out at a major tournament.

The NDP could start to appoint its own senators — curiously, senior party figures did not rule out doing so — but in its first term only 30 incumbents are scheduled to retire from a chamber of 105 (the Conservatives currently have a majority with 59 senators). That number could, of course, be augmented by adding in sitting Liberal senators, were the left to unite after the next election.

One other possibility is for Mr. Mulcair to adopt a proposal put forward by Conservative senator Hugh Segal, who has long advocated a referendum asking Canadians whether they want to abolish the Senate, reform it or leave the status quo. “Meaningful reform only happens when the public is involved,” he has said, and it would be hard for the provinces to ignore the democratic will, even if the referendum were just advisory.

But none of these potential solutions will be a quick fix. Mr. Harper once called the Senate “a relic of the 19th century,” yet he has learned to love the Red Chamber now that he has a free hand to bestow its honours. He still pays lip-service to the election of senators but there appears no great enthusiasm for reform now that the Senate is a faithful servant. In fact, the assumption that the Senate is merely a rubber-stamp has rankled even Conservatives and we may soon see some push-back from the government side on legislation it considers badly drafted.

Still, an NDP government would quickly restore party discipline among the Tories.

The NDP talks in the same idealistic terms that Mr. Harper used when he was in opposition. But it’s a good bet that, when the New Democrats find they can’t abolish the Senate, we will see them rush to appoint their own spindoctors, fundraisers and party insiders to the Senate echo chamber — an eventide home that spends most of its time hosting people who talk about things that don’t matter to people who aren’t listening.

National Post

 

[Brad Sallows]

It is more just for a party commanding 32% of the vote to govern Canada 32% of the time, than for the combined remaining 68% to govern Canada 100% of the time.  It is how we avoid tyranny of the majority, and is also the alternative to breaking up the country so that the 32% and 68% can find respective enclaves in which to be content with their desired one-party rule.

 

[Old Sweat]

John Ivison, writing in the National Post, has hit on a defining characteristic of the Canadian government. His column is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act.

Conservatives may be government but the public service is still in power
John Ivison  Jul 6, 2012 – 5:44 PM ET

Tony Clement: “This is a subject that often angers Canadians, and with good reason.”

Federal public servants tend to retire four years earlier than their private sector counterparts, at an average age of 58.

But it seems you can only play so much golf. Anecdotal evidence suggests a good number of federal bureaucrats decide to top up their pensions by returning to work for the government as management consultants.

It turns out getting a well paid consultancy gig is not that hard when you know the people awarding the contracts. Your old mates in the bureaucracy can sole-source contracts in your direction and even sub-divide them to ensure you don’t contravene Treasury Board guidelines.

We know this because Ottawa’s Procurement Ombudsman, Frank Brunetta, detailed just such a case in a report this week. The Canada School of Public Service awarded a dozen training contracts, worth $170,000, to one supplier – many of them without a competitive tender. The unidentified recipient was a former public servant who was already receiving a government pension.

The case has been leapt upon by Tony Clement, the Treasury Board minister, who has asked Mr. Brunetta to look into the pervasiveness of the problem.

In a letter to the ombudsman and his Cabinet colleagues, Mr. Clement said he is going to amend government policy, so that contracts with former public servants require ministerial approval before they are signed. He also said all such contracts should be proactively disclosed on departmental websites.

Clement’s austerity message also rings hollow when measured against the 87 funding announcements, worth $2.9-billion, the government has made since the House of Commons rose in June “Favouritism in contracting of the kind you have discovered is wholly unacceptable,” he wrote.

That may seem a bit rich coming from a minister who was, shall we say, a tad partial, when it came to handing out government largesse prior to the G8 meeting in his home riding of Muskoka in 2010.

The austerity message also rings hollow when measured against the 87 funding announcements, worth $2.9-billion, the government has made since the House of Commons rose in June.

But Mr. Clement should be commended for trying to engineer a culture shift in the public service – the reform of which was once compared by Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey Appleby to “drawing a knife through a bowl of marbles.”

Earlier this year, Mr. Clement sent public servants a letter telling them there would be no “March Madness” – namely that the end of the fiscal calendar year would no longer signal a mad rush to spend departmental operational budgets.

His letter to Mr. Brunetta and his ministerial colleagues will at least signal to the public service that their political masters are watching closely.

But Mr. Clement’s drive to reform this jobs-for-the-boys-and-girls mentality will be hobbled by his own government’s fondness for outsourcing all kinds of functions to private consultants.

