What if Canada had UK type parties

So what would our electoral map look like?  What would be Labour, LibDem and Tory seats in a "Westminster" type scenario?

I think Kingston and Guelph would be LibDem seats.  Don Valley West would definitely be Tory, not sure about St. Paul's.

I fear that Alberta would produce a number of BNP seats... so much fear, better leave a night light on.

We'd have a national housing plan today with British Labour running things in the colonial outpost of Ottawa.

Naw; UKIP makes a better Wildrose Alliance proxy than BNP.

Within Toronto...

Beaches-East York: Labour bedrock.

Davenport: Labour for eons.

Don Valley East: Tory pre 97; Labour post 97 (but a possible 05 close call)

Don Valley West: Tory (w/Lib Dem chief competitor)

Eglinton-Lawrence: Maybe a couple of Thatcherite terms, but mainly Labour

Etobicoke Centre: Tory (though possibly went New Labour in 97)

Etobicoke Lakeshore: Tory pre 97; Labour post 97.

Etobicoke North: might have elected a Tory in the 80s, but now solid Labour (maybe even w/Lib Dem surpassing Tory in 05)

Parkdale-High Park: Tory-competitive into Thatcher years, but now Labour, albeit with a Lib Dem scare in 05

Pickering-Scarborough East: Tory pre 97; Labour post 97

St Paul's: Tory pre 97; Labour post 97 (and Lib Dem 2nd in 05)

Scarborough-Agincourt: Labour (though with a Thatcherite term or two)

Scarborough Centre: Labour (though with a Thatcherite term or two)

Scarborough-Guildwood: Labour (maybe with an extra Thatcherite term)

Scarborough-Rouge River: Labour

Scarborough Southwest: Labour

Toronto Centre: Labour, w/Lib Dem 2nd in 05

Toronto Danforth: Labour bedrock, w/Lib Dem 2nd in 05

Trinity-Spadina: Labour, but w/Lib Dem scare in 05

Willowdale: Tory pre 97, Labour post 97; maybe Tory scare in 05

York Centre: Labour, but a Tory near-shocker in 05

York South-Weston: solid Labour

York West: solid Labour

Impressive, adma.

I should say there was something kind of "LibDem"-ish about the Green Shift, which would have made for interesting results in ridings like Trinity-Spadina.

But besides the whole "who is the default federalist option in Westmount and Mount Royal question", there is the challenge of Prairie populism.  UK just doesn't have an equivalent.

"UK-type parties"?

You mean with cucumber sandwiches and croquet and all that?

Would you vote for a politician who offered cucumber sandwiches and croquet for all?

There'd be some seats like that in Quebec as well...and probably parts of Ontario...maybe also the areas of New Brunswick that voted

CoR.

B.C. would be a dead-even Tory/Labour split.

Scott Brison's riding I assume would be the token rural LibDem seat, maybe Central Nova as well.

A better question might be "What if Canada's parliament were elected like the UK elects its Euro-MP's-with regional lists?"

Newfoundland would be a Labour stronghold.

Probably Nova Scotia as well.

Yeah pretty much, though definitely excluding Cumberland-Colchester, Kings-Hants and West Nova.

I'm not sure exactly who the LibDems appeal to - they seem to be something like the Canadian Greens aspire to be.

In Ontario, I think Kingston and the Islands, London North and Guelph would be the most likely Lib Dem prospects.

Hamilton, Windsor (including Essex), Welland and all of the north (assuming one excludes Parry Sound from the north) would be Labour strongholds, and Oshawa, Kitchener and St. Catharines would be Labour as well.

Rural Eastern, Central and Southwestern Ontario would all be Tory of course, though is there any scenarios of rural/frontier seats shifting rightward in the UK since the days of Thatcher (akin to Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke)?  Oakville, Mississauga South and Burlington would never have abandoned the Tories either.  As for the 905 belt - Brampton, Malton and Mississauga East-Cooksville would be Labour and most of the rest Tory.

I'm anti-cucumber sandwich but pro-croquet. I think my vote would depend on the quality of tea and pastries they promised to provide.

I agree. This is kind of a hard thing to play with, but I'm bored too so I'll make a guess about BC. Let's assume marginal seats are won by 10 points or less in the last election, leaning seats 10-15 points, strong 15-25 and anything over 25 points can be considered safe.

