Robocalls - Guelph at the centre of the maelstrom

Well, it's not quite how and why I'd like to see my current hometown in the news, but if it helps expose corruption from the 2011 election, I won't complain. It would appear that the automated phone calls here in Guelph on election day 2011 were what triggered the main Elections Canada investigation that has recently become national news. As one of the people who called Elections Canada to report the phony calls on election day, and who initiated a call trace with Rogers, I'm pleased to see that my actions and those of fellow Guelph voters have actually led to concrete action. I'm also quite relieved that despite those phone calls, my local MP still comfortably won re-election to the Liberal benches.

Alas, I very much doubt, despite the optimistic predictions of diehard partisans, that this scandal will topple the government. I figure that a few scapegoats will be tossed under the bus, and that a prolonged court case will probably lead to fines and charges against lesser party officials. But with a majority government ensconced in both the House of Commons and the Senate, plus what will likely be plausible deniability of top party brass, I don't think that Harper's government is in any immediate danger of falling. The question becomes whether this electoral sleaze will still resonate with the electorate come 2015. I'm not counting on it, but it certainly is something to hope for and work to keep in the public eye as long as possible.

Recommend this Post

Quebec NDP: The Kids [Could Be] All Right

Monday was an exciting night for Quebec university NDP clubs, as a number of members of their executives were elected to the House of Commons, amidst a wave that elected NDP members in almost 80% of Quebec's ridings (on the strength of about 43% of the province's popular vote, although that's a subject for a different post). Since that day, news sites, Twitter and Facebook have been aflame with commentary and angry retorts regarding the issues of the youth, experience, and suitability for office of these newly-elected MPs.

To the vitriolic partisans on both sides of this issue, I say a pox on both your houses. Everybody has to start somewhere in politics, and many, many members of parliament (and indeed leaders of some major political parties) have been thrust into political office with no prior political experience. In many cases, this is what people find "fresh" about them. Many are elected at a young age, in their mid-20s, and seem to settle into the position without much difficulty. In both cases, they often stumble a bit as they get their footing, and many settle into the job quite nicely. Others don't, and our current House of Commons has many examples of "veterans" who were initially elected at a variety of ages who I'd argue are not fit to hold elected office. So this lack of experience is not necessarily a problem at all, and it's a cheap attack ploy when these individuals have not yet had a chance to prove themselves. It's particularly hollow and bitter coming from Liberal partisans, because they barely held on to less than half of their seats, electing very few rookies at all.

But to the NDP partisans who have been on their high horse about this issue, a little less self-righteous posturing would be appreciated. Many of these candidates were placeholder candidates. They knew it, Jack Layton knew it, and you know it. And they got lucky. So now the best line of argument is to make the case that they should be given a fair shot. But pretending that it is invalid to question and closely examine the credentials and political positions of people who were probably not closely scrutinized by the party when they agreed to run as the sacrificial lamb in the riding - to collect the $1.75 subsidy and reinforce claims to national party status - rings false to those on the outside. How about a bit more honesty? Admit that some of these people were not necesarily ideal picks with perfect qualifications, but make the case for their capacity to prove themselves despite their surface-level lack of experience and perceived lack of aptitude for public office.

I imagine that out of the current crop of rookie MPs, some will distinguish themselves. But at least a few others will likely be disastrous and make some serious media gaffes. It might be better to admit this earlier on in the process and perhaps earn a slight reprieve from the circling journalistic vultures when the inevitable first set of mistakes occur.

Recommend this Post

Don't blame Guelph. We voted for Kodos!

Bah! Our electoral system has given a party that won 40% of the vote from the 61% of eligible voters who cast ballots a majority of seats in the House of Commons, and they've got control of the Senate as well. And as far as I can tell, electoral reform will not be on the agenda for the lower house for quite some time now. (The Senate, on the other hand...)

As you might imagine, I'm really disheartened by all of this (and I lost badly in my election pool). So here are my silver linings:

1) Guelph. My local riding stayed Liberal - unique for Southwestern Ontario - and Frank Valeriote substantially increased his margin over the Conservative. In large part, it looks like the Green vote collapsed here and went solidly Liberal. Many thanks to the U of G vote mobs and a great local get-out-the-vote team.