The Conservatives have created a shadow public service in recent years, spending over $1-billion a year on outsourcing. A study by Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives economist David Macdonald said the cost of federal outsourcing on temporary help, IT and management consultants ballooned 80% in the five years after 2005/06.

Given around 30,000 federal public servants were eligible to retire last year, the assumption by Mr. Clement is a growing number are taking their pension and then pitching up at their old departments to carry on as if they’d never left. “This is a subject that often angers Canadians, and with good reason,” he said.

Fair enough. But the growing demand for consultants created by the Conservative Party’s own policies means Mr. Clement’s reforms may be in vain.

He may be in government but it is the public service which is in power – and they take care of their own.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I can vouch, from personal experience, for the truth of John Ivison's column.

I retired from the military and, essentially immediately, took a job in the private sector ~ a job with a conflict of interest potential but one which had been defuzed because my boss had written a letter to the appropriate agency stating that it was in the national interest for me to bring my specialized knowledge to that particular private sector agency (a technical standards board). The conflict agency (I forget what is called and I'm too lazy to look it up) agreed - it ('clearing' a person to work despite an apparent conflict) one of those provisions of the conflict of interest and post service employment regulations that is too little known and too rarely used.

Anyway, almost immediately after I retired I began to receive offers from both DND and another government department (one with which I had many, close dealings) for 'consulting' jobs. Some were real requests for consultations: would I, please, read this report or examine this project and determine if it is <technically sound> <operationally appropriate> <appropriate use of public money> etc, etc, etc ... but more of them were thinly disguised offers for full or part time employment.

I took three jobs over the next few years, all for fees paid to my new employer, not to me: one to give some 'leadership' advice (a series of 'brown bag,' lunch-time lectures/discussions for new managers), another to organize and manage a major international conference (I damned near bit off more than I could chew on that one) and the third to provide and manage some specialized training for some civil servants from a war torn country that we were trying to help rebuild.

When I retired from my 'second career' the offers kept on coming. Now that I was fully 'retired' I took one real consulting job but the frustration level was so high that I submitted a report that said that the job could not be done given that the 'product' was preordained by the contractor (a government department senior manager) and, in my opinion, the preordained 'answer' was wrong.

The problems are:

1. The public service staffing regulations are so hidebound, so complex and so time consuming that they impede good public sector management - all in the name of 'fairness;' and

2. Many managers, including many military managers want "yes men" not expert, independent advisors. Plus, too often, 'senior management' (civilian and military) is dazzled by a fancy consultant's report. (Once, many years ago, my staff wrote a report about a complex and difficult issue; it was a good report done by real experts. I could not get it on the right 'agenda' in order to get the problem solved. I finally handed it and several (two digits) thousands of dollars over to a chum, a well know university professor and consultant, who:

1. Agreed that the work by my staff was first rate and needed nothing but cosmetic changes; and

2. Repackaged my staff's work between his fancy covers and sent me 25 nicely bound copies.

I submitted the package - it got immediate attention and was approved. My 'respect,' such as it was, for the management skills of my superiors sunk to a new low.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The Seagull Consultant:
* Flies in
* Makes a lot of noise
* Eats all the food
* Shits all over everything
* Flies out
Then it puts everything the customer was doing on its resume.

 

[Edward Campbell]

An interesting, from the perspective of 2015 or, maybe 2019, analysis of the importance of Jack Layton in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/can-mulcairs-new-approach-complete-jack-laytons-revolution/article4492580/

Can Mulcair’s new approach complete Jack Layton’s revolution?

JOHN IBBITSON
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Aug. 21 2012

They’re making a film about Jack Layton. Tributes are pouring in on a website dedicated to his memory. On Wednesday, thousands are gathering at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square and in other cities across Canada to mark the first anniversary of his passing.

Why?

He was never prime minister, or premier, or mayor. The former federal New Democratic Party leader was not responsible for any great signature achievements in health care or the environment or, well, anything.

What is Jack Layton’s legacy, other than that he is remembered with love?

The answer lies not in who he was, but in what he may have made possible: a governing alternative to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.

A year after his death, the Party That Jack Built rivals the Conservatives in the polls, with the Liberals languishing far behind. Thomas Mulcair, the new NDP Leader, is boldly wooing Ontario voters by blaming the Alberta-fuelled petro dollar for lost manufacturing jobs in Central Canada.

