New CTV/Strategic Counsel, hot out of Lloyd Robertson's mouth:
Quebec:
Bloc 49%
Lib 23% (down 7%)
Con 16%
I recall posting here way back when (pointing out facetiously) Strategic Counsel's Quebec sub-sample showing the Greens in the lead in Quebec at 26%! In that same vein, a 49% BQ lead in Quebec is just as doubtful.
I'm hard pressed to name a single federal Liberal seat that could be called "agricultural" apart from a few in PEI and maybe Scott Brison's seat in Nova Scotia. In Ontario the Liberals are now almost entirely a GTA party - at least the NDP has the north.
I'm pretty sure every heavily agricultural riding in Ontario went to the Conservatives after the merger.
WAscana is the most urban seat in Saskatchewan, over 90% of the voters there are in Regina - FWIW the Tories always sweep the polls in the small rural part of the riding.
My only point is that there is a mega phenomenon throughout the industrialized world that goes back a long way which is that rural people tend to vote overwhelmingly for rightwing parties. Its not some uniquely Canadian phenomemon and its certainly not a uniquely NDP phenomenon.
I notice we just renominated Ryan Dolby in Elgin-Middlesex, who was one of the CAW activists from St. Thomas, and Taras Natyshak is running again in Essex riding.
That's good news. I know Taras better, and have been very impressed with him.
The Bloc at 12% nationally? That's unlikely.
How accurate are polls conducted during a long weekend anyway?
Well, humour me a little then and tell me if it's wholely unproductive for the NDP to have something substantial to say to at least a subset of farmers ... say smaller non-corporate-owned farms, including organic farmers and others trying to serve local markets. Paul Dewar, for example, has been doing a lot of work in advocating locally-grown farmers' markets and talking about the security and quality of the food supply. There's the whole slow-food movement, questions of genetically-modified seeds and Monsanto patents, income security for farmers (help me here, I'm struggling, BA ...), rural broadband ...
I notice we just renominated Ryan Dolby in Elgin-Middlesex, who was one of the CAW activists from St. Thomas, and Taras Natyshak is running again in Essex riding.
That's good news. I know Taras better, and have been very impressed with him.
Layton has been into Essex a couple of times since the last election from my reading of the regional papers. And Susan Whelan is not running again (it's the mayor of Amhertsburg now for the Libs).
Hardly struggling!
There are a great number of issues that intersect at the corners of Food, Corporate Domination, Health and the Environemnt that can and should be addressed more fully by the NDP that would appeal to rural and small town folks as well as many others.
In the past though the NDP platform has consisted of essentially a recomendation that everyone should just be organic and magically all problems will be solved, next issue. Speaking as an organic, local direct marketing farmer I can say that is both silly and misses a huge number of issues.
Then there is health care, access to government services, transportation issues and so on that play out differently outside the dowtown cores of major cities.
The NDP seems to be highly successful at winning the votes of people in remote ridings with lost of small towns. In fact some of the least densely populated ridings in Canada have NDP MPs, like Western Arctic, Skeena-Bulkley Valley, BC Southern Interior, Churchill, Timmins-James Bay etc...so obviously the NDP seems to be good at addressing the issues of lots of people who live far, far, far away from "downtown cores of major cities". In other words, its not an urban/rural probem per se, since the NDP does well in certain types of rural seats. Maybe someone would like to explain why someone in Middlesex county might see the NDP as being too urban, but people in Kapuskasing dont seem to have that misconception at all?
New CTV/Strategic Counsel, hot out of Lloyd Robertson's mouth:
Quebec:
Bloc 49%
Lib 23% (down 7%)
Con 16%
I recall posting here way back when (pointing out facetiously) Strategic Counsel's Quebec sub-sample showing the Greens in the lead in Quebec at 26%! In that same vein, a 49% BQ lead in Quebec is just as doubtful.
How can they even put out a poll like that? It doesn't look like it has any credibility. None of the Quebec polls this summer have had the BQ even near 40%, let alone 49%. I almost wonder if The Strategic Counsel is trying to discourage an election by inflating the BQ numbers. Why would there be a massive BQ surge all of a sudden that is 11 points higher than what they got on election day?
