The Facebook vote

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 2:18 PM - 9 Comments

The current tally, with improvements from the last tally in parentheses.

Michael Ignatieff 63,836 (7,747)
Jack Layton 52,329 (10,974)
Stephen Harper 52,163 (3,109)
Elizabeth May 10,405 (828)
Gilles Duceppe 7,993 (1,08)

Carrément, une première (presque)

By Andrew Coyne - Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 5:26 PM - 18 Comments

Fun fact: If the NDP take a plurality of the vote in Quebec this election, as some recent polls indicate they would, Jack Layton would be, with one, somewhat arguable exception*, the first non-francophone party leader to defeat a francophone leader in any federal election in the province’s history.

Up until Sir Wilfrid Laurier, all federal elections were contests between anglophone leaders. Though Sir John A. Macdonald defeated Laurier in 1891, the Liberals took Quebec, beginning the party’s near-century long domination of federal politics in the province. Laurier held Quebec, narrowly, in his 1911 loss to Sir Robert Borden, and by a resounding 3-1 margin in the conscription election of 1917.

Francophones Louis St Laurent and Pierre Trudeau also held the province, effortlessly, though their anglophone successors were not so lucky. John Diefenbaker’s sweep of the province in 1958 was at the expense of Lester Pearson, while Brian Mulroney’s 1984 victory was over John Turner (besides, Mulroney was the more francophone of the two).

Jean Chretien failed to carry the province in 1993, 1997, and 2000 (though he did win the popular vote in 2000), but lost to francophones, first Lucien Bouchard and then Gilles Duceppe — who went on to win in 2004, 2006, and 2008.

Of course, in one way Layton’s victory, if it came, would confirm the rule: though less francophone than Duceppe, he is easily the most francophone of the four national party leaders, and the only one born in Quebec.

*The exception: The Ralliement Créditiste, under leader Réal Caouette, in 1965, took only 9 seats, to 56 for Lester Pearson’s Liberals. The Créditistes were born of the breakup of the Social Credit party two years earlier. They contested one more election before rejoining Social Credit in 1971, with Caouette as national leader.

Ignatieff's pitch

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 11:55 AM - 29 Comments

I have a story in this week’s print edition about Michael Ignatieff’s position going into the last two weeks of this campaign and the complicated electoral math with which he is presently faced.

On Monday, somewhere between Yellowknife and Winnipeg, we sat for a chat. Some of what Mr. Ignatieff had to say made it into that story, but for your enlightenment—and as a demonstration of what a few days of travel does to my ability to form coherent questions—here is the transcript. Continue…

Quebec's Orange not-quite-yet-Revolution

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 10:14 AM - 22 Comments

YGRECK, Journal de Montréal

A moderately big surprise here in Quebec: Jack Layton is the most popular leader in Quebec. You’ll note the lack of the usual ‘federalist’ leader caveat here, because ol’ Jack has pulled ahead of even Gilles Duceppe in the province for the first time in recorded history. Now for the caveats: this is one poll, polls are fleeting, and the NDP’s support is still very much in the ‘spoiler’ (not ‘winner’) category, as its support is spread thin across the province. Also, the party doesn’t have the vote-harvesting machinery of the other parties that translates support into results.

But still. Jack Layton! The Bloc has long benefited from Quebec’s progressive but non-sovereignist vote, simply because there was no other viable lefty party in the province. Much as it may like Duceppe personally, this demographic has always been orphaned somewhat, especially when Duceppe very publicly reminds everyone that the Bloc will work with the Parti Québécois.

It seems Layton is managing to steal away at least some of this not-inconsiderable wedge. No wonder Duceppe is suddenly commenting on polls—even though he has sworn up and down for years that he doesn’t comment on polls. (Memo to Gilles: it smells a little of desperation when you use a column from the more-federalist-than-thou André Pratte to back up your argument…)

And no wonder the Bloc attack (lap?) dogs have suddenly woken up.

Two questions for Stephen Harper (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 50 Comments

After interviewing Mr. Layton and Mr. Ignatieff, Peter Mansbridge will sit down with Mr. Harper on Thursday. Assuming that the parameters of our democracy might be a topic raised, here, again, are two questions for Mr. Harper.