Would Smiling Jack, who, in his final letter to Canadians proclaimed “love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear” have endorsed such a divisive strategy? Perhaps not. But then, this is no longer Jack Layton’s NDP.

Mr. Mulcair is establishing his own brand: assertive, aggressive, polarizing. A Stephen Harper for the left.

If the NDP comes to government, it will be because it has moved beyond its old base: a collection of social activists, university professors and other heart-in-the-right-placers earnestly talking to each other about empowering the people, with strings pulled behind the scenes by union leaders, who once held many of the purse strings as well.

An NDP that takes power will be what a party that takes power in Canada must be: controlled out of the leader’s office, equipped with sophisticated fundraising and voter-identification machinery, targeting every message to key swing voters in suburban Ontario, where elections are decided.

Mr. Layton began that internal revolution. Mr. Mulcair, if he is to become prime minister, must complete it.

The party will always revere Jack Layton’s memory. But the party is moving on.

It is easy to forget that, until the final weeks of his life, Mr. Layton was simply the leader of the fourth party in the House of Commons. Even he could never have expected the breakthrough in the May, 2011, election that gave the NDP 59 seats in Quebec and official-opposition status in the House of Commons.

After all, when he assumed the leadership in 2003, the party “was in shambles. … It was a dismal, dismal time,” observes David McGrane, a political scientist at the University of Saskatchewan who has written extensively on the NDP.

Mr. Layton brought more than his relentless optimism about the NDP’s future to the job of leader. He began to bring the NDP into the 21st century. (It had largely skipped the end of the 20th.)

He reorganized the party, concentrating power in his office while marketing the NDP as a reasonable, centre-left alternative to the scandal-plagued Liberal Party and, after 2006, the tax-cutting, crime-fighting Conservatives.

For long-time NDP activist and commentator Gerald Caplan, Mr. Layton’s great achievement was “his refusal to reconcile himself to the glass ceiling that the country had imposed on the NDP.”

To smash that ceiling and increase the party’s popular support, Mr. Layton undertook to move the NDP closer to the political centre, to make it a responsibly progressive alternative to the Conservatives.

Mr. Layton also resolved to make the NDP matter in Quebec. Yet those efforts produced little, apart from Mr. Mulcair’s victories in Outremont, until all the other parties collapsed in the province in the 2011 campaign.

“It was a vote by elimination,” the pollster Jean-Marc Léger said. “People, in a campaign, want to love someone. And this time, it was Jack Layton.”

Such a victory can prove ephemeral. And yet under Mr. Mulcair, the NDP remains popular in the province.

“Despite the skepticism and cynicism, I think that the legacy is transferable,” says Stephen Lewis, the former NDP leader in Ontario. “Because people trusted Jack so much, those who succeed him can take it forward.”

In a strange way, the two leaders made a winning combination: Mr. Layton created the breakthrough that Mr. Mulcair, with his deep roots in the province, appears to be entrenching.

What’s more, Mr. Mulcair could add to this new base of socially progressive supporters in Quebec the votes of workers in Ontario if they become disenchanted with the Conservatives’ laissez-faire approach and buy Mr. Mulcair‘s “blame Alberta” explanation for the province’s troubles.

“People may say that Quebec was one election ahead of the rest of the country,” Mr. Léger speculates, adding that the NDP has “much work to do” to reach government.

That work involves making the party respectable to voters who, unlike Conservative supporters, look to government to respond to social and environmental challenges, but who also expect balanced budgets and to keep most of their paycheques.

That also involves making the Liberal Party disappear, or at least pushing it to the margins that the social democrats once occupied.

“One of the two parties will die,” Mr. Léger predicts. “Is it the NDP or is it the Liberals? Something will happen. But for the first time, the NDP will have a chance to form the next government.”

That shot at government meant rejecting Mr. Layton’s blueprint for succession that favoured former adviser Brian Topp.

When Mr. Mulcair challenged that, senior figures in the party rallied, including former leader Ed Broadbent, against him. But Mr. Mulcair prevailed.

Now he must make the party his own, by preserving the NDP’s sudden gains in Quebec, expanding its support in suburban Ontario, and building an electoral machine to rival that of the Conservatives.

But even as he does so, the party sets about beatifying its fallen hero.

“The left has a tendency to mythologize its leaders,” said Prof. McGrane. “There will be a Jack Layton myth that lives on.”

