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Indeed. The left-right balance in Brandon did not change last year because of the municipal election, (actually, strictly speaking, the total votes for the left are the minority) but the election of a centre-left mayor was enough to have a noticable change in the direction the city's going.
Thanks A24. Direction and leadership matters.
What a lot of nonsense.
One of the first things Gregor Robertson did after getting elected mayor was publically kiss Gordon Campbell's ass. Robertson is an NDPer in sheep's clothing.
Just drive around Vancouver these days and you will see a lot of NPA signs and not much else.
Ever been to a Vision Vancouver event. It's hard to get through all the developer crowd to even say "hi" to our elected representatives.
Who do they think they are kidding!!!
Left wing my ass.
Give me a break.
And Stockholm, your comments are coming from a guy who thought we should have kept Carol James as Leader, so I'll take what you think, let's just say, under advisement.
It does sound like Robertson has dissapointed some of the people who should be his natural allies.
Perhaps the best thing would be for a Robertson re-election, with none of the 3 parties winning an outright majority. That way, Vision Vancouver (and Robertson in particular) would be forced to choose between voting with COPE or the NPA. Is there any chance that COPE could actually win more seats than Vision?
Nope, COPE is only running 3 candidates for council... they signed a rediculous agreement with Vision that is not even supported by all their candidates (Louis for instance). Well ok, yes, If Vision is reduced to 2 councillors or even elects no one, but the only way COPE can win more is if Vision wins 3 or less. Last poll i saw said Vision was in the lead...
But there is another new "party" NSV, Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver who is running 4 candidates for council and a mayoral candidate. They seem to be anti-development and rather left wing. Can a vancouver rabbler hear shed some more light? any chance of some being elected to council? say VV - 4 COPE - 3 NPA - 2 NSV -1? (its a 10 member council right?) that would be a council where Vision would have to work with COPE and NSV and would be much more leftwing and less pro-development? Or is it looking like NPA could take back council again?
And Mayors do matter... look at whats happening here in TO, Ford, enough said there :P
The "first 10 past the post" system makes it unlikely that anyone non-slate will get a council seat. Except maybe Adriane Carr. Even if the anti-development-left vote is a significant force in the city, it's still probably dwarfed enough by Vision and NPA support that the NSV candidates will be buried far down the list.
Explains why NSV endorsed COPE (believe all three Woodsworth, Louis and Aquino) and Adriene and even some Vision councillors i think.
Is NSV not a slate then? i was under the impression that they were?
Well I meant "non-major-slate".
NSV, to my understanding, is a group of people who would have rather seen COPE put forward a fuller slate of candidates rather than having an agreement with Vision. I think Helten has stated publicly he is still a member of COPE. Ergo they have put some candidates forward and are encouraging people to support their people plus COPE plus Green and skip out on Vision.
I would imagine when the vote totals come in, nobody with NSV will have gotten enough votes, but COPE will probably do well with the support of Vision slate voters, COPE supporters and NSV supporters alike. Although as noted in the Cadman thread, some Vision supporters may be cautious about choosing Tim Louis. I think Vision will still see many of their people elected but this time a few more NPA types (or Carr) may slip through.
The math of the electoral system is such that if voters choose perfect slates always, the most preferred slate will win 100% of the positions. The swing voters in the middle who don't choose perfect slates are the ones who decide how much the total will vary from a full slate. So in the last election, enough people voted for most or all of the Vision-COPE slate that 9 of 10 got in. Suzanne Anton actually had more council votes than Ladner's mayoral votes, which indicated some non-negligible swing vote that selected Anton to balance out the council without actually supporting an NPA mayor.
In 2008, Gregor got 67,598 mayoral votes, and the city council candidate who got almost as many as that was Raymond Louie (66,226). Chow and Deal were pretty close too. In 2011 I think it's reasonable to expect Gregor will get re-elected. What would be really telling would be if any candidate - *especially* a COPE candidate - gets more council votes than any mayoral candidate. That would be a sign of voter sentiment shifting considerably.
The municipal voting system is almost an all or nothing proposition. There is little middle ground and thus in BC there are many totally unbalanced councils with only one parties voice. The NDP aligned Burnaby Citizens Association holds all the seats on both the council and the school board. In many other municipalities the left slates have little chance of electing anyone despite having significant support. I would like to see an STV style electoral system municipally. Vancouver might then have two wards with 5 member elected on a preferential ballot. Burnaby might have one election for 6 or 7 council seats.