2) The Quebec NDP. Holy moly! Need I say more? I'm thrilled that the Bloc vote has collapsed (for now). Hopefully many of these MPs will grow quickly on the job. I'm somewhat optimistic that many of the university-aged or recently graduated newly-minted MPs, in particular, adapt quickly into their new positions and inject a youth perspective into our national politics. I'm a little worried about what the longer-term dynamics of this shift might look like on the national question, but that's fodder for another post.

3) Elizabeth May. Good on her for winning that seat. It's an important beachhead, and she should get a voice in the next leaders' debates, unless the consortium declares that the Greens don't have official-party status in the House.

4) Marc Garneau, Stephane Dion and Justin Trudeau. I'm pleased to see that these three Quebec Liberals, in particular, held on to their seats. I don't think that Trudeau would make a good leader, for what it's worth, but I think he deserves credit for a great ground game. Garneau has also been a really effective critic, and an intelligent voice in caucus. And I am just chuffed that Dion has stuck it out in politics, even through the hard times.

5) Dan McTeague (& probably others). I can't say I'm unhappy when socially-conservative Liberals lose their seats.

6) NDP in Scarborough?? I figured that the NDP would pick up seats in downtown Toronto, but it's nice that at least some of the weird shifts and vote-splitting around the city didn't necessarily lead to Conservative wins in all instances.

None of this overcomes my overall disappointment in the outcome of this election. There will need to be a very active civil engagement and critical media to keep this new government in line. But I'm trying to look on the bright side of life this morning - it's going to be a long 4.5 years in any case, and despair is not productive.

Recommend this Post

Election-day shenanigans in Guelph

Like a good citizen, I headed out bright and early this morning to my local polling station to vote this morning. There was no line-up, but a steady flow of people in and out to the various booths. My partner reported the array of Conservative signs that were lying on the grass in front of the station (although not standing up) to the local officer, who had them removed before we had left the station. And then the interesting part of this story begins.

I returned home to find a message from an automated dialer on my voice mail telling me that my polling station had been switched from the one printed on the card I had received from Elections Canada, directing me to the Old Quebec Street mall. Clearly, this was a hoax. According to my caller ID, the call came from a 450 area code, and told me to call a 1-800 number if I had questions (the final four digits of which matched the number on my caller ID - not the 1-800 number on Elections Canada's website). I've reported the hoax call to Elections Canada, and initiated a call trace on the call. Hopefully that phone number will be shut down, and the perpetrator will not succeed in suppressing the vote.

This has been another ugly, ugly election here in Guelph. No reports of cut brake lines like last time, thank god, but enough nasty efforts at vote suppression and unpleasant campaign strategies that I'll be really happy when all of this is safely over.

Get out and vote everyone - and if you're not sure where to vote, check the address on your polling card or the Elections Canada website.

3:44 ETA: For more information about how this story is unfolding in Guelph, see this article in the Guelph Mercury. It appears that the local returning officer is arranging transportation for anyone who shows up at the hoax locations trying to vote.

Recommend this Post

Election Prediction? Beats Me!

Well, this election has turned into quite the roller-coaster ride, hasn't it? Depending on your pollster of choice, we're either headed for an historic NDP breakthrough or a Conservative majority. Confused? Me too. As in past years, I'm participating in a little election pool with a few friends where we each try to call the winner of each of the 308 ridings in the country. It's surprisingly difficult to do, but it does focus your mind on getting past the broad national and provincial polling numbers to try to get a sense of how this election might play out on the ground at the local level. And it looks weird, my friends!