1. Earlier in this campaign, you explained that when you referred to “options” in the your letter to the Governor General in September 2004, you hoped only that she would give you the opportunity to assure her that you were not intending to defeat the Liberal government. University of New Brunswick professor Don Desserud has quibbled with this understanding of convention, suggesting the only options for the Governor General would have been to call an election or ask the leader of the opposition, in this case you, if he had the opportunity to form a government. Do you believe the Governor General can compel the Prime Minister to work with the opposition parties or do you believe you were given poor advice in 2004?

2. In an essay penned with Tom Flanagan some years ago you spoke favourably of an “alliance” between regional parties and lamented for the “winner-take-all style of politics” in Canada. In 1997, during an interview with TVO, you said if the Liberal majority government of the day was ever reduced to a minority government, there would be an opportunity for one of the other parties “to form a coalition or working alliance with the others.” In 2004, during your news conference with Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Layton, you were asked if you were prepared to form government and said such a scenario was “extremely hypothetical.” You and your party now argue that only the party that wins the most seats can form government. Why and when did your views change on the functioning of our parliamentary system?

Statement of the obvious

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 5:07 PM - 126 Comments

Michael Ignatieff reminds everyone how our democracy works.

If the governor general wants to call on other parties, or myself, for example, to try and form a government, then we try to form a government,” Ignatieff told CBC’s Peter Mansbridge in an exclusive interview Tuesday afternoon.

“That’s exactly how the rules work and what I’m trying to say to Canadians is, I understand the rules, I respect the rules, I will follow them to the letter and I’m not going to form a coalition. What I’m prepared to do is talk to Mr. Layton or Mr. Duceppe or even Mr. Harper and say, ‘We have an issue, and here’s the plan that I want to put before Parliament, this is the budget I would bring in,’ and then we take it from there.”

This year's national unity crisis

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 6:38 PM - 98 Comments

Stephen Harper, 2008. The Liberals’ carbon tax plan will plunge Canada into recession, sparking economic unrest that will revive Quebec’s separatist movement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says. Harper revived the ghosts of regional divisions today as he painted the Liberals’ greenhouse gas strategy as a costly folly whose impacts will reach far beyond the country’s economy. ”By undermining the economy and re-centralizing money and power in Ottawa, it can only undermine the progress that we have been making on national unity,” Harper told a breakfast audience this morning.

Stephen Harper, 2011. Stephen Harper urged voters Sunday to elect a Conservative majority government as the best defence against a renewed drive by Quebec separatists to break up the country … “He has said that they are moving towards, they are walking towards his objective — the sovereignty of Quebec and another Quebec referendum,” Mr. Harper said of Mr. Duceppe. “And he says step one to achieve that is to stop a federal Conservative majority government in Ottawa. Step one is to weaken the country, have a weak government in Ottawa, and that is another reason why Canadians, we believe, must choose a strong, stable, national Conservative government.”

Harper won the English debate, Duceppe took home the French: poll

By Kate Lunau - Friday, April 15, 2011 at 1:18 PM - 39 Comments

According to a Maclean’s poll, Stephen Harper had the best performance in this week’s English-language leaders’ debate, while the Bloc’s Gilles Duceppe handily won in French. But the real victor may be Jack Layton, who impressed not only his NDP stalwarts, but also Greens, undecided voters, and even Liberals, a scenario pollster Greg Lyle calls “a Liberal nightmare.”

The survey conducted by Innovative Research Group found 43 per cent of respondents thought Harper won Tuesday’s English-language debate, with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff coming third at 11 per cent. As for the French-language debate, 46 per cent thought Duceppe won, while Ignatieff was best in the eyes of 11 per cent of respondents (Harper, in fourth, won over only seven per cent of respondents). Meanwhile, Layton was a clear second in both English and French, which is “nothing to write home about,” says Lyle, managing director at Innovative Research. “But when you look at how leaders did according to different groups of voters, it’s a dream for the NDP.”

