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Regarding the outcomes, while I have seen projections as low as five seats for the NDP, I'd be surprised if it were that bad. If the polls are correct and the NDP vote has eroded, that is a serious problem. But far greater is the collapse of the Liberal vote, virtually all of which appears to have gone to the Saskatchewan Party.
I think the nightmare scenario for several campaign managers would be getting 48% of the popular vote and the Greens getting 3% - leaving the Saskies with 49% and the seat. Indeed, the Liberal collapse means that the NDP could suffer a loss of several seats even if they make major gains in the popular vote.
I think those projections are based on the assumption that the vote swings equally in every single riding, which anyone remotely acquainted with the system knows to be a fantasy. A dozen seats is an absolute basement figure, in my opinion.
It's not really surprising that most of the old Liberal vote has gone Sask. The SK Liberals have merely accentuated their drift rightwards over the years. Going to the right of the SaskParty this year is an interesting trick ('interesting' in a Yes, Minister sense). I wonder what their federal cousins would think of such antics …
Welcome to BC politics.
There is a pool of voters in BC that regularly votes and they will never vote for the NDP. It usually comprises about 45% of electors. To win the NDP has to have that vote split between two other parties. Unlike the right the NDP has a 50 year history that it is saddled with. The right just changes the vehicle and the same elite controls the AnyBodyButNDP party. In BC the coalition is always anti-NDP that is the glue that binds parties like the Socreds and BC Liberals and Sask. Party. New voters don't seem to be impressed with the NDP probably because they hear the anti-NDP message daily in the MSM. The MSM knows ever rumour of scandal and is not afraid to throw in oblique references to NDP sins in its regular commentary. In BC's MSM we hear far more references to Glen Clarks "scandal" ridden government than BC Rail. Hell Gordo named a bridge after Min-Wac and he was convicted of securities fraud. The MSM never really mentioned that inconvenient fact.
The NDP runs against every mistake it has ever made while in government and when it wins an election, the next election it is now faced with a fresh new opponent that has no baggage. We are stuck in a 50 year old car we keep overhauling and repainting while our opponents are free to change the vehicle. The left does not have the anti-NDP glue that binds the right and seems afraid to test the theory that it is time to change the vehicle. 50 year old institutions however seldom engage in suicide. However the Sask. Conservatives freezing of their party seems to be a model worth exploring. Who knows if the left and left liberals ran under a new banner they might dislodge many voters who like the NDP policies but don't like the NDP and for historic reasons just can't vote for them.
Wall warns against complacency.
If the NDP comes through this election and loses only a few seats, that is definitely going to cause problems for the SaskParty down the road when they want to do the things they swear they're never do. It gives the NDP a bully pulpit to marshal and rally the anti-Saskie forces, and possibly take down Wall in 2015.
Wall realizes that the SaskParty is very popular in parts of the province, but only sometimes in the places that can win seats. If the NDP largely holds on to Saskatoon and Regina, that will represent a real failure of Wall and his party to connect with the urban parts of the province. Little incidents like the Ottenbreit episode will reside in some minds as showing what the SaskParty is *really* about. Billboards and attack ads can't vote, no matter how much the SaskParty wishes otherwise.
Out canvassing today, I do begin to wonder whether Wall has really got this election wrapped up in a bow. The polls and media say he has. The people I talk to on the doorstep say something else.
I wonder how the question of making union dues voluntarily - or forcing the union to do the collecting themselves - will play out.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2011/10/31/sk-wall-unio...
At this point it hardly matters what he says; the cat is out of the bag.
It sure seems like the Sask Party is running a much more negative campaign than they need to. Maybe they have some polling that contradicts these wild numbers that have been published in the MSM.
I think its more that the Sask party are bullies who want to run up the score as much as possible.
Oddly, I've been hearing some desperation from my SaskParty contacts. Not desperation that they could lose, but fear that if they win too big they won't be able to ride herd on their lunatic fringe.
What part of Saskatchewan are you in? The NDP has decent showings in Regina, Saskatoon, Prince Albert and Moose Jaw, but runs into a structural problem in the rural areas. This issue has to be addressed in order to climb the Wall that blocks the NDP from government, or even in the best case scenario, they're still crossing their fingers hoping the vote went the right way in the key seats. If there's one lesson from the last 4 federal elections, it's that racking up large majorities in the urban areas and crossing fingers just isn't enough.
There is one aspect of the NDP's campaign that I think is bloody brilliant. They've finally given up on that mindnumbingly stupid strategy of shrieking "OMG, the Saskies are Scary!!!!" as though that constituted a coherent or appealing message. It failed three times, and it would have taken first class stupidity to try it again.
(Some will challenge my assertion that it failed three times sine we actually formed government following the 99 and 03 elections, however I would argue that was in spite of the central campaign message rather than because of it. In 1999, with the parties of the right sorting themselves out, we should have won a comfortable majority. Instead, we lost the popular vote and fluked into winning enough seats for a minority - which became a majority with the coalition. In 2003, the SaskParty collapsed on the incompetence of its own architects - although with a less likeable and avuncular leader than Lorne Calvert, the Saskies would likely have won anyway. In 2007, the same twice failed strategy delivered us our lowest popular vote since 1938 - and in 38 we didn't even run a full slate.)
