Things Looking Up for the Grits
When last we checked, Stephen Harper’s incumbent Conservative Party had a healthy lead in Canada’s upcoming parliamentary elections and seemed reasonably likely to secure the Canadian right’s first outright majority government since the 1980s. But then, you know, financial crisis:
The latest Canadian Press/Harris-Decima poll gave Harper’s Conservatives 31 per cent support across Canada, just four percentage points clear of the resurgent Liberals, who rose to 27 per cent support.
“It’s a very interesting and tightening race,” said the CBC’s David Taylor, who is covering the various public opinion surveys ahead of the Oct. 14 federal election.
The New Democrats had 20 per cent support, with the Greens at 12 and the Bloc Québécois at eight per cent.
Canadian elections have an appealingly hard-to-predict quality to them. Their parliament is elected, like America’s House of Representatives, through a series of first-past-the-post elections in single-member constituencies called “ridings.” In the United States we only have two major political parties, so though the outcome of House elections can deviate somewhat from what you might call the national “popular vote” the relationship tends to stay reasonably close. But Canada has, in addition to its two major parties, the BQ regional party in Québec and also these extra left-wing parties. Consequently the actual outcome in terms of ridings won can deviate a great deal from your proportion of the overall vote. 31 percent of Canadians voting for the Conservatives could be consistent with finishing in second-place behind the Liberals, could be consistent with winning a majority of seats nationwide, or could be consistent with a continuation of the status quo where conservatives run a minority government. You can also see a reasonable amount of last-minute instability and tactical voting as supporters who realize that their first-choice candidate is running third or fourth in their riding switch to whoever of the top two contenders they prefer.
44 Responses to “Things Looking Up for the Grits”
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October 9th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I sensed growing momentum for the Greens, too, during a visit last week to our neighbor.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Matthew, I generally agree with you that elections are mostly about fundamentals, and perhaps the simplest explanation of the current sag in Conservative support is the financial crisis. However, it’s worth noting that this same scenario (drop in support just before the finish line) played out against Stephen Harper in 2004 and 2006. Voters just don’t seem to fully trust the man or the party.
And I have mixed feelings about the first-past-the-post system. It unfairly rewards regional parties like the BQ. Then again, a proportional representation system, like the one we recently failed to establish in Ontario, would mean more minority governments (which hasn’t worked out too well for us in the past four years). Unless, that is, we Canadians learn to form stable coalition governments.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:32 am
What’s interesting is that Stephane Dion’s Liberals have a pretty bold “Green Shift” plan… they have details up at http://www.thegreenshift.ca. Essentially the plan puts a price on carbon and offsets its costs by lowering taxes in other areas. Prime Minister Harper is going around the country sounding all kinds of alarms about this, actually saying that it will “screw all Canadians”. But with the Liberals moving up in the polls it now looks like Dion’s Green Shift may actually see the light, which would be quite a significant change in Canadian tax & enegery policy. I would be interested in hearing Matt’s take on this.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:50 am
32% to the left of the Liberals indicates just how far left the Canadian public has moved in the last few years. The sad irony is that this could lead to a Conservative majority. It’s probably THE major drawback of our parliamentary system.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:50 am
A quick point – Canada has only been in a minority government situation since the election of 2004. Before that, there had been solid (if you want to use that word) majorities for more than 20 years.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:01 am
It sounds like the Canadians need a Nate Silver!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:07 am
This situation, where you’ve got a large number of genuinely popular national parties and a very popular regional party, sounds like really the perfect place to implement preference voting. Last-minute horse-trading has a similar effect but with much less accuracy; preference voting would allow parties both to maximize their first-ballot preference and also block least-good scenarios.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:10 am
If the Tories get a majority government in spite of the Liberals and NDP winning the popular vote, maybe Canada will finally decide to switch to PR.
We can only hope…
October 9th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Re: tom veil
We have a blogger who is attempting something similar, although his updates are weekly rather than daily.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I was at a conference last week, and I was talking to a girl from Canada who said that people are actually vote swapping in an effort to get parties like the Green party more seats. I didn’t quite understand all the details–and I’ve slept since then–but her sense of the situation was that the Conservative party was more than likely going to win, and so people who didn’t want to vote Conservative were trying to make their votes count in different ways.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Dion announced an economic proposals in the French-language debate, expanded on them in the English-language debate, and it’s done a bit to shore up the Liberals. Duceppe has reasserted the Bloc in Québec, where the Cons were challenging. You’ve also got Danny Williams playing gadfly out east.
