How the Conservatives will win their majority
The Ignatieff Liberals have given Stephen Harper and the Conservatives a clear route to a majority government. Here’s how it will happen, unless Harper does something stupid again.
To achieve a majority, Harper needs to win seats in Quebec. He failed to get his majority in the last election, in part, because he alienated Quebec voters who then supported the Bloc.
Only one opposition party's support is needed for Harper to remain in power. Harper can survive as long as he judges necessary with Bloc support in Parliament. Duceppe is a pragmatic leader whose interest is only Quebec. He’ll support whichever party gives Quebec the best deal, as he's always done, and as he's reiterated today (28 January). Conveniently, Harper can improve his electoral fortunes in Quebec and remain in power as long as chooses by appeasing the Bloc with Quebec goodies. Duceppe is very shrewd; he will exploit Harper to Quebec’s advantage in any way he can. Harper who will do anything to remain in power will comply with Duceppe’s Quebec demands.
Harper will not lose his base in the west nor his support in rural Ontario because those right wing voters have nowhere to go. Also, with the deficit genie out of the bottle, and dire economic situation as an excuse, Harper can borrow and spend in whatever ways serve his political ends. That means he can win support in eastern Canada, too.
Unless Harper succumbs to his own worst inclinations, he can win support right across Canada so that in 4 years he can go to people and get his majority mandate. And, there is nothing that the Liberals or the NDP can do to stop him, thanks to Ignatieff.
Unless they do something truly stupid, we can expect that the Conservatives will remain in power for at least the next 8-10 years. If they’re smart, Harper can remain in power for even longer than that.
Progressives will need to rethink how they engage the new order.
You have to watch support for the Bloc among Francophone voters. So long as it remains high, the Bloc has a certain autonomy, and will vote Harper out, for a convincing reason. However, by and large, I agree, the Bloc is Harpers hole card. They will not let Ignatieff determine the election date on his own.
The Conservatives are doing an appraisal of where they went wrong in the last election, and have brought in new faces in Quebec to plan the next campaign. Given voter amnesia, a convincing programme could give bring 10 to 20 seats to the Conservatives in Quebec.
Though Duceppe ran against Harper and produced the result he promised (no Tory majority) he has no stake in helping anyone other than his party. Given a stronger Liberal party he will run against them, or the NDP for that matter.
However, this does not take into consideration the possibility that Gilles Duceppe will be leaving federal politics in the not-too-distant future.
A new Bloc Quebecois leader would have an effect on the way the voters may look on the party they've been voting for since 1993.
That could mean a shift towards the Conservatives (doubtful!); the bleeding of support towards the Liberals and NDP (starting to look that way), or the status quo.
A by-election in LAURIER-STE. MARIE would be interesting to watch.
Are you talking about the new seats for Ontario?
"a Harper majority is a worst case scenario for Duceppe"
Really? I see it the opposite way - a Tory majority would bring in policies that would be such anathema to Quebec that support for sovereignty would sky-rocket and Duceppe might realize his dream of one day being President of the Republic of Quebec.
David, Duceppe is not Lucien Bouchard, the founder of the Bloc. There are some strong contenders to replace him, notably the ex-CSN Secretary-Treasurer Pierre Paquette, should he leave.
Doug, the Conservatives threw away their majority with stupid moves that hurt them in Quebec. Why would they do this again?
Are those the only three options you can suggest? What would you do if you were Stephen Harper? Alienate the Bloc? If so, to what end? What strategies and tactics to you see Harper developing to secure a majority?
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Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -- Voltaire
Why is a Harper majority a worst case scenario for Duceppe? The Bloc will be just fine regardless of who is in 24 Sussex. The Bloc did fine under Chretien, because they have a solid base vote. Also, it's not just about issues, sometimes with politicians it's about their careers and pensions. The worst case for the Bloc, politically but not on the issues, is improved Liberal fortunes.
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Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -- Voltaire
It would have worked had Harper held his tongue on cultural funding. Harper's worst enemy is himself.
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Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -- Voltaire
The Conservatives can make gains in Ontario and BC, at both the Liberals' and NDP's expense.
