The NDP Resurgence in Quebec - Canto the Second

I'm not really anticipating Paradiso.

Where's Debater when you need him, eh!

Interesting article by Alice Funke that appeared in the Globe today, August 12, 2010  

Expanding the Debate on Party Financing

A look at all four sources of revenue shows the Bloc Québécois is less dependent on public subsidies than many of its critics charge

http://www.punditsguide.ca/2010/08/expanding-the-debate-on-party-financing/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/expanding-the-debate-on-party-financing/article1670270/

OK, great.  Now we have you on the record on that. :-)

I think that we are exceeding the planet's capacity to regenerate and if we continue to use more and more resources, there will be an ecological collapse, inevitably accompanied by an economic collapse, probably accompanied by a world war, quite possibly nuclear in nature.  After that happens, maybe we could reconvene and discuss how important it is to have a growing economy.

I think that between grotesque financial inequality, planned obsolescence, poorly manufactured goods, trendy fashions, and intrinsically pointless business activities, our economies are so wasteful, we could easily cut the economy in half (in wealthy countries, certainly) and still maintain reasonable standards of living for all.  Probably we could cut much more if we focused on efficiency.  And we could all spend a lot less time at work.

I think there is no significant political party (at least not in Canada) that has the vision or the guts to confront these problems honestly.  The party that comes closest is the Work Less Party in BC.

And I think that Angola has one of the highest gini coefficients in the world.  The oil wealth is being funnelled away by a corrupt government.

And I think you're defending the status quo. And so, fundamentally, is the NDP.

Nowhere did I say the goal should be to have the smallest economy possible; but I would say that a reasonable measure of societal efficiency would be to divide the level of happiness over the GDP.

This latest Angus Reid Poll must be very, very discouraging for the Liberals in Quebec - does anyone else see the trend!

Party / 00 GE / 04 GE / 06 GE / 08 GE/ Angus Reid Poll - today, Aug 12, 2010

Libs / 44.2% / 33.9% / 20.8% / 23.8% / 20% / Down 3.8% from the last election under Dion

Where's Bob Rae when you need him?

We will win Gatineau in the next election, I'm now convinced.  As to other seats, it depends who might run, but as we've seen before, strong candidate recruitment can be a game-changer.  If Pierre Ducasse runs again in Hull-Aylmer, I also believe he would be in very strong contention, having run in last fall's municipal election, and managing to lose that race with a greater percent of the vote than Marcel Proulx obtained when he won federally last time.  In Montreal, the next target would be Jeanne-Le Ber with Daniel Breton, but W-VM if Anne Lagacé-Downson runs again could be in play if the Quebec Liberals continue their internal battles, and Ignatieff does not significantly improve his standing in that province.  Many of the other seats are out of reach, but some will see significant increases in NDP support next time around, I believe.

Because it is only a matter of time before it is not Liberal. And when that happens, its very easy to see how the NDP just leapfrog over the BQ.

Instead of just looking at NDP vote, it's useful to look at the combined NDP-BQ vote. In which case Lac St Louis falls from 8th to 72nd.

That's one possibility-- implosion is another. Since Duceppe has been there he has been joined by a number of others on the left of that party. while the BQ is a nationalist party with a program practically speaking most of its actual work falls outside of that and a dramatic shift could not occur without the loss of a large number of MPs who are not as captive as people might think -- they can simply move to other jurisdictions-- cities or provincial government. Would the party survive the exodus? Maybe not but the party likely would not survive an abrupt ideological change either without tearing itself apart.

Many have spoken about how the BQ is in favour of PR but would lose by such a system. In fact that may not be true. If the BQ split in to two nationalist parties one left of centre and the other right, PR could make both viable.

If you would stop at saying 'probably' will remain Liberal, you wouldnt get argument.

The point is whats in contention in Quebec and what the NDP targets.

Most of the seats held by the NDP in Ontario the NDP vote share was in the low teens for ten years or more. After Jack Layton became Leader the building process began, and the NDP was in contention in all of them. More of them it took 2 or 3 elections to win, but some were won from the NDPs vote share having been WAY back in the previous election.

Its the same situation in Quebec now.

And you seem to have backslid into waving around "experts"- that agree with you of course.

I'd agree that Westmount is probably more out of reach than most of the NDP targeted seats now, but thats because of the added effect of Garneau now the incumbent. Not because some "expert" said it was always out of reach.

I was arguing for Hull-Aylmer both on the strength of Ducasse (and weakness of Marcel Proulx), and because the BQ's new policy of eliminating federal jobs and transferring them to the province (courtesy of Daniel Paillé) will see many PSAC members who live on that side of the river switch to the NDP.  Also, I predict a spillover from Boivin's near-win last time for the NDP in Gatineau.

She is running a helluva pre-election campaign, by the way, and Layton has been in the riding all week doing his french immersion, and then events in the community every day with her.

