Alberta results in Federal election - baby steps in the right direction
The NDP is now the second place party in all the ridings in the province save 4 (Calgary Centre, Northeast and West where the NDP came in third behind the Liberals) and Edmonton-Sherwood Park (third behind the "other" (independent/angry) Conservative. In 27 of the 28 ridings, the NDP candidates exceeded the 10% threshold that will mean deposits and matching funds will be flowing back to the party (not to the riding unfortunately, just to the party... but maybe now there will be greater pressure to change that). Ellen Parker, the sole exception to this, had 3 times the vote of the challenger behind her... and since I am writing before all the polls have finished reporting, she may yet cross the threshold and make it 28/28. Linda Duncan not only held her seat, but got 53% of the vote in Edmonton-Strathcona, Ray Martin had a good 37.6% finish in Edmonton-East, and Lewis Cardinal did wonderfully in Edmonton-Centre with 26.3% not only by pulling this much vote against the incumbent Con, but also by out-drawing the Liberal (22%) in this former Liberal seat.
But I have to get personal, the best result of the evening, in my mind at least, had to be Lethbridge where Mark Sandilands pulled in over 27% of the vote for the 3rd best NDP showing in the province (after L. Duncan and R. Martin) without the same kind of resources and attention that were seen in the Edmonton ridings.. and the next time I see him at a meeting, I am going to remind him by observing that if he had kept his tendency towards over-exuberance under control, he would have done even better.
Comments
No one has proposed nation-wide lists. To implement PR with no constitutional amendment all MPs have to be from local ridings or provinces (or regions within larger provinces). That's what the Law Commission of Canada recommended. So it's easy to have a model where regional voters elect the top-up regional MPs.
We can demand more MPs for Ontario, BC and Alberta as long as we also demand more MPs for Quebec, since all parties agreed at one time that Quebec should not lose weight.
By the way, Alberta had a turnout of 56.4%, compared with the BC turnout of 61.1% and national turnout of 61.4%, and 64.1% in Saskatchewan. There's the first source for more NDP votes.
Are there any indications where the new seats in Alberta will be?
Just in Calgary and Edmonton?
Will there be a reduction in rural seats?
There's little point in speculating who might be running in which seat untill the new boundaries are set.
Or do Alberta political junkies think that we'll see very strong gerrymandering by the Conservatives to ensure that Linda Duncan will have a much harder time getting re-elected?
@Wilf Day
I must admit I only dipped in and out of The Law Commission of Canada's recommendations - but I do not remember seeing anything there on the practical question of how to implement proportionality in the Atlantic region -- given the jealously guarded sense of provinicial identity each of the four Atlantic provinces seem to have, I don't see a great deal of enthusiasm for any concept that would require that four distinct provinces somehow be lumped together as a "region" for purposes of alloting top-up MPs -- and even less enthusiasm elswhere in the country to providing "top-up" representation to this area which is already grossly over-represented under the FPTP system.
Coming up with bricks and mortar proposals for implementation of PR has to address the other distortions in our system.
David: the answers you seek depend on how many new seats Alberta gets. Based on the 2006 census figures for the ridings of Alberta, I would suggest we'd be looking at...
- 2 seats: one in Calgary, one in the Edmonton area
- 3 seats: one and part in Calgary, one around Edmonton, part of one in the south
- 4 seats: one and part in Calgary, one and part around Edmonton, part of one in the south, part of one in the north
- 5 seats: two in Calgary, one and part around Edmonton, one in the south, part of one in the north
- 6 seats: two in Calgary, two around Edmonton, one in the north (most of which would almost assuredly be carved out of Peace River), one in the South
- 7 seats, which I think is the absolute limit of feasible seat gains for Alberta and is dependent on the seat-apportionment formula Harper proposed in the last Parliament being used: 2.5 in Calgary, 2 around Edmonton, one in the north (most of which would be carved out of Peace River), 1.5 in the south
Nova Scotia seven constituency seats, four provincial top-up seats. New Brunswick, six and four. Newfoundland and Labrador, four and three. PEI I would have said two and two, but oddly they suggest all four province-wide.
Just in Calgary and Edmonton?
Will there be a reduction in rural seats?
I've done the calculation based on the 2011 estimated population for Alberta, the Bill C-12 electoral divisor (108,000), and the 2010 estimated populations for Calgary and Edmonton. I get 35 seats for Alberta (seven new ones): Calgary 12 (four new), Edmonton 11 (three new), and the rest of Alberta eight (unchanged). (Edited to correct: I meant the rest of Alberta 12, unchanged.)