Rather than try to make bold predictions about the overall outcome of the election, I thought it might be fun to share a few of my guiding assumptions about what might happen tomorrow:

1) Quebec: Much as the polling numbers coming out of Quebec are wildly exciting for the NDP, it's really hard to predict how all of that will shake out on a riding-by-riding basis. I honestly don't believe that the Bloc will be decimated, especially since they have the benefit of a more established local infrastructure. I do think there will be some really bizarre vote splitting and that the NDP will make gains. My gut says that those gains will be in the Outaouais, Montreal, and parts of the south shore/Eastern townships, but that's just a wild prediction. I won't be surprised if the Bloc still wins the most seats in the province (although falling short of a majority of the province's total seats). And despite the tanking Liberal and Conservative numbers, I suspect that both parties will hold on to some of their seats, especially when it comes to Liberals on the island of Montreal.

2) Incumbency: More than anything else, this is the factor that I think will make a difference for the Liberals in terms of avoiding a complete decimation scenario. I think that, particularly in Ontario, where their numbers have not fallen as dramatically, many Liberal incumbent MPs might hold on to their seats as anti-Harper voters decide to stick with the proven option rather than jumping ship to another party. (This also works in favour of NDP incumbents in the province, where Liberal voters might switch to the NDP to keep the anti-Conservative option in power.) We might even see a few surprises, like in the Kitchener ridings, where long-term Liberal MPs Karen Redman and Andrew Telegdi barely lost their seats last time around, but are running again. In ridings where the incumbent isn't running again (like Kingston), it will be harder for the Liberals to hold their vote share.

3) BC: At some point in my life, I'm going to have to spend a few years in British Columbia. The political culture out there is fascinating, and the turmoil is wild. I really have no idea how that province is going to shape up. But I think it might be safe to say that for once, the old adage of British Columbia voters turning on their televisions on election night to find out that the overall result had already been predetermined will not be the case this year!

4) Atlantic Canada: I'm going to be keeping my eye on early results from Atlantic Canada, because a part of me suspects that we might be seeing some hints of 1997 in the works. Back then, the region turned against the Liberals, electing a substantial number of Conservative and NDP MPs. That was the early sign that presaged an overall reduced Liberal majority. If the Conservative numbers slip in that region, it might be a sign that Harper's total is in trouble. Right now, my instincts tell me that the region will be split three ways, and heavilly determined by incumbency.

5) Prairies. Conservative numbers, particularly according to pollsters like Nanos, indicate that the overall levels of support for the Conservatives have remained pretty stable at the national level. But when you drill down a bit, there have been wild shifts in many provinces - and a steady uptick in Prairie support, especially in Alberta. Given this fact, I'm not expecting tons of movement here. I think that Linda Duncan will hold her Edmonton seat (hello IP!), and that Winnipeg will still elect a mix of all three parties. I'm still not certain if the orange wave will land in the CCF cradle of Saskatchewan.

What do we see at the end of all this? My instincts tell me that it won't be quite the revolution that excited pundits have predicted. I think that Harper's Conservatives will still end up in good shape - let's say their current total +/- 10 seats. I also don't think that the Bloc will completely collapse, and will probably win enough seats that the could, if they chose, prop up a Conservative minority.

I think that the NDP is probably in for a record total seat count, but that it will be less than the optimistic 100-seat predictions of some. I also don't think that the Liberals will be decimated, and they might even avoid the disastrous low of the 1984 election. Together, these two parties might even surpass the total seat count of the Conservatives.

So what happens then? Very hard to say, in my estimation. It all depends on how much Harper wants to cling to power. I wouldn't rule out the scenario where Harper makes a major Quebec-oriented promise in an effort to win over the Bloc, who might not be eager to give the NDP a chance to prove that they can deliver in government on their major promises to the province's nationalist voters. But Harper has proven unable to compromise in the past, so...

Of course, all of this is wild speculation on the future. And I'm a historian, whose expertise is in explaining the past. Twenty years from now, I might think about writing an article about this election, when I have the benefit of more data, evidence and sources. So take this for what it is - the musings of an engaged citizen, with a bit of expertise on what has occurred in Canada's political past, but a very cloudy crystal ball!

Recommend this Post

NDP in Quebec: Who are these prospective MPs?