So let's say this about BC:

Vancouver Island North - Leaning/Strong Labour. A few Tory terms during the 80s though.

Nanimo Alberni - Marginal Labour. Used to be more Labour friendly but trending towards tories as it becomes a popular retirement community.

Nanimo Cowichan -  Strong/Safe Labour.

Esquimalt Juan De Fuca - Strong/Leaning Labour. A few Tory terms in the 80s, potential pick up if Tories win majority in 2010.

Victoria - Strong/Leaning Labour. Lib Dems 2nd, targeting in 2010.

Saanich Gulf Islands - Marginal Tory. Labour between 1997 and 2005. Lib Dems edge Labour for 2nd and target for 2010.

Burnaby-Douglas - Strong/Safe Labour - Lib Dems 2nd.

Burnaby-New Westminster - Safe/Strong Labour.

New Westminster-Coquitlam - Strong Labour - 1 Tory term from 1983-1987.

North Vancouver - Marginal Tory, Lib Dems 2nd. Lib Dem held from 1997-2005; re-targetting for 2010.

Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam - Marginal Tory, Labour Marginal from 1997-2005.

Vancouver Centre - Leaning Labour, Tory and Lib Dem target in 2010 in one of the few three-way races in the province.

Vancouver East - Marginal RESPECT if Canada went into Iraq otherwise traditionally Safe Labour. If Canada went into Iraq, Labour target in 2010.

Vancouver Quadra - Leaning Lib Dem, traditional Tory seat pre-1997. Tory target in 2010.

Vancouver South - Marginal Labour, traditional Tory seat pre-1997. Tory target in 2010.

West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country - Marginal Lib Dem, Labour 1997-2001, Tory pre-1997. Tory target in 2010.

Abbotsford - Safe Tory. Period, best non-Tory show pushed it to Strong Tory in 1997 and 2001.

Chilliwack Fraser Canyon - Safe Tory. See above.

Delta-Richmond East - Traditional Tory seat, Leaning Tory now. Marginal Labour from 1997 to 2005.

Fleetwood-Port Kells - Leaning Labour, Tory target in 2010.

Langley - Strong/Safe Tory, Marginal Labour from 1997 to 2001.

Newton-North Delta - Leaning Labour, Tory target in 2010.

Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission - Marginal Labour, Tory target in 2010.

Richmond - Leaning Tory, Marginal Labour from 1997 to 2005.

South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale - Leaning/Strong Tory, Lib Dems 2nd.

Surrey North - Strong/Safe Labour, battle for 2nd.

British Columbia Southern Interior - Safe Labour. Lib Dems edge out Tories for 2nd.

Cariboo-Prince George - Marginal Labour, Tory target in 2010.

Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo - Leaning Labour, Tory target in 2010. Only seat in the interior where the Lib Dems are (relatively) competitive.

Kelowna-Lake Country - Strong Tory, feint Lib Dem hopes in 1997; though they still tend to finish ahead of Labour.

Kootenay-Columbia - Leaning Labour, Tory target in 2010. Despite the Conservative margin federally, has strong labour union base, and most of the provincial ridings are NDP, justifying my decision in this scenario.

Okangan-Coquihalla - Safe/Strong Tory. Labour and Lib Dems battle it out for 2nd.

Okangan-Shushwap - Leaning Tory, Labour from 1997-2005.

Prince George-Peace River - Leaning Tory, Labour from 1997-2005.

Skeena Bulkley Valley - Strong Labour, traditionally Safe Labour though.

Its a bit tricky to super-impose British parties onto Canada. In theory, Labour = the NDP, LibDems = Liberals and Tories = Tories. In practice its a bit different because the Labour Party is big and the LibDems are small - the reverse of the relative positions of the analogous parties in Canada.

My understanding is that the LibDems seem to attract the following types of people: people in wealthy and rural ridings who don't want to vote Tory - but who have a genetic aversion to voting Labour because its the party of the lower classes, a lot of teachers and middle class social liberals, electoral reform wonks, more recently Labour voters who want to register a protest at their party but have a genetic aversion to ever voting Tory and don't want to waste their vote on a fringe party, plus people in selected ridings (especially in Celtic fringe areas) who have LibDem MPs who are very personally popular and who people vote for for that reason alone. Plus they have a vestigial area of regional strength on Cornwall and the southwest of England.