Both Harper and Duceppe managed to rally their own—78 per cent of Conservatives thought Harper performed best, and 67 per cent of the Bloc gave it to Duceppe—but the same can’t be said of Ignatieff. Only 32 per cent of Liberal voters thought he performed best, while a whopping 21 per cent thought it was Layton.

The NDP leader also won over 33 per cent of Greens and 25 per cent of the undecided, the highest of any leader. “He’s not just solidifying his base. He’s reaching into Liberal, Green and undecided voters,” Lyle says. The Conservatives came second among the undecided, with Harper convincing 17 per cent of them he performed best.

The picture isn’t completely grim for the Liberal leader. When measured against himself in terms of expectations, Ignatieff did best among Quebecers. In fact, 43 per cent of respondents thought Ignatieff performed better than expected in French, while only 4 per cent felt the same about Harper. Still, “he was found wanting in English,” Lyle says, with 25 per cent of people saying he did better than expected, while 38 per cent thought he did worse.

Overall, Lyle says, “Harper and Duceppe did their job, but Layton really won.”

The online survey was conducted on April 13 and 14 after the end of the leaders’ debates among a representative sample of 1,058 Canadians, including 249 in Quebec. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.16 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

What the party leaders just won’t say

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, April 15, 2011 at 6:00 AM - 64 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

Back and forth rolls the popular wisdom. There are no real differences between the Liberals and Conservatives! It’s an empty, issueless election that will change nothing! No, the differences between them are stark! It’s a clash between two fundamentally different visions!

Perhaps, when the waters have settled, we will conclude: there are small but significant differences between the parties. There are policy issues in this campaign, even if we in the media are doing our traditional stellar job of ignoring them. True, the government of Canada would continue to do almost all of the same things it does now, at much the same cost, no matter which party is elected—at least for the next few years. But where the parties do disagree, there are clear differences in direction signalled, and over time these could grow to be large indeed.

And there’s a wild card—with a minority government looking increasingly probable, the policies of the other parties, notably the NDP, take on rather greater significance than they might otherwise, as potential bargaining chips in any post-election haggling over power. So the main parties’ platforms must be assessed in light of the gravitational pull likely to be exercised upon them by these lesser stars.

Continue…

Come on, get angry

By Paul Wells - Friday, April 15, 2011 at 6:00 AM - 62 Comments

Fred Greenslade/Reuters

It was selfless of Canada’s broadcasters to showcase the political party leaders with an English-language debate that couldn’t possibly be mistaken as a showcase of the broadcasters’ own abilities. The show could not have been less impressively produced if the leaders had skyped their jabs and parries in from an Internet café. I spent the first three minutes of the debate frantically switching channels because I couldn’t believe the cavernous echo-chamber sound was the official audio feed from the floor.

As for the set: corrugated metal, beige ’70s colours—at last I realized why it all looked so familiar. The broadcasters had stationed the leaders of Canada’s political parties in front of the tour bus from The Partridge Family. A subliminal message, perhaps. The old TV comedy’s theme song—Come On Get Happy—was an extended warning against fratricidal bickering. “We have a dream, we’ll go travelling together / We’ll spread a little loving and we’ll keep moving on / Something always happens whenever we’re together / We get a happy feeling when we’re singing a song.”

Yeah, not so much. These four couldn’t bear the thought of travelling together much further than they’ve come so far. The tone was set in the first exchange by Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe, in the pesky teenager role originally played by Danny Bonaduce. Stephen Harper answered one of the pre-recorded questions from an ordinary voter that have come to characterize these debates. “I would like to congratulate Mr. Harper for answering a question from a citizen,” Duceppe said, “for the first time in this campaign.”

Continue…

The documents detained

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 5:38 PM - 37 Comments

A few weeks after some degree of confusion on this matter was noted, the two judges reviewing documents related to the detention and transfer of detainees in Afghanistan to determine how information will be publicly disclosed have apparently decided that nothing can be released until Parliament reconvenes. The judges wrote to the Conservative, Liberal and Bloc leaders today to explain their current dilemma and that letter can be viewed here.