With all the excitement/panic/drama surrounding the apparent NDP wave in Quebec, it's fair to wonder who might suddenly become the new crop of MPs from Quebec if polling data translates into seats in the House of Commons. I, for one, am very curious. Here in Guelph, the NDP ran fourth in the 2008 election, and even today, a week before the election, there is still no candidate bio on the website for the local candidate, Bobbi Stewart. I have no idea from the website who she is, other than the election preparedness chair for the local riding association.

If that's the case in Ontario, it's no surprise that speculation is rampant about the Quebec crop of candidates for the party. The Globe and Mail has started digging, and has turned up at least a handful of university students. I'm not surprised at all. When I volunteered for the local NDP candidate in Outremont in the 2004 election, I was rather surprised to discover that the entire provincial campaign was being run out of a single office on St. Laurent Blvd, and that most of the candidates for the province were in fact the campaign management team, based almost entirely out of Montreal, many of them university students, and most of them under thirty years of age. A quick glance through the list of candidates seems to indicate that this is again the case in at least a sizeable number of ridings.

As a person who genuinely would love to see the NDP replace the Bloc as the choice of Quebec voters, I'm hoping that some of the blue seats in that province will turn orange, and that the newly elected MPs will do a good job. It's just that nagging memory of the ADQ surge to become the official opposition in Quebec in 2007 that has me a little concerned of what could happen when a series of placeholder candidates suddenly become MPs.

Let's just say that I'm hopeful, yet concerned...

Recommend this Post

An Orange Revolution in Quebec: The NDP in la belle province

I'm somewhat surprised by the latest CROP and Ekos polls coming out of Quebec, showing the NDP cruising into first place, and the Bloc vote steadily falling. But as I'll get to later in this post, there are good historical reasons to explain this trend. In the immediate context, to understand better why this is occurring, I'd strongly recommend reading Vincent Marissal in La Presse this morning, although the unilingual among you (ETA: or to be more accurate, those who can only read one of our two official languages) could get a slightly more negative appraisal of the cause of Layton's rise by reading Jeffrey Simpson's column in the Globe yesterday. Taken together, what emerges is that Layton personally is quite popular in Quebec, he fared very well in the leaders' debate, and, more importantly, the NDP in Quebec is running on the soft nationalist platform, endorsing an application of Bill 101 to federal institutions and an asymmetric vision of federalism.

Whoa! What's that you say, in English-speaking Canada? The grand old party of federal government control and centralization is advocating more powers for Quebec? What's up with that? Well, gentle reader, how about a brief history lesson...

It has been a rough and complicated ride for the left in Quebec over the last 80 years. The CCF, founded in the Depression years, encountered a Quebec ready for change, as decades of provincial Liberal dynasties were about to be cast off. However, in a province still heavily dominated by the Catholic Church, a socialist party was viewed with suspicion. And then things got worse, when Maurice Duplessis seized control of the would-be-progressive Union Nationale from his co-leader Paul Gouin and set about implementing his conservative vision for the province. For the left, this was disastrous, especially once the "loi de cadenas" or Padlock Law was passed in 1937, allowing the provincial government to lock down premises being used to promote bolshevism, a law widely used against unions and left-wing organizations. The arrest of Fred Rose, a Montreal-area Labour MP on charges of supporting communism in the wake of the Gouzenko spy affair in the mid-1940s didn't help matters.

Fast forward three decades, and Quebec's political Quiet Revolution led the provincial Liberals of Jean Lesage into office as the modernizers and pro-government intervention party. At the national level, Lester Pearson and then Pierre Trudeau's Liberals offered a safe option for left-wing Quebecers. Quebec's political culture opened up to government intervention and social programs. Indeed, the time should have been ripe for an NDP breakthrough in the province. However, in the 1960s, the party was seen as the standard-bearer for nationally-run social programs, which sold well to its constituencies in other parts of the country, but left them high and dry in Quebec, where the provincial government was fighting for more autonomy over social and cultural programs (including the Quebec Pension Program of 1964-65).