Meantime, the Liberals have issued this unbelievably arrogant release on the occasion of the Bloc's 20th anniversary (courtesy the Postmedia/Canwest political blog).  I guess we can relax, because it wasn't only the NDP's fault that Harper was elected.  Apparently when they talk to Quebeckers, Liberals think it was the Bloc's fault, and so the Bloc's obligation is to basically disband and vote Liberal.  Good luck with that.

I would have thought it was the Liberals' behaviour in Québec that was keeping Quebeckers from voting Liberal, not the Bloc's (who said "sponsorship").  But no, it's the Bloc's fault.  Boy these guys are brazen in their sense of entitlement.

Congratulations to Gilles Duceppe on his 20th anniversary as a Canadian MP!

Felicitations, indeed. How long before he becomes the father of the House?

It's a quirk of Quebec, I think, genstrike.  Both had very progressive credentials outside of elected politics and neither would run for a separatist party.  Pauline Jewett was a former Liberal elected politician, and she was very progressive -- one of the finest members of our caucus in the 1980s as far as I'm concerned -- and was a real role model for me.

Are you suggesting that there is any personal vote whatsoever for Marcel Proulx?? He has gt to be one of the weakest and most unattractive of all Liberal MPs. The guy looks like a reptile and looks like almost a parody of greasy Tammany Hall style Duplessis cabinet minister from the 1950s. I suspect that the Liberals win Hull-Aylmer DESPITE having him as their candidate - not because of it.

A picture is worth a thousand words:

One of the best ways for voters to judge incumbents is to actually check what their track record is like.

What's Proulx's voting record?

So now you are using ad-hominem attacks to make your argument that Proulx is a weak MP?  You're calling him names and insulting his physical appearance?  

It's out of line, Stockholm - you are better than that.

But, on the other hand, you have just helped strengthen the argument I was making above and shown why the NDP won't in this riding.

Could you summarize that for us, NR?  It's a bit long.

Debater, my assessment of Proulx as weak has been based on watching him in the Commons.  I can't remember the last original issue he's championed, or any substantive contribution to the debate on anything.  He's almost never given a question in QP either.  Stockholm perhaps shouldn't have inferred his political style from his looks, but he still called the political style correctly.

Perhaps you can point out any of his significant accomplishments as a Parliamentarian that I may have missed.  But from my perspective, it's a pretty thin record.

Actually Proulx has another big claim to fame. He was Ignatieff political chief for Quebec for about 9 months, then he got fired after he took the lead in running the federal Liberal party right into the ground in that province.

In any event, Debater, your incremental approach to prediction ignores the impact of transformative election campaigns.  In other words, it would not have predicted any of the seats the Bloc originally won in 1993, nor any of those won by the Conservatives in 2006.  And I doubt, if the NDP ever achieves its hoped-for breakthrough in Quebec, that it will predict that either.

Instead, you have to look at demographics, and try to infer prospects from other indicators.  Notice that no-one is talking about Chambly now, even though we held it in the past.  That's because, without Phil Edmunston, people believe it's not an obvious target, unlike say Jeanne-Le Ber might be.  However, Edmunston's case shows how the right candidate with the right issue (an environmentalist and consumer advocate candidate at the time of the tire fire in Ste-Basile Le Grand), along with a strong local campaign, can make all the difference.

Whatever Proulx's deficiencies, incumbency matters, sad to say--that is, unless he himself was dragged down by deeper, more obvious personal scandal than simply "lookng slimy".  Otherwise, it would really have taken an across-the-board cratering of Liberal support to take him down; as it was, Stephane Dion merely tresded water at worst in Quebec, and perhaps repatriated some of that "soft left" vote that might have been flirting with the Layton/Mulcair NDP.  So, for *that* particular election, the deck wound up stacked against Ducasse, anyway...

The whole premise of what Wright is saying is ABSURD. No changes to the electoral map will come into effect until AFTER the next election. Also, each party has certain seats it is targeting in Quebec and each party gets federal funding based on its raw vote total across the country - so writing off a whole province makes no sense. Parties already make strategic decisions to pour or not pour resources into individual ridings.

Taber's column was one of the worst I have read on Canadian politics in a long time.

On bad advice

But from a less party-oriented standpoint, I'd think there's reason for real concern that so much of the Canadian political class seems to be eager to override the will of Quebec voters: the most oft-repeated attack on per-vote party financing has been an argument that we should be actively trying to tilt our political system against the party which regularly dominates federal elections in the province, and now seat redistribution is being pitched explicitly as a means of ensuring that the province doesn't have any real say in governing Canada. Which figures to do plenty of damage to the relationship between Quebec and the rest of the country - but may also offer a significant opportunity for anybody willing to stand up for the idea that maybe it's worth listening to both.  

http://accidentaldeliberations.blogspot.com/2010/08/on-bad-advice.html

Yes, in fact making it into a keyboard macro could cut the diagnosis of repetitive strain injury in half in the Canadian blogosphere, I imagine.

That's pretty clearly Calgary grit's sense of humour if the "My anonymous Liberal sources have recently confided to me..." setup wasn't obvious enough.  It's an ongoing joke on his blog.

OK, I see your point there, MLP.  I should have been able to tell the real anonymous sources from the humourous ones.