Harper has been knocked about by the other party leaders for saying ‘well, we have an economic policy, and we’ll tell you about it later’. The two debates are worth watching. Harper’s line that the stock market indices matter more than jobs or wages — and a general tone that sounded more like a stockbroker than a political leader — went down like the Hindenburg.
There’s the potential for Harper to have the largest party, be asked to form a government, then be immediately defeated in a confidence vote; the G.G. would likely go to Dion and see if he could assemble either a minority government, or a coalition. A Lib-NDP coalition with per-issue support from the Bloc would have interesting consequences, because it could lead to the adoption of instant-runoff voting, which would doom the Cons to the minority for… well, ever.
(There appears to have been enough time for a anyone-but-Harper tactical voting constituency to emerge, and the third/fourth/fifth parties in constituencies where the Cons are either challengers or incumbents may get very squeezed.)
October 9th, 2008 at 10:26 am
It’s also worth noting that not only have the Conservatives run a very weak campaign, but Prime Minister Harper continues to stress “the economy is good”, while Dion is doing more to respond to people’s worries.
Re:LL
Another quirk of our system is that parties receive a certain amount of funding from government each year based on how many popular votes they received in the previous general election (I think it’s a little under $2 per vote).
The idea with vote swapping is that, in an attempt to elect the most left of centre MPs while also preserving the popular vote totals of parties, one individual arranges to switch votes with another so that at least one, if not both of the votes involved, have a greater effect on key races.
It basically has two scenarios:
1. Let’s say I live in a safe Conservative riding and I’m a Liberal supporter. I could arrange to vote Green in exchange for a Green supporter in a close race Liberal-Conservative race agreeing to vote Liberal.
2. Let’s say I’m a Liberal supporter, but the race in my riding is between the NDP and the Conservatives. I will agree to support the NDP and in exchange one of their supporters in a riding where the race is between the Liberals and Conservatives will vote for the former.
Complicated, yes? I agree with the commenter who supports preferential balloting.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I was talking to a girl from Canada who said that people are actually vote swapping in an effort to get parties like the Green party more seats
Yeah I’m “swapping” with 5 greens from BC
October 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am
There will be no NDP-Liberal coalition. It’s contrary to Canadian tradition, and would destroy both parties. There a huge difference between a Leftist and a Liberal — I’d vote Tory — Hell, I’d vote for the Marijuana Party — before I voted NDP.
One of the many problems in the US is that crazies don’t have thier own party. The Democrats would be healthier if American leftists supported a separate party. Republicans would be better off if their loonies (who now run the party) had been ejected and formed their own party in the 70s.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:40 am
There was a federal Liberal-NDP coalition (actually a minority Liberal government backed by the NDP in return for policy concessions) as recently as 2004. Similar governments existed in 1962-8 and 1972-5. This is good part of the reason why Canada got its current healthcare system.
Harper’s minority government turned out to be fairly stable, and it seems obvious he anticipated the bad economic news and rushed to get the election out of the way before it hit. It was a good idea, but its very hard to time the market.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:54 am
What’s happening in the Canadian election right now is an interesting parallel with what’s happening in your neck of the woods, Matthew. Both the Harper and McCain campaigns attempted to sell their candidates on personality issues, both emphasizing experience and leadership against a “risky” opponent. Then the economic crisis hit (although its effects have been far less severe here in Canada) and the campaign narrative shifted towards issues, policies and governing philosophies. And in both cases, that’s been a significant benefit to the center-left party.
That said, Liberal leader Stephane Dion was fighting for his political life during the first weeks of this election. If his Liberal ends up forming government, it will rank among greatest political comebacks in Canadian history. More likely, the Conservatives will once again form a minority government.
The most interesting outcome, though, would be that the Conservatives end up with the most seats in the House of Commons, but the Liberals and New Democrats combined have more, allowing them to form a minority coalition government. We haven’t had one of those in the Federal government since World War I.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:05 am
First of all, Honolulu Pete, I’m not even Canadian but I’m pretty sure the NDP is hardly the radical leftist party you paint it as. I get the impression though that a lot of Canadians who may not even object to the NDP’s ideology still find it difficult to envision them as a responsible and effective governing party.
