Canada’s 43rd Election Results & Analysis

josh wrote:

PPC had 1.6%, and less than 300,000 votes.

Still too much IMO. They were polling at 5% I mistook that as their share of votes.

One uncalled race left: Kitchener-Conestoga, where Harold Albrecht is behind the Liberal by nearly 300

Edit: and race has just been called, Liberal pickup.

Ken Burch wrote:

I'm disappointed in the NDP showing but I still believe the future will see a reversal in NDP fortunes if they continue to focus on climate change and income inequality. 

Why do you keep saying "the NDP should focus on climate change and income inequality", as though the rest of us didn't agree with that?

A strong alliance with the social movements would have given the NDP precisely that emphasis.

[/quote]

Because there seems to be a lot of demand for the NDP to speak out more on foreign affairs and all sorts of other issues. The Leap Manifesto began with romantic declarations about indigenous peoples not climate change or the economy. 

Social movements are by their nature evangelical about whatever cause it is they are centred around. "Balance" isn't a primary concern. If the NDP affiliates itself with social movements they become a political party in name only with no chance of election. 

In my opinion the work of a political party is to get elected then fulfil the responsibilities of government. The election period is about presenting what the party would do differently from the other parties on issues that will impact me or my community directly. 

Once elected the party has an opportunity to reflect their guiding principles on whatever issues they are faced with. To not preach about indigenous peoples but to act in the true spirit of reconcilliation. To be a voice for peace on the world stage. To condemn acts of violence against helpless populations and the distruction of public infrastructure. To negotiate trade deals that benefit workers. 

I do agree with you that the party has to be more vocal about taking progressive positions on current events as they happen but not just condemnation of current government policy. I liked Singh's response that he doesn't know what he would do about TM other than not expanding it because he didn't have all the figures on it. Even so in general I want to know what the party would do if it were in power. 

I agree with you that Singh should have spoken up sooner about taxing wealth and pharmacare and climate change.

I think social movements should do more to support political parties.

nicky wrote:

Some fun facts:

Combining the Green and NDP votes would have led to 9 more seatrs, 8 for the NDP and Guelph for the Greens.

The Cons won 15 seats by less than the Green vote.

The FPTP system ensures that most Canadians are prepresented by an MP they voted against. Only 112 MPS obtained more than 50% in their ridings  (48 Libs, 50 Cons, 12 Bloc and 2 NDP). 226 did not.

 

To compare, the average vote share of elected MPs in 2015 was 48.6% - 51.2% for Tories, 49.8% for Liberals, 38.5% for New Democrats & 34.2% for Bloquistes.

Figures for 2011 were 50.4% overall, 54.4% for Tories, 47.3% for New Democrats, 41.2% for Liberals & 34.9% for Bloquistes.

Pondering wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

I'm disappointed in the NDP showing but I still believe the future will see a reversal in NDP fortunes if they continue to focus on climate change and income inequality. 

Why do you keep saying "the NDP should focus on climate change and income inequality", as though the rest of us didn't agree with that?

A strong alliance with the social movements would have given the NDP precisely that emphasis.

Because there seems to be a lot of demand for the NDP to speak out more on foreign affairs and all sorts of other issues. The Leap Manifesto began with romantic declarations about indigenous peoples not climate change or the economy. 

Social movements are by their nature evangelical about whatever cause it is they are centred around. "Balance" isn't a primary concern. If the NDP affiliates itself with social movements they become a political party in name only with no chance of election. 

In my opinion the work of a political party is to get elected then fulfil the responsibilities of government. The election period is about presenting what the party would do differently from the other parties on issues that will impact me or my community directly. 

Once elected the party has an opportunity to reflect their guiding principles on whatever issues they are faced with. To not preach about indigenous peoples but to act in the true spirit of reconcilliation. To be a voice for peace on the world stage. To condemn acts of violence against helpless populations and the distruction of public infrastructure. To negotiate trade deals that benefit workers. 

I do agree with you that the party has to be more vocal about taking progressive positions on current events as they happen but not just condemnation of current government policy. I liked Singh's response that he doesn't know what he would do about TM other than not expanding it because he didn't have all the figures on it. Even so in general I want to know what the party would do if it were in power. 