As Canada slipped into the 1970s, support for left-wing initiatives - support for unions, social programs and government intervention - were all growing in Quebec. But then things get derailed for the NDP. The Union Nationale collapsed, and the standard-bearer for all things progressive became the sovereignist Parti Quebecois, which promised a dynamic, interventionist, progressive - and largely independent - Quebec. Ever since the mid-1970s, a sizable chunk of the left-wing vote in Quebec has also identified with the sovereignist option, with many seeing the greatest potential for these policies outside of a more (small-c) conservative Canada. Quebeckers have come to love their social programs - witness the provincial daycare and drug plans. And so, in election after election, many soft nationalist, left-of-centre voters, particularly francophone ones, have supported the PQ at the provincial level, and later the Bloc federally (although the Bloc also attracts a lot of more conservative voters from rural Quebec who used to support the Creditistes and the ADQ). If you track the Bloc's positions on a lot of social issues at the federal level, they consistently end up left-of-centre. Heck, the CBC's who-should-you-vote-for tool pegged me, a Trudeau federalist, as a potential Bloc voter.

And so, under Jack Layton, the NDP has adopted a new strategy. While outside Quebec the party continues to champion a strong federal role in social programs, within the province they speak of accommodation and asymmetrical federalism. They embrace Quebec's protective language laws and sing the song of the soft nationalist. It helped with the Outremont breakthrough, and appears to be selling well in this election, when Duceppe has not been in his best fighting form. And talk of coalition government does sell very well in Quebec. So in these respects, an NDP surge in the province should not be seen as all that surprising (although it's understandable why are surprised given this long history), but long overdue, especially given that active support for separatism is quite low at the moment.

The big questions are as follows: a) Will this support hold until election day and be concentrated enough to yield more seats in the province? and b) Will the NDP's core voters in other parts of the country continue to support Layton and his party despite these promises made in Quebec, if and when they become more aware of them?

Recommend this Post

Election 2011: Thoughts on "Truthiness" and Evidence-Based Policy

Just a quick post today to link to a blogpost I was invited to contribute to canada.com's Decision Canada election website. In it, I reflect on recent Conservative changes to programs such as the long-form census and the court challenges program which have undermined evidence-based policy-making and a rigorous democratic culture.

I'm marking exams at the moment, which explains the lack of new posts since the weekend, but I shall return!

Recommend this Post

James Moore: How far back is going too far back?

In the interests of a bit of non-partisanship, I'm going to call out the Liberals today for a tactic I find distasteful that was used in BC. Liberals in the riding of heritage minister James Moore have released a column that he wrote in a student nespaper over a decade ago, which questions the issue of regulating late-term abortions. Effectively, the local Liberals are all but accusing him of secretly harbouring an anti-abortion agenda, despite a long record of pro-choice statements, and generally being one of the most socially liberal members of the Conservative caucus (with a stellar record on gay rights, for example).

The article in question was written twelve years ago! I shudder to think that someone would dig out pieces that I wrote as a high school journalist or even an undergraduate (when I was deeply in the closet) and take them for my current opinions. People's views change over time, and when a clear record of speaking and voting on issues a certain way has been established, I do think it's reasonable to let people make a break from their past. This is not to say that individuals who have gone quiet on an issue, or release ambivalent statements should be given a free pass. But when a clear pattern of voting and speaking a certain way is established, it seems petty to attempt a "gotcha" attack, especially when there are so many other ways to confront a candidate's actual established positions.

More to the point, Moore's position on this issue hardly paints him as a wide-eyed radical on the abortion question. Although Canada's laws on abortion were struck down by the courts in 1988, the Supreme Court did rule that regulation of abortion was permissible, but not using the procedural mechanisms that were in place under the 1969 legislation, which violated the principle of equal access. Moreover, the main reason that Canada doesn't have an abortion law now is because efforts to pass such a law failed in the Senate, partly because social conservatives considered Kim Campbell's legislation to be too permissive. The procedure /is/ internally regulated by a number of medical authorities at the provincial level, covering the particular types of cases that Moore addresses in the quotes cited in the Globe article. Indeed, one could make the case that clear legislation on when abortions are fully legal might make it easier for women to procure them in provinces such as New Brunswick, where access is notoriously difficult because of these internal regulations.