Mr. Ignatieff’s office has issued a statement calling on the judges’ report to be released and seeking, if necessary, an amendment to the memorandum of understanding to allow for public disclosure as soon as possible. The Conservatives have followed with a statement from Laurie Hawn, the Conservative representative on the committee, encouraging disclosure.

Full statements after the jump.

Continue…

The Commons: Let us build a bridge

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 11:31 PM - 27 Comments

Be it so decreed that something must be done about the Champlain Bridge. On this we are all agreed. On this we are united. Upon this we must drive together toward the future. Or at least Verdun.

Or so we might, if we were not so divided on pretty much every other matter raised this evening. There are apparently some gaps not even the Champlain Bridge can transcend.

For instance, hockey metaphors. Or, more specifically, the proper hockey metaphor to describe the usefulness of Bloc Québécois and New Democrat MPs in the House of Commons. Continue…

French language debate: Tie goes to Layton

By Martin Patriquin - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 10:11 PM - 34 Comments

Language aside, there were several carry-overs from the English debate last night: the perpetual look of owlish incredulity on the part of Michael Ignatieff, who unfortunately kept getting cut off; the one-off zingers of Gilles Duceppe (‘Yes, Quebec stands up at the UN. It doesn’t have a seat!’) that demonstrate how much less this man has to lose than anyone else; the unblinking stare of Stephen Harper, sticking to his talking points and nakedly appealing to ‘les régions’, spitting out ‘Toronto and Montreal’ like they were curse words (good luck with that Montreal seat, Larry Smith).

If there was one free radical, it was Jack Layton. Giving his creeping advantage in the polls, Layton’s battle was with Duceppe, from whom the NDP leader would like to take a chunk of the soft nationalist vote. He shut Duceppe’s narrative of an Ottawa-centric NDP government down, he withstood the sticky questions about Bill 101 by reminding Duceppe that language policy is a provincial jurisdiction, and was the only one of the three federalist leaders to have the courage (or folly, depending on who you ask) to say his government would move to have Quebec sign the constitution. His French was about 10 times better than in 2008, and he had the last word. It was a slog, and he didn’t win by much. But he won.

Soirée du débat

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 6:00 PM - 2 Comments

Tonight’s debate will follow the same format as last night’s debate, save for the language being spoken. The one-on-one pairings will be as follows.

1. Ignatieff-Duceppe
2. Harper-Layton
3. Ignatieff-Harper
4. Duceppe-Layton
5. Harper-Duceppe
6. Layton-Ignatieff

Closing statements will go Harper, Ignatieff, Duceppe, Layton.

Paul Wells will be here around 8pm to guide you through the proceedings. I’ll be by some time later after taking the necessary time to ruminate.

The Facebook vote

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 1:52 PM - 12 Comments

The current tally, with improvements since the previous tally in parentheses.

Michael Ignatieff 56,089 (7,882)
Stephen Harper 49,054 (3,260)
Jack Layton 41,355 (4,757)
Elizabeth May 9,577 (865)
Gilles Duceppe 6,965 (669)

See for yourself

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 8:44 AM - 10 Comments

Last night’s two-hour debate is now on YouTube in its full and unabridged glory.

The Commons: Take your pick

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 10:35 PM - 242 Comments

First and foremost, apologies are probably due to Robert from Newmarket, Veselka from Mississauga, Sam from Mount Pearl, Jade from Montreal, and Patti from New Glasgow—the Average Canadians tasked with leading this debate. Each asked good, worthy questions. All were more or less ignored after about 30 seconds of the ensuing discussion. Only Len from Gibsons, who asked about justice policy, seemed to receive something like a proper and full statement of positions—an odd twist given how insipid the discussion of crime is often made to be.

So perhaps Len is to be declared the winner of this first debate of the 41st general election.

Alas, you cannot vote for Len. You must pick—in at least an existential sense—one of these men. So what might you have learned from these two hours? More specifically, what might you have seen of these men?