ETA: and don't forget Edmonton Strathcona.
The year 1958, Duncan, was also important for its preoccupation with pipelines. The Conservatives have done well partly because of the product carried in those pipelines.
But they have also had to depend on Mulroney's free trade accomplishments.
All those things are now entering into speculative ground.
Barts - It seems that answering a question is beyond you. Just as well, given your questionable conjecture so far; the latest as strange as the first:
Why would improved Liberal fortunes be worse than improved Conservative (or even NDP) fortunes for the Bloc?
I can easily support my argument beyond the example of Duceppe's focus last election: the Conservatives are against the vast majority of the values espoused by the Bloc (with the glaring exception of their common wish to cripple the Federal government, for very different reasons).
The opening post has more flaws in it than I care to get into.
But overarching those, and every similar consideration, is that NO ONE has a good chance of getting a majority until the Bloc crumbles to marginality.
Under that condition, there is no combination of feasible strategic moves that can definitively lead to a majority. All the moves may be seperately feasible, but them all bearing fruit in the same election is not likely. [If for no other reason than one of them ends up biting the other in a way that isn't planned by the campaign in question, but is inevitable in the pizza approach to a fractured electorate.]
Not to say that a majority won't happen. It could. But it is not something for which there is a march with certaintude as expressed in the opening post. [Let alone the contradictions there in the suggested strategic moves and assumptions outlined in the opening post.]
Besides.... the reality is that the Harper Crew has to be stopped- but because they are governing, not because they might get a majority.
One of said flaws:
"Base" means core supporters: the people that vote for a party just about no matter what, and who do pretty much see no other option.
But you don't win elections in ridings only by securing your base. You don't take them for granted, and you need them for more than their votes... but you don't win elections with only your base.
What is required is that while doing everything else the Conservatives maintain their vote share in the West and the rural and suburban East. Those people are not all 'base', they are by no means all right wing, and the better chunk of them most do have somewhere else they consider parking their vote.
This is especially true in a LOT of seats in BC where the Cons are in two way races with the NDP, and in the Lower Mainland / Vitoria area where they are in both two ways with the Liberals and 3 way races.
No way the conservatives are heading for a majority...Quebec and Duceppe have both tasted the rotten fish known as the Harper conservatives....and they are not going to fall prey to conservative putridity again.
Unlike the western voter that just blindly votes based on the color of a tie, the eastern voter has a better memory. Albeit the Ontario right wing red neck is a permanent fixture...they will drink the radioactive waters of southern ontario and say..so what we are gullible and stupid...there is no hope for them.
Iggy had his chance and he blew it..he is going to risk it all on a gamble that Canada will be falling apart and that the harper conservatives are unfit to govern. He is right, Canada will fall to pieces during this economic disaster and plenty of conservatives will be getting the biggest kick in the head they ever experienced..so harper is out.
The question is going to be ..do they want another power hungry madman (Iggy) as a leader who is - besides watching a disaster unfold is supporting it, or will they have learnt their lesson standing in the bread lines and begging in the streets..and vote for a more honest Canadian named Jack Layton ? Will Quebecers notice this also and continue to support the Bloc? Each are the real McCoy.
It's all up to the media how and who Canadians support anyways....yes they are simpletons, so anything is really possible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkM5eyN8ytI&feature=user
If they were going to pick them up anywhere, it would be here. I don't consider that highly likely now, but if the Tories were going to get a majority, it's largely in the 905-area seats that would have to happen.
I think the damage has been done. I also don't think there's quite the same appetite for conservative politics in Quebec as there was getting to be a couple of years ago. Look what happened to the ADQ in the last Quebec election.
I think this is true.
The day Ignatieff flopped, Tom Mulcair was on CBC's Politics programme saying that Duceppe would have no reason to co-ooperate with Ignatieff in calling an early election: Duceppe has nothing to gain from an early election. Mulcair predicted Ignatieff would turn 65 and get his pension before the next election -- except that, Mulcair grinned, Ignatieff hasn't worked in Canada long enough to get CPP.
