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Referring to Winnipeg as a "social democratic" town was more a comparison to Brandon. Winnipeg has (until recently) had a core NDP support that could always be depended on to elect several NDP representatives to all 3 levels of government. Basically, if history was any indication, if any of Manitoba's 2 largest cities were going to have an NDP mayor, it would have been Winnipeg. The reverse happened.
That's the point I've been making, and I think we're going to see many more "safe seats" fall.
Of course, it should be noted that for all the talk about Winnipeg being such an NDP stronghold - it has never, ever had an mayor who was a New Democrat. In fact, the only time Winnipeg has had mayor who was not the favoured candidate of the Tory business community was when it had Glen Murray for a term and a half and Murray is a Liberal!
Its true that Winnipeg has its NDP leaning areas, but the areas that vote massively Conservative are larger and have bigger populations. Trying adding up the number of voters in the following federal ridings that are Tory strongholds (Charleswood-Assiniboia, Winnipeg South, St. Boniface, Kildonan-St. Paul) and compare it to how many voters there are in the traditionally NDP seats of Winnipeg Centre, Winnipeg North and Elmwood-Transcona (let's split the difference on Wpg-South Centre) - and I think you will find that the Tories have a massive edge.
I'm not trying to be contrarian, I would genuinely like to be educated on how exactly Brandon can be called a "rock-ribbed Tory" town when one half of it votes NDP 100% of the time in provincial elections and the other half of it votes NDP 50% of the time in provincial elections. I would not disagree with calling Portage La Prairie a "Tory town" since no NDPer has ever been elected to any level of government from there - but Brandon is a different story.
Did you not read my post? In 1969, when Brandon was first split into 2 ridings, Len Evans didn't even think he'd win Brandon East for the NDP.
Yeah well that was 1969 - 42 years ago. Since then Brandon has been electing New Democrats regularly.
I suppose you could call Toronto a "Tory town" because up until the 1960s it tended to elect nothing but Conservatives to Ottawa (hence "Tory Toronto") - but that was then and this is now!
Totalling all eight, in 2008 we find Con 42.5%, NDP 27.2%, Lib 23.4%, Green 6.0%.
The remarkable thing about Brandon-Souris last time was the Liberal running fourth: Green 15.8%, Lib 8.3%.
By the way Brandon-Souris has (2006 census) 84,602 people broken down as follows:
Brandon City 41,511
Balance of Brandon Census Agglomeration 6,745
Virden 3,010
Killarney 2,273
Souris 1,772
Carberry 1,502
Boissevain 1,497
Shilo 1,314
Rivers 1,193
Melita 1,051
Rural 22,734
I'd love to see us try as hard in Brandon-Souris as the Greens did. Or did we?
No, it's been re-electing Len Evans regularly.
But as I said, having lived in Brandon for 25 years doesn't at all qualify me to speak about what's going on there.
I disagree. Most parties, particularly the two big ones (Conservatives and Liberals) have safe seats. The definition of what is "safe" is open to debate of course and there is the occasional upset, but certain seats which almost always vote for a particular party and have done for decades and decades, can fairly be called safe.
I think it's accurate to say that most ridings in Alberta are safe Conservative seats, for example. Would you not call Wild Rose a safe Conservative seat?
And btw, Outremont was NOT a safe Liberal seat when the Liberals lost it to the NDP in 2007, and it hadn't been for a number of years. Jean Lapierre only won it by small margins in 2004 and 2006 and the Liberals had lost it once before in 1988. It hasn't really been a safe seat since the days when Marc Lalonde held it 30 years ago. Still, the misperception that Outremont was a safe seat in 2007 continues.
A truly safe Liberal seat would be Mount Royal, which has voted Liberal continuously since 1940 (70 years!).
Winnipeg North was not truly an NDP safe seat since it had been Liberal in the past, and prior to Judy W-L winning in 1997. It would be more accurate to say it is a safe "NDP/Liberal" seat in that one of the two have won it in every election for the past 50 years and kept it from the Conservatives since then.
I believe Len Evans retired a few elections ago and the NDP still holds Brandon East and lost Brandon West by less than 100 votes. I still want some evidence that its a "Tory town" - they don't seem to like actually voting Conservative.
The Tory total in Brandon East has steadily been going up.
Brandon-West is a traditional Tory area. There are 2 exceptions:
1981, where the Tories were unpopular and Brandon West fell along with that. The Tories promptly regained that seat in 1986.
