Manitoba Provincial Election 2019

Ken Burch wrote:

DistinguishedFlyer wrote:

nicky wrote:

Forum Research poll out this morning has wide Conservative lead ( 43-29-17-10) but surprising seat projection giving Cons a one seat majority. (29-22-5-1)

http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/f53c01da-63f9-41dc-8c3c-10307ff985bdManitoba%20Prediction%20Release%20Sept%209%202019.pdf

Such a seat forecast might have been more realistic a decade ago, when the Tories seemed to need a lead of at least 10-12% to form government (remember an NDP majority of 17 in 2011 with a lead of only 2.5%), but I doubt that now. The distribution of votes still helps the NDP, but not nearly to that degree anymore. A PC lead of 4% or so should suffice to give them an overall majority.

My own guess is PCs 35 (43%), NDP 20 (31%), Lib 2 (16%); let's say a margin of +/- 2 MLAs and 1.5% of the vote.

You're assuming Nickarz won't take Wolesely for the Greens?

Was on the fence about that; certainly the Greens have shown that when they put a lot of effort into just one constituency it can pay off, but since boundary changes have strengthened Wolseley for the NDP (from 41%-36% last time to a notional 45%-30% now) and also since 2016 was pretty much a rock-bottom NDP showing across the province, I forecast it to stay NDP this time. Having said that, if the Greens do win it won't be a huge shock either. Toss-up.

. . . and CBC projects a Tory government. Count is now 33 PCs (15 elected), 19 NDP (1 elected) & 3 Liberal. A little over 60,000 votes counted now.

Tory lead now settling in around 17% (48%-31%); a drop of 5%, with a corresponding rise of 5% for the NDP.

Almost all of the NDP gains have been in marginals that one would expect them to win back very easily (Elmwood & Thompson, for instance, had notional PC margins of less than 1%). The only exception is Transcona, and possibly Southdale or McPhillips depending on which way they go.

Having said that, it looks like the old requirement for a big Tory vote lead to win may be coming back a little: it looks now like an overall majority of 13, but with a lead of 17% (assuming a uniform shift) one would have expected around 17. To read it another way, the NDP looks like picking up two more constituencies than their vote rise would suggest (once again, Transcona & maybe Southdale or McPhillips).

Aristotleded24 wrote:

We have essentially become Saskatchewan, where entrenched rural incumbents have made a right-wing government inevitable no matter what people in the cities think.

That's increasingly becoming the case across Canada and across the United States, too.

Progressive parties have a lot of trouble resonating with rural voters and so although parties on the left usually beat parties on the right in the big cities, the right-wing parties can run up the numbers in the rural areas.

That's one reason that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 but lost the Electoral College to Donald Trump.

And in Canada the right-wing parties are now drawing in voters that used to vote for parties like the NDP.  As in the U.S., an increasing number of working class voters are moving rightward in Canada.  That may be one reason why the NDP is having a harder time fighting off the Conservatives in federal seats like Elmwood-Transcona.  It went Con in 2011 and in 2015 the NDP barely beat the Cons.  Now the ex-Con MP is back for a rematch.

Manitobans elected three Black MLAs (first ones ever), including two women, one of whom is queer. So I'm happy! The rest was sadly predictable.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Putting aside that the NDP actually gained seats at PC expense, this election result was a trainwreck. If the current seat count stays the same, that means there are 36 seats for the PCs. This is one seat shy of the highest number of seats the NDP ever won. Make no mistake about it folks, Pallister has a clear mandate to proceed. It's true that racism did play a role in this election result, and it is unfortunate. If someone wants to be racist and vote accordingly, that is not within the NDP's control. Here are the things that were:

1) Baisc vetting and screening of all party candidates is important. This means asking the basic question, "do you have any criminal records and/or criminal charges that you haven't told us about?" If the answer to this question is yes, you have a problem, especially if the charge is something like domestic assault. What you do in this case is you disclose all details immediately, along with an explanation as to how you have changed and will be a better person. Either that, or you find a different candidate. Don't bother trying to cover it up or hide it, someone is going to find it out, and that will look even worse than whatever it is you were charged with.