I think this particular case of going after Moore for this article is petty politics and something that both the local party organizers in BC should have been above, and that the Globe shouldn't have descended to reporting on. Frankly, there's plenty to attack in the current actions of Moore's Conservative benchmates and leader without having to stoop to digging up mud on his pre-office actions of over a decade ago.

Recommend this Post

U of Guelph votes will count!

Elections Canada has released a Solomonesque public statement on the University of Guelph voting controversy. Of greatest interest is the fact that the student votes will be counted, and are considered to have been cast in a manner that respects the Canada Elections Act. The short version of the statement is that it appears that this special ballot station, although it was not centrally approved by the Chief Electoral Officer in advance of the election, is something that has often been done in a number of circumstances and was organized by the local Elections Canada Returning Officer. Such special ballot stations are usually pre-approved before an election. Similar on-site special ballot collection initiatives will not, however, be permitted for future cases during this election. Voters may, however, obtain individual special ballots from their riding's returning officers.

The statement treads a careful path between the competing party interests, staying away from explicit commentary on the other allegations (the alleged attempted box snatching, partisan material near the polls, the scrutineer question), and focusing on the central issue of whether the votes will count. For now, this is what needed to be addressed.

I remain, however, very concerned that amidst concerns about perceived irregularities, it was not until after the casting of ballots had taken place that active Conservative efforts were made to have the students' votes set aside. The details of this special ballot were well-publicized in advance in Guelph and around the university. Heck, the President of the university publicly offered to have his face painted Avatar-blue if enough students took part! In the absence of serious issues that might actually have led to actual fraud, all parties should be thinking in terms of encouraging youth votes, rather than actively cancelling them.

To any students/youth reading this post: Keep up your efforts to have your voices heard and votes counted!

Recommend this Post

Guelph Conservatives continue to try to exclude youth voters

It's really quite mind-boggling to think what must be going through the thinking processes of Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke's campaign team. First, they make a point of keeping members of the U of Guelph vote mob away from Harper's rally. Then, he failed to turn up at this week all-candidates debate at the university. And now, in a move that I find jaw-droppingly stupid, his agent is trying to exclude the 700 votes cast at a special advance ballot held at the university yesterday. According to the article in the Guelph Mercury, such special advance polls are routine to try to encourage voter turnout among segments of the population that often have lower participation rates. Certainly youth qualify, with a less than 40% turnout in the last election.

I hope this incident gets nation-wide coverage. The Conservative Party of Canada doesn't want students to vote, and will take special measures to exclude their ballots. This is absolutely reprehensible, and yet completely unsurprising in light of how this campaign has gone to date. For shame.

Recommend this Post

Post-debate musings

One of the nice perks of being bilingual is that you can watch Canada's political leaders debate in both languages without having to listen to their interpreters. I watched both Tuesday's English-language debate and Wednesday's French-language debate. Here are a few impressions:

1) Format: I liked how the format allowed for more one-on-one interactions. I was less pleased that camera positioning allowed, if not encouraged, leaders to not speak to each other but to talk straight at the camera (or to Canadians). Harper, in particular, often seemed like he was delivering an infomercial script. Alas, I think it probably worked for him, with the two hours serving as free advertizing time, rather than time for thoughtful exchange. As so many have said, the location and set were a disaster, from the acoustics to the decor. As I have also said before, Elizabeth May should have been in the room, especially in the English-language debates.

2) Questions: I'm just not a populist, and I thought the questions from "average Canadians" was an irritating contrivance. Many were still the questions that the media would have posed, but framed in a more awkward and partisan tone. Also, it's notable that not one of the questions in the French-language debate came from a francophone outside of Quebec (where over 1 million of them live), only 1 of the 12 Canadians came from a younger voter, and none came from a person who was a visible minority or an aboriginal Canadian.

3) Leaders:
Harper played it cool, almost reptilian (although I wouldn't go so far as to call him a kitten-eater). He stayed out of the mix in both debates, keeping his calm, and being thoroughly dismissive of the other leaders. He also dodged direct questions, which might have irked undecided voters. I think he fared fine in the English debate for what he needed to do, but he was thoroughly unimpressive and disengaged from the French-language debate. His outspoken contempt for the debate format itself, which he referred to as "bickering" or "chicanes" was all part of his strategy to prompt people to view politics as irrelevant and distasteful. I thought Ignatieff scored a good point in the English debate (and again in French) by reinforcing the necessity of democracy.