Yep, this was covered in the Cadman thread. I would support STV for sure, as it would guarantee that each council seat represents a definitive voting bloc and that a vast majority of voters get represented by at least one seat.
There is a vague mention of electoral reform in the Vision and COPE platforms but it is not elaborated upon. My guess is that it's more about campaign finance reform to put everyone on an even playing field - Vision would be okay with no longer taking donations from developers & unions as long as NPA gets cut off from their respective developers and corporations too.
Cope without people like Louis as candidates is the future. Vision may well go the way of the do-do bird within 2 elections, the election on Nov 19/11 being one of the two. They're done like dinner.
They had the golden opportunity to bring in the ward system and they blew it. They have vision my ass, they can't see the forest for the trees. What a useless group apart from perhaps Kerry Jang.
I'd like to see vancouver use multi-member wards, i think that would be the best of both worlds here. 2 5 member wards, or 5 2 member wards. I for one am also not opposed to seeing more councillors, Vancouver is a huge city and only had 10 councillors? With Wards you would need more... like 15, so 5 3 member wards with a max set at how many can run in a ward in each slate for each slate, say 2 so no slate would win all seats.
Anywho... were offtrack for sure, a BC municipal thread would be better.
With the Conservatives at 18, 20% in the North/Interior; what ridings will fall to the NDP that are Liberal if this pans out? And last time didn't the Island vote more like 50% for the NDP? that would be a signifigant drop, what ridings would be in danger for the NDP?
In Vancouver, with those numbers looks like Yeu would win Fraserview... Fariview would be another pickup, maybe even False Creek (i think it was a mistake to have replaced Ray Lam, that was just dumb) with a strong candidate.
You're right, we're off track. Let's branch out further talk of muni elections to here:
http://rabble.ca/babble/alberta-and-british-columbia/bc-municipal-elections-2011
308 did a projection based on BC polls:
http://threehundredeight.blogspot.com/2011/11/bc-liberals-fall-as-bc-tories-rise.html
No riding-by-riding breakdown, but the NDP lead in Metro Vancouver is shown as 43% to the Liberals' 31%, Cons 17% and Greens 7%. I am curious which riding is the one that they projected to go to the BCCons.
I think it was a mistake to have chosen Lam as a candidate in the first place, but it was even more of a mistake for the party to fail to stand by him. I doubt he would have won, but since Parente didn't either, it's not like the last-minute substitution helped anyway.
With the poll numbers, it stands to reason that Christy Clark would move to a safer BCL seat, leaving Vancouver-Point Grey with a non-leader BCL candidate for the first time since 1996. Judging by Eby's results in the by-election, I think VPG is an acheivable pickup too.
The only Greater Victoria seats that went BCL last time (Oak Bay-Gordon Head & Sannich North and The Islands) were only won by a few hundred. Those could definitely swing. Perhaps the same with Burnaby North, Burnaby-Lougheed. And after the federal wins in Surrey North and Newton-North Delta, we could certainly see Surrey-Tynehead flipping.
If I had to project, I'd say Delta South; it's where Cummins lives, the core area he has represented federally since 1993 and currently held by Vicki Huntington, the independent. With the NDP riding high in the Lower Mainland, the Tories could take South Delta one one of those 29% pluralities.
I don't think it's Delta South. After all, 308 is also projecting an independent seat, and I don't think that his model would predict Bob Simpson or independent-to-be-named-later winning before Huntington. I'd say it's probably Boundary--Similkameen. Yes, the Conservatives only came in third there, but that was with just over 20% of the popular vote in an election where they barely broke 2% province-wide.
Ah Yes VPG, that would leave the Liberals with their two strongholds of Quilchena and Langara; if this were a repeat of 2001 in reverese the Liberals would still probably hold both those ridings. (outsiders view). In VPG, is Eby looking to run again? or would that depend on Clark moving to say here old riding... which was Port Moody-Burke Mountain (which ain't around anymore) its Port Moody-Coquitlam... would she even win there?
Well lets hope the NDP learns and nominates a moderate candidate in False Creek, any ideas who is linning up there?
Delta South makes sense for Cummins, if he has any chance of winning he needs to run where he is known, and having a sitting independent who can easily take 10% in a 4 way race will help him take this riding. I remember seeing Boundary-Similkameen as one of their best performances in 09...
Cummins federal riding was actually Delta-Richmond East - he could easily run in the BC Liberal held Richmond East seat if Huntingdon didn't want to make way for him.