In 1999, the Filmon Tories were on their way out, along with the fact that the then-Tory MLA had problems which contributed to his defeat. And the only reason the NDP lost Brandon West by that small a magin last time was because the NDP was the incumbent MLA. Had the NDP either not held that riding in the first place, or had the NDP fielded a new candidate, the margin of defeat would have been far more decisive.
Then again, what do I know about Brandon? It's not like living somewhere for 25 years would qualify anyone to speak to that subject?
The federal riding of Brandon-Souris is certainly very Conservative.
Ok, OK, I give up. I will defer to your local knowledge that even though Brandon East has been represented by a New Democrat for the past 42 years - that doesn't count! and that even though Brandon West has been represented by a New Democrat for seven out of the past 10 years doesn't count either! and that even though a former NDP candidate is now mahyor of Brandon - that also doesn't count - it's still a Tory town - if you say so. I guess maybe one of these days they will actually start voting Conservative.
The fact that there is an NDP mayor is a major deviation from even recent municipal voting habits in Brandon. Only in the last week of the campaign did anybody think the new mayor actually stood a chance to win. Did you not actually read that part of history?
How about this: Brandon-Souris PC MP Rick Borotsik: former Brandon mayor
Brandon West PC candidate in Brandon West in 2003: Reg Atkinson, another former Brandon mayor.
The thing about the 1978 byelections was that they accurately reflected the mood at the time. The Tories had a 10% lead in the Gallup poll later that fall (45% to 35%). In the 1979 election the Liberals won the popular vote 39% to 35%
I think the larger point is that sometimes in byelection you can get a very exagerrated swing that corrects itself in the following general election. A case in point would be the byelections in Quebec in 2007 where the Tories won Roberval by a 2-1 margin and came very close to winning Ste. Hyacinthe. In the '06 election, the BQ narrowly won Roberval and won Ste. Hyacinthe by a wide margin. In the subsequent '08 election the Tories barely managed to retain Roberval by a afew hundred votes and totally cruched the Tory in Ste. Hyacinthe - so it was a return to the traditional pattern. Even in Outremont - the 17% NDp win the byelection dropped to a 6% win in the general election and i can assure there was no sudden outbreak of "Dion-mania" to explain it. i think that in a general election, the voters DNA tends to re-surface to some extent.
No, Debator. You're wrong.
The closest thing you can get to "safe" is "all things being equal, this seat ought to be safe." Hardly the same thing. All things are not always equal.
In 1993, the Progressive Conservatives every single safe seat they had ever had. (Neither Elsie Wayne not Jean Charest were in seats that would have been considered "safe.")
(But I probably shouldn't work too hard to convince you. It's better that Liberals like you hold on to the delusional notion of "safe seats.")
Wasn't Glen Murray a New Democrat at the time? I thought he only switched teams when wooed federally by Paul Martin in 2004...
Malcolm, you can participate in this discussion without being insulting and engaging in name-calling. Your views are in the minority on this subject, but you are entitled to them.
And btw, the 1993 election is one of those rare examples where general rules don't apply, so it's not a case you should use. That was an election in which one of Canada's oldest political parties was wiped out in a likely never to be repeated event.
Adma, that's correct. Although there were rumours about him possibly running federally in 2000.
What namecalling? Based on your contributions over the years, I understood you were a Liberal. And while I'd be insulted to be called a Liberal, my intent here was merely to reflect what I honestly believed to be your partisan identity.
The fact of the matter is that "safe" seats are only safe some of the time - ie, all things being equal. Most general elections see at least a few seats deemed "safe" go the other way (although often hindsight will reveal that erosion was underway for sometime.
None of that negates the fact that anyone running as though their seat was safe is foolish and probably deserves to lose.
By namecalling I was referring more to words like "delusional" and "idiotic".
As for me, I have said repeatedly that I am a Liberal-NDP voter. I have worked for both parties over the years and can see the faults in both. At the moment I happen to think the Liberals are the only party capable of defeating Stephen Harper, but the current Liberals are farther to the right than they should be. Supporting the Conservatives extending the mission in Afghanistan is an example of that.
You acknowledge above that you have an antipathy towards all things Liberal, even progressive Liberals like Pierre Trudeau, who you attacked on a thread earlier this Fall. Trudeau is the closest thing to a left-wing Prime Minister this country will have for a long time. It's unfortunate, but Canada is too conservative to elect a left-of-centre PM anytime soon. Slagging off the most left-wing PM we've ever had isn't going to bring about an end to Conservative rule and usher in a new golden age of progressive PM's.