I'm not convinced Harper's going to stick with 108,000 (and round up any fraction of a seat). That's 340 MPs. Unless Quebec gets some more seats, Quebec has 75 seats for 7,957,600 = 106,101, but with with 340 MPs for 34,349,236 = average Canadian population per MP of 101,027. Solution: five more MPs for Quebec. Then Quebec's average population per MP is 99,470, and with 345 MPs, Canada's average population per MP is 99,563.
But that adds 37 MPs, a 12% increase. I think he'll shrink that number a little.
Wilf, you might want to check your math on the seat projections. If the rest of Alberta got eight seats, they wouldn't be unchanged; they'd be down four.
Sorry. I mean the rest of Alberta is unchanged. Which is 12, not eight. Calgary 12, Edmonton 11, ROA 12, total 35.
As a little thread drift: I assume you meant the 12 seats outside Calgary and Edmonton.
By the 2006 census Alberta outside those two urban areas had a population of 1,439,721, of which Stats Can says 849,228 live in urban areas, and 590,499 live in rural areas. This is on Stats Can's famous definition of urban (under which 80% of Canada lives in urban areas), namely an area with urban population density and more than one thousand people. So those 849,228 urban residents of RoA live in 105 urban areas ranging from Red Deer (82,772), Lethbridge (74,822), Medicine Hat (62,183), Fort McMurray (47,705), and Grande Prairie (46,850) down to Smoky Lake (1,010).
Elections Canada just released the poll-by-poll results for the 2011 election. Based on a relatively rudimentary spreadsheet filter (read: I counted any polling station containing the city in its name), here's my estimate of how the NDP candidate or candidates in each city in Alberta did (using what Alberta municipalities Wikipedia calls cities, plus Fort McMurray on the rationale of because-I-wanted-to).
- Lethbridge, 33.11%
- Edmonton, 30.31%
- St. Albert, 18.49%
- Grande Prairie, 17.27%
- Red Deer, 16.86%
- Medicine Hat, 16.75%
- Camrose, 16.43%
- Fort McMurray, 14.35%
- Wetaskiwin, 13.41%
- Lloydminster (AB+SK), 13.11%
- Leduc, 12.93%
- Spruce Grove, 12.38%
- Calgary, 12.35%
- Lacombe, 11.52%
- Airdrie, 11.24%
- Fort Saskatchewan, 11.10%
- Cold Lake, 10.94%
- Lloydminster (AB only), 9.75%
- Brooks, 8.21%
Naturally, since these are estimates, I wouldn't endorse these as being absolutely accurate numbers.
Fascinating. For another comparable stat, in the eight ridings of the Edmonton area (which include St. Albert, Leduc, Spruce Grove and Fort Saskatchewan) the NDP got an average of 25.7%. In the eight Calgary ridings, 12.4%. In the 12 RoA ridings, 13.5% (brought up by Lethbridge, Peace River, and, remarkably, Red Deer).
Oh, and if you don't know Mark, and do a google search for his image, he is NOT the shirtless model in the black and white shots, he is the one who is sporting a similar tonsure and facial hair growth to a certain famous Canadian party leader.
Cheers Bagkitty...now how do we get to this to flow into our Provincial election?
-city center would had had the second place NDP finish if it wasn't for the Lib candidate there...personal popularity of the Jenn Pollack boosted her above the NDP votes.
And if I see Mark Sandilands I'm going to remind him that he would have done even better had he struck a non-compete deal with the Libs in a quid pro quo arrangement with Lib Jennifer Pollack's campaign in Calgary.
On another note, two other winnable ridings in Alberta were shamefully vote-split by magical thinking in both parties, letting the Cons walk up the aisle.
Maybe we'll get lucky and the LPC will disolve before the next election...would nicely solve the ndp-lib vote splitting.
outwest: I found all of one riding in the entire province of Alberta where the Conservative received fewer votes than the NDP, Liberal and Green candidates combined. That riding is Edmonton Centre.
Laurie Hawn's margin of victory was 10,918 votes. The combined Liberal/Green vote was 12,606 votes. Assuming that both Laurie Hawn and Lewis Cardinal run again in the next election, that nobody votes then who didn't vote in 2011, and that both manage to retain all the votes they received this time, Cardinal would require a net retention of more than 85% of the combined Liberal/Green vote.
As lauded as the tendency for Canadians to vote party before candidate is, I'm not really sure that it's so strong that such a high retention would be seen.
What we need to do in Alberta is tap into the very real discontent with principled issues that Reform rode in on -- lack of democracy and lack of transparency in Ottawa - the challenge is to convince the the federal party (especially in light of the new Quebec reality) that this can be done without threatening the vision of asymmetrical federalism that contributed to the new Quebec reality we woke up to this morning.