In some ways, the Lib Dems are who the Liberals become in canada when they become a third party in some Canadian provinces like Manitoba for example.

After Blair, Labour has become quite Right-wing, probably even to the right of the grits. Or with Iggy, probably the same. Labour would only equal NDP pre 1994.

Also I disagree with the whole Wildose as UKIP. While it is a small c conservative party, its raision d'etre is opposition to the EU. And while Alberta is pretty rightwing, it's not BNP, I mean  Reform elected folks like Deepak Obhrai and the now disgraced Rahim Jaffer, who would not be allowed to join the BNP, cause its whites only. As much as I hate the Tories I wouldn't stoop to comparing them to those awful racists. The British Tories have many factions, while Dave Cameron is broading the parties appeal with his Notting Hill set of social liberalism, there are plenty of Thatcherites and libertarian and good old fashioned social conservatives in the Tory party. IMO Alberta awash in Tory Blue. With some of Edmonton being marginal Tory/lab swing.

As someone who has lived in both systems, I'd have to say that the nearest equivalents are as follows:

Labour: Liberals (dumped any ideological baggage long ago, will do anything to appear popular, packed with opportunistic careerists,  bends over backwards for business)

Tories: Tories (has ideological baggage and loves it, but doesn't want to appear too hardcore; will do unmentionable acts for business)

Lib Dems: NDP (both have a social democratic element, although it's stronger in the NDP and there is more than a little bit of 'Old Labour' with the Dippers, something I'm all in favour of)

SNP: BQ (the SNP dreams of flexing the kind of muscle the BQ has, and has been aping a number of things the PQ have done)

And I would have to say the Green parties in the UK (devolution taken to the extreme in their cases) would recoil in horror at some of the free-market aspects of the GPC.

To answer the opening post question -- then we would be too drunk to care about the result of the election.

Interesting question. LP mentioned the challenge of finding a parallel with prarie populism. There's also the presence of rural, resource based ridings in Canada that don't really have an equivalent, though they might be assumed to be Labour turf. UK Tories seem to win solidly in the small towns and rural, agricultural areas, perhaps a bit like the Ontario Conservatives (actually, I suspect Ontario would be the closest comparison, but then again I'm not Ontarian). I'm also not really sure there's the same level of regionalism in the UK, even though the north and the south of England trend in different directions.

That said, overall, I don't think you'd see that much difference. The Conservatives would hold much the same same turf, while NDP and most Liberal seats would go Labour, leaving a handful of Liberal seats in Liberal Democrat hands (either for peculiar local reasons, or because the riding is basically too wealthy to go Labour, but too progressive to go Tory).

PS. I like Vansterdam's list of BC Ridings. Just a few comments. I see Van-Quadra as a Lib-Dem seat, like several UK seats containing sizeable universities. Okanagan-Shuswap would probably see the strongest showing for Labour in the valley, but it's still the Okanagan, and that kind of rural seat is Tory bread and butter. Prince George-Peace River is perma-Tory. Maybe a few other minor differences of opinion, but mainly differences of degree.

As are many people in the UK.

What if Minnesota had Canadian parties is a much easier question.

Which again, seems to be something like the Canadian Greens aspire to be.

Maybe rural Nova Scotia would elect some Lib Dems.

I'd have to dispute that one.  West Van would be a total Tory stronghold.

Saanich-Gulf Islands I think would be more likely to go LibDem.

I'm waiting for them to try to make Gaelic the official language of business in Scotland. That would be an amusing day.

I know you were kidding, but Gaelic* is nowhere nearly widely as spoken as Quebec French is in Quebec. Use Gaelic anywhere outside of the Western Isles, and you're pretty much guaranteed blank looks. Scots (a language that has a fraternal relationship with English), now, you might well have a case. If there was a language made for feisty, fruity disputatiousness (which Holyrood has no shortage of) Scots is it.

*The Scots version is pronounced 'Gallic', the Irish 'Gaelic'. I was told this in no uncertain terms when I worked at a Scottish literary magazine.

