Will Libs dump Iggy before an Election?

Yup. You are on your own brother. No knights in shining armour coming to the rescue.

He sure doesn't look like he wants to be there anymore, though, does he.

Mark my words - Iggy will lead the Liberals through the next election unless he gets hit by a truck.

Stockholm wrote:

Mark my words - Iggy will lead the Liberals through the next election unless he gets hit by a truck.

And then some say it will look like it was the Liberals who were hit by a truck.

Question is what will happen to the other parties?

They can't all go down, can they?

Not sure why you have to swear so much to express your point, but yes, you are right that the Liberals do not stand for much these days.  That is their biggest problem apart from their leader.

As I just posted on the UK election thread, parties are successful when they have a strong leader with powerful ideological positions such as Thatcher, Reagan or Trudeau.

Until the Liberals get one of those type of leaders, they will remain behind the Conservatives in the polls.

Augustus wrote:

Not sure why you have to swear so much to express your point,

Because it pisses me off.

Augustus wrote:

Not sure why you have to swear so much to express your point

Swearing is fun. I'm sure Iggy does a lot of it privately.

What this country needs is a new party on the left.

Seriously.

So that Canadians understand that the NDP is really the new small 'c' conservative party, dedicated to the traditional Canadian consensus of values understood post-war (that's the 'good' war, the one our parents fought). I'm talking about 'The Just Society', and peace, order and good government. The Liberals completely lost sight of these values part-way through the Chretien era. And the NDP certainly doesn't have any bigger objectives these days.

So it's time to stir the pot.

Force the NDP to confront the fact they've abandoned the left. Force the Liberals to deal with the fact that they are nowhere and stand for nothing. Best of all, force the Harperites to confront their own lies and hypocrisy when they are faced with a party with the courage of conviction.

It's all good.

Well, I don't know who was really the dumper and who was really the dumpee, but Warren Kinsella is no longer running the "warroom" for the federal Liberals in the next election.

He sort of announced this on his blog without really saying when the decision had been reached, which Jane Taber picked up on for the Globe and Mail's bureau blog the next day.

His motivations are being dissected in various places around the Internet, but personally I'm wondering if it didn't have something to do with a comment of his to Harris McLeod of the Hill Times last week, to the effect that he's advised the Liberals there's no way mathematically they can win a majority now.

Harris McLeod in the Hill Times wrote:

Mr. Kinsella said the entrenchment of the Bloc and the lack of enthusiasm that voters, and particularly young people, have for the two main parties means minority governments are "the way things are going to be."

Declared Mr. Kinsella: "There hasn't been a majority government in this country since 2003 and I've computed it and added it up and so has everybody else and I don't see how you get your way back to that."

Certainly remarks in Warren's blog right up to that point seemed quite gung-ho about the forthcoming election, and indeed he had been quite publicly swanning around Ottawa the weekend before that edition of the Hill Times came out on the Monday. But by the following Monday, he was confirming his departure to concentrate on reelecting the Ontario wing of that particular cartel of lobbyists instead.

I don't buy any of Warren's stated reasons for leaving the federal party's campaign, but while I hold no candle for him whatsoever I do think he's right on the above point about the Liberals being unable to win a majority government again any time soon. His party's unwillingness to accept that fact is the major thing keeping Stephen Harper in office right now.

Not being able to win a majority government- this is news? Are they really that out of touch that they are just coming to that conclusion? [And apparently only some of them.]

Who knew how much hubris was possible?

Like other people I think of the Liberal brain trust as expecting things to be handed to them on a platter.

But I assumed there were some pretty substantial limits to that. And one of those certainly included that they had by now got clear that finessing their way to power- without a majority- was the only thing they could expect. [Yes, you aim higher, but that if your end games aren't oriented to also get results out of less success... you'll get nowhere except where luck takes you.]

Yes, I think you've laid the math out very well, Sean.

Do you have a best case scenario for the NDP?