At the risk of sounding even more self-contradictory than usual (a couple of threads over I suggested that baby-boomer commentators should all just shuffle off to the retirement home and shut the fuck up [and while I maintain I am at the very ass end of the boomers, I unfortunately still get lumped in with them]), I would turn attention back to the very early days of Reform... and their appeal to Prairie Populism... and the very great lengths Manning used to go to say that that Reform was neither left nor right but addressing matters of principle (and look how successful that was with Sask by the way). We need to go back to some of those issues and see where we went wrong and allowed the right to claim them as their own, to do what Manning did, but to be a lot less duplicitous about it.
Foremost of these matters of principle is the lack of democracy and, to my eyes at least, how they most strongly impact the West - I would suggest it has at least 3 major components: 1) the failure to come even close to representation by population. 2) the failure for the vote to reflect what happens on the ground (the need for proportional representation -- a given everywhere in the country) and 3) what to do with that monstrosity that is our unelected Senate - a creature created to address the competing interests of Upper and Lower Canada, with a bone tossed to the Maritimes.
If the federal party is serious in suggesting that the constitutional issues are reopened, we should be demanding that the demographic shift westward has to be taken into account and the questions of representation are a paramount concern. None of us should be voting in ridings that are half again as large as some of those in the east. The current disparity in riding size flies in the face of any populist understanding of what a democracy is. If we leave this with the Cons they will reap the rewards by tossing a few more seats to BC, AB and ON in what is now their geographic base. We need to make this issue ours, and to attach it to proportional representation. And we have to do so with a specific PR model - one that allows for the regional distribution of the proportional seats. Any model adopted to ensure greater proportionality of result is going to have to be constructed with regional boundaries in mind. We have to focus more of the discussion on this. An alienated West (or even a triumphant one) is not going to be enamoured of a system that has some central body determining who is put into Parliament... nation-wide lists won't work. We are going to have to get into gritty details. Assuming, for the moment, a 5% threshold... it is relatively easy to envision a model that works for those provinces that have more than 20 seats... but that is only four out of the ten... We desperately need to be part of the discussion of how PR will actually work and come up with ways that will be palatable not only along party lines (yay, 5 or 6 NDs from Alberta), but also one that SK, MB, NB, NS, PEI, NFLD and all three territories can accept...(boo, they appointed the party leadership out of Ontario or Quebec or BC or AB). Frankly, I can't see a PR model that contemplates distributing seats that are outside of provincial or at best regional boundaries is ever going to fly.
The crux of the problem is that it is not just population numbers and party numbers to take into account, but also the very demonstrable regional (or, if you are in Quebec. "national") interests that have to be dealt with. I think most of the fabled "ROC" has gotten the message that Quebec is not interested in seeing any decrease in its position regardless of the demographic shift westward [although some of the gloating about the setbacks the BQ experienced last night might indicate otherwise]. And I am quickly moving towards the opinion that the only way we are ever going to deal with this is by reopening the Constitution and completely restructuring both the Commons and the Senate.
As much fun as can be had with making jokes about how to dispense with the Senate, we are going to have to face the fact there are three concerns in addressing the democratic deficit we face. Equality of citizens (rep by pop), proportionality of outcome (PR) and regional/national interests. A unicameral system can address rep by pop and PR, or regional/national interests and PR, but it can't address all three at the same time.
We have to focus the federal party on reconsidering the platform of abolishing the Senate and instead come up with a vision for the Senate that has the necessary powers (and legitimacy) to ensure national/regional interests - a Senate that is legitimate by virtue of being elected (hat tip to Reform) and is more than the advisory board/retirement home it is now. This is more than reform, more than renovation, it is tearing it down and building up from the ground - and the deciding voices in this are going to have to be those provinces, regions, nations (whatever you want to call them) who currently have a vested interest in blocking recognition of the demographic shift westward.
And if I see Mark Sandilands I'm going to remind him that he would have done even better had he struck a non-compete deal with the Libs in a quid pro quo arrangement with Lib Jennifer Pollack's campaign in Calgary.
On another note, two other winnable ridings in Alberta were shamefully vote-split by magical thinking in both parties, letting the Cons walk up the aisle.
I wonder how you arrive at the conclusion in your second paragraph. The Liberals in both Edmonton East and Lethbridge had vote totals quite comparable to the NDP vote in Calgary Centre back in 2000 when the citizens decided we had had enough of the Reform (troglodyte wing, even for them) Lowther and everyone held their nose and voted for Red Tory Joe Clark. In all three cases low single digits.