Or more to the point, I can see PEI with an all-Lib Dem slate.

Oh, and re the BNP, I can see them having more strength in an Oshawa-type seat than in Alberta.

And thinking further re Toronto Centre: I can see it with SDP representation in the 1980s...

What if Canada had Chinese-style parties is even easier.

Canada does have lots of Chinese takeout.  Is that the same thing?

Ever been to Red Deer?

I'm not suggesting the BNP equivalent would take the whole province, but outside of Calgary and Edmonton, I can picture them taking a seat or two. It might be unfair to pick on Red Deer in particular, but a win there would not shock me -- there is a lot of crazieness that takes place under the "Con" tent flaps.

Ha, awesome Doug.

Anyways, though I'm a polisci nerd, I'm not seriously wedded to any of this even though I do feel a bizarre need to justify my choices more. So anyone who questions them, prepare to get crushed should you dare disagree with my wisdom. J/K, but seriously, I'll explain why I choose the way I did more so if you ask. All that being said, don't think I'm too wedded to these choices or anything.

Thanks. Just so it's clear though, whatever I list first is who currently "holds" the seat and how much they won in by in the last election (which is 2005 and imposes as much of the UK political environment on Canada as is possible, while replicating Canada's political culture). So I'm saying that Van-Quadra is a Lib Dem seat now that they won by a marginal margin in 2005. As for the last two I just picked them as having been Labour from 1997 to 2005 because the NDP has won them before (1988 federally and the composite parts in the 1991 provincial election) or came close to winning them in the same elections, so I thought a stronger party ala Labour in 1997 and 2001 would've gone over the top there. It's also connected to the way that Labour won a lot of traditional Tory seats in those UK elections that no one would've expected them to win normally, but they managed to do so in 1997.

I just think that the West Van would be more competitive and hard to choose because of the economic diversity in the riding. In Canada the Conservatives have strength throughout the riding, which is probably bolstered the weaker the Liberals get, so I could see your reasoning. Otoh, people in places like Whistler and West Vancouver despite being open to voting Conservative, also don't necessarily want to be tagged as red necks so they're also open to the Greens and Liberals who occupy somewhat of the same niche as the Lib Dems in a riding like this. At the same time obviously Whistler and West Van are dead zones to even social democratic in name only parties like Labour, let alone the NDP. On the other hand this riding also includes Squamish, Powell River and the Sunshine Coast, all of which are more NDP/Green friendly in Canada so they'd be more Labour and Lib Dem friendly too.

As for Saanich-Gulf Islands, that one is tough to gage. Its very idiosyncratic with the Exurban/Suburban demographic, which is more Lib Dem and Tory, the Gulf Island Hippies and provincial government workers who may live in both places and commute to Victoria who are more Labour and Lib Dem friendly.

I've noticed that I left Vancouver-Kingsway out of this list. I'd rate it as a Leaning/Strong Labour seat that used to be a Safe Labour seat. It would be the sort of seat the Tories would love to win, and with a large right-leaning Chinese-Canadian population it's not an unreasonable target, but I couldn't imagine it going Tory especially in this scenario with an even stronger left(ish) party like Labour.

I don't know that I'd go that far. That being said, mentioning Red Deer and immigrants reminds me of a trip I once took through Alberta with my graduating class. My high school was very Asian, so obviously my classmates on the trip reflected those demographics. Anyways, the looks on people's faces when we got off the tour buses in Red Deer at some strip mall that I can't remember the name of. Holy fuck, you could almost see their mouths drop to the pavement.

But there, we run into the limitations of translating the British electoral model wholesale into Canada.  In which case, if one were to translate it into the USA, we might as well be looking at something verging on a BNP plurality (yes, even with seats in Minnesota, as per the link earlier in this thread).

Generally when it comes to Alberta, I think a French model might translate better, i.e. akin to wherever the conservatives and Lepenistes tended to advance to the second round of voting in the 90s and early 00s...

I think Whistler is Liberal/Green while West Van is a Tory bastion.  And I would guess Canadian Conservatives (and the US GOP) are considered more "vulgar" than the British Tories, who I don't think have seen nearly as much upper crust leakage. 

I would say it's strongly Tory for the same reasons Don Valley West and Oakville are (in this entirely hypothetical situation, of course).

