Outremont by-election February 25, 2019

The ridings that count are the ones you need to win. And the Liberals obviously don't neeed to win Burnaby South. What they do need is to win more seats in Quebec to make up for potential losses elsewhere, and Outremont is where they need to start. Plain to any rational observer.

And it's a bit lame to bring you know who into an argument as a substitute for a reasoned response.

brookmere wrote:

The ridings that count are the ones you need to win. And the Liberals obviously don't neeed to win Burnaby South. What they do need is to win more seats in Quebec to make up for potential losses elsewhere, and Outremont is where they need to start. Plain to any rational observer.

And it's a bit lame to bring you know who into an argument as a substitute for a reasoned response.

Yes, exactly.

I was just pointing out Chantal Hebert's analysis that in these by-elections, Quebec is what matters most to the Liberals, and Burnaby is what matters most to the NDP.

Not sure why jerry thinks that has anything to do with Trump.

Here’s an elephant in the room that I believe lots of people in Quebec may not see?

I have heard many voters in Ontario say that “oh no, I’m not voting for another prime minister from Quebec” 

The sentiment is also rooted in fact of the last couple generations or so.  Pierre, Mulroney, Cretein, Justin. 

I suspect that the anti Quebec vote also had a minor impact on Mulcair. 

This negative vibe that exists across Canada (not sure about NB, NS, PEI) and the Outremont by election may possibly have an impact in 9 months?

if the liberals take it, then it’s very possible that voters outside of Quebec may say “oh no here we go again, another pm from Quebec running the country, he’s not getting my vote!”

It’s starting to become more and more obvious that going into the general election this fall, the liberals have huge obstacles!

There is now a real possibility of using the sense of entitlement the Liberals have displayed about Outremont as a weapon against them in the by-election.  Also, the Liberals are leading a majority government, and by-elections are a no-risk way to cast a vote against a majority government.  Singh should probably stay out of Outremont himself-he is personally too much of a flashpoint and his presence there would make it easier for Team Trudeau to play the xenophobia card on the turban and the beard.  Best approach would be to make it a big "guerrilla politics" campaign-reach out to anti-austerity, anti-neoliberalism activists, the people who'd been in the Quebec student movement who could have been brought into the party if only Mulcair hadn't forbidden MPs from expressing any public support for the student protests-still one of the stupidest choices Mulcair ever made, given that people who opposed the anti-tuition hikes movement were never going to vote anything but Lib or Con-combined with appearances from the more left Quebec MPs-if the campaign is run as an all-out battle against the arrogance and overconfidence of Team Trudeau, Outremont can be held.  There's nothing to lose by trying and nothing to gain by just writing it off without making any real effort.

Debater wrote:

Ken, I don't think the Trudeau Liberals are acting entitled with regard to Outremont.

They are hungry to have the riding back, sure.  But they aren't taking it for granted like the Dion Liberals did a decade ago.  They are actually putting a strong effort into campaigning in the riding.

In her column above, Chantal Hebert says the Liberals are running a "textbook" campaign this time.  They are making sure to put a strong effort in this time around.

I was talking about the importance of having the NDP make a real effort in the riding.  Based on the last election, most voters in Outremont are to the left of the Liberals, are anti-austerity and environmentalist(and therefore anti-pipeline) and there's no logical reason Team Trudeau should be seen as intrinsically "the best fit" for the riding.  The NDP can hold it if they also focus on getting the vote out and mobilizing the clearly left-of-centre plurality of voters there.  It's hard to make any coherent argument, for that matter, that Quebec voters would be better off with the NDP fading out of the picture and the useless non-choice of the Liberals vs the Cons vs the Bloc should once against be the limits of the Quebec political spectrum.  

Ken Burch wrote:

Based on the last election, most voters in Outremont are to the left of the Liberals

Are they?  I don't know.  I think the main reason the NDP held Outremont in 2015 was because of Mulcair, rather than a vote based on any particular political ideology.