How much support does Iggy have within his own caucus? Anyone know?

Kloch wrote:

I will make my own predictions: the most likely scenario is that within two election cycles, there will be a new coalition between the Liberals and the NDP.

I'd rate the odds on it happening within two elections very high. If the Liberals can't get a majority, and its not very likely the Conservatives will get a majority, that doesn't leave a lot of other options. There is the satus quo of another Conservative minority government- but I think thats run its course [up or out for the Cons in the next election].

A lot of people will argue that coalition [or other type of Lib/NDP governing arrangement] cannot and/or should not happen in the next election. But I think that gets trumped by the lack of any other viable alternatives [not another Conservatve minority, Cons majority pretty unlikely, Liberal majority even more unlikely].

ottawaobserver wrote:

Yes, I think you've laid the math out very well, Sean. Do you have a best case scenario for the NDP?

It is more problematic for a party breaking new ground. As well this would be based on an assumption of a time line-- are we talking next election -- two elections down the road?

The difficulty for the NDP is it is hard to know where the upper limit of support could be and where real intractable resistance comes in and that is because the NDP has never reached its potential.

Looking at a best case scenario today if the NDP had a perfect campaign and the Liberals faltered then the numbers for the NDP could be quite similar:

The NDP in an ideal campaign could get perhaps 10 seats in Atlantic Canada, 20 in Quebec (in fact it is harder to imagine 5 seats in Quebec because the boost that it would take to get to 5 would carry the party to about 20) both the Liberals and the BQ have to have bad campaigns for this to happen, 35 in Ontario, 15 in the prairies, 15 in BC and a sweep of the North 3. Total 103. That would be one heck of a campaign. To do better than that the Liberals or BQ would have to disappear. This is the same problem for the Liberals.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Kinsella and Donolo have a great deal of history.

Frankly, that is good advice that the party needs to prepare itself for the fact that a majority is not possible.

Indeed the real reason behind the formula for a majority: A decent sized stronghold; doing well in a couple other places; and not being wiped out in your weakest places.

The Liberals can manage the second and third but the reality is they do not have a stronghold. Historically, way back when they were the natural governing party they had three: Quebec, Ontario and Atlantic Canada.

Quebec is a BQ stronghold which on a bad day for them could give them no less than 2/3 of the seats. The BQ may eventually weaken to holding 50% of the seats but even if it did the Liberals would not be expected to hold the balance. The NDP and Conservatives are likely to remain present in the Quebec seat count even if unimpressingly so.

Ontario is no longer a stronghold for the Liberals as the NDP has managed to improve its numbers and a united right even in an election loss will still count on a quarter to a third of the seats. At best the Liberals could get half the seats.

Atlantic Canada has become less important with each new distribution of seats and those that remain are no longer overwhelmingly Liberal. New Brunswick is likely to deliver seats to the Cons even on a bad day for them and the NDP is fairly entrenched in several seats and likely to remain represented in all Atlantic Canadian provinces but PEI for at least some time.

So if you consider 155 seats the goal asking yourself where they could come from is instructive.

Let's look at the very best case scenario for the Liberals across the country and see where that leads:

In Atlantic Canada 20; Quebec 25; Ontario 62; West 25 North 3 = 135. This is 20 less than a bare majority and to get these numbers the Liberals would have to be doing way, way, way better than they are doing now. These numbers look like a current high-water mark for the Liberals. (Recognize that I am not projecting that this number of seats are in reach for the Liberals just illustrating how far things are really when the math to get them to even a modest 135 seats is not credible.

The bottom line is even a weak NDP, BQ and Conservative party is not enough to deliver a majority-- they need at least one of those parties to be barely on life support and that does not look likely.

The Cons are not in the same position at all. They have a base in the West. On a bad day they would still get more than half the seats. They can do well in a second region: Ontario. All they need to is to do fairly well in Ontario, have something in Atlantic Canada and around 25% of Quebec seats. In the last election they fell only slightly short mostly by not delivering in Quebec.