2) Health care as the number one issue. Excuse me? Health care unions always side with the NDP in any given election. That they tried to elect an NDP government today is not newsworthy and is not particularly persuasive. Not only that, but the health care system that the NDP handed over to Pallister 3 years ago was not all sunshine and roses. The number one issue should have been crime and public safety. Recently, Winnipeg has been subject to scary headlines about crime that if it was happening under a Liberal or NDP government, the Winnipeg Sun would have been up in arms about blaming the "soft-on-crime" philosophy. People instinctively trust the PCs on crime over the NDP, and the NDP needed to show that the problem had at the very least not improved under PC watch. Take a look at this PC closing ad from the 2016 campaign. It highlights NDP failure on poverty. It doesn't propose solutions, but it doesn't have to. It simply presented the fact that the NDP failed at something that is important to NDP supporters. A basic rule of communication is that everyone has their own perceptual frames, and you have to understand those frames if you are going to communicate with them. Too many people in the NDP live in their own little bubble, and want everyone else to see things from their frame of reference without listening first. Speaking of communication,

3) Nothing of significance changed since 2016. The NDP did a tour where they pretended to listen to the membership. We knew it would be hard work to fight against Pallister. What does the NDP do instead? First they try to annoint Kevin Chief as the Messiah who will lead the NDP to the Promised Land of Governing. When he resigned his seat, Wab Kinew as put in his place. Unfortunately, we found out the hard way that Kinew, like every human being, has flaws and weaknesses. See point 1 about having a criminal record and past criminal charges. It is also the case that an NDP leader has to face an active challenger. Most parties have a process where you can simply vote for a leadership review. This is exaclty what caused the Gang of 5 to revolt under the last NDP Premier, and there is nothing to stop it again. Voting for leader is another problem, which leads me to:

4) Union bosses have too much sway within the NDP, and their influence needs to be curtailed. They really aren't effective in the public arena anyways. Under Kevin Rebeck's watch, in 2016 Manitobans overwhelmingly elected a government that Rebeck's Manitoba Federation of Labour said would hurt working people. That is a vote of no confidence in the MFL right there. Why is he still leading this organization? It seems that the MFL is more into playing power games with the NDP than representing the working class in this province. What did the MFL get after 17 years of NDP government? It's still legal for employers to hire scabs during a labour dispute. Pallister got rid of card check union certification? Unions are not on the radar in any meaningful way outside of the MFL/NDP bubble, so nobody really understood why that was an important issue. Did you also know that minimum wage is barely going up in this province? I don't blame you if you didn't, because the MFL never said anything about it. The close relationship between the public sector unions and the NDP also made it difficult to call out NDP failures, whereas those exact failures would have been called out had they happened under the PCs, Liberals, or Greens. After a while, the membership will catch on, and it can be difficult to mobilize them against a non-NDP government when they didn't fight the NDP in the first place. And it was also the MFL that moved the leadership selection vote back from OMOV to a delegated convention. That discourages participation from working class voters. For one, the delegate selection process is confusing. Give someone a (digital or paper) ballot with the names of the leadership candidates and how to mark that, and people understand. It's also far more difficult for people to participate in. They may have erratic working hours and other personal and family commitments that prevent them from making it to delegate selection meetings and conventions. They may not be able to afford to take the time off work, or they may fear retribution from their employer for openly supporting the NDP. It's not even necessarily the case that union members will vote NDP because the union bosses tell them to. Both the NDP and organized labour will benefit from a clear break. Organized labour needs to cut formal ties with the NDP and judge simply on policy, no matter who is in government. Think of an organization such as Greenpeace. Instinctively, you know they will most likely support a Green or NDP candidate over anyone else. But they have stayed neutral enough so that they are seen as a credible lobby, and when they endorse someone that endorsement will carry weight. Organized labour needs to do the same.

5) The NDP has for a long time relied on mediocrity, and doing just enough so that when its base complained that it wasn't enough, responded by saying how much worse things would be under the PCs. That's fine in a close race where you control the purse strings. It's not fine when you are a clear second place and other parties are completing on your turf. Let's take a look at some promises. The NDP and Liberals both promised a $15/hour minimum wage, with the Liberals to impliment it in 2 years. The Greens, Liberals, and NDP all promised support for child care, with the Liberal plan being singled out as being important in paying child care workers what they need. The Greens, Liberals, and NDP all had climate change plans. The Liberal plan to be carbon neutral by 2030 and restore natural lands would actually start taking carbon out of the year. How is an average voter who isn't programmed to jump off a cliff on the orders of a political party supposed to decide how to vote? Speaking of education, the NDP promised to cap tuition increases at inflation. Capping tuition increases? Even Gary Doer showed more ambition by freezing tuition rates for a number of years.