I think Canada (and most countries frankly, but especially those with a parliamentary system already) should implement some system of proportional representation (although I guess only the NDP and Greens have any reason to support that- a regional party like the BQ often does better under the current first-past-the-post system).
It’s really pretty farcical when numerous liberal/left parties get the greater share of the vote but a consolidated conservative party wins control of the government. If the Liberals/NDP/Greens can’t get their act together and form a coalition, then fine, but they should at least be given that chance. Still, it’s interesting to look at a country where the electoral system is disadvantageous for smaller parties and yet they do okay anyway.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Honolulu pete,
As one of the “crazies,” I fully agree. The U.S. should have four major parties, not two. I wish we had a viable option down here that’s comparable to the NDP.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:09 am
“There will be no NDP-Liberal coalition. It’s contrary to Canadian tradition, and would destroy both parties”
This is untrue, as Ed says, the 2005 budget was passed by the Liberals with support from the NDP in exchange for social programs being included in the budget.
An even more prominent example happened provincially in Ontario, the so-called Red-Orange pact between David Peterson and Bob Rae. In that case, the Tories even had a plurality of seats, but Lib+NDP was a majority so they struck a deal.
If this election finishes such that the Tories have the plurality, but the combined representation of the Grits and NDP is a comfortable majority (say, over 160), you’re going to be looking at a Liberal government with something like confidence-and-supply support from the NDP (and even potentially Green if they elect some).
October 9th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I can’t see a Liberal-NDP coalition for a couple of reasons.
1. It’s unlikely that they will together have enough seats to command a majority of parliament (the Bloc Quebecois will almost certainly hold the balance of power).
2. The NDP have moved more towards the centre the last couple of elections and are actively trying to replace the Liberals as the official opposition.
Even though the polls are tightening, I can’t see the Liberals winning a plurality of seats at this point. My guess is that how long this minority lasts depends on the economy, and how quickly the parties can refill their war chests and be ready for another election.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Hey Matt, I remember that at some point in the past you were fairly into Canadian politics. Do you have any advice for some background reading? I moved here fairly recently and am confused as hell. How is it that the prime minister is from a party with only 30-40% support?
October 9th, 2008 at 11:15 am
“That said, Liberal leader Stephane Dion was fighting for his political life during the first weeks of this election. If his Liberal ends up forming government, it will rank among greatest political comebacks in Canadian history.”
It will be right next to the miracle he pulled off to win the Liberal leadership in the first place.
Another note here: a 3 or 4 point lead for the Tories is a little bit illusory because of the “Alberta effect”. In that province, the Tories already own every single seat, usually by huge margins. However, this cannot translate into additional seats and these votes are “wasted”. Just like in the US, a state-by-state/province-by-province approach is necessary.
What should be *really* worrying for the Tories is that they’re cratering in Ontario and Quebec, by sizeable amounts. Their path to the majority lead through Quebec and suburban Toronto, but now that looks like a pipe dream.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:35 am
No. Canada has never had a coalition government (other than one SK expermiment). The examples you cite are Liberal minority governments supported from the outside, on an issue-by-issue basis, by the NDP. In a true coalition, Dion would be PM and Layton his Minister of Industry. Hard to imagine.
And again, I’m a Liberal supporter, and I can’t stand the NDP — too far left, too crazy. To me, they are the left-wing version of the Reform party. I think there are enough of us of “blue liberals” around.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:41 am
There a huge difference between a Leftist and a Liberal — I’d vote Tory — Hell, I’d vote for the Marijuana Party — before I voted NDP.
I’m not much a fan of the NDP, either, although I think it’s mostly a style thing (underinformed Yank warning/disclosure). But on policy, for the life of me I can’t see what’s so “lefist” about the NDP. They seem pretty garden-variety Social Democrat to my eyes. From what I can tell ’tis the Green Party that wants to move Canada a lot closer to the Nordic model (and why my leftist ass would probably be tempted to pull the lever for them were I a Canuck).