Right now the only party that could get a majority is the Cons and for them it is extremely difficult. that fact has got to hurt the Liberals.

If the Liberals finally understand this then they could embrace PR -- as that would knock the Cons out of phony majorities as well. It is the Liberal fantasy of a majority that keeps them away from PR.

 

What the naked numbers fail to uncover, though, is that a rejuvenated party led by a leader with a vision with broad appeal can easily break down barriers. Iggy is no such leader and the Liberals have none to offer.

Indeed my numbers show what a rejuvenated leader could get -- and still it is way, way less than a majority. Ignatief won't see the numbers I laid out. It would take the second coming of Trudeaumania to get those seats (check it out that high water mark I set was better than Trudeau ever did outside Quebec even in 1968).

In 1993 Quebec was taken away by the BQ. Due to the split on the right and a weak NDP, Liberals made up for it by sweeping Ontario and getting seats elsewhere they would not normally have taken. In 1997 and 2000 this was repeated. But this is only due to the divided right.

In the 1980s and earlier the Liberals had only to hold Quebec and do elsewhere a reasonable campaign to get a majority. This is no longer true as Quebec is no longer Liberal.

The truth Kinsella is observing is that the only way the Liberals can get a majority, as long as the BQ have a lock on the top spot in Quebec, is with a divided right and an almost dead NDP. In a normal campaign with an NDP that is getting at least in the mid teens in votes and a single Conservative party, there is no chance no matter how strong the leader that the Liberals can get a majority-- without Quebec.

They have never been able to do it before: in 1980 they got 147 seats in a 282 seat house but they did that with half those seats (74) from Quebec).

Now lets look at the biggest Liberal sweep ever: 1968. The house had 264 seats meaning 133 needed for a majority. Trudeau got 155 or a 22 seat majority. 56 of his seats came from Quebec. The Liberals have never, ever been able to get a majority without getting a majority of the Quebec seats with the single exception of Chretien who faced two parties to the right of his. And the fact is you could argue that Trudeau faced a somewhat less divided right (as social credit took seats) but it was still more divided than it is today.

There has never been a Liberal leader in the history of Canada who has put together a majority against an undivided Conservative party without making that majority in Quebec.

Now the other thing I have not mentioned. Since those historical elections there has been another trend towards more seats in the west and proportionately weaker Quebec and Atlantic Canada. This means that it is more and more difficult for a Liberal leader to get a majority. Some of the majorities Liberals got in the past might have been minorities if they had occurred in a house distributed as it is today.

So you could consider that the Liberals have to win big in the West to get a majority now and that includes Alberta. That is not happening.

In summary these are the winning conditions for the Liberal party:

No BQ; or

A big win in the west; or

A divided Conservative party.

Having no NDP would help the Liberals but it alone would not be enough. Certainly the existence of the NDP only amplifies the problem.

The Greens might be a break even if they can take as many votes from the other parties as from the Liberals.

Steve_Shutt wrote:

 Like Labour, the Liberals don't get it that there isn't going to be another Trudeau and that their devine right to rule ended shortly after the disco era.

The point is even Trudeau did not get his majority outside of Quebec. As long as the Liberals face the BQ. The math is not there.

Redistribution also makes it harder but a Quebec nationalist party makes certain the Liberals cannot get a majority against an undivided right.

FM, after the lengthy analysis Sean in Ottawa has provided, I think it's incumbent on you, if you claim a different outcome is possible, to outline in greater detail where those seats would come from and why.  I've poured over the numbers, and I don't see how the Liberals could come up with a small majority.  So, could you take a second to share your perspective on how that could be done.

ottawaobserver wrote:

FM, after the lengthy analysis Sean in Ottawa has provided, I think it's incumbent on you, if you claim a different outcome is possible, to outline in greater detail where those seats would come from and why.  I've poured over the numbers, and I don't see how the Liberals could come up with a small majority.  So, could you take a second to share your perspective on how that could be done.

