Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW

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Ekos: "Prorogue" comes from a Latin phrase meaning, "turns out people do care about process stories"

by Paul Wells on Thursday, January 14, 2010 8:07am - 117 Comments

Our their Kady has the results and analysis. The regional numbers seem odd.

A million years ago — OK, it was two weeks — I wrote about some random shopkeeper in the heart of Ottawa who’d noticed this prorogation thing and decided, all for himself, that he didn’t like the smell of it. I don’t want to attach totemic significance to that, but this week’s polls suggest the Conservatives’ own actions have been their own worst enemy.

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Holly Stick

http://drivingtheporcelainbus.blogspot.com/2010/0…

Many, many links documenting the misdeeds of the Government of Harper. Section titles include "THE CULTURE OF SECRECY", "CONTEMPT FOR CANADA AND CANADIANS" and a big section on "CONTEMPT FOR PARLIAMENT"
http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

McClelland lives in a cartoon world inhabited by noble bloggers who wage war against pundits, rubes, and Conbots.
hosertohoosier

The regional numbers are indeed interesting. Harper has tanked largely in the Western bastions of Reform-dom, while his decline elsewhere was far more graceful. Why does this make sense? Because no major political party advocated more for democratic reform than westerners in the Reform party.

If that is indeed the case, Harper is going to need to woo back voters largely on his right, as opposed to those in the middle.

PS: I'm not saying that nobody on the left/in the middle were angered by prorogation, but the lefties that were are largely NDP/Greens. Canadian centrists, especially in Ontario and the Maritimes are Tory-touched liberals – who are not without a mild authoritarian streak that you don't see in the mostly western right, nor amongst Canadian socialists.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Actually, he won't. As pointed out above, the drop in the polls out west isn't near enough to put a significant number of seats at risk. Until Westerners wake up and stop voting Conservative as a reflexive action, they've lost any power they have to seriously alter policy.

The west may want in, but it'll never get there until it's willing to show that it's vote is up for grabs.

Plain Old Anon

But the West Is In!

(Paul, this is where the cheap plug for the Calgary session would go). :)
YSP

Vote distribution in Sk & AB is pretty polarized. The chances are, you vote the same as your neighbours. There's also the fact that the population of rural ridings in SK is a lot smaller than that of urban ridings, so the Liberal/NDP/Green votes aren't good for much other than $1.95 for the party in question. Palliser & a few other urban/rural split ridings could potentially go NDP if the Libs stop parachuting their strongest candidates against the NDP's best chances.
Orson Bean

"Until Westerners wake up and stop voting Conservative as a reflexive action"

You heard it here folks: Westerners don't think before they vote. All of them blindly march toward the voting booth, like cult-member zombies. Meanwhile, everyone else in Canada carefully and wisely considers their voting decision.

Thwim, I assume you have quality research which backs this assertion up?

http://intensedebate.com/people/tigerinexil1428 tigerinexile

There's a pretty easy narrative here.

Harper picked up support in September when he looked like the serious guy who was getting the job done, and other other leaders looked like opportunists.

Now, _he_ looks like the opportunist and game-player, and so he's lost that support.

Plain Old Anon

CPC strategists are obviously looking at that mushy 10% they can pick up and lose in a whim. But sadly they keeping pissing around because the CPC seems to bottom out at around 30% and the LPC bottoms out around 25, so more shenanigans to follow!

hosertohoosier

I crunched the numbers (more details on my blog: http://hosertohoosier.blogspot.com/), and a few things are consistently true.

Firstly, if you look at responses in the World Value Survey, the Canadian left and Canadian right (alternately the NDP and the Conservative Party) are more pro-democracy than the Canadian centre. Democratic reform is an extreme vs. centre sort of issue in this country.

Secondly, if you look at where Harper's biggest declines are (averaging all three post-prorogation polls, subtracting 2008 results), it is:
BC: -9.5%
Alberta: -9.8%
SK/MB: -5.1% (I assumed both are of equal population which is roughly true)
Ontario: -5.4%
Quebec: -5.2%
Atlantic Canada: -0.6%

The decline in Alberta does not put seats at risk, but the decline in BC definitely does. Elsewhere the decline is small but important. If I am right, and these are Harper's core supporters sitting out, it will impact the party in terms of volunteers and donations. Additionally, the Tories have done well by getting their guys out to vote. Losing core supporters is far worse than losing fickle swing voters.

Harper needs to change the channel ASAP. Perhaps the best approach would be to propose big cuts in the upcoming March budget. That could create an issue that, while not the most popular, would galvanize enough of his base behind him, while dividing the left. If the next ballot question is "should Harper have prorogued", Harper will be creamed. If it is "do you support large spending cuts to avoid a structural deficit", Harper will have a shot at yet another minority.

Orson Bean

Harper proposing balancing by cutting; Iggy proposing balancing by hiking GST: that would be an interesting one. Probably not gonna happen though . . . hey, at least it would give us a clear, stark choice . . .

Orson Bean

M, don't you think a lot of those reporters, maybe most of them, and most of Ottawa's politicos, have been since distracted by the prorogation thing?

Mulletaur

I agree Bean, but I find it incredible, between the wire services, the newspaper staff reporters, the television staff reporters and the mass of hungry young freelancers at all levels, not to mention bloggers and new media, that there hasn't been a single new piece of information on the Colvin allegations since Parliament rose (which predated the Prorogey Parliament). It's as if Colvin's allegations just vanished into the ether. Nothing. Given the supposed competitive nature of our media, you would have expected some further investigative journalism which would either prove or disprove Colvin's allegations, if only to steal a march on the other guy. This total silence is exceedingly strange.

Wascally Wabbit

Paul – if you assume – for the sake of argument – that "Other" is "None of the Above" under another name…we still have a long way to go to have a stable Parliament again!
My Umbrella of the Centre / Left keeps looking better and better as a strategy to move us on.