Even though some pundits were suggesting on Election Night that Mulcair might lose, I expected him to be re-elected, and he was.  He had huge name recognition and presence in the riding.

But with Mulcair retired, it's a different race now where people may vote again along more traditional party lines.  And as the 2015 Outremont Map above shows, there is also a small Conservative enclave in the riding.

Mainstreet claims the Liberals have a big lead in the riding but that they may do a new riding poll later this month to see if anything has changed.

A new column by Chantal Hebert on this year's race in Quebec:

Can Quebec’s Bloc Québécois win back party status in the House of Commons?

Mon., Jan. 21, 2019

MONTREAL—Justin Trudeau is not the only federal leader who could benefit from the decline of the NDP in Quebec come next fall’s general election.

The Bloc Québécois, under its latest leader, is also banking on the weakness of the New Democrats under Jagmeet Singh to help it earn back official party status in the House of Commons next fall.

*

Full article:

https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/2019/01/21/can-quebecs-bloc-qubcois-win-back-party-status-in-the-house-of-commons.html

Ken, that's not what Chantal's column is about.

The piece explores the idea that now that the BQ has a new leader and the NDP seems to be on the decline, the BQ is hoping to win back Official Party status by taking a few NDP seats.

It means that the other parties should not write the BQ off as dead yet.

I don't know where you brought in the idea that people are suggesting a return to hardline Federal vs. Sovereigntist politics.

Debater wrote:

Ken, that's not what Chantal's column is about.

The piece explores the idea that now that the BQ has a new leader and the NDP seems to be on the decline, the BQ is hoping to win back Official Party status by taking a few NDP seats.

It means that the other parties should not write the BQ off as dead yet.

I don't know where you brought in the idea that people are suggesting a return to hardline Federal vs. Sovereigntist politics.

It's in your party's interest to have the Bloc come back and to have Quebec politics be reduced, once again, to NOTHING but the national/constitutional question.  The NDP was able to make its breakthrough in 2011, in significant part, because that was no longer more important than any other issue in QC.  And Chantal Hebert, from everything I've read, has devoted virtually every column she has written about Quebec federal politics since 2011 to bringing the LPC vs Con vs. Bloc era back.  

The agendas have always been clear.

Ken, as I've mentioned before, I'm not a Liberal anymore.  I quit my Liberal riding association a number of years ago after Trudeau starting fixing the nominations and breaking his promises.  I didn't vote Liberal in 2015, and I won't be doing so in 2019.  (Although I would rather have the Liberals in power than the Conservatives).

Second, the Liberals actually do better in Quebec when the BQ is weaker.  It's a myth that the Liberals like a strong BQ.

Eg. In 1993 when the BQ swept Quebec, the Chretien Liberals won only 19 seats.  When the BQ declined in 1997 & 2000 the Liberals gained QC seats.  When the BQ came back during the Sponsorship Scandal, the Liberals lost QC seats in 2004 & 2006.  And in 2015 with the BQ being weak after the 2011 Layton Wave, the Liberals won a majority of seats in QC for the first time since 1980.

As for Chantal, I think you do her an injustice.  She's usually pretty objective about all the parties, and I don't think she's rooting for a Liberal vs. BQ battle of the past.

Oops - I quoted myself! (Deleted)

jerrym wrote:

Debater wrote:

Ken, as I've mentioned before, I'm not a Liberal anymore. 

You're the most loyal non-supporter through thick and thin I have ever seen. 

This thread is supposed to be about the races going on in Quebec.

I posted a column by Chantal Hebert, and rather than discussing the points Chantal was making, you and Ken seem to be turning it into a dicussion about me.