There really is nothing new in Canadian politics in terms of the electoral map. Jean Chretien managed back-to-back majorities in spite of the Bloc and while, even, pissing off Quebec nationalists. What cost the Liberals their majority was a political schism within the party followed by the revelations around adscam and Paul Martin's failure to take the bull by the horns, so to speak. A Liberal majority is not outside the bounds of reason.

But where does it come from? Not from the right. I've argued this elsewhere on this board, but here I go again: Ignatieff and the current Liberal brain trust are out on a fool's errand. They are playing the same game Joe Clark lost. They think the way to power is eroding the base support of the Harperists. It is purely stupid. Not only is it like trying to milk a stone, it costs human and material resources that drain the party.

For the Liberals to regain a majority, they must look centre and left and they must look at the NDP, the Greens, youth, and the alienated as well as traditional red and soft-blue Liberals. If you look at the hard edge of the Conservative base and to the right, you see a base of about 30%. That leaves 70% to the left. Subtract the Bloc and you still have majority support.

Everyone speaks of a coalition, but a post-election coalition is only necessary if the Liberals fail to open their tent wide enough for a electoral victory formed around a coalition of ideas.

The problem with the Liberals is that under the current leadership, they really are a right wing party incapable of appealing to their own centre-left nevermind the NDP, Greens, youth, and alienated voters.

If you pay attention to Iggy and the Liberals, they focus on attacking Harper's missteps and public statements because they can't attack him on policy where it really matters and that is because the current Liberals are lockstep with the Conservatives in terms of economic and a lot of social policy.

It may seem Canadians are disconnected from politics, but the polling indicates they are connected enough to recognize the Iggy Liberals offer little in policy difference from the Harperists.

Dion was smart enough to recognize the opportunity for a broad electoral coalition that appealed to the centre left, but, unfortunately for him, he was unliked by his own party so he was left undefended and his policies were amatuerishly packaged and left open to a barrage of attack as well as the central plank of his platform, the carbon tax, was so badly managed it was left to the Harperists to define as a "tax on everything". That by the party that brough us the GST.

Until the Liberals recognize that Canada already has a right wing government when what Canada wants is a centre left government, the Liberals will remain in the wilderness losing relevancy.

The problem is the NDP would like to supplant the Liberals as the party of the centre but can't because of the persistent perception that the NDP is the party of big labour. LTJ may be right that we need a new party. But it would have to be a party formed from defectors of the Liberals, NDP, and perhaps Greens or it will never stand a chance.

Someone may have to correct me, but isn't the BQ a stronger party today than it was when Chretien was Liberal leader?

The BQ has more seats now than it won in the 2000 election, yes.

FM, you described things in terms of national poll numbers, but did not say where the Liberals could win those seats.  I think if you started to look seat by seat, you could not find them the seats they need to win.  Their riding-level organization is withering, they are running third or worse pretty well everywhere west of Nipissing, their Quebec base is shrinking down to west Montreal, Haute Gaspesie, Brome-Missisquoi, and western Quebec, and they're about to lose another provincial Liberal government this fall in New Brunswick.

Boom Boom wrote:

Someone may have to correct me, but isn't the BQ a stronger party today than it was when Chretien was Liberal leader?

Yes and no.

They took back the seats during the Sponsorship Scandal that they had lost during the Chretien years,  (1997 and 2000) but they have started to lose seats and votes again.  In 2006 and 2008 they lost ground, and they are not yet back at the numbers they were at in 1993 and 2004.

The next election will give clues as to whether they are headed further down, or whether they can stabalize their numbers at their current level.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Steve_Shutt wrote:

 Like Labour, the Liberals don't get it that there isn't going to be another Trudeau and that their devine right to rule ended shortly after the disco era.