There is an important tactical lesson here and this loss may save the NDP other seats later.
The party failed to recognize allocate the resources needed to win the seat-- that much is obvious as the campaign there was not nearly as strong as the party is capable of and the result close enough that it is obvious this made a difference.
In byelections turnout makes a difference and seats can change hands through extraordinary work, even more easily than when you have a general election with more voters.
The Liberals did put in a strong effort and the NDP missed it even though in hind sight this was predictable-- the Liberals could not lose all the seats without a problem and this was the best chance-- ironically their best chance was in an NDP held seat not their own given the Fantino dynamic. That the NDP missed that no doubt has lead to considerable embarrassment by someone whose job it was to figure this out.
As well, everyone knows that "open seats" without an incumbent are much less predictable and the NDP obviously (hindsight = 20/20) missed that.
It is a powerful lesson that all parties can be caught this way. It takes a lot to win a seat and if you don't put in what you should, a seat you otherwise could have won will go to someone else. The NDP ought to watch out in the next election, both to be sure that enough resources are put in to holding seats that the party ought to hold easily if they try, and enough resources are put in to seats the party could take that other parties might be taking for granted.
Lamoureux actually ran for the provincial Liberal leadership twice, losing to fellow MLA Paul Edwards in '93 (who lost his own seat in '95) and again to party organizer Ginny Hasselfield in '95. Both time the Liberal establishment from south Winnipeg went all out to stop Lamoureux from winning. Lamoureux actually quit caucus to sit as an independent until Hasselfield resigned and Jon Gerrard became leader.
I agree with Stockholm that the composition of the electorate is different in a by-election than in a general election, and that it can lead to different results.
Another example is the Vancouver Quadra by-election a few years ago. The Liberals nearly lost it to the Conservatives. Joyce Murray won it by only 150 votes. Later that year in the general election the Liberal vote stabilized and they won it by about 5,000 votes.
Therefore, it is correct that the NDP could win back Winnipeg North in the next general election depending on what happens with the electorate, and the Liberals could possibly win back Vaughan. It really depends on whether more of the parties' voters will come out during the general election than during the by-elections.
The Conservatives have done a better job in recent years in getting their vote out in by-elections, and the Liberals by contrast have often done a poor job. The question is whether the Liberals can make up the extra several percent needed in Vaugan to overcome the Conservatives. It also depends on what happens with the NDP vote. It looks like Fantino is such a loathsome candidate to non-Conservative voters that the NDP supporters in Vaughan may have moved over to the Liberals to try and block him. The Liberals will need NDP support again during the general election if they are going to defeat Fantino.
What is remarkable is that even the usually liberal leaning electionprediction.org did not see this coming.
Well, electionprediction.org looks like it was reluctant to rush into calling Winnipeg North (or Vaughan), but faced a lot of criticism for waiting it out, and so in the end it predicted WN for the NDP and Vaughan for the Cons. I noticed on a previous thread that Stockholm was very critical of Milton Chan for waiting a long time to call the ridings. Of course, in the end the Liberals won in WN and nearly won in Vaughan, so it looks like Milton Chan was right for being cautious in his predictions afterall.
Voting Liberal will ensure a golden age of progressive MPs never comes. And sorry, a Prime Minister who declares martial law to deal with two kidnappings is no progressive. Hence my consistent reference to PET as the left's favourite fascist.
This isn't a thread for a major debate on the October Crisis, so I will just say a few brief things:
1. There weren't just kidnappings - there was a murder of a provincial cabinet minister.
2. PET was asked by the Quebec governments (provincially and municipally) to intervene.
3. Quebecers gave PET sweeping victories in Quebec in the province in the following elections.
You could add on PET:
1) He was the most autocratic PM Canada ever had up till Stephen Harper
2) He held to a vision of Canada that was highly centralized and so offended many
3) His manner was the most arrogant this country has ever seen as PM (even more than Harper in fact)
And:
1) He was very socially progressive and decriminalized abortion and homosexuality.
2) He promoted bilingualism and demonstrated that we can all aspire to become bilingual as Canadians.
3) And he was very popular with many NDP voters, as his son will be, should he run.
Anyway, that's enough of that for me.
Getting back to the subject of this thread, what do you think the strategy of the Conservatives was in Winnipeg North? Supposedly it was to sabotage the Liberals' chances of winning the seat and to try and harm the Liberals with the racial minorities in the riding, but it seemed to backfire and the Conservatives ended up collapsing.