Continue…

The first debate: where they stood

By John Geddes - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 9:55 PM - 47 Comments

Rarely has the geography of a leaders’ debate seemed as important as it did tonight. Early on Jack Layton established why proximity matters by using his position at the Prime Minister’s left elbow to lean in and make it personal.

“I’m asking myself, ‘cause  I’m  remembering a Stephen Harper once upon a time, who came here to change Ottawa, was going to stick up for the little guy,” Layton said while hold forth on the government’s corporate tax cuts. “But you’ve become what you used to oppose.”

Throughout the evening, his most effective maneuver was to take a policy discussion and turn it into a personal critique of Harper or, pivoting to his other side, Michael Ignatieff.

Harper used his position out on one side to try to remain detached from the fray, fixing his gaze on the TV camera as often as he could, and avoiding eye contact with the other guys that might, I suppose, have brought him down to their level from the prime-ministerial heights.

He’s mastered a tone of voice that might be called lofty exasperation. He seemed most in command whenever he reduced a complex argument to short lists of policy points, or to a brief, impatient lecture on his operating principles.

“Mr. Ignatieff, you’re not able to invest in health care and services and education that matters to people by raising taxes,” he said in one typical exchange with his main rival. “You do that by growing the economy.”

For Ignatieff, being squeezed between Layton and Gilles Duceppe wasn’t good luck. Engaging with Duceppe in the English debate wouldn’t gain him much of anything. As for the NDP leader, Ignatieff clearly wanted to speak right past him to Harper.

But that straining amplified the urgency in Ignatieff’s voice, which was often underlined by intense hand gestures. Pushing that hard is risky on TV. Still, he settled down somewhat in the second half. And his emphatic tone might come across better in ten-second clips than it did over a two-hour broadcast.

“This comes down to a moment of choice,” he said in one of many clip-worthy summary statements. “You can either spend it on corporate tax breaks, multimillion-dollar expenditure of prisons, billions on jets, big gifts to upper middle class Canadians to reduce their taxes, or you can support health care.”

'Take a moment to work together and get results for Canadians'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 6:37 PM - 7 Comments

Jack Layton has penned a letter to the other party leaders and Auditor General Sheila Fraser seeking a Thursday meeting to discuss the release of the AG’s final report on G8 funding.

The Hill Times article to which he refers is here.

Debate night

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 2:06 PM - 15 Comments

The whole Maclean’s team will be around tonight with running commentary of the English-language leaders debate. (A link to our debate hub to come.)

The two-hour debate will be separated into six segments. A question will be posed by an average Canadian and a one-on-one debate between two leaders will follow for six minutes. The other leaders will then be invited to join the discussion. At the end of the six segments, the leaders will be able to make final statements.

The six initial pairings are as follows.

1. Harper—Duceppe
2. Ignatieff—Layton
3. Harper—Ignatieff
4. Duceppe—Layton
5. Ignatieff—Duceppe
6. Layton—Harper

Elizabeth May will apparently be responding to the debate in real time.

Ignatieff is getting a lot more attention and 'better coverage'

By Josh Dehaas - Friday, April 8, 2011 at 9:25 AM - 102 Comments

CP; Reuters

Michael Ignatieff spent his first full week of campaigning doling out gifts. It seemed like there was a new one every day: $4,000 to every student for tuition on Tuesday, $500 million for child care on Friday, and a smattering of renovation tax credits on Sunday, when the Liberal leader unveiled the rest of his plan.

For Stuart Soroka, the McGill University political scientist who runs the Federal Election Newspaper Analysis, it was reminiscent of the early days of Stephen Harper’s 2006 campaign when the Conservatives broke through by using a similar excitement-building rollout. (Maclean’s is publishing results from the newspaper analysis every week until election day. The project tracks which issues get written about and the tone of stories.)

If the Liberals’ plan was to attract attention, it worked. “Not only are they getting more coverage,” says Soroka, citing an increase in Ignatieff’s “first mentions” in news stories—up from 18 to 23 per cent between March 28 to April 2, compared to the previous week; Harper, meanwhile, fell from 68 to 62 per cent—”It’s also better coverage.”

Continue…

Who will save us now (part III)?