I agree with you that Singh should have spoken up sooner about taxing wealth and pharmacare and climate change.

I think social movements should do more to support political parties.

[/quote]

If we learned anything from these results, it's that the NDP needs to be, in a way, evangelical in its approach to the voters.  It needs to focus, first of all, on those who currently DON'T vote, not on trying to switch over people who are hostile to the party's core values.  It needs to be able to send the message to those  who are non-voters, or who vote for parties whose agendas are against their own self-interest, as do the plurality of low-income voters who seem to have voted Conservative-as well as those who vote for minor Left parties or the Greens on "anti-establishment" grounds, that while the Cons and the Liberals are the parties of the dreary, nothing-can-be-done status quo, the NDP offers actual hope, offers ideas that address the needs and the dreams of these people-that it's a party which will work to make a real differences in their lives and IN life itself.  

As to foreign policy...well, one of the things that comes into the issues of climate justice and income inequality IS, in effect foreign policy and the use of military force.  What Canada supports in the rest of the world affects the climate and affects the income levels people have.  The way Canada causes other people to be treated in the world affects how people are treated in the world.  The climate is affected by which regimes Canada allies itself or invades in the rest of the world.  Every war Canada has been involved with in the world in particular, and most recently in the unending wars in the Arab/Muslim world, has been an environmental disaster and has swallowed the resources which might have been used to address income inequality and climate issues at home.

The NDP can't work for transformational change if it stops its agenda of change at water's edge, at the Arctic Sea, and at the southern border.  A party of change must be internationalist, and beyond the need for territorial self-defense against external aggression, it should be as non-militarist as possible-not in the sense of personal  hostility to members of the service, something none of us should feel, but in the sense of recognizing that the use of military force can no longer make a positive difference in the lives of the many.  The work of ending war is directly connected to the work of addressing income inequality and climate change, as is the work of addressing the historic and continuing injustices visited on Indigenous Canadians, especially since there is a long-standing fight on the part of settler-capitalists to steal extractive resources on unceded Indigenous lands, and since a just and progressive future for Canada as a whole will not be built if Indigenous culture is not validated. and if wealth stolen by expropriating the wealth of Indigenous lands in the past is not used to revive and revere those cultures, and grant "parity of esteem" to Indigenous cultures, those comments about Indigenous cultures in the Leap are worth endorsing.  It's not as though those comments do anyone any harm.  And it's not as though the NDP would ever win the votes of people whose attitude was "THOSE people need to just 'move on' and live like the rest of us" regarding Indigenous peoples.

And the results of 2015 and 2019 prove that it doesn't win votes for the NDP to reduce its strategy to trying to get elected by reassuring people to its right that it's not threatening, and to make it clear that the party's program of change will be as limited as possible.

Hurtin Albertan wrote:

Great, now I get to listen to seperatists all day every day.  Do any of the Quebec forum members have any advice on dealing with seperatists?

Probably about the same as people here in Western Canada had to listen to the various incarnations of the Reform party, or the current rumblings of "Western Separatism" because it's Quebec and BC's fault that Alberta's economy is hurting from putting all of its eggs into the fossil fuel basket.

There's no need to worry about actual Quebec separatism. That is decided in the National Assembly, which last time elcted the lowest number of sovereigntist MNAs since it became an issue. With a minority government certain, the Bloc capitalized on the idea that they were the best positioned to defend Quebec's interests.

I was referring to western seperatists.  #wexit types.  And whatever you want to say about Reform I'm pretty sure they were never seperatists, their big motto was "The west wants in" now I'll be listening to Kenney and his ilk run their mouths about how "The west wants out".

Svend Robinson might have won had in run in Burnaby South, but that was occupied by Jagmeet Singh.  Just bad luck for Svend on where he had to run.  (Although Terry Beech is a pro-gay MP, so I like him, too).

On the other coast down east, it was too bad to see homophobe Rob Moore back in Fundy Royal.

Hurtin Albertan wrote:

I was referring to western seperatists.  #wexit types.  And whatever you want to say about Reform I'm pretty sure they were never seperatists, their big motto was "The west wants in" now I'll be listening to Kenney and his ilk run their mouths about how "The west wants out".