I'm in suburban Saskatoon. The number of people who genuinely haven't made up their minds or are supporting the NDP is surprising.
Would that lunatic fringe include Greg Ottenbreit?
Wall rallies troops in North Battleford. Perhaps the SaskParty's internal numbers are showing the Liberals siphoning off support that would otherwise go their way. Len Taylor may yet ride again.
Murray Mandryk has tweeted that there will be a new poll out tomorrow - and that he won't even hint about what it says.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Saskatchewan+Brad+Wall+will+sweep+back+...
I don't think Saskatchewan is quite ready for one party-rule, Alberta-style. The SaskParty fears that Malcolm mentioned are quite real. All it would take is one of the new MLAs (or an emboldened old one) to start musing about selling the Crowns, fairly soon after election night. The NDP wouldn't have to tell stories about the scary SaskParty, because the SaskParty would be doing it for them.
If the numbers in the cities are as bad as stated above then the Sask. NDP might find itself like the BC NDP did after the disastrous Dosanjh election. Coming back from that decimating an election loss could easily take two more elections or heaven forbid three like in BC.
I agree edmundoconnor.
THat's why Wall is doing his best to make it look like he is compromising, while in fact they are doing as much as they can out the back door.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGv6uhKrZsE&feature=uploademail
He did confirm though, that they are thinking about forcing unions to collect their own dues. Mind you, they have been openly attacking labour all along, and I guess that is something he thinks he can get away with.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/complaint-filed-over-saskat...
The problem is that the NDP chose short term politics over renewal and rebuilding. The saving grace of a serious thumping is that we won't have the option of putting off real renewal any longer.
Anybody see that liar Bill Hutchinson place staged people in the mall for his canvassing? Great story by Geoff Leo of CBC!. I think this could sway the tide for Yens Pederson.
I heard the tail end of that piece, knownothing. Pretty darn ridiculous. Pederson just has to draw breath, stand upright, and talk in coherent sentences to look good next to Hutchinson.
6079_Smith_W: Wall is MENSA-level compared to Devine. He's doing exactly what Devine would do, but with a better PR machine.
Great piece on a Sask Party Candidate trying to manipulate the news, and getting caught. Well-worth watching :
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/skvotes2011/story/2011/11/04/sk-hutchinson...
I guess sometimes those CBC reporters actually do deviate from the script handed down from the PM's office after all.
That is what is known as walking into a rake. Embarrassing, although it won't develop into a thing, sadly. All the SK media are all about how we mustn't offend the Potash God, the Great Doyle, in his celestial kingdom of Chicago. Because gods can be vengeful if wronged, and so we must all be fearful. Fearful, I tells ya! </sarcasm>
With all due respect Edmund, doesn't PCS pay more than just royalties? Income taxes, business taxes, municipal fee for business licenses, purchasing of supplies for the expansions, and associated PST on those purchases? Think one of the problems in this campaign is that Link made the assumption that people would assume that the 5 cent royalty payment was the only revenue PCS generated for the province.
Yes, Prairielover, they pay taxes just like you and me, and a license just like any other business...
Income tax comes off the workers' paycheques, and CPP is federal.
So we should be thankful for that, get down on our knees and virtually pay them to haul away our most valuable non-renewable resource?
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Room+alter+potash+royalties/5636193/s...
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/story_print.html?id=5620287&sponsor=
$263 million in royalties on $5.6 billion in sales. Indeed, we should be so thankful that they honoured us by buying what used to be our company, and keeping it here (as if they have the choice to take their business elsewhere).
Hi Smith,
I'm not talking about a $100 business license. Among others, I am talking about a development permit required to make a change to the mine - these are typically based on a percentage of the capital investment. So if PCS is making a 500M expansion, it's not out of line for the development permit to be 5M to to RM, plus PST on all the consulting and contracting labour, plus the supplies required. Income tax from the workers does has a provincial component - just check your last filing, there is a provincial filing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there isn't room to refine and adjust a taxation/royalty framework, just that e conversation needs to be comprehensive. For Link to have dumbed it down to a nickel a dollar without acknowledging ancillary benefits of the presence of the industry says a lot.
In the Alberta experience, Stelmach did exactly the same thing by focussing on the royalty only and not considering ancillary benefits. What happened is that all the drilling was immediately paused while the oil companies re-evaluated the economics of all their well. In the meantime, hundreds of oil field workers went home laid off, production in Alberta declined, wells were shut in, and overall government revenue declined substantially. Just saying that Link certainly didn't look west to learn from past experience.
The big concern the national party will have to deal with, following Nov 7th(assuming the polls are more or less accurate)is the "The Orange Wave is Gone" meme that the MSM will start hitting as soon as the results are in, along with the "The Cats Take Mouseland" line that somebody is bound to use.
What do people here think will be the most effective way to counter that, and to limit the potential of demoralization in the ranks that the likely bad result Monday night could(and I hope it doesn't, but it could)produce?