Can you focus on the actual topic?

lagatta4 wrote:

Bad is the weather is, it is not so impossible for me to walk to the campaign office as it had been before. Julia is holding a public forum this Saturday on the environment and the transition at Art Lounge:

Mme Sánchez invite les personnes intéressées à en apprendre plus sur la « Grande transition » à se rendre à une assemblée publique sur l’environnement le samedi 9 février à 14 h, au Art Lounge, situé au 160, rue St-Viateur Est.

La vidéo du point de presse est disponible ici : https://www.facebook.com/JuliaSanchezNPD/videos/2029661800450198/​

Ms Sánchez is inviting those interested in finding out more about the “Great transition” to come to a town hall meeting on the environment at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 9, at the Art Lounge, located at 160 St-Viateur Street East.

The video from the press conference is available here (in French):
https://www.facebook.com/JuliaSanchezNPD/videos/2029661800450198/

Thanks for the work you are helping do there.  I maintain that it's possible to hold Outremont, and that if it is held, that can change the whole dynamic in Quebec for the general election.

It was very odd that Rachel Bendayan did not turn up at the candidates' debate on cultural policy (held in Outremont proper). Note that cultural workers make up a significant part of the electorate in the riding, in particular in Mile End-Plateau and lower Outremont, and probably to some extent in the part of CDN surrounding Université de Montréal. The Bloc was certainly there - remember their important role under the Harper regime, denouncing cuts to spending on culture and support for cultural workers. I don't think there is any chance of the Bloc winning Outremont, but they are trying to use it as a spotlight.

Ken Burch wrote:

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mulcair was put in the job by corporate Canada to make sure an NDP victory in 2015 could not possibly happen.

The vast majority of your posts are logical, well-thought-out, and credible. But no one's perfect.

@Ken Burch 

? I don’t get it. I was suggesting that Mulcair was employed by the icm because of his connections/ insight into the party gave the icm the opportunity to badmouth the NDP leading up to the 2019 election in the present. Wasn’t implying anything about what happened during his leadership. 

WWWTT wrote:

@Ken Burch 

? I don’t get it. I was suggesting that Mulcair was employed by the icm because of his connections/ insight into the party gave the icm the opportunity to badmouth the NDP leading up to the 2019 election in the present. Wasn’t implying anything about what happened during his leadership. 

OK, what I said was a slight exxagerration...but does no one find it suspicious that virtually everything the man did as leader, EVERY single step, had the effect of driving NDP support down in the polls?  Or that he just happened to crash in the economic debate at the precise moment when doing so would do the NDP the most possible electoral damage in 2015?  

 

IMO the main thrust of Mulcair's leadership was to make sure that an NDP victory in 2015, if it happened, NOT seem like such a big scary "NDP victory" as corporate Canada may have feared. You could argue about whether or not that was a betrayal of the left wing NDP grassroots, or whether it was even good politics regardless, but I don't think it was so much of a conspiracy by corporate Canada as it was the considered decision of Mulcair and his team and a good number of New Democrats who put him in that position. I also think Mulcair was largely campaigning on what he really believed in. He's just not that left wing.

In any case we all know how things turned out. And Mulcair is no longer leader nor MP. Any news on how the actual campaign to replace him is going?

Ken Burch wrote:

OK, what I said was a slight exxagerration...but does no one find it suspicious that virtually everything the man did as leader, EVERY single step, had the effect of driving NDP support down in the polls?  Or that he just happened to crash in the economic debate at the precise moment when doing so would do the NDP the most possible electoral damage in 2015?  

No, I don't find it suspicious in the least. I think Mulcair was every bit as left wing as Jack Layton and the party bureaucracy which Layton installed, which is to say mushy middle at best. Remember the interview Layton did with Mansbridge during the 2011 campaign? I can't seem to find a link just now, but I have posted it in another thread a few years ago. In it, Layton was challenged by Mansbridge to name the big differences between his program and that of the Liberals under Ignatieff. He admitted that there were no significant differences, but insisted that the NDP would keep the same promises that the Liberals would break. Mulcair just carried on that tradition.