Mainly you just have to ignore it because it will never happen.  The separatist movement in Quebec was about independence and self-rule not about getting stuff from Canada other than power over what happens within the province. 

Alberta's motivation is to try to bully other provinces, particularly BC, into accepting a pipeline. Separation will not get a pipeline built and it would destroy Alberta's economy not to mention changing its borders. Money people won't let it happen. 

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

kropotkin1951 wrote:

The NDP will never win Ontario. The people of Southern Ontario are well off and instinctively know that our exploitative system is what makes them do so well. They don't want change.

You do not know what you are talking about here. This simplistic stuffing from the bowels of hate is embarassing for you. Ontario has many people who are not doing well and a changing demographic. Yes, there are challenges but this extreme amger and defeatism is not well founded.

I live on an Island that elected nothing but NDP and Green's. So tell me about Ontario. You seem to miss the point that VI is not Ontario and our political culture is not the same. The people who live on the Salish Sea are not the same politically as the people who live on Lake Ontario or the Rideau Canal. That is a fact not a statement of hate.

Irrelevant to what I was responding to. You have no clue about what is going on in Ontario right now and while you like to object to people talking about where you live seem to think your ignorance about other places leaves you qualified to pronounce your hate on them. Recently you have become a sour one-note song and that is just too bad.

The NDP has serious work to do across the country and pissing on other places is not a way to win support.

Nor is a presumption that everyone is the same in another place or that defeat is a permanent condition.

 

brookmere wrote:

kropotkin1951 wrote:

You seem to miss the point that VI is not Ontario and our political culture is not the same.

The point you're missing is that it's nonsensical to compare VI, which an outlier by BC standards (the latter as a whole elected more MPs from the Conservatives than from any other party), to a large and diverse province like Ontario. It makes about as much sense as comparing Northern Ontario to BC.

IMO Northern Ontario and Vancouver Island have more in common with each other than either do with Southern Ontario. I grew up in Northern Ontario in the '50's and '60's. We used to call Toronto "Hogtown" because of the greed that oozed out of the Southern region of the province. Those voters seemed to have a total disregard for the toil that it was enacting on communities as the oligarchy sucked the resources out of the North. Sorry if after all these years living away I still see the same thing in the Southern Ontario electorate. Its my opinion and I am entitled to it.

This underachievement was most obvious in seats in which the NDP has historically had some strength and should have been more competitive. In Atlantic Canada, the NDP finished a distant third in Acadie-Bathurst and was about 12 points behind the Liberals in Halifax.

Some of the seats targeted by the NDP in central Toronto were won by the Liberals by big margins: 14 percentage points in Toronto–Danforth and 16 points in Parkdale–High Park.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-election-results-1.5330105?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

The wealth of Toronto is concentrated with the very few. The vast majority range from the dwindling middle class to impoverished. Few of Canada's major cities is any different. It's much the same in London, Ontario except that we have a disproportionate number of people dealing with homelessness, addiction and mental health, not unlike Vancouver. The wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few families and developers and City Council is too corrupt to fix the myriad problems of the city. Much like every other Canadian city. Most of rural Canada is similar in their politics - they'll vote for a turnip if it's flying a Conservative banner.

Canada's regions and cities are different in their particulars, not the broad generalities. We, regardless of where we live or who we are, have more in common than not.

Karl, I was also surprised by the large Liberal win in Toronto-Danforth -- I thought it would be closer than that since Peter Tabuns obliterated the provincial Libs last year.

The Beaches win in 2011 for the NDP was mainly because Ignatieff was such a disaster as Lib leader that he didn't even inspire enough confidence to win his own seat, let alone others.  So it wasn't that surprising it went Lib in 2015 & 2019 since Erskine-Smith has been a solid candidate/MP.

The 3rd for the NDP in Acadie-Bathurst is probably the effect of not having Yvon Godin on the ballot and because Singh was reprimanded for not visiting NB before the election.

Debater wrote:

It's important to keep in mind that Vancouver Island wasn't always as green and left-leaning as it is now.  During the era when Jean Chretien was Prime Minister, VI was all Reform/Alliance except for Liberal environment minister David Anderson in Victoria.