Cheers Bagkitty...now how do we get to this to flow into our Provincial election?
Not a chance. Looking at the next provincial election (or even the one after that) is probably much too short sighted. In order to break the pattern here in Alberta, it is going to be necessary to break the link in the minds of those who are most drawn to the electoral process that any form of engagement in civil society means going through the Progressive Conservatives. It is going to mean getting involved in town/municipal governments and community associations without "blending in". One has to remember that not all PCs are ideologically committed, in fact I would go so far as to suggest the majority of them are there because they want to contribute to civil society - not bolster any particular party's fortunes. This view, of course, is wildly unpopular here amongst the rabblers (at least that is how I have interpreted the reactions I have gotten to suggesting that the left/progressives have to talk to anyone who doesn't self-identify as left/progressive).
-city center would had had the second place NDP finish if it wasn't for the Lib candidate there...personal popularity of the Jenn Pollack boosted her above the NDP votes.
For sure, it definitely wasn't the result of any great enthusiam for the Liberal brand. BTW, nice to see Paul do so well in Centre-North, slight increase over John's last run (given his personal draw, can you imagine how good the result would have been had he been able to run again?). Do you think Flora and the rest of the Centre-North gang will throw bricks at me if I suggest they actively seek to line up a George or a Ringo if Paul decides not to seek the nomination next time?
I need to take more time and read what you're saying Bagkitty...though you are right provincially.
Agreed.
Just to bring it up...city-center has source Total Voters: 89322. Total votes cast (just adding up what the site says individual parties got) is 49873...gives us a 55.8% voter turnout. Not bad, I was expecting significantly lower. Maybe downtown had a better turnout...
Vargis's riding (incidentally, I think he lost a few of Chan's supporters to the Liberals while gaining from conservatives...but speculation for now)...managed to hit 60.4% turnout. probably the high in calgary, but we'll see.
I'm just quick doing the math in a calculator. Here's what I get..
City Center - 55.8%
Center north - 60.4%
East - 45.9%
North East - 48.1% (Libs turned in 11466 votes...my only explanation on the lib numbers here is the 'immigrant' communities here don't have the engrained hatred for liberals...no clue who Cam Stewart is. Any ideas bagkitty?)
Nosehill - 57.2%
South East - 60.2%
South West - 60.8%
West - 62.7%
The Southern ridings are really prone to the patriotic 'its your national duty to vote!' conservatives, so I can see that voter turnout number higher. Still think the best ridings to target in calgary are the apathetics...
Vote gains for sure in Edmonton or Calgary but the best the NDP can hope for in rural ridings is to only lose by 10000 votes. I`m happy Linda won her riding! Its never nice to see Alberta solid blue.
That's noteworthy because Landslide Annie never cracked the 50% mark. She also got more people to vote for her this time around, and yet the Conservatives still held their vote from 2008.
I've gotta check the numbers...but i heard a suggestion that Calgary actually surpassed our Federal turnout with our municipal turnout. It's going to be close at any rate. Just goes to prove how generally disconnected Calgarians are from Federal politics.
I voted for Mary Macdonald in Edmonton Centre after trying to get someone at the Cardinal Campaign to comment on the Doer government's actions and how they jived with bill C-389.
He told me that the federal and provincial parties were somehow magically separate, which, having been a card-carrying dipper, I knew better about.
Oh, and the kicker was the person who e-mailed me did so from his ANDP address...
Bill Siskay being good on the issue will not be enough to get my vote. I'll be there in three seconds if the party advocates an on-demand model for elective treatment, you know, just like with cis women not otherwise counter indicated for HRT get... oh, and when they develop a clear position on when and where to pull the plug, because, as it stands, I lost de jure rights so that the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition could grandstand on a GST cut on heating oil.
So yes, NDP, you'll get me back when you can reconcile your second-wave Michelles with your putatative pro-trans rhetoric, that and dropping the idea of MPs as pure party delegates would help too. I hate to say that we only got C-389 through the commons because of six Conservative votes, and the party-discipline arms race ensures that those votes are imperiled next time this comes up, which I expect will be an afterthought brought up when it will serve the NDP's pre-writ strategy well to peel off a dozen cissexist liberals.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the party has nothing in particular to be proud of on trans rights. Michelle Mungall gets up and calls VRR a part-time hate group and I'll hitchhike to Nelson and start knocking doors for her that day.
This is more than reform, more than renovation, it is tearing it down and building up from the ground - and the deciding voices in this are going to have to be those provinces, regions, nations (whatever you want to call them) who currently have a vested interest in blocking recognition of the demographic shift westward.
I didn't read this before...totally agree.