Whatever the NDP evolves into under Mr. Mulcair, Jack Layton will forever be one of its saints.

Eventually, even the most die-hard Tory supporter (someone like me) will agree with most Canadians that it is time to "throw the rascals out!" Now when, not if, that day comes I hope there is a centrist and capitalist political party ready to take office. It may be that Layton and Mulcair, both of whom, de facto, eschewed socialism, will have led the NDP far enough to the political/economic centre to make it an acceptable alternative ... or we need to pray that Conrad Black is right and The Liberals shall rise again.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Good news ... for the Conservatives ... in this report which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/commission-proposes-new-federal-ridings-for-suburbs-around-toronto-hamilton/article4500997/

Commission proposes new federal ridings for suburbs around Toronto, Hamilton

JOHN IBBITSON
Ottawa — The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Aug. 27 2012

The  proposed new riding boundaries for Ontario are out, with the edge cities surrounding Toronto receiving the lion’s share of seats.

The Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario posted the proposed boundaries on its website Monday. The changes incorporate 15 new seats that result from legislation passed last year that expanded the size of the House of Commons.

Other provinces that benefit include British Columbia and Alberta, which each receive six new seats, and Quebec, which receives three.

As expected, many of the new Ontario ridings are located in edge cities around Toronto, including Brampton, Oshawa-Durham, Markham and York. Outside Toronto, the Kitchener area, Hamilton and Ottawa also benefit.

The commission will receive input during public hearings in October and November, and the proposals of all 10 provincial electoral boundaries commissions will be studied by a Parliamentary committee.

However, while the commissioners must consider suggestions and complaints from the public and politicians, their final decisions are binding. The changes will be in place in time for the 2015 federal election.

The Federal Election Boundaries Commission report can be found here.

This is how the GTA looked after the 2008 election:

And this is how it looked when the ballts were counted in 2011:

Now many (most?) of the 15 new seats will go into blue areas on the 2011 maps.

 

[Edward Campbell]

John Ibbittson, in a report which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright At from the Globe and Mail, puts some meat on the bones of his report on 15 new seats for Ontario:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson-those-who-hold-the-key-to-the-suburbs-hold-the-key-to-canada/article4504198/

Those who hold the key to the suburbs hold the key to Canada

JOHN IBBITSON
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Aug. 28 2012

The proposed riding boundaries for 15 new Ontario seats in the House of Commons reinforce a core political truth: Whichever party dominates the burgeoning edge cities surrounding Toronto governs Canada.

The Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario released its proposed electoral map Monday, reflecting the 2011 census and a new federal law that expands the House of Commons by 30 seats, bringing it to 338.

All of the new Ontario seats are located in the Greater Toronto Area or in cities close to it, apart from one new seat for Ottawa.

The new ridings speak to the new Canada: a country of fast-growing suburban communities with large immigrant populations.

“The new seats have gone where population growth has been highest,” said Matthew Mendelsohn, director of the Mowat Centre, a think tank that focuses on Ontario.

He predicted that in the next election, “competition is going to be even more intense ... in the parts of suburban Canada that are heavily immigrant and heavily multicultural. The most important piece of that is the 905,” which is the area code for the communities surrounding Toronto.

Representation in the Greater Toronto Area will go from 47 seats to 58 seats under the proposal. Virtually every new seat will be located in communities now represented by a Conservative MP.

The NDP or the Liberals must capture this vast suburban swathe, now set to boast even more seats, if the Conservatives are to be defeated.

The city of Brampton, on the western edge of Toronto, gets two new ridings, as does Durham Region on the city’s eastern flank.

Other communities in Greater Toronto that benefit include Markham (two seats), Mississauga (one seat), York (one seat) and Oakville (one seat).

Nearby Hamilton receives a seat, as does Barrie, north of Toronto, and the Cambridge area west of the GTA.

The city of Toronto receives two seats, both of them outside the downtown core where the opposition parties are strongest. Ottawa’s expanding suburbs also receive a seat.

In Canada, 10 independent provincial electoral commissions working under the umbrella of Elections Canada propose changes to riding boundaries once every 10 years, after the census. The commissioners consider such factors as population shifts, historical attachments, municipal boundaries, geographic size in rural and remote ridings and “communities of interest.”

The proposals will be subject to public hearings and scrutiny by a parliamentary committee, but the final decision lies with the commissioners.