It's a Green vs. NDP region now, but that has only happened within the past few elections.  The right-wingers were a force on the Island during the Reform/Alliance days, so it goes to show that voting patterns can change over time.

And they do not need to change by much in a winner-take-all system.

Debater wrote:

Karl, I was also surprised by the large Liberal win in Toronto-Danforth -- I thought it would be closer than that since Peter Tabuns obliterated the provincial Libs last year.

The Beaches win in 2011 for the NDP was mainly because Ignatieff was such a disaster as Lib leader that he didn't even inspire enough confidence to win his own seat, let alone others.  So it wasn't that surprising it went Lib in 2015 & 2019 since Erskine-Smith has been a solid candidate/MP.

The 3rd for the NDP in Acadie-Bathurst is probably the effect of not having Yvon Godin on the ballot and because Singh was reprimanded for not visiting NB before the election.

Toronto went orange in the provincial election. They are shit scared of Conservatives and will vote for the biggest party opposed to them. The NDP needs to work now to be that party before the next election rather than show up at election time and expect conversions and to give people shit afterwards for their lack of support.

The NDP should sell its downtown property if it has to and invest in a major social media precence (this is affordable) through every day to the next election. They have to speak clearly and competently on the issues that matter and Singh has to start taking advice from whoever he was during the election between elections. His leadership has been a comedy of errors until the election was called. Unreasonable to expect the voters to turn on a dime.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Debater wrote:

Karl, I was also surprised by the large Liberal win in Toronto-Danforth -- I thought it would be closer than that since Peter Tabuns obliterated the provincial Libs last year.

The Beaches win in 2011 for the NDP was mainly because Ignatieff was such a disaster as Lib leader that he didn't even inspire enough confidence to win his own seat, let alone others.  So it wasn't that surprising it went Lib in 2015 & 2019 since Erskine-Smith has been a solid candidate/MP.

The 3rd for the NDP in Acadie-Bathurst is probably the effect of not having Yvon Godin on the ballot and because Singh was reprimanded for not visiting NB before the election.

Toronto went orange in the provincial election. They are shit scared of Conservatives and will vote for the biggest party opposed to them. The NDP needs to work now to be that party before the next election rather than show up at election time and expect conversions and to give people shit afterwards for their lack of support.

The NDP should sell its downtown property if it has to and invest in a major social media precence (this is affordable) through every day to the next election. They have to speak clearly and competently on the issues that matter and Singh has to start taking advice from whoever he was during the election between elections. His leadership has been a comedy of errors until the election was called. Unreasonable to expect the voters to turn on a dime.

You can say that again. With social media cost is not an issue. He needs to keep using Tik Tok.

MegB wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

MegB wrote:

The wealth of Toronto is concentrated with the very few. The vast majority range from the dwindling middle class to impoverished. Few of Canada's major cities is any different. It's much the same in London, Ontario except that we have a disproportionate number of people dealing with homelessness, addiction and mental health, not unlike Vancouver. The wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few families and developers and City Council is too corrupt to fix the myriad problems of the city. Much like every other Canadian city. Most of rural Canada is similar in their politics - they'll vote for a turnip if it's flying a Conservative banner.

Canada's regions and cities are different in their particulars, not the broad generalities. We, regardless of where we live or who we are, have more in common than not.

All true and Toronto could be understood - despite all the hate - for being paranoid about Conservatives given the present position it is in. They did not want to take chances on a weak party to oppose what Scheer would have done to them. We had a different opinion: I voted NDP - but at least they do not deserve hatred. The people Kropotkin are hating and screaming at include many who have voted NDP in the past and may do so in the future, It includes people who have not voted becuase they are too young and those who are not yet citizens. Pissing on Toronto from NDP supporters is dumb, dumb dumb. You need to find a way to convince them -- not make them angry at you for your ignorance. The NDP should focus on being viable and not a single digit party entering an election hoping that vaters will see the light and convert en-masse in a few weeks under threat of what a Conservative government would do.

The NDP has to start working harder between elections. Thanks Jagmeet for the tik-tok at the last moment -- where the hell were they last year????

