Ontario By-elections

Stockholm wrote:

The NDP has always been willing to cooperate with the Liberals. The Liberals would rather eat broken glass than make any kind of deal with the NDP - and forget about PR - the Liberals will never go for it because it would impede their chances of regaining a majority gvernment and being Ontario's natural party of government again.

Most likely scenario after next Ontario election is that the PCs come in first, fall short of a majority...and the Liberals will prop up a Hudak minority government rather than cooperate with the NDP.

Actually, the Tories are Ontario's Natural Governing Party, but don't tell the Liberals.

On to Scarborough-Guildwood, I wish to thank Edmund for his contribution, obviously being closer to that than anyone else. I think we can agree that the optics are not good, whether it was the result of "party growing pains," or Giambrone trying to stack the nomination. I think we can all agree in our hope that the NDP learns from what happened and can put forth more clear policies and ideas to make sure things go smoothly in the future.

edmundoconnor wrote:

I myself am still technically a member of Etobicoke Centre riding association, even though I haven't lived there for years. If I were to turn up at a local nomination meeting (in Markham), would I be eligible to vote? I am a member in good standing, and the party is thoroughly aware of where I live. If I did not advise the party of the new riding association of which I wanted to be a member of in good time, I would not be on the local riding association's list, even though I have a current membership card, and ID to prove I live in the riding.

My understanding, and I do not work at Provincial Office to maintain records, is that everyone is presumptively a member of the riding association where they reside. Let me give an example (in an area of no relevance to any current by-election.). I know a person who is active in progressive politics in St. Catharines who lives in the Town of Lincoln, which is in Niagara West-Glanbrook (NWG). She does not want to belong to the NWG riding association, so writes after every riding redistribution (when everyone is placed in the riding association where their mailing address puts them in an address search, as a "restarting" point) to state that she wants to belong to the St. Catharines NDP.

My understanding is that you have to ask to belong to belong to a riding association is which you do not live; I understand one don't get a fuss when one asks, but one does have to ask. The NWG is obliged to notify every member of their riding association of the location and time of their nomination -- so they do not have to send her a notice. But, if she hears where the meeting is (if she chose not to belong to the NWG riding association, the onus is on her to seek out the info about a nomination meeting) and shows up with ID and (hopefully) her membership card or "membership number" (which used to be on mailing labels but I have not seen on my mailings for ages), she has the right to vote at the NWG nomination meeting. Period. No one following the rules has any right to deny her the right to vote at that nomination meeting.

  Now sometimes rules are not followed and people running a meeting do not follow the constitution. Those cases can be challenged. Nothing I have read here leaves me with the impression that the rules were not followed. If the process somehow leaves a bad impression, people should respond by explaining what the rules are and how they wee followed, and how the complaint seems to suggest that the rules in the ONDP constitution should not have been followed to please the desire of some local riding association executive member. That would be wrong.

Sure it was "an honest mistake" by a company whose subsidiary is being used by the London West Liberal campaign for data. Sure.

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I recently spoke to someone who purports to know what is going on in the bylections. His/her prognosis;

Windsor. easy NDP win

London. Con win with NDP second, 7-10 points back

Lakeshore. Narrow Liberal win. Cons second. NDP about 15%.

Scarborough. Same as Lakeshore with NDP about 20%

Ottawa: Liberal win with NDP a distant second.

I think Windsor is pretty safe NDP right now, and Scarborough is safe Liberal.  The other 3 are up for grabs.  EL and OS are Lib-Con fights, and London is a three way battle.  The only party that might be completely shut out is the PCs.

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If there are three or more losses on August 1 for the Liberals, I wonder if Wynne will continue to play the nicey-nice game with the NDP, or if her thoughts will begin to turn toward just pulling the plug and calling a snap election. If Liberals are beating beaten soundly in both the former finance minister former premier's seats, and only barely hanging on in Scarborough-Guildwood, there are precious few safe Liberal seats left.

David Young wrote:

edmundoconnor wrote:

If there are three or more losses on August 1 for the Liberals, I wonder if Wynne will continue to play the nicey-nice game with the NDP, or if her thoughts will begin to turn toward just pulling the plug and calling a snap election. If Liberals are beating beaten soundly in both the former finance minister former premier's seats, and only barely hanging on in Scarborough-Guildwood, there are precious few safe Liberal seats left.

I would hardly put Wynne in the category of self-destructive.

Should the Liberals lose four of the seats, as I mentioned in an earlier post as Scenario #4, I would think that she would avoid an election at all costs, and would be prepared to give in to almost any NDP demands.