Thanks for the detailed analysis and critique, A24. Given my limited knowledge of Manitoba politics, I find it persuasive and useful.

Just one small point: Please never use the term "union bosses". It is a slanderous put-down of workers' organizations by our enemies, as you no doubt know if you think about it for two seconds. We rarely hear the MSM refer to people like Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer and Brian Pallister as "party bullyboy dictators". When we do, perhaps we can start entertaining terms like "union bosses".

Are we agreed?

JKR wrote:

It seems to me that many people on the prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) may be voting on a regional basis as much as an ideological one. One reason may be that many high profile politicians from the prairies have led small-c conservative parties. John Diefenbaker, Joe Clark, Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, Stockwell Day, Andrew Scheer, and Jason Kenney are Westerners that quickly come to mind. On the other hand the NDP has been led mostly by Ontarians and recently a Quebecer. I think the NDP’s brand is now associated with central Canada while right wing parties are associated with the Prairies, mostly Alberta and to a lesser extent Saskatchewan.

And Day, Harper and Kenney all came form the "wicked" east.

swallow wrote:

For outreach in "rural" areas, NDP sections might consider the Quebec Solidaire plan to break out of downtown Montreal, which is staring to show some success. Or in other words, what A. said about local engagement outside the big city. 

Keep in mind that the Manitoba NDP already has all four seats in northern Manitoba (two of which were gains) and they came surprisingly close in Dauphin and they have a history of winning the odd other non-Wpg seat such as Brandon East or Gimli or Selkirk (though the latter is now practically an exurb of Winnipeg). QS managed to win two seats in Quebec City (which is a city about the same size as Winnipeg) and they won Rouyn-Noranda - which is like winning Thompson, Manitoba - they are still in low single digits in rural Quebec - and Sherbrooke is a university town with no equivalent in Manitoba

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Just one small point: Please never use the term "union bosses". It is a slanderous put-down of workers' organizations by our enemies, as you no doubt know if you think about it for two seconds. We rarely hear the MSM refer to people like Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer and Brian Pallister as "party bullyboy dictators". When we do, perhaps we can start entertaining terms like "union bosses".

My use of the term was deliberate. I wanted to strongly convey how out of touch union leadership in this province is with both its own membership base and the working class in general, and what I've seen from union leadership in Manitoba is they are far more interested in protecting their own priviledge and controlling the NDP than actually fighting for the working class in this province. I'm sure we both agree that we need to hold our own side accountable. Holding our side accountable also means challenging union leaders when they are wrong.

I have no problem at all with your comments above, and I'm reasonably confident they are accurate. I've spent my life challenging union leaders, and mobilizing fellow workers to overthrow them when and as needed. You just can't use anti-worker and anti-union tropes. That's my only point.

As usual we have been subjected to the usual Liberal and Conservative and now even the Green right-wing propaganda from Canada’s mainstream media both in provincial and federal politics

In spite of that nonsense the Greens bombed last nite in Manitoba, the NDP went up and the Conservatives went down

And don’t forget the recent NDP government in in Alberta, and the growing popularity of BC’s NDP  government, who stand a good chance of winning a majority government in 2 years in B.C.

Trump will eventually no longer be President of the USA  and Pallister will no longer be Premier of Manitoba, but now is the time in Manitoba to begin working on the next election

Unionist wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Just one small point: Please never use the term "union bosses". It is a slanderous put-down of workers' organizations by our enemies, as you no doubt know if you think about it for two seconds. We rarely hear the MSM refer to people like Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer and Brian Pallister as "party bullyboy dictators". When we do, perhaps we can start entertaining terms like "union bosses".

My use of the term was deliberate. I wanted to strongly convey how out of touch union leadership in this province is with both its own membership base and the working class in general, and what I've seen from union leadership in Manitoba is they are far more interested in protecting their own priviledge and controlling the NDP than actually fighting for the working class in this province. I'm sure we both agree that we need to hold our own side accountable. Holding our side accountable also means challenging union leaders when they are wrong.

I have no problem at all with your comments above, and I'm reasonably confident they are accurate. I've spent my life challenging union leaders, and mobilizing fellow workers to overthrow them when and as needed. You just can't use anti-worker and anti-union tropes. That's my only point.

 

I'd maybe go with "pie cards".

jerrym wrote:

Unionist wrote:

The NDP elected three Black MLAs2 (first ones ever), including two women, one of whom is queer. So I'm happy! The rest was sadly predictable.