The NDP has some responsibility itself for entering this election flirting with single digits and so little money that it was given no chance except in BC. The rest of the country actually showed an NDP recovery from the position it was in when the election was called.

Don't just blame the voters.

People I know (not in Toronto) who have always voted NDP told me they were voting Liberal for the first time because of their fear of Scheer's Conservatives. I imagine you're correct in your analysis of why Toronto voters didn't support the NDP as they had in the past. I didn't vote NDP because I'm bloody fed up with their insipid mediocre performance election after election. If you set the bar at official party status you're going to get crappy results.  I voted Communist because I know the candidate in my riding and like her politics. I'd never vote Green. No more holding my nose and voting NDP until they actually up their game and earn my vote. They need to fundraise effectively - the non-partisan Council of Canadians raises millions of dollars each year without charitable status, so it's totally doable. And, hello, it's the 21st century. Why is the NDP almost invisible on social media? They need to be campaigning and fundraising effectively 24/7 all year, every year, not just around elections. Magical thinking doesn't win elections. Smart, hardworking people do.

Totally agree and would want to underline what you said.

Ciabatta2 wrote:

KarlL wrote:

There seems to be a sort of bedding-in effect in Toronto for the Liberals.  I was surprised by Toronto-Danforth, where the NDP had a strong ground campaign and candidate - but even more so by Beaches-East York, in which I live.  This is a riding that for a long time had nothing but NDP representatives at school board, city council, legislature and parliament and currently does at the school board and provincial levels.  Matthew Kellway won it federally for the NDP as recently as 2011.

In the 2015 Liberal majority sweep of Toronto, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith won it by ten thousand votes and that is about what I expected this time.  He actually won by more than twenty thousand votes.  The NDP candidate Mae Nam, who had decent sign presence and some volunteers on the street, finished only four thousand votes ahead of the Conservative, who had little to no presence.

Some of that might be attributable to changing demographics in the riding but it is not as though the riding has had wholesale change in a mere eight years.

We should remember that these federal ridings had Liberal representation throughout the 90s and 2000s - Mills, Caccia, etc - and their NDP ness is fairly new at the federal level

we need

some of these alternated...

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Ciabatta2 wrote:

 

We should remember that these federal ridings had Liberal representation throughout the 90s and 2000s - Mills, Caccia, etc - and their NDP ness is fairly new at the federal level

we need

some of these alternated...

Neil Young held it for the NDP from 1980-1993.  Matthew Kellway held it for the NDP from 2011-15.  It has been Liberal provincially only once in living memory.  So my point remains that it is sizeable shift to come in with barely 1/3 of the Liberal vote.  No knock on Mae J. Nam.  Her 21% of the vote compared favourably with 13% city-wide.

Most notably, in the most populous and therefore, most seat-rich region of the country, the Conservatives were also completely shut out, all but ensuring Andrew Scheer wouldn’t become the next prime minister. According to Elections Canada figures, the Liberals won 47 seats and nearly 50 per cent of the vote in the Greater Toronto Area, with the Tories grabbing the remaining six and only 30 per cent of ballots cast.  The numbers were virtually identical to 2015

https://ipolitics.ca/2019/10/23/heres-how-the-parties-fared-in-canadas-major-cities/

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Sure you are entitled to your opinion just as others are to disagree including saying that your venom for Eastern Canada is damaging the credibility of your analysis and is actually pointless as it cannot accomplish anything other than make you feel superior inside your head.

Please keep the personal insults to a minimum. I talk about regions and you attack me personally with the very venom you attribute to me except your venom is aimed directly at me not Hogtown. So Mr. Know It All from Ottawa, FUCK OFF and stop attacking me.

You are a hypocrite. My comments are tame compared to what you dish out and no, I think I have the right to remind you that you are not the ONLY one around here with a god given right to an opinion.

However, I am sorry that you think that being reminded that others have a right to an opinion as well is a personal insult. I hope you get some help with that.

at least I was saying you had some analysis that would be valuable if you could get off your high horse. This is a lot less insulting than anything you dish out.