What if Bananada was a real G8 and not the northern colony that it is? Wouldn't that be something.

Maybe it's a measure of the 416, but I'm even wondering whether Don Valley West would qualify as Tory anymore, or whether it would have gone Lib Dem a la Sheffield Hallam by now.

And back to the BNP issue: one must remember that compared to a lot of European nativist/nationalist parties, the BNP's pretty ragtag, in the "yobbos, hooligans, and blue-collar louts" sense, so don't put them on too much of a pedestal--my feeling is, their Canadian highwater mark is more likely to be something like their prevailing in a three-way race for a distant-enough second in Etobicoke North...

I was doing a bit of thinking and going over the thread.With all of tge references to such things as Prarire populism and regional variation not found in a place the UK I was thinking maybe it was the wrong country to compare us politically to. Maybe another country with British heritage and a Westminister style parliament, and it's a federation to boot. What if canada had AUSTRALIAN political parties. Especially considering the (Aus) Liberal/National parties as analogous to our PC/Reform split in the 1990s. Just a thought.

Australia, with its clean left/right split, is almost *too* easy.

Though while the Wildrose Alta = BNP metaphor seems farfetched, the notion of Jim Pankiw leading a Pauline Hanson-type populist party is extraordinarily plausible...

I think Pankiw has Hanson beat on the unhinged front, although both are equally slimy. Someone who insults the media at his own press conference, and refuses to confirm if he's sober is clearly unable to take control of himself, never mind lead anyone else. And taking him on would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Hanson is emigrating, by the way. Got to love that. And to the UK of all places. I shudder to think if her and Nick Griffin get chummy.

I think it would be Tory.  It's the wealthiest riding in Canada and class voting is more pronounced in the UK model.

Let alone what sort of creatures might appear if they mated.

Uggh I think I barfed a bit in my mouth.

Looks like we're got a Canadian version of that scenario now, save the York West, Etobicoke North, Agincourt, etc. holdouts.

And I think Brits are generally averse to signing away their right to make national energy policy, environmental, labour and other important rights nornally associated with nationhood, like our corrupt stooges did with CUSFTA and NAFTA. If the 1988 and 93 elections were referenda on FTA and NAFTA, then those shady agreements would be even more illegitimate than they are today.

The U,K. is still a real G8 with national energy and housing programs, whereas Canada is a northern colony existing merely to export raw materials and energy to corporate America, and to contribute what personal savings we have to a big six banking monopoly who in turn use our savings to finance foreign takeovers of our stuff.

The hardest thing with this exercise is that Quebec is part of the greater imperial formation of Canada, and the UK is a part of the greater imperial formation of the EU. This, I believe, is the main reason a parallel between the UK and Canadian parties is difficult. The UK is a dense and predominantly unilingual European State. Canada is an authoritarian imperialist reaction against the American Revolution, and like America sprawls over several time zones. Formerly a colony, Canada is now a full imperialist country in its own right. Canada has gone from being a colony to being an imperialist power, and Britain has gone from being THE imperialist power to being AN imperialist power.

The Brits have actually signed away some of their sovereignity to the EU. These changes are mostly objected to by Tories and Eurosceptics, especially the Human Rights Act which the EU required that Britain pass. UK Home Secretary and ConservaTroll heartthrob Theresa May is playing politics with this issue, trying to stir up xenophobia in paleoTory ranks, while blaming a cat for the Human Rights Act. Already Tory bootlickers are dampening Mrs. May's footwear, considering her to be 'leadership material'. It seems we have a new Mrs. Thatcher waiting in the wings. It looks like the other cabinet minister who called May out for her disingenuity and specious argumentation over said catflap is on his way out the door. All you have to do to get David "Flashman" Cameron to agree to your misanthropic ConservaTrolling is say to pretty please.