The Bloc got a mandate to stop Harper. But Ignatieff just proved the Liberals are no better. The Liberals have gained in the polls in Quebec recently. They are now the Bloc's main enemy. This should be fun to watch.
They won't be in effect until after the 2011 census, which won't be in time for new Boundaries Commissions in time for the 2012 election. Try 2016.
Thought this was as good of a place as any.
Harper and Flaherty who did so well as FM in Ontario have some splannin to do. Did I say no recession?
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Monday that weak tax revenue and higher government expenses will mean Canada will run a larger deficit than was predicted in his January budget
How did you say you liked your crow? Perhaps with a side of a hundred BILLION dollar deficit. Please tell me why anyone believes these liars are fiscally prudent? He did the same thing in Ontario leaving a giant deficit that the cons tried to blame on the next government. Add to this all the assest they have sold off to cover for part of this mess.
What will they do when they have sold off all the crown assets to their criminal friends for pennies on the dollar? Oh wait I know, spend the government into debt with constructing government buildings to agains sell them off and re-lease them for 99 years at more than it would cost to keep them. Hodl on, I think they are doing that already aren't they. Hmmm.
Oh check out Jim's Smile...nothing says honest like his evangalist "stealling your money" grin. He looks constapated. My old garfield boardgame said "never trust a smiling cat" which is so very true when you live in mouseland.
The Liberals are done, toast, finito, and this is exactly how Harper will ensure his majority, unless.......
Ottawa moves to reshape the House
federal government official said that in the new legislation, "there will be different numbers," ones that should please Ontario voters. The final figure, said an official, would be closer to the 21 seats that a representation-by-population formula would suggest the province is entitled to than the 10 seats offered in the previous bill.
Alberta could be awarded up to six seats and British Columbia up to seven, taking the current Parliament from 308 members to around 340.
Adding so many seats to the Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta totals could transform the political map, potentially putting an end to this decade's chronic run of unstable minority governments.
The Conservatives could be expected to dominate any new Alberta seats, would be favoured in added British Columbia ridings, and would be competitive in many of the new ridings in Ontario, which may be why they are keen on redistribution. Being just 12 seats shy of a majority, they would have the best shot at winning a majority in an enlarged Commons.
Still, the Liberal Party is the party of cities. Apart from their Atlantic redoubt, the party's remaining strength is mostly concentrated in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The new ridings should offer fertile ground for Liberal victories.
But downtowns and older suburbs, where Liberals tend to dominate, are not the locus of population growth. Cities are growing at their edges, as new suburbs replace farmlands. It is no coincidence that Prime Minister Stephen Harper forsook the United Nations earlier this week for an event at Tim Hortons, or that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff spent Thursday in Burlington, in the Golden Horseshoe, decrying what he claimed were the inadequacies of the government's stimulus efforts.
One obvious loser in any parliamentary reform would be the Bloc Québécois, which seems to be in permanent possession of about 50 seats, delivered by Quebec voters who prefer to have a sovereigntist voice representing them in the House of Commons.
But the province isn't growing, and may even be on the cusp of population decline. Expanding the size of the House of Commons would weaken the influence of Quebec's voice in Parliament and the Bloc along with it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-moves-to-reshape-the...
According to figures in the Globe today Alberta, BC and Ontario would gain 6, 7 and 21 seats respectively. That would give each of them an average of about 90,000 people per riding.
Quebec would remain at 75 seats, an average of 96,000 per riding. On these figures shouldn';t Quebec be getting about 7 new seats instead of none?
http://www.canada.com/news/Tories+risking+Quebec+with+proposed+Commons+s...
Harper will get a majority next time. he does not need Quebec. he will pick up one seat in Alberta, a couple in BC and probably 15-20 in Ontario. He may lose afew seats in Quebec but he does not need Quebec.
It will be the end of Canada as we know it when that monster psychopath gets a majority.
He won't get his majority way things are going, but this blatant attempt at gerrymandering should be challenged anyhow. Quebec should be for more seats too, as are more purely urban centres.