I have agreed with you in about half a dozen posts in the last day - I am sorry that you feel that this is due to you and that you have to blow up when there are disagreements. It is true that I am fed up with your agression and arrogance - I stepped back on this board for months due to your garbage so excuse me if I am testy when you get into your arrogant space of western alienation and superiority. Fact is if you were paying any atention you would know that I am actually more of an ally when it comes to regional tensions in Canada than most here but you just cannot get past your obsession with my home town.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Sean it took you about a week or so of being back before you started your inevitable attacks on me. I don't know what to do with you but I will not let your passive aggressive behaviour stop me from expressing my alienation with the political system that is dominated by Central Canadians who delude themselves that voting for Liberals is progressive. After ever election I am frustrated from listening and reading commentary after commentary that completely ignores my part of the country.

You think I hate the East but it is only Central Canadian politics and particularly Ottawa operatives in the NDP that I despise. I love the Maritimes and used to spend a month or so on the East Coast every summer while my parents were still alive and living in Shediac.

I am not a party operative.

I am not attacking you. I am resisting your extreme outburst and these generalizations that you make. I have every right to do this. And I have no idea how you think you can make a positive difference by attacking the people on a regular basis who are the ones that otherwise would be the most likely to agree with you.

I have pointed out that this bias you have is a problem -- even as I tell you in the same post that your analysis would otherwise have value. This is a whole lot better than your approach which is to attack me for where I live and then demand that I do not respond otherwise you claim I am starting an attack on you.

You might want to stop sometimes and ask yourself if you are really being attacked or if you are not simply looking at a person defending themselves or a principle or place that you have attacked or a minor disagreement. You want peace? Show some restraint. Yes I have been sharp with you at times. I have even gotten as far as HALF as sharp as you.

Yes, you piss me off becuase it is impossible to agree with you becuase you are so much in attack mode that if a person agrees with you only 90% of the time you hurl obsenities at them.

Get a mirror.

josh wrote:

The biggest source of error was the seats that were called for the NDP but actually ended up going to the Liberals — this alone was responsible for a net eight-seat miss in the national seat projection.

The list of those misses is instructive, as they include seats like Halifax and Sackville–Preston–Chezzetcook in Nova Scotia, Acadie–Bathurst in New Brunswick and Toronto–Danforth, Nickel Belt, Thunder Bay–Rainy River and Hamilton East–Stoney Creek in Ontario.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-poll-postmortem-1.5332548

This article is another example of the Central Canadian narrative that pisses me off. Here is the full paragraph explaining "Western Canada". Of the 5,537,00 voters in BC, Alta, Sask and Man the largest province has 2,343,00 or 42% of voters. Guess which one isn't even mentioned in this piece?

Conservatives beat their polls in Western Canada

At the regional level, the aggregate performance of the polls — as measured by the Poll Tracker — was largely on the mark. But there were some big errors in Alberta and the Prairies.

The Conservatives beat their aggregate polls in Saskatchewan and Manitoba by 9.5 percentage points and in Alberta by 8.5 points — a significant miss that might not have delivered many more seats to the party but would have been worth nearly two percentage points at the national level. That alone explains much of the low-balling of Conservative support in the polls.

The party was only under-estimated by two points in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, and in Ontario by only one. The Liberals were over-estimated in Western Canada but slightly under-estimated in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada — which explains in part why the Liberals did better in the seat count than was widely expected.

It's possible that polls were not measuring all of the dissatisfaction with the Liberals in Western Canada. It's also possible that many progressive voters in this region did not consider it worthwhile to cast a ballot. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, for instance, the Conservatives captured a majority of the vote in 43 of 48 ridings.

 

 

Kropotkin1951 wrote:

This article is another example of the Central Canadian narrative that pisses me off. Here is the full paragraph explaining "Western Canada". Of the 5,537,00 voters in BC, Alta, Sask and Man the largest province has 2,343,00 or 42% of voters. Guess which one isn't even mentioned in this piece?

Another BCer here who is equally pissed off that the National media uses the term "The West" to refer to the prairie provinces. Part of the reason is likely that the national media would rather ignore the more left leaning tendencies that are more of a thing in the coastal areas of BC.

Although to be fair, this use of the term "The West" is not strictly an eastern Canada thing. When I was a student at UBC their was a course on prairie history called "History of the Canadian West".