Here is a good blog posting about how things are shaping up in Quebec according to REAL polls.
"If some pundits are to be believed, Quebec is crucial to Liberal hopes. Quebec public opinion exists in a world apart from the rest of the country. In national polls, however, it is but one region. So it makes sense to pay close attention to the Quebec polling companies, which conduct large sample surveys just in Quebec. The two most prominent are Léger and CROP, both of whom have had recent polls, Leger in September, CROP in August .
I have developed a new seat model that takes into account language preference in Quebec. However, one tends only to get a linguistic breakdown in large sample Quebec polls. I have combined the two polls (I had to infer the Anglophone vote in the Léger poll which has not put details in the web yet) and used my new linguistic model to get the following outcome:
BQ - 42
Libs - 24
Cons - 7
NDP - 2
Lysiane Gagnon argues in the column linked to above that the Liberals think they can win as many as 12 more seats than their current 14. This calculation would bring them up 10 seats.
However, the Bloc would remain the dominant party and Liberal gains here would not be decisive in determining the overall outcome.
The Conservatives at the moment have just enough support to hold most but not all their Quebec seats, while the NDP appears to be slipping under the radar and at the moment would do better than expected here."
Apart from the bizarre CTV poll tonight, the other thing I noticed was how bad the quality of Robert Fife's reporting was. Did anyone else notice that he said the NDP won 32 seats in the last election? Someone needs to tell him it was 37. He can't even get simple numbers right.
The NDP seems to be highly successful at winning the votes of people in remote ridings with lost of small towns... Skeena-Bulkley Valley, BC Southern Interior...so obviously the NDP seems to be good at addressing the issues of lots of people who live far, far, far away from "downtown cores of major cities".
Firstly, the Libs are in a relative dead zone in BC's interior. As for the BC Southern Interior riding, the less populated western half is a Con zone, that is the Similkameen and southern Okanagan Valleys heading eastward into Boundary Country until one reaches Grand Forks.
The eastern half of the riding is a unique NDP "bio-zone". That is, many eclectic bohemian types inhabit Nelson and the surrounding locale. Additionally, the NDP represents the "populist" choice in the riding. Great NDP demographics! Compare BC Southern Interior to neighbouring Kootenay-Columbia whereby the Cons sweep the riding. Not many bohemian types and alot of Albertan influence therein. The Cons even sweep the unionized coal-mining Elk Valley in that riding.
As for Skeena Bulkley Valley, the Cons do very well in Bulkley Valley heading westward and into Terrace. The NDP does extremely well with the heavy First Nations vote as well as unionized Kitimat and Prince Rupert on the west coast.
FWIW, the BC union vote goes largely Con in BC's interior, while it goes largely NDP on the coast. Go figure!
Fife gets a story to air quickly. Occasionally a few details fall through the cracks in the process. He's no better or worse than the CBC parliamentary bureau in the facts department, and is faster on the news breaking aspect.
Stockholm, thanks for the link to TCNorris. It seems like the blogger has some familiarity with the polling business.
I think it's unacceptable to make those sort of basic mistakes on national television and not even get your numbers right. Fife also seems to make some assumptions about the NDP's financial situation and implies that Layton wants to extend a lifeline to Harper. How do you feel about that?
Click the video called: "CTV News: Robert Fife on the battle for support 1:38" and see what you think.
And perhaps look at Oxford again. Oxford isn't a hotbed of NDP activity but we did elect an NDP MLA when Bob Rae formed government in Ontario. Besides, Woodstock now has a huge Toyota plant and the city is rapidly changing from a rural agricultural base to auto and auto parts manufacturing.
It's not so much the 1990 Rae win I'd be looking at as the fact that NDP was just a titch behind Liberal for 2nd place in 2008...
Ummm ok.....
Iggy must stop. That poll out tonight=doom. 35-30?? Wow!
Writ drop now=insanity
Now the question to me is: Why will Harper give the BQ and or NDP anything? With this kind of lead in the polls, if I were Harper, I'd tell the opposition vote for my agenda in full or it's off to the polls we go. Iggy made the only choice he could make. Propping up the cons was no longer palatable but I don't think it's going to matter that much anyway.