“It was certainly more complex than the commission realized when we undertook the work,” said Mr. Justice George Valin of the Ontario Superior Court, who chaired that province’s commission. “But it was nonetheless fascinating work.”

In Ontario’s case, 10 northern ridings were preserved even though their populations are much smaller than urban ridings in the south.

Electoral commissions have already proposed boundary changes to accommodate new seats in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec, with most new seats going to Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Montreal.

Critics had protested against expanding the size of the House, when most Canadians would prefer to see fewer politicians representing them rather than more.

But constitutional and legislative guarantees make it impossible to take ridings away from provinces such as Prince Edward Island, where there is little or no population growth. As a result, fast-growing urban areas are currently seriously underrepresented in the House. The additional seats will correct much of that imbalance.

Good news for the Conservatives IF they can retain their hold on suburban, often minority and/or new Canadian voters with a deft mix of 'good fiscal management,' as opposed to fiscal conservatism, and social moderation, as opposed to social liberalism.

 

[a_majoor]

Well the NDP are not off to a good start in the ethics department:

http://www.danieldickin.ca/2012/08/the-largest-case-of-elections-financing.html

The largest case of elections financing fraud in Canadian history

The largest case of elections financing fraud in Canadian history has just been uncovered.

Over $344,000 was illegally donated to a certain political party in exchange for a “sponsorship” with that political party.

You’re probably saying “I’ve already heard this story! It broke months ago! It was those pesky Conservatives and that ‘in-and-out’ scandal.”

But it wasn’t.

“Oh, well then it was those evil Conservative robocalls!”

But it wasn’t.

It was really none other than Canada’s socialist party – known as Thomas Mulcair’s New Democrat Party.

The NDP was caught following a complaint to Elections Canada, but now the NDP thinks they can just ignorantly proclaim “oops! We didn’t know!” without letting Canadians know the full story of what that money bought.

When the Conservative government came to power it banned contributions from big unions and corporations following the Liberal corruption scandal.  Legally, only individuals can donate up to $1200 per year.

But that’s not acceptable to the NDP: they have the lowest income from donations and the lowest number of donors of the big three political parties.  Even the Liberals, with a third of the seats of the NDP, raise more money from more people.

So the NDP chose to go the illegal route, and asked unions such as the Public Service Alliance, Labour Congress, Union of Public Employees, and Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union to “sponsor” their party’s national convention.

Until the complaint to Elections Canada, the NDP had over $344,000 in dirty money sitting in their bank.

But this wasn’t even all of the money – there’s more money from other “sponsorships” still out there, and the NDP certainly gained interest while their dirty money sat in the bank.

We already know the Liberals have just been fined for illegal robocalls, yet that story has also gone unreported except for a few true newspapers – your Prince Arthur Herald included.

Canadians deserve to know what influence in Thomas Mulcair’s party was bought for $344,000.  How many meetings did Mulcair have with union leaders?  What kind of favours is Mulcair doing for his union buddies?

The Liberals have been caught breaking the law yet again – six years after they were booted from office for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from Canadian taxpayers – and now the NDP have been caught funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars from their left-wing union friends directly into Mulcair’s NDP bank account.

The Conservative choice – the choice of low taxes, less government, a strong military, and, most importantly, tough anti-corruption rules - is looking better and better every day.

Follow Daniel on Twitter at @DDickin

 

[Old Sweat]

This seems to me to be a wildly skewed wtf moment. What I think the reporter was trying to point out was the demographics that supported the various federal leaders the most. It is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act. I cannot believe this piece made it past an editor's desk.

Poll Reveals Typical Stephen Harper Supporter: An Albertan Male 65 Or Older Making Less Than $20,000


The Huffington Post Canada  |  By Eric Grenier Posted: 08/31/2012 8:57 am Updated: 08/31/2012 8:58 am

Who is the typical supporter of Stephen Harper? What is the profile of a Thomas Mulcair fan? A new poll provides some clues.

The latest survey by Forum Research for the National Post shows a tie in voting intentions between the governing Conservatives and the opposition New Democrats. With few exceptions, the results are generally in line with what Canadians have been telling pollsters for months.

According to the poll, Harper has an approval rating of 36 per cent and a disapproval rating of 57 per cent. This net negative score is in contrast to Mulcair’s numbers. He has an approval rating of 41 per cent, with 31 per cent of Canadians disapproving of how he is doing as leader of the Official Opposition.

But an analysis of the demographic breakdown of these ratings tells us a little about who the typical Harper and Mulcair booster is — as well as who is most likely to oppose them.