True, but the likely hood of winning decreases as Hungtindon isn't in the race, no more 4 way. Is Richmond or Delta more a "natural" fit for the conservatives? demographically/historically, etc
I was under the impression that Huntington ran as a sort of "rightwing indepependent" and that she and Cummins would be totally fishing from the same pond.
I think that was the case in 2009 as well? she was up against Wally Oppal, so they were both playing in the right-wing pool. The NDP only manged 12% but its Delta South, so to me that seems about right.
Anyone know how strong Vicki is in Delta South? like if she ran as a Communist, or for the Marijuana party she'd still win?
She only won by about 50votes or so.... so if shes weakened, and with the Liberals looking like they are in trouble, Delta South could look attractive to Cummins.
Are any Richmond Liberal MLA's retiring?
Bob Simpson is going to run in too i hear, any NDP candidates up? can they even take the riding back?
Huntington is a single-issue centrist who has relied on NDP and Green votes to stay in office; she is cut from the "save the local hospital" independents the Brits keep electing.
Anyway, Cummins has only represented White Richmond and non-White Delta intermittently. His base community is, in all ways, Ladner-Tsawassen.
Huntington's single issue was high-voltage overhead power lines:
http://thetyee.ca/Photo/2009/05/07/AngryRiding/
Delta South is Vicki Huntington's seat a long as she wants it. I'd categorize her as a "green, red-tory" in a small "c" Con seat. BTW, she's a prodigy of her pops, Ron Huntington, former federal Con MP for West Vancouver-Capilano.
Cummins formerly resided in "North" Delta and now resides in his new house, that he has built, in ueber so-con, right-wing Mary Polak's Langley riding.
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/would+crush+Liberals+election+held+tod...
Forum Research Poll
NDP - 57 seats, up 22 seats
Libs - 20 seats, down
Cons - 7 seats, up 7 seats
Ind - 1 seat, No Change
-------
NDP - 39%
Libs - 26%
Cons - 22%
Grn - 9%
Crazy. I'd really like to see the poll report itself directly.
Still it also points out that any reunification of Libservative voters could sink the NDP at these support levels. If either Lib or Con bleeds off so much support that it drops down to 9-10%, now we have a party competing with the NDP.
At the same time, I think the whole premise behind an contra-NDP coalition is starting to fall apart after over half a century of dominating BC politics. A lot of people in the centre, if they are not filled with blind anti-NDP sentiment, probably know that the NDP is closer to where they stand than either of the two parties sniping to dominate the right-wing vote. The next Liberal leader after Clark will have to decide whether to continue to chase to the right, leaving the centre stranded, or start a new chapter. Could we be looking at the start of a semi-stable three-party system?
If support for the BC Cons dropped - I don't think you can assume that 100% of that drop would go BC Liberal...many of those are anti-government votes. Keep in mind that in the 2009 election the NDP took 42% (3% more than in this poll) despite being led by Carole James - so in a strict two party race - you can be sure that NDP support would go up...and needless to say there are also a lot of "sea wall Liberals" who would never vote for John Cummins in a million years.
True. And as I cited upthread, I think there is also some potential for Liberal votes to flee to Green if the Libs alienate the centre. Whereas I think left-green voters have less reason to be ticked at the NDP this election compared to last, and they are more likely to fall in line. Especially if the NDP is leading the charge against Northern Gateway.
Regarding right-green vs left green, check this out:
http://canadianveggie.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/vancouver-election-analysis-maps/#more-2622
Notice how the Vision-NPA pattern was largely north versus south, but the Green-COPE pattern was west versus east.
Thanks for the link theleftyinvestor. I've also posted an updated map at http://canadianveggie.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/vancouvers-ultimate-2011-election-map/
Even though there is a lot of overlap between the Green party and COPE in Vancouver, the west side of the city tends to favour greens (enviros) and the east side favours COPE (social progressives). Vision Vancouver has managed to gain the support of both groups.
It's also interesting that in the NPA (conservative) strongholds on the west side, the non-NPA canddiate that did the best was the Green's Adrian Carr. It looks like a fair number of NPA supporters dropped their worst candidate to vote for her.
Thanks for jumping in!
If Northern Gateway (or any other significant environmental matter) becomes an election issue, it'd be interesting to see what happens to that westside NPA-Green contingent's voting patterns. Now that the NDP has given up on "Axe The Tax", they're probably mending fences with the environmental movement.