Lac-St. Jean federal byelection, October 23

Lac St-Jean is redneck Quebec. I predict a Conservative win.

90-264      polls reported

Bloc 31.6

Liberals   32.0

NDP 14.4

Con 20.3

194-264      polls reported

Bloc 25.6

Liberals   36.9

NDP 12.7

Con 23.3

 

Tomorrow NDP TO DO LIST

1.deploy the spinmasters turn this mess into lesser mess

2.Bring in Mr. Singh

Happy platitudes

Throw mulcair under the bus.  

Happy platitues

Do not mention trudea or liberals but - NO trudeua talk again

If you take questions which should you avoid, more platitudes and call it a day.

This could be blamed mulcair, not that I have any manace to mulcair.  Someone has to blaimed for the loss I think media will like label this a failure of Mr. Singh (this rivilary that the media has built between singh and trudeua, tommorow the media pundits will personalize the loss to singh and will boost trudeau)but I don't it would be wise to tar Mr. Singh with rather embarssing lose.  Regardless I did not vote for him many reason but he is leader.  Its not exactly news that people speculated that Singh is going to be milestone on the back NDP in Quebec.  This responsibildy for the loss should shifted elseware.  Mulcair is conveint to blame for the loss(of course it may only work one time), Singh should be protected.  Not because I like him, policy, or politics but rather he is the leader and such damaging the leader position should be not be tarnished by anything the can plausiblity blamed on someone else.  Political leaders rarely personaly accept responsbile for the failures regardless if the failure should rightly to blaimed on them.  Bad news is blamed on the underlings and all goods news is credited to the leader.

JKR wrote:

Why should someone be blamed? Why not just congratulate the Liberals and move on? Why not sidestep ad hominem attacks and concentrate on important issues instead?

I think your way is the easist way and frankly I hope it works. Maybe I am overthinking it.

I think a scapegoat is needed becasue of the rivarly the media hyping up between the leaders.  And Singh tries jin this up.

The problem is the  media will try to personalize the win for trudeua and loss for singh.  I think this  is a stragety dreamed up by the braintrust to highlight Singhs strenghts.  I am not comfortable with trying to personalize the fight between 2 leaders.  The media loves this because it sells rather boring platfrom papers.  I think in the end will hurting Singh rather helping.

He campaigned in L-S-J.  A rather inauspicious start.

Ken Burch wrote:

The fact that Mulcair never once visited the riding during this byelection is an admission of that on his part.

That is not true as Mulcair attended the NDP candidate kick-off at the start of the by-election

(pic below from September, 2017)

Remember this is the former Mayor of the area running, so in a sense everyone was running against an incumbent. It would be the same as if a by-election was held in Etobicoke and everyone was running against Doug Ford in his own backyard. I wouldn't read too much into  this.

This was a real surprise. I waas certain the Cons would take Lac St-Jean. I thought that seat was safe as milk. This shows what people think of Andrew Scheer -- he's a wiener.

Mighty Middle wrote:

 

It was Denis Lebel riding, not a Conservative riding.

 

And he was a member of what party again? Nice try.

The Liberals haven't won Lac St-Jean since 1980. Hence,a surprise win.

It also means they were solidly a Conservative riding after 1980,long before the BQ, and would have continued to be if it wasn't for the Bloc.

If the victory was exclusively about Denis Lebel,they would have voted Bloc again.

That region HATED the Liberals. Big win.

This is Quebec and a by-election. People know they aren't electing the government and they know they will get another chance to vote during the election. In this case the motivation was probably "might as well vote Liberal and see if we get anything for it" because the Liberals are in power. Trudeau visited a lot and if he wants to keep it in 2019 he knows he has to give them something. My guess is infrastructure projects. It has nothing to do with ideology and left, right and centre.

It's not that Dallaire has lost support or that Singh isn't popular it's that the NDP can't do anything for the riding and there is no message to send to Ottawa other than "give us something to keep our votes".

progressive17 wrote:

It is going to take a scandal at the magnitude of Adscam to change things much. The Justin Trudeau Liberals have not been in power long enough for people to be tired of them.

And they still came close to winning in 2005. Had Martin won we might never have had to suffer the Harper decade. I'm sure there would still have been plenty to complain about but we would have national daycare and the Kelowna accord.

progressive17 wrote:

The opportunity for the NDP is propping up a Liberal minority after the next election. As happened before, many good things could happen for the Canadian people because of this.

That was the old NDP. The new NDP won't cooperate with the Liberals on anything unless the Liberals agree to PR which isn't going to happen. The Liberals will go back to the polls before having their arm twisted on that and Canadians would probably give them another majority to punish the NDP because PR is not high on the list of priorities of Canadians.