Based on the best net ratings, the typical supporter of Harper is a male Albertan aged 65 or older. He makes less than $20,000 per year and votes Conservative.

His is not a consensus opinion, however: most men and people who make less than $20,000 per year disapprove of the prime minister's performance.

The typical Canadian who is most likely to oppose Harper is a woman between the ages of 18 and 34. She lives in Atlantic Canada, makes between $80,000 and $100,000 per year and votes for the NDP. Whether a lot of young Atlantic Canadians are actually in that income bracket is another question entirely, but Harper’s numbers are worst among younger and richer Canadians. How much those groups overlap is unknown.

The profile of a supporter of Mulcair is, unsurprisingly, similar to the typical opponent of the prime minister: an 18 to 34-year-old female from Quebec who makes between $80,000 and $100,000 per year. The person least likely to approve of the NDP leader is a 55 to 64 year old male from Alberta who makes $20,000 to $40,000 per year and votes Conservative.

What of the Liberals and their interim leader Bob Rae? The profile of the typical Rae booster is a male aged 65 years or older who lives in Atlantic Canada and makes $60,000 to $100,000 per year. Rae’s typical opponent is a 45 to 54 year old woman from Alberta who makes less than $20,000 per year. How that will change after the Liberal leadership convention will be something to watch.

These profiles are an amalgamation of demographic groups that may or may not overlap, but they are nevertheless what you might expect. It comes as no surprise that older men from Alberta tend to vote Conservative while younger women from Quebec support the NDP. It is the swing voter that both Harper and Mulcair are after: the suburbanites who could decide the outcome of the next election.

 

[Sythen]

Poll Reveals Typical Stephen Harper Supporter: An Albertan Male 65 Or Older Making Less Than $20,000

Just wow..

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
... It is the swing voter that both Harper and Mulcair are after: the suburbanites who could decide the outcome of the next election.

This (colour coded so that red = Liberal, orange = NDP and blue = Conservative) is how the suburbanites decided the outcome in the Greater Toronto Area in 2011:

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Based on the best net ratings, the typical supporter of Harper is a male Albertan aged 65 or older. He makes less than $20,000 per year and votes Conservative.


The typical Canadian who is most likely to oppose Harper is a woman between the ages of 18 and 34. She lives in Atlantic Canada, makes between $80,000 and $100,000 per year and votes for the NDP. Whether a lot of young Atlantic Canadians are actually in that income bracket is another question entirely, but Harper’s numbers are worst among younger and richer Canadians. How much those groups overlap is unknown.

How many males in Alberta make under $20,000 per year, and how many women in Atlantic Canada make $80,000 and $100,000? This is the worst article I have ever seen.

 

[GAP]

Well, the journalist (sic) had to write something......details, details.....sheesh.... :

 

[SeaKingTacco]

How many males in Alberta make under $20,000 per year, and how many women in Atlantic Canada make $80,000 and $100,000? This is the worst article I have ever seen.

There would be about 8 people in each category,  I believe. 

 

[ModlrMike]

This "journalist" makes the same erroneous assumption that his colleagues do: namely that the NDP has a national base. I propose that the NDP will suffer a crushing reversal in the next election when Quebec realizes just how little they got for their vote and return the BQ to the house in numbers. The NDP support in Quebec is a mile wide and a 1/4 inch deep.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

There would be about 8 people in each category,  I believe. 

I guess that the majority of ridings in Ontario, having gone conservative, dont count either since none of them factor into this study... or else we can assume that the majority of the ridings are white, uneducated males earning under $20,000... which sounds about like the normal Toronto area yuppy/lefties view of the rest of Ontario outside of their "fair" city

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Good Grey Globe's Lawrence Martin lets his frustrations show in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/harpers-conservatives-are-on-cruise-control/article4534351/

Harper’s Conservatives are on cruise control

LAWRENCE MARTIN
Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Sep. 11 2012

Canada is supposed to be a difficult country to govern. But you wouldn’t know it viewing the ease with which today’s incumbents run the place.

The Conservatives are on cruise control. No oversized controversies or crises confront them. They drive the agenda, putting others on the defensive. On the big files – the economy and unity – the status is stable. In the polls, they remain where they’ve usually been – in the mid-30s, which is good enough. For the coming fall session of Parliament, the opposition parties have little to go on – a lot of legitimate grievances but no issue of great galvanizing potential.