Economically, High Street Britain is just as much a slave of the City of London and Wall St. as is Main St. USA or Queen St. Canada. It is just that Britain has a long and ignomious history of imperialism. The Anglosphere imperialist power is a double-headed beast of Wall St. and the City, both approximately equal in size. THIS Is what rules us. Not an entity called 'USA' or 'UK' or 'G8' or whatever. By all accounts, the disadvantaged classes of Britons no longer benefit from imperialism, and are just as Puerto-Ricoized as the rest of us. For those lucky enough, it is a shit job at shit pay. For the rest, a few quid a week on the dole, and maybe a tiny smidgeon of labour aristocracy on the side (Like here and the US, union membership has fallen dramatically in the UK, as usual with the collusion of the union bureaucracy whose salaries are untouched). For the average person with nothing, it is just like here. Actually, maybe even a little worse. Canada is relatively new to the imperialist game. Outward Foreign Direct Investment exceeded inward FDI only in 2003 or so, which is about time we started beefing up our military and started participating in foreign military adventures as a combattant. No matter what the countries known as 'Canada', 'USA', and 'UK' do militarily, if we are not millionaires and billioniares, we are just a bunch of colonized peasants anyway. Under neoliberalism, there are no more preferred working classes. Obama will bomb his own citizens just as quickly as those of other states. Labour competetiveness with China is the important thing now, if we are to listen to our own union leaders. Don't let the UK's glorious imperialist past, with a stroppy faux-socialist labour union movement featherbedded by slave labour in the colonies, be confused to the situation today. Major austerity is coming, and it will take the combined might of the Tory Party, the Lib-Dems, Labour, the Union movement (and the Socialist Workers Party) in the UK to keep the lid from blowing off.

Thus Britain has nationalist leanings in the two main parties opposed to the EU, which would be similar if anything to the sovereignist/BQ/PQ position in Quebec wrt the rest of Canada. Leftists oppose the EU on the basis it is a neoliberal organization and Rightists consider it to be the EUSSR. As we can see from China, both are right. Neoliberalism and Stalinism are hand and glove, and provide considerable political infighting for cover.

Scotland is being written off as there is only one Tory seat there anyway. Ironically similar to Quebec in that respect I suppose. Call Me Dave "The Chameleon" Cameron has tried to build a Wet (Thatcherite for Progressive Conservative) wing of the UK Tories, and he has even described himself as a PC. This had some success with Blairites in the May 2010 election (along with Gordon Brown turning into a turd sandwich). As you will find here, there will also be Technocratic Libertarians, a smattering of staunch monarchist reactionaries, socons (who are a bit more muted in the UK than Canada or the US), and various other reactionary little-England paleo-Tories and assorted cranks who organize well. Farmers are almost unanimously Tory in the UK, not so much in Canada where they have been famously NDP (and Liberal in SW Ontario).

The Lib-Dems are way more interventionist than the Canadian Liberal Party could ever be. Probably that is because Britain is more authoritarian than Canada is. However, as we see, they are just as likely to jump into bed with the Tories. The Lib-Dems are a coalition of paleoLiberals and a Social Democratic splitoff from Labour, so will be slightly more politically advanced than the LPC. The LPC uses the Left, but only lip service is changed by it. Like Labour, the NDP will be useful in stifling popular protest and revolutionary movements in collusion with union bureaucracies and the ruling class, especially when the going gets tough.

Occupy Bay St.? Occupy The City? Pass it on.

Oh and the Brit National Energy policy is world prices plus extortionate taxes, and the housing situation there is dismal. Go over there and see how the average person lives, and you will kiss the ground when you come back, whether you live in an apartment or a house.

For those of you interested in British politics, here's a Google Map of London overlaid with the Westminster Constituency boundaries.

Yup, and the Liberals are a basically a party of Atlantic Canada, university towns like Guelph and Kingston, socially liberal urban professionals (St. Paul's, Westmount, Quadra, etc.) and a few residual holdouts.  

Y'know, if the Liberals were REALLY serious about either merger or "tactical voting", they could pull their candidates next time in every Federal riding they don't currently hold-in exchange for the NDP pulling theirs in every remaining Liberal riding.

You'd accept that THAT was a fair deal, wouldn't you, Debater?

Certainly there'd be no reason for Liberals to nominate any candidates against sitting Dippers, right?

When the Liberals get wiped off the map in Newfoundland in the provincial election on Tuesday it will be a sign that their Atlantic base is vanishing too.

Hey, at least they have Prince Edward Island!

Why does that suddenly give me this image of Rick Blaine and Anne of Avonlea saying farewell at the Casablanca airport?