Three Black MLAs were elected. However two were NDP and one was PC. Still a very important accomplishment since none had ever been elected before in Manitoba's history.

Thanks for the correction - I've edited my earlier post. 

Please quit insulting Saskatchewan. North Battleford is recognized by the people in this province as a city. It has a population of 14,000, not 6,000 people as you claim, and it is a city. People in the cities traditionally have supported the NDP and Aristotled is correct that the NDP needs to get our cities back like PA, Lloyd, NB, Yorkton, Weyburn, Estevan, Speedy Creek, and MJ. And we have more cities than that btw.

 I know that the majority of people on this board don’t seem to like Saskatchewan but redefining our cities to what you think they should be is not appropriate. 

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Stockholm wrote:

Keep in mind that the Manitoba NDP already has all four seats in northern Manitoba (two of which were gains) and they came surprisingly close in Dauphin and they have a history of winning the odd other non-Wpg seat such as Brandon East or Gimli or Selkirk (though the latter is now practically an exurb of Winnipeg).

You're correct that the NDP has history in these areas. If this trend continues, the NDP era in these areas may also be "history." The NDP in Saskatchewan also has history in places like The Battlefords and Yorkton. How are those cities looking for the NDP these days?

Has the Manitoba NDP done anything comparable to the Saskatchewant NDP's decision in the 90s to close 75 hospitals? That decision went a long way to making the NDP unelectable outside of Saskatoon and Regina.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Yeah, Misfit. So ironic to hear that kind of dismissive talk in response to my concerns that the same shifts that have made it impossible for the NDP to win government in Saskatchewan might be happening here in Manitoba.

The difference is that Manitoba is significantly more urban than Saskatchewan. Winnipeg alone is 32 out of 57 seats and then you have the four NDP seats in the north for 36 out of 57. So while its a narrow path, there is a path to a win in Manitoba despite winning no rural southern seats. In contrast less than half of the seats in Saskatchewan are in Regina and Saskatoon and there are only two NDP seats in the north. The Saskatchewan NDP could literally win every single solitary seat in Regina and Saskatoon and two northern seats and even win Moose Jaw, Prince Albert and The Battlefords...and they would still be short of a win.

Misfit wrote:

Left Turn wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Stockholm wrote:

Keep in mind that the Manitoba NDP already has all four seats in northern Manitoba (two of which were gains) and they came surprisingly close in Dauphin and they have a history of winning the odd other non-Wpg seat such as Brandon East or Gimli or Selkirk (though the latter is now practically an exurb of Winnipeg).

You're correct that the NDP has history in these areas. If this trend continues, the NDP era in these areas may also be "history." The NDP in Saskatchewan also has history in places like The Battlefords and Yorkton. How are those cities looking for the NDP these days?

Has the Manitoba NDP done anything comparable to the Saskatchewant NDP's decision in the 90s to close 75 hospitals? That decision went a long way to making the NDP unelectable outside of Saskatoon and Regina.

Thank you, Left Turn, for your complete bull shit distortion of the truth and talking point for the ultra right-wing SP.

Here is an article which explains the rural hospital situation.

https://saskatchewanherald.com/2018/07/05/hospital-closures-in-the-1990s-saved-sask-from-fiscal-disaster/

“

Of the fifty-two communities affected by the hospital changes, forty-nine continued to have health facilities.  Thirty-six of the original hospitals continued to operate as health centres, special care homes, or a combination of the two. Thirteen facilities were replaced with another facility in the same community.

Only three hospitals – in Milden, Dodsland and Rabbit Lake – were permanently closed.  Fast forward to 2018, and Milden, Dodsland, and Rabbit Lake have populations of 181, 215, and 113, respectively.  Reality takes the wind out of the sails of the idea that the NDP closed all fifty-two hospitals — and the three that were closed were simply no longer needed.

The 1995 election was fought on the hospital conversion issue.  The NDP stood by its record, while then PC-leader and future Sask Party Minister Bill Boyd called for an additional five-percent reduction in health care spending across the board.  Neither the Sask Liberals nor the Sask PCs suggested that any of the hospitals that had been operating in tiny communities should be re-opened.  The PC caucus was halved from 10 to 5 in the 1995 election, and the people of Saskatchewan re-elected Roy Romanow’s NDP with a massive majority.“

 

Apologies. It wasn't my intention to post Sask Party talking points. I recently saw the 75 hospital closures claim on another babble thread, by another babbler (can't remember exactly whom).