If the Liberals win with a minority they will give their throne speech and dare the other parties to force Canadians into a new election. If there is a vote of non-confidence the GG will probably ask the Liberals to see if they can turn some MPs or negotiate with the other parties. If that doesn't work another election will be called.

Mighty Middle]</p> <p>[quote=alan smithee wrote:

Mighty Middle wrote:

 

It was Denis Lebel riding, not a Conservative riding.

 

And he was a member of what party again? Nice try.

And if Denis Lebel was running under the Liberal banner, Bloc banner or NDP banner he would win. This was a riding where they voted for the person, not the party. Hence a former mayor winning under the Liberal banner. I would say they voted mostly for him, and not the Liberals.

Remember what the NDP said in 2015, "Incumbency matters!"

Sure thing. And this comes on the heels of the Liberals biggest loss in St-Jean in 2015. Where was Lebel in 1984? I don't remember.BTW,Mulroney was huge in Québec for about 7 years,they voted Conservative because that's what they are. They loved Stephen Harper as well.And anyone with any knowledge of the Québec regions will tell you that. The Liberals were despised in Lac St-Jean.

The Cons predictable as the sunrise,won Edmonton with a candidate that can only be described as a huge piece of shit. That tells you everything you need to know about Alberta. Lac St-Jean was just as Conservative.

The Liberals had a big win. Deal with it.

Congratulate them and move on.

The NDP have to get their shit together soon.

I wonder how the NDP would have faired if another candidate other than Jagmeet had won the leadership? I wonder if Jagmeet was silent on bill 62, how would have the NDP faired out?

Clearly Jagmeet's going to need a miracle or two to at least retain Quebec.

I don't think Canada is quite ready for the NDP. Canadians are too used to getting screwed over by corporations and alleged higher authorities. Media image ranks way too high on way too many Canadians lists of what we feel is important in life. Money, good looks materialism and jet set lifestyle are all about corporate greed and corporate control. Canadians have life all backwards and are way too happy fulfilling the corporate masters agenda.

This bi election is a reflection of how Canada is a backwards country stuck in circa 1950's 1960's.

Ken Burch wrote:

Pondering wrote:

 

1935-58 Liberal

58-62 Progressive Conservative

62-65 Social Credit

65-68 Ralliement creditiste

68-84 Liberal

84-90 Progressive Conservative

90-91 Independent

91-2004 Bloc

2004-2015 riding dissolved. Roberval went Bloc from 2004 - 2007, Conservative from 2007 to 2015.

2015 - 2017 Conservative

And now it is back to Liberal.

PS the Bloc leans to the progressive side not the Conservative or Liberal side.

After it giving the Islamophobes what they wanted in 2015, the Bloc can never be considered progressive again.

Who cares how they voted 50 or 80 years ago. If we went back that far we'd discover that the Prairies were once 'progressive'

I'm talking the last 30 years which are relative. They've changed political ideology in that recent past. Most of the country has. Their politics have changed drastically since the 30's,50's and 60's..the latter decades Canada as a whole were far more liberal or 'progressive' 

And it was pointed out that the BQ are not 'progressive'. So for the past 33 years they have been staunchly conservative. The Liberals scored a big victory in Lac St-Jean last night. Again,deal with recent history.

Rev Pesky wrote:

From WWWTT:

I don't think Canada is quite ready for the NDP.

​This is not quite true. There have been numerous NDP governments in 7 different provinces (well, 6 provinces + Yukon).

I think one could say that the performance of the NDP in those governments has not been such to swing the vote to the NDP in a federal election. You might consider asking yourself why that is.

You may very well be right? Clearly there are several provinces within Canada, and many regions across Canada. But Canada as a whole??? We're not there yet, that's obviously clear. And last night's result clearly show that the NDP's future in Quebec will probably be reduced to around half a dozen seats at best. The NDP won't be forming government in 2019, nor opposition. Best I see the NDP with is 55-60 seats. Now here's the zinger, in order for the NDP to have a stronger voice in the house with 55-60 seats, the NDP need the conservatives to take away enough seats from the liberals to reduce the liberals to a minority, or the conservatives get a minority.

WWWTT wrote:

Rev Pesky wrote:

From WWWTT:

I don't think Canada is quite ready for the NDP.

​This is not quite true. There have been numerous NDP governments in 7 different provinces (well, 6 provinces + Yukon).

I think one could say that the performance of the NDP in those governments has not been such to swing the vote to the NDP in a federal election. You might consider asking yourself why that is.

