Federal polling - April 28

i am not feeling the NDP momentum in Toronto..but i hope i am wrong.

Doug wrote:

finois wrote:

on power and panel la presse reporter said he had scoop for tommorrow.

something about Bloq Quebecois supporting new democrats to put social democrats in ottawa.

did anyone get the quip total

 

Sounds like they're trying to sabotage the NDP in the rest of the country. The answer has to be a thanks, but no thanks.

Sounds like a poor reading of what was said--

BQ support fro NDP to put Social Democrats in Ottawa might be 1-2 candidates. The whole party won't wave a white flag. Are you kidding me?

If 1-2 in a Con riding that sees another party with a chance to get rid of a Con -- this I can see. and it is not much of a news story.

Check out this set of NINE riding polls by CROP in Quebec City and the Saguenay!

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/elections-federales/201104/28/01-43...

To summarize, NDP candidates are leading of in a dead heat in some very unlikely places: The NDP has a solid lead in Beauport-Limoilou and is four points ahead in Charlesbourg-Hautes St. Charles (really good candidates in both of those). The NDP is also dead even with Josee Verner in Louis St. Laurent and with the BQ incumbent in Quebec riding and is two points ahead of the BQ incumbent in Louis Hebert and two points ahead of Andre Arthur in Portneuf! The NDP is also just 2% behind Jean Pierre Blackburn in Jonquiere!

or should I say Youpi!

Saanich-Gulf Islands has been getting all the attention, when it comes to Green hopes, but the party has been channeling a huge amount of resources into Vancouver Centre as well. The Conservative and NDP candidates are new, and seen as weaker than last campaign, and obviously the Liberals are imploding.

Now this: Adrienne Carr is now claiming a leaked poll from the Liberals shows her ahead of Hedy Fry in Vancouver Centre. To add fuel to the fire, Ignatieff just dropped by this riding.

I'm not taking this news without a grain of salt, but maybe this election has one more coffee-through-nose moment left.

I don't know if other people followed it, but on the same day I made my comment about Gilles Duceppe going off about the BQ being their to defend Québec in French there were also some very hard words (which I decided not to post) by Gérald Larose, President of the Council on Sovereignty. To the BQ's (and most likely Duceppe's) great credit, Larose has apologised, and the discourse has been (to my awareness) very civil, if pointed, since. Duceppe has been attacking Layton exclusively on his policies and the strength of his candidates since, from what I can tell. Also, the article on BQers asking sovereigntists to vote for the NDP seems to have been pulled from the cyberpresse website. Does anyone have a link or cache image or has it been pulled for good? It didn't sound like a very credible (or likely) story to begin with.

Also Boom Boom, now that the polls are out saying that the NDP is going to topple almost every Conservative MP in Québec, feel like giving the NDP candidate in Manicouagan a hand? He could use a progressive federalist like you

So what would the two most recent days of NANOS show? I have a friend who figures the math would work out to the two most recent days at over 30% and ahead of the Tories. When the oldest day drops off tomorrow we might go through the roof. Anyone able to correct the math and set me straight?

West Coast Greeny wrote:

Saanich-Gulf Islands has been getting all the attention, when it comes to Green hopes, but the party has been channeling a huge amount of resources into Vancouver Centre as well. The Conservative and NDP candidates are new, and seen as weaker than last campaign, and obviously the Liberals are imploding.

Now this: Adrienne Carr is now claiming a leaked poll from the Liberals shows her ahead of Hedy Fry in Vancouver Centre. To add fuel to the fire, Ignatieff just dropped by this riding.

I'm not taking this news without a grain of salt, but maybe this election has one more coffee-through-nose moment left.

Jennifer Clarke is weaker than the previous Conservative, but not a complete place holder, seeing as she was a former NPA candidate for mayor and multi-term City Councillor so in theory she's a reasonable candidate. That said she's also infamous for opposing Skytrain along Arbutus because it shouldn't have been imposed, in her words, on the "creme de la creme" of the city - and she's also widely credited for stabbing long time former Mayor Phillip Owen in the back leading to Larry Campbell's election. That said I really doubt this seeing as the Greens often release questionable internal riding polls and there's no indication they're doing better than last time province wide (they're probably doing much worse). While the NDP candidate Karen Shillington is a relative unknown compared to Fry or Carr, as the saying goes, "a rising tide lifts all ships." I don't see Fry loosing but if she did it wouldn't be to Carr, though Carr could possibly finish second due to the weakness of the other candidates. If she lost it would be to Shillington because the rising NDP tide caries her to victory while sweeping all of BC's Liberals out to sea. Interesting fact about Vancouver-Centre all four major party candidates are women. I wonder how many other ridings are like that? (Not that I expect anyone to count :P).

I think we have an excellent chance of doing very well in Quebec. However, if we do form government then we will face the real challenge of balancing all the different demands we will face. Furthermore, if we end up trying to modify the constitution, it will be an extremely difficult road because every group will see it as their one chance to get their legitimate concerns addressed. You need to get all the premiers, First Nations, and other major groups onside. Then, even if you succeed at that, it is almost inevitable that some political group will see opposing it as the route to power in their province or community. Because of this, the history of major constitutional amendments around the world is one of many more failures than successes. To understand why one only has to look at the Meech Lake Accord. Regardless of how flawed you think it was, there are lessons to be learned from it. Even after getting all the premiers onside, political opposition arose as some of these premiers were replaced, some rednecks stamped on the Quebec flag provoking a reaction in Quebec that provoked a counter-reaction, and groups demanded other reforms. Jack is right that we need to address this issue at some point. It cannot go on for decades and decades without Quebec signing the constitution. One has to only look at Irish history to understand this. The English Liberals passed three Home Rule bills over a roughly 50 year period but all were blocked from implementing them in the House of Lords, the last one in 1912. When WWI broke out, they promised to do whatever was necessary after the war was over to implement the act, even if they had to stuff the House of Lords with new Lords to do it. Hundreds of thousands of Irish joined the army to fight the war. However, when the English decided to execute the leaders of the 1916 Rebellion, the Irish had enough. 800 years of English misrule quickly ended (thankfully) despite all the power of the British military (I am not stating English Canada has mistreated Quebec as badly as the English did Ireland, which is the only country in the world which has half the population it had in 1840 thanks to English rule - rather that Quebec has grievances that must be addressed). It is already 30 years since the repatriation of the Constitution. We will have to address this some time, although this is probably not the best time since the Parti Quebecois will likely win the next election and oppose any proposals. However, at some point this will have to be addressed, even though this could itself create a crisis, or like Ireland, some crisis will occur, quite possibly when we least expect it and therefore are least prepared to deal with it, leading to the breakup of Canada. 

Enjoy the victory that we will have in this election, because it is a victory even if we do not win power or anywhere near 100 or more seats because it is obvious that by historical standards or our position at the start of the election, that it will be a major victory for the NDP. However, be ready for the much trickier task of governing if it should come to pass. 

New federal polling thread started here:

http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/federal-polling-april-29

Vansterdam Kid wrote:

Interesting fact about Vancouver-Centre all four major party candidates are women. I wonder how many other ridings are like that? (Not that I expect anyone to count :P).

Halton does.