In politics, success is often dependent not so much on what you do but on what happens independently of what you do. The breaks of the game. For the Conservatives, the stars continue to align, the Quebec election being the most recent example.

Unlike many previous governments, these Tories have been blessed to serve at a time when Quebec has been unthreatening. The anticipated majority victory for the Parti Québécois would have changed that, but it didn’t materialize. The PQ’s minority status means that the smooth unity ride for the feds is likely to continue. Stephen Harper need not pay much attention to demands from incoming premier Pauline Marois; the cold shoulder will do. It will play well politically in the rest of Canada, where sympathy for Quebec nationalism runs low.

His Conservatives took just five seats in Quebec in the last election but won a majority anyway. Rather than present a problem, his party’s non-presence, strange as it sounds, can work to his advantage. He can leave Quebec to the other parties to fight over. The NDP has its base in the province, and the Liberals are likely to soon have a leader, Justin Trudeau or Marc Garneau, from that province and will be trying to rebuild their once great fortress there. Mr. Harper can sit back and watch as they beat themselves up over real estate he doesn’t need.

The advent of the young Mr. Trudeau could work in the Conservatives’ favour as well. Ideally, they want their opponents on the progressive side to divide up their support as equally as possible. Given the legendary name, the MP from Papineau could well steal some of the NDP’s thunder on the left. His presence could engender the type of vote-splitting the Conservatives crave.

On the economy, as on unity, the tides continue to run in the Tories’ favour. Their years in office have coincided with a great commodities boom that has kept the economy afloat. Their big measure was to introduce – at opposition gunpoint – a stimulus program that most countries were doing. The Conservatives’ incumbency has also coincided with hard times for economies in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. This has served to make Canada’s performance look good by comparison, a point the Tories never fail to capitalize on.

Canada has 1.4 million people unemployed. Manufacturing’s share of the economy has fallen from 18 per cent a decade ago to 11 per cent today. In global competitiveness, the country has tumbled from ninth place a few years ago to 14th today. On productivity, the numbers are weak. But these and other grim developments are masked by the plight of other countries.

While opposition parties have a lot of fodder, including allegations of electoral fraud, they’ve been unable to make the case for a progressive alternative with the same effectiveness that Bill Clinton did at the Democratic convention last week.

All the while, the Conservatives continue to implement their agenda on law and order, on prioritizing resource exploitation over the environment, on turning Canada into the hard-liner of the Western world on foreign policy and on a range of other initiatives that few would have thought could fly in this country.

They’ve been doing it for more than six years. If it’s supposed to get tougher with time, no one has told Mr. Harper. The business of politics is too perilous to predict; shock waves can hit at any time. But the way things are today, little stands in his way.

At the rate he (and Messers Mulciar and Rae, too) is (are) going, and despite the fact that there are 100 "long times"* until the next election, Prime Minister Harper appears headed towards another victory by the fairly simple expedient of doing a whole bunch of things that:

1. Appeal to very specific "target markets;" but which

2. Do not really annoy most people.

He is, broadly, implementing a Brampton Billy Davis strategy ~ bland (boring) works ~ he is being seen, more and more as a safe, competent national manager. My guess is that the "hidden agenda" thing will not work any more: Canadians are, pretty much, persuaded that they "know" Stephen Harper and, while they don't "like" him, he does not frighten them.

Quebec is likely to trip up the NDP over the next two years, despite what I suspect will be a good display of solid political leadership by Mr. Mulcair, and the Liberals are very likely to give Mr. Harper (and Mr. Mulcair) another "freebie" by selecting a charismatic, telegenic, lightweight loser as party leader. Thirty new seats, 27 of them hors de Québec and 20+ of them at least very competitive for the Tories, will make it more and more easy for the Conservatives to "govern without Quebec," leaving, as Lawrence Martin laments, the others (NDP, Liberals and a reborn BQ or something like it) to beat themselves up in la bell province.

All in all it is easy to understand why Lawrenece Martin, a certified (or certifiable?) Harper hater, is so despondent.

__________
* "A week is a long time in politics," British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously noted ~ we've got about 100 weeks until we are in the next election campaign, assuming that, according to the provisions of Bill C-16, An Act to Amend the Canada Elections Act (2009), te next election date is 19 Oct 15.

 

[GAP]

I also see Allan Greg of pollster notoriety is railing against Harper on the weekend. The Libs not being in power must really be hitting his bottom line....