You may very well be right? Clearly there are several provinces within Canada, and many regions across Canada. But Canada as a whole??? We're not there yet, that's obviously clear. And last night's result clearly show that the NDP's future in Quebec will probably be reduced to around half a dozen seats at best. The NDP won't be forming government in 2019, nor opposition. Best I see the NDP with is 55-60 seats. Now here's the zinger, in order for the NDP to have a stronger voice in the house with 55-60 seats, the NDP need the conservatives to take away enough seats from the liberals to reduce the liberals to a minority, or the conservatives get a minority.

Close in numbers means that the Liberals and Conservatives may end up with minority positions allowing influence for the NDP. Yes.

But the other impact is that when they run close together, the NDP can gain seats with a lower percentage of the vote.

I think that the NDP, rather than talking about how to run the best campaign they can at this time have to do something else. The NDP has to run a campaign that deserves the votes of Canadians. Not just a bit better than the others but truly deserves the vote. This means significant - life-altering policies, well thought out, realistic but in keeping with values. Not a rush to the centre but a rush to real meaning. Real meaning is not on the far-left fringe either -- it is not radical. It is found by answering the question "what can we do, in keeping with all we stand for, to improve the lives of Canadians and earn their support."

I am very confident that if the NDP does this and puts it out to Canadians with passion and courage the NDP can get enough votes to at least influence policy in this direction in 2019. It is okay to say -- this is what we want to do over time but this is what we can do now-- but that cannot be nothing.

If the Liberals will be the party of big promises and the Conservatives the party of big money let the NDP be the one of big, real solutions. Not small tidy and entirely safe compromises to make Canadians think we are on their side. Real moves to change our society enough that we will not have to tell people we are on their side, they will know it by the things we commit to.

These solutions do not have to come from a fringe or from the far left, they come out of an optimism that our ideas actually can work, a willingness to say what we want and try to achieve it, and a recognition of the scale of what is required built into proposals.

None of this crap like taking the GST off hydro thinking that Canadians only need an extra $100 a year to have their lives transformed. This is the sort of boutique idea that is nice but when it is your centre-piece, you demonstrate that you are out of ideas or courage or both.

Earn the support and then figure out how to bring it home.

WWWTT wrote:

Well Sean in Ottawa it sounds like you are more optimistic of convincing Canadians than I am. I personally believe a big chunk of Canadians are a lost cause and aren’t real dreamers. If they do dream, then they dream about winning the lottery or being famous or having an unrealistic dreamy partner, whatever the corporate media tells them to dream about.  But the best of luck trying. 

I think there is no point thinking about politics in terms of having no faith that your ideals can be popular. Giving them a chance in sound policies is all we can do and I have more faith in that than I do in pretending to stand for little in the hope you can do more.

I don't want to share a party with those who are not optimistic, about the potential and willing to give that a real opportunity. I don't want the NDP to be the party that cares without courage as it often is. Have faith in the value of these ideas and present them well. You are lost if you present someone else's ideas in compromise because you have little faith in your own.

And trust the people. You can have greater success if you do and you show them where you want to go. But you have to think these things out. Half baked ideas -- even ones pointing in the right direction do not deserve to succeed. Those that people had the faith to question and build and answer the variables they need to work, those ideas can get significant support.

SeekingAPoliticalHome wrote:

[

Canada is not immune.  Canada is 10 years behind what is happening in Euorpe.  I will continue post when I get up.

It was no surprise to see Greece and Italy on top of that list of youth looking to revolt.

Canadian youth? Just as docile as older Canadians. I really can't see a huge revolt in Canada in 10 years. Its going to take longer and it's not going to happen soon because young Canadians are mostly like older Canadians politicially. They just cry into their beer,voice frustration where it can't be heard by the establishment and the status quo continues.

There have been student protests,protests against police brutality and there is a very small group of young people committed to Communism.  All this has lead nowhere. If youth want a revolution,it can only be done by ballot. They don't vote. They've got to start.

The people at the doorstep lie the most to a candidate (they don't want to seem rude to someone who is putting their reputation on the line), and lie slightly less to a door-to-door canvasser (they don't want to seem rude to someone engaged in an exercise in futility). They lie the least to an anonymous nobody on the telephone calling the polling lists.

Even so it seems to be more accurate take the tally and double the number of claimed opposition supporters, and divide by two the number claiming to be supporters of your own Party. If you are still ahead after all that, you will probably take the poll.

Singh should be asking Mulcair to stay for the full term or at least another year so he can get some more name recognition, because if Mulcair leaves before the end of the year as he is planning to, the NDP lost Outremont. If the Liberals could win Lac-St. Jean then they'll surely win a traditionally Liberal riding like Outremont.

From debater:

It was smart of the Liberals to run local mayor Richard Hébert as their candidate.

​Presumably Richard Hebert had to agree to run.