I think with the potentially disasterous results for the Ontario Liberals, I do think that Kathleen Wynne will pull the plug on the legislature sometime next year.  She and the Liberals will probably present a future Speech from the Throne that promises goodies for Ontarians.  Soon after, she will ask the Lt. Governor to dissolve the legislature.  She won't wait until the fourth year or until Andrea Horwath gets tired of supporting the government.

Duplicate.

My guess:

PC: London West, Ottawa South

NDP: Windsor-Tecumseh

Liberal: Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Scarborough-Guildwood

I can't help but feel the ONDP has squandered the opportunity to win Scarborough-Guildwood by running Adam Giambrone.  Nothing against Adam - but this is the wrong riding for him to run in.  The ONDP President Neethan Shan should have ran here again.  Instead, we have the PC candidate Ken Kirupa running in a close second to the Liberal candidate (one poll even has him ahead).  If Ken wins, it will allow the PC party inroads into the Tamil-Canadian community, which has strongly backed the NDP in recent years and whose support we need to keep.  

Prediction (but not my desires):

NDP: Windsor-Tecumseh

PC: London-West, Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Scarborough-Guildwood, Ottawa-South

Was it a mistake for Adam Giambrone to run in Scarborough-Guildwood?  I don't think that this riding is the right fit for him.  He's a mid-city/downtowner who is currently trying to win a suburban seat.  He'll probably lose the by-election.  The problem will be that he will be seen as an opportunist if he tries to run for another seat somewhere else in the next provincial election.  Name recognition does matter in by-elections.  Voters will give more consideration to the local candidates during by-elections than during general elections where the party leaders mostly matter.  If there had not been disagreements about the nomination process, I think Mr. Giambrone would be performing a little better.  I do think that he does have a higher profile than the other nominee (what's her name?).  He has made Scarborough-Guildwood into a two-and-a-half horse race instead of a two-horse race between the Liberals and Conservatives.

In London-West, it was a mistake for Kathleen Wynne to get former OSSTF president, Ken Coran, to run for the Liberals.  This galvanized many teachers to throw their active campaign support for the NDP candidate, Peggy Sattler.  Ken Coran is seen as a traitor by many teachers.  If Kathleen Wynne had expected the teachers to make-up with her Liberals, she will be proven wrong this Thursday.  Now, teachers are a small fraction of the vote.  However, they can organize with or without union support when desired or needed.  Do expect the teachers (especially many public elementary teachers) to continue their boycott of extra-curricular activities, field-trips, and staff meetings in the 2013-2014 school year.  The teachers have not forgiven the Liberals.  As for Ken, I think the voters of London-West can see his betrayal of the teachers and what he could possible do against the voters of London-West if he were to be elected this Thursday.

Besides Neethan Shan is already set to run in Scarborough-Rouge River next time whch is a much more NDP friendly seat than Guildwood. He came a close second there in 2011 and got 36% of the vote while in SG the NDP was a distant third with 19% of the vote. Also Rouge River has a federal NDP MP. It makes sense for Shan to concentrate his efforts there.

OnTheLeft wrote:

Amarjeet should have been the candidate. She has deep roots in the community, strong connections to organized labour, and would've been much more credible than the last second anti-democratic brass shenanigans to parachute in downtown G-man.

I guess those "deep roots" explain why when she ran for city council in Scarborough she came in dead last out of 9 candidates and got just over 1% of the vote?

Campaign Research has released last minute polls for each of the by-election ridings.

http://campaignresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Press-release-July-31-Campaign-Research-Ontario-By-Elections.pdf

The only sure bet looks to be Hatfield in Windsor. The other four are quite close with the Cons and Liberals each ahead in two.

The NDP is behind the Cons by only 3 points in London (which may well be decided on whether the NDP can squeeze more votes from the Liberals than the Cons from Teabagger Al Gretzki who is scoring 9%) 

The poll is similar to the  Forum poll for Scarborough and confirms that Giambrone is running a strong third.

Does anyone know if Forum is releasing any further polls?

Stockholm wrote:

I guess those "deep roots" explain why when she ran for city council in Scarborough she came in dead last out of 9 candidates and got just over 1% of the vote?

You cannot judge a potential candidate by one failed run. 

Here's the Election Night link.

Menu has the 5 ridings:

http://electionnightresults.elections.on.ca/rr/welcome.jsp

3 lead NDP in first place (Windsor, London and surprisng SG Giambrone is first place)

Canadian Press projects Peggy Satler as the winner in London West.

Nice to see Coran's campaign sinking with all hands. Hatfield's steamrolling the competition in Windsor.