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, April 4, 2011 at 8:50 PM - 103 Comments

I wrote this some days ago, but before I could post, Jeff Simpson’s column appeared on a similar theme. But since no one’s responded to his piece, I’ll pick up where he left off:

Here’s a subject I don’t imagine any of the party leaders will want to bring up — but someone really should. That is, who among them is best placed to deal with the coming crisis in Quebec?

Sometime in the next couple of years a provincial election will be called (the last was in Dec. 2008, so in theory they could push it off into 2013). On present levels of support, the Liberals haven’t a prayer. Which means that, barring a miracle, we are about to enter the third cycle of Parti Québécois government. In each of the first two, 1976-1984 and 1994-2003, the PQ launched a referendum on separation-with-association, and while the Clarity Act may be thought to have placed some boundaries around the debate — the province can hold a referendum on any subject it likes, but the feds are constrained in what they can negotiate — it must be expected the Péquistes will try every trick in the book, up to an including a quickie referendum. This is, after all, very likely their last shot.

So, on the perhaps shaky assumption that whomever we elect on May 2 is still Prime Minister then, it really would seem timely to ask: Which of the parties and their leaders is the best choice to deal with this situation? Who best combines finesse and toughness, understanding of Quebec and fire in the belly for Canada? Will it be the Anglophone from Toronto who wanted to build a firewall around Alberta? Or the Anglophone from Toronto who was out of the country for 30-odd years? What about the Anglophone from Toronto whose party is rumoured to be conspiring with the Bloc to defeat federalist candidates in the Montreal area?

Certainly no clear federalist choice has emerged in the province. While all three national parties have been pandering as fast as they can — Look here! An arena! No, an airport! What about these snowmobile trails, huh? — each is mired around 20% in the polls. Meaning the Bloc will likely take about 50 seats, as usual. Suppose Duceppe then retires from federal politics, to replace — as many Péquistes hope — the unpopular Pauline Marois as PQ leader. If recent polls are any guide, he’d sweep the province. And facing him? A shattered, leaderless provincial Liberal party in Quebec City, and a hung Parliament in Ottawa — possibly with the Bloc holding the balance of power.

As I say, I doubt any of the leaders will be anxious to raise this question. They don’t want to be seen to write off Charest, they don’t want to stir the pot, whatever. But the rest of us should certainly be thinking about it.

The Facebook vote

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 4, 2011 at 11:01 AM - 12 Comments

The current tally (with improvements from the last tally in parentheses).

Michael Ignatieff 48,207 (15,531)
Stephen Harper 45,794 (9,183)
Jack Layton 36,598 (5,505)
Elizabeth May 8,712 (1,540)
Gilles Duceppe 6,296 (1,411)

Who’s blue now?

By Martin Patriquin - Monday, April 4, 2011 at 9:54 AM - 1 Comment

Graham Hughes/CP

Many moons ago, when Conservative party strategists dreamed of a majority government, their thoughts turned to Quebec. The Conservative brand of laissez-faire government was a natural fit for the province’s bevy of soft nationalists, tired of the scandal-plagued Liberals and the perpetual opposition of the Bloc Québécois. And there was a precedent: Quebec was the gateway to Brian Mulroney’s sweep of the country in 1984. For Stephen Harper, it was a matter of boning up on his French and promising Quebec a UNESCO seat and—voila!—the party garnered 10 seats in the 2006 election, not bad for a party led by a Toronto-born, Calgary-bred politician.

What a difference five years makes. Other than a by-election win, giving it a total of 11 seats, the party has failed to capitalize on this advantage. Today, several Conservative MPs are struggling just to hang on. The Tory position was never bulletproof in Quebec—Conservative MPs in the ridings of Montmagny-L’islet, Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean and Beauport-Limoilou won with five per cent or less over their opponents. And they now face sustained political opposition from the Bloc—as well as an increased presence by the other federalist parties. “It’s going to be very close,” says Dominic Maurais, host of a morning show on the populist CHOI-FM radio station in Quebec City. “The Conservative challenge will be to convince the disenfranchised Liberals out there to go and vote for them.”

Continue…