Matt, more Canada blogging, please. It’s an under-served niche ripe for the picking. Biggest trading partner and all that…
October 9th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I’m usually an NDP guy, but have been a big fan of Dion since university – his writings on federalism swayed this former pie-eyed Seperatiste…I think the Clarity Act is one of the most important pieces of legislation in the last 20 years.
I don’t understand for the life of me why Harper’s down-right dangerous understanding of federalism isn’t more of an issue. He is insisting on limiting spendind power and returning to an 1867 water-tight compartment federalism. It’s sneaky and will spell the end of things like health-care (by refusing to spend in Provincial areas, he’s forcing the Provinces, who are already spending about 40% of their budgets on healthcare, to pony up for everything else. They won’t be able to, so things will get cut, and healthcare will be the first target. Sneaky bastard). Dion on the otherhand is promising $70 billion for municipalities (money that is desperately needed to attract R&D and intellectual capital to our major city regions)
On this crucially important issue it isn’t even close.
Still, I’ll be nervously watching Peter Mansbridge come Tuesday night as the numbers roll west. My hunch is that Atlantic Canada (with a big help from ol’ Danny Boy), Ontario and Quebec will prevent a Harper majority, and just might be enough for a Dion minority
*fingers crossed*
October 9th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Pete, just give it up. The Peterson/Rae coalition in the 80s was fabulously successful, which Peterson got the immediate credit for, leading to a huge majority (too huge, ironically, as the absence of any viable opposition led the press to turn on him and play “opposition” themselves). Then Rae got his turn to be premier.
I know that’s not national, but the idea that there’s some bloody immutable tradition Canadians can’t go against is just idiotic. Just in the last 20 years, the Tories have been obliterated by the fundamentally different Reform party on the right, a regional party has been the official opposition, and a fifth party is large enough to make an electoral difference.
Fine, you’re a big business Liberal who hates the NDP. Good for you. That doesn’t make a coalition stupid.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
OK so coalition can clearly be defined in several ways – a European style coalition would certainly run counter to Canadian parliamentary traditions of party discipline and cabinet solidarity.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t solutions. A coalition could be merely a confidence-and-supply agreement. Or the junior partner(s) could provide ministers who would be outside cabinet, and therefore free to criticize the government in matters not relating to their own portfolio.
We can’t keep having elections every two years. The parties will have to figure out a way to have longer-lasting Parliaments, and given the breakdown of their parties and their respective influence, that can only mean a somehow united Left.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
We can’t keep having elections every two years.
And the Liberals and NDP can’t campaign on a platform of ‘give Harper a minority because we can’t assemble a government ourselves’.
The irony, of course, is that you have a charismatic, well-respected Canadian party leader whose centre-left credentials are as sound as they come, but who doesn’t want to be part of Canada.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
See Robert Borden and the Unionist government of 1917. Get your facts straight.
And please stop calling the Conservatives “Tories”. The Alliance party hijacked the old Progressive Conservative party for the brand name, and most of the actual Tories who had remained loyal to the PCs joined up with the Liberals or the Greens. It bugs the hell out of me to see Harper’s crew pass themselves off as Tories while actual Tories get labelled “leftists”.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Bonjour!
J’adore quand nos amis américains parlent de politique canadienne. So cute!
anyway, canadian politics are like canadian football: faster and more fun to watch
The NDP is my federal party. Coalition govt happened only once in the 20’s. It’s not in our tradition like some european states. It won’t happen this time either.
This election started with the conservatives winning a majority govt in the polls. It ends with them maybe losing the govt all together. The ONLY reason Harper decided to go to the polls was to get a majority. Oops! Their campaign was empty – the program revealed 5 days before election day! – and they expected to win their majority in the province of Québec, but it’s not happening, they might even lose a couple seats here.
Canadians in general are just too scared of Harper’s right wing ideas.
Anyway, it ends tuesday. Our campaigns last only 35 days and each party has a maximum of around 19 millions to spend each. You can register by ticking a box in you income tax return. And then you get by mail the infos on where and when you will be able to vote. Dead simple! And the law says you need 4 hours to vote, the polls close at 9:30 pm. So if you usually finish work at 7pm, your employer has to let you go at 5:30 and pay you until 7pm. that’s cool. Oh, and we know the complete results a couple of hours after the polls close. Paper ballot, counted my hands not a machine.
yes, our system works fine.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
oh, and by the way, the NDP is NOT some “extra left-wing parties”
that’s just silly, very much so.