The point is even Trudeau did not get his majority outside of Quebec. As long as the Liberals face the BQ. The math is not there.

Redistribution also makes it harder but a Quebec nationalist party makes certain the Liberals cannot get a majority against an undivided right.

 

I understand your reasoning. But one shouldn't count them completely out, at least across multiple election cycles.

During the 2004 election the Liberals actually improved their standing in Western Canada compared to their 2000 results, despite the revival of the NDP, the emergence of the Greens and the uniting of the right (at least in percentage terms - their seat total was unchanged west of Manitoba, though some seats were gained and some were lost). I think the re-distribution of seats to the faster growing provinces could actually help them get a majority, should they play their cards right. Supposing the sponsorship scandal never happened, I think they could've picked up even more support in the West, especially seeing as they were polling better in that region before the scandal hit. It was by no means a foregone conclusion that they couldn't have won a majority in 2004. It only became that way when the Liberals had no credible answer for their scandelous behaviour. It simply would've been harder for them since they weren't guaranteed 100 seats from Ontario anymore. They could have made up the loss of about 37 seats to the Opposition in Ontario, the Atlantic and Quebec by making some gains in the West. Heck, had the scandal not errupted, they probably would've lost way fewer votes in the rest of the country too. Even if they didn't win a majority it would've given them a solid majority with the NDP and with a re-distribution towards Ontario, BC and Alberta it could've led to a majority. In fact there's no reason not to think the Liberals, supposing they ever get their acts together, couldn't at least replicate their 2004 results in the future.

Anyways, let me explain.

As you mention the Bloc takes a significant portion of Quebec's seats off the table. At a bare minimum that's probably 30 seats no federalist party could expect to win. For the purposes of this discussion, Liberal majority chances, that's probably more like 40 seats that are off the table for them now that the NDP and Conservatives have emerged as competition for the federalist and soft nationalist vote.

Anyhow, that being said, most of the 30 new seats will be put in suburban areas in Ontario, Alberta and BC, bypassing the need to crush the Bloc. In Ontario these are probably up for grabs for all parties, with an advantage to the Liberals, should their national vote approach 35% and an advantage to the Conservatives should theirs approaches 40%.

In Alberta these seats obviously are an advantage to the Conservatives. That said Alberta is a historical anomaly. The Conservatives shouldn't be so dominant in urban and suburban areas in Alberta, because they aren't anywhere else (except the "rurban" Saskatchewan seats). They are only as dominant as they are in Alberta due to historical animosity and institutional weakness. Those two things aren't as hard to overcome as demographic/cultural or class antagonism. When it comes to demographics and socio-political trends across the western world, Alberta is unusual and there's no reason why it couldn't change over the course of the next 10-20 years (or less even). Especially as more non-Albertans migrate to Calgary and Edmonton and as people become less religious (thus less friendly to the Conservatives). As for Greater Vancouver, the same is true. In fact the Liberals have a relatively decent shot to get a lot of seats out of the Greater Vancouver area, should they come up with an effective western and suburban strategy, considering the fact that they've never been as toxic in this part of the West as they were throughout much of the rest of the place.

So as it stands, I could actually see the Liberals winning a majority. I'd say their maximum seat totals out of a house of commons with 338 seats are something in the order of 174. In a perfect storm election I could see them winning the 3 northern seats, the 7 NFLD seats, the 4 PEI seats, 9 of the NS seats, 7 of the NB seats, 35 PQ seats, 85 Ont seats, 7 MB seats, 4 Sask seats, 3 Alb seats and 10 BC seats = 174 seats out of 338 for a slim majority of 5 including the speaker. This clearly leaves them with little margin for error. But it isn't impossible. None of this assumes any major realignment, like I talked about when referring to Alberta either, or the even less likely possibility of the Bloc withering and dying ala the Creditistes. Of course this would require a compelling vision, an unpopular alternative, strong leadership and a strong organization. But it's not completely impossible.