The question I have is: WHY are the Canadian people so enamoured with this thug? Or at least enough of them to give him a solid plularity in 3 elections anyway.
My thiinking last week was fatally flawed and ill-thiought out to say the least. What has actually happened is that Iggy's threat to force an election has driven people into the arms of Harper.
Ignatieff is now in the last 3-4 months of his ill-fated leadership.
I think it's unacceptable to make those sort of basic mistakes on national television and not even get your numbers right. Fife also seems to make some assumptions about the NDP's financial situation and implies that Layton wants to extend a lifeline to Harper. How do you feel about that?
Click the video called: "CTV News: Robert Fife on the battle for support 1:38" and see what you think.
OK, it wasn't even as bad as I thought, based on your commentary. Fife did not actually say the NDP won 37 seats in the last election; he claimed the NDP would not win as many as 32 seats this time based on the Strategic Counsel numbers. Probably a slip of the tongue on live-to-tape that they didn't think it was worth retaping to correct. It was not even one of his spinniest anti-NDP performances either; quite even-handed I thought (well, for CTV).
The NDP did have a down first quarter in fundraising, but the second quarter was in line with previous years, and (speaking from personal experience), they've stepped up their fundraising emails again in the third quarter. Nothing like election fever to get things going again. If you look at previous years, they've bounced back from a low quarter in the past.
I think the Liberal spin machine has been pushing the "NDP is in debt and needs cash" line pretty hard ... sort of as payback for them having to fight that conception themselves for the past few years. Fact is, as KenS has pointed out numerous times, the NDP runs a much more frugal operation than the Liberals do with their Federal Liberal Agency plus the layer of Provincial Territorial Associations (PTAs). And they have the collateral from their building, and have already secured a commitment from their banker for another line of credit to finance a full-strength campaign. Would they like more cash? Hey who wouldn't? Will it stop them from taking advantage of strategic openings that present themselves? Highly unlikely.
What I'm starting to find comical is the amount of energy the Liberals are prepared to expend right now crapping on the NDP. You know, the 4th-place party in Parliament. If we're so irrelevant, why are Warren Kinsella and his ilk spending so much effort dissing us (and in such a school ground way)? I think it's back to Donolo, who repeated again today that the Liberals need the NDP below 10%. Why, he wants that to happen so much, just look at his own crazy poll numbers ....
Can you see Layton as Prime Minister? Or better yet can Layton see himself as the next leader of this Canada?
I can't and neither does Layton. The poles mean nothing until the election goes full swing and the Oppostion comes out fighting and Harper is held accountable for his time in office. As Harper has been campaining all along as attacks on Iggy have been endless and here the Liberals have only dropped a few points in the poles. Now its Harper's turn.
Will Iggy be the next Prime Minister of Canada?
Yes.
As what's the first thing out of citizens mouth when greeting the Liberal leader here in Vancouver on pending news of election? What can Iggy do about Harper's much hated HST citizens holding their sign all want to know as 85% of the population are extremely unhappy with HST and Toronto is no better.
Except Toronto citizens were not lied to and were given a couple thousand up front because of HST while citizens in BC their pockets are left empty while their cupboards are left bare.
Oh yes, that was one pole as another reads the Libs and Cons are tied and the Liberals, NDP or Bloc who says he is in it for Quebec while NDP and Liberals say its Canada and have not yet begun to campaign as we have already heard what the Cons have had to say.
Who is T.C. Norris? I have read his blog for several years and have always found him very inciteful and accurate.
Unfortunately he only updates his blog sporadically but that serves to keep the quality high.
My babble - yes I see Layton as PM. That's my short answer.
As for the hST, well optically it's best if the NDP comes out against, as it is a liberal/con (red conservatives/blue conservatives) who are rolling this out. It's all about the brand.
Anyway, I don't put store in the libs doing anything about the HST, if elected into office. GST, remember, promise is a promise to be broken, right after the libs get elected. We know this drill - 1993 famour liberal "lie" book.
Long thread.