Leftist? yes.
extremist? of course not!
October 9th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Au contraire, Plum P, our system is horrible in many respects:
I can’t vote directly for Prime Minister. So if I support the leader of Party A but think the MP running in my riding is a corrupt clown who ignores local issues, I have to vote for the clown anyway if I want to help elect the leader. And the reverse is true: the local candidate will have to vote with the leader in Parliament or get kicked out of caucus, so what’s the point of voting for a local candidate I admire if I don’t like the party leader?
Rather than let regular people elect party leaders a la the US primaries, you have to join one party and show up at their riding meeting to vote. And then somehow a bunch of party delegates show up at an even more exclusive event to decide amongst themselves who should be the leader. So you end up with situations like the last Liberal convention where essentially one guy (Kennedy) decided that the fourth most popular candidate should have the job. Wow–democracy in action!
And progressives here tell us that the solution to all this indirect democracy is to get even more indirect by instituting proportional representation. Sure, let’s just let the political parties appoint a bunch of their hacks to 6-figure jobs in parliament so that they can vote for whatever the party leader wants. Why get voters involved at all?
October 9th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
The WWI Unionist government was a coalition? Laurier, leader of the Liberal Paty, didn’t think so. It was a bigoted English-only government that denied non-English the right to vote, pushed through conscription, and divided the country on what was then known as “racial” lines.
Rae-Peterson wasn’t a coalition either — Rae was not a Minister in a Peterson government. And Peterson certainly didn’t agree to give Rae his “turn” as Premier.
Ministers outside Cabinet? Innovative idea — not sure how it would work.
Manitoba in 1940 was probably a real coalition, between the Progressives and the Conservatives. But we know how that turned out…
October 9th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Above should read “some non-English”, referring to the disenfranchisement of some pre-WWI immigrants.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
…anyway, canadian politics are like canadian football: faster and more fun to watch…
I bow to no Yank in my frank admission of the superiority of nearly all things Canadian. But while the political process is Canada is blessedly faster than the US variety, it’s just fantasy to say it’s funner to watch. Let’s face it, there’s simply a lot less at stake. No Canadian government is going to seriously threaten the safety net, or bring America-style laxness to the gun market, or invade a foreign country. US presidential elections are nail-biting exercises in sheer terror. Okay, maybe “fun” isn’t the word, but “entertaining” in a morbid, scary way.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Pete, ministers outside cabinet is an idea from New Zealand, a country with roughly similar democratic traditions as ours. There the coalition between Labour, NZ First, and United Future, was negotiated in such a way that the leaders of the two smaller parties are Ministers (ie they head their respective government departments), outside Cabinet, but members of the Executive Council (which I guess is sort of like our Privy Council). The condition as I mentioned before is that these Ministers are not permitted to criticize the government in matters pertaining to their own portfolio. I’m assuming they receive instructions from the PM in bilateral meetings.
Otherwise I agree, there haven’t been “real” coalition governments in Canada, and I certainly agree with you that Borden’s National Unity gov’t was not such a thing. I don’t agree with you that the Red-Orange pact was not a coalition, however, it was simply not a cabinet coalition. But the agreement that was drawn up dictated the terms of NDP support in supply and confidence votes, and the Liberal concessions given in exchange for such support. Okay, I say tomayto, you say tomahto, I still think it’s a coalition even if we give it some other name like “agreement”.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
One thing ex-expat forgot to mention is that you have to pay $5 or $10 to join the party and be eligible to vote at a nomination meeting. And you also have to buy your membership well in advance most of the time.
Also, these nomination meeting aren’t on fixed dates, they are spread out over a period of 1-2 years often (some of the candidates running in this election were formally nominated in 2006, months after the last one). You really have to be in tune with what’s happening with the party to be able to vote in these except in the rare occasion of a high-profile nomination fight.
Suffice to say this is one area we Canadians need to work on.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
There’s an editorial today in the Globe and Mail (our national newspaper) talking about the possibility of a coalition:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081008.wcomartin09/BNStory/politics/home
March 2nd, 2009 at 12:14 am
cialis
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March 22nd, 2009 at 7:52 am
tramadol
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