Ignatieff had some good moments in the English language debate, particularly around the issue of engagement with voters and healthy debate. But he did seem a bit hostile and unable to articulate the Liberal vision. Clearly his handlers spoke to him, because I thought he was really on his game in the French debate, repeatedly articulating Liberal promises (such as the learning passport) and generally seeming more relaxed. He also learned to address the camera more often. He also made a constant point of returning back to the original question, which might be a useful strategy to sway the undecided vote.

Layton probably read well in both debates. In the English debate, he was the voice of moral authority and concern for the working class, as is so often the role of the NDP. In French, he almost seemed impish, with a gleam in his eye as he called out the other leaders on a variety of issues. He seems more clever in French, somehow, and less dogmatic. He also avoided repeating his line about crime "and all that bling" being appealing for the young, which was embarrassing.

Duceppe was Duceppe. I think his English this year was not as strong as in 2008, for whatever reason. All he had to do was attack the other parties, knowing he will never, ever win government at the federal level. I appreciated having him there to attack Harper on issues like the would-be coalition of '04, but I find his presence in federal politics to be an irritant at best. I will be curious to see how his performance read for the soft-nationalist core in Quebec. Ignatieff tried to argue that constitutional issues were not the big priority for voters, and I'm not sure whether Duceppe has managed to convince Quebecers that this is the priority issue he needs it to be.


And now we proceed to another two and a half weeks of campaigning. Will there be an Easter surprise? Stay tuned!

Recommend this Post

Voter engagement. (or Week 2 wrap-up)

Last week, just before the beginning of my second- and third-year Canadian history courses, I played the following Rick Mercer clip:

Youth voting has plummetted over the past couple of decades, and falls well below the national average. Indeed, Canadian voting rates on the whole have been declining in recent elections, leading many to ponder the causes of the decline and to propose solutions. Some of those proposed solutions relate to making voters feel more informed about the issues (perhaps via leaders' debates), and others about re-working the entire process so that individuals feel their votes matter more (such as electoral reform in the direction of a form of proportional representation). I was therefore pleased to see that a group of students from my own university attracted extensive media attention for their "Vote Mob" rally when Stephen Harper swung through Guelph.

However, the past week has not been encouraging in terms of the signals that some of our politicians and media outlet owners have sent about voter engagement - or at least about engaging certain types of voters. The Vote Mob rally got so much media attention at least in part because of last week's string of incidents involving students being ejected or barred from Conservative rallies. Although Harper's team has since backed down, the early signals from his team was that non-Conservatives were not welcome to hear the Prime Minister speak. The use of Facebook as a method of screening out voters, rather than engaging them, was not quite how most people probably envisioned the potential of social media to draw in voters during an election.

Indeed, I'm still rather disappointed in the failure of some parties to make full use of a now relatively-old medium for engaging voters - particularly the iPhone and Blackberry-toting youth demographic. In my own riding, Liberal candidate Frank Valeriote is on Twitter (and responded promptly to a question I had about a lawn sign - I'll admit my own leanings in this election), while the local NDP candidate (whose party I voted for in the last federal election) Bobbi Stewart still doesn't even have a candidate bio on the Guelph NDP's website! It hardly draws people in to vote for a candidate when a basic internet search doesn't turn up information about you!

And then today, we learned an important lesson about voter engagement. Because the first game of the first round of hockey playoffs, involving the Montreal Canadiens, has been scheduled for this coming Wednesday, Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe asked to have the date of the French-language debate changed, a request now granted by the broadcast consortium. I can understand the logic of both the request and the decision. Lots of Canadians (not including me) are Habs fans, and will want to watch the game. Rescheduling the game opens the possibility that they might tune in to both the French-language debate and the hockey game. I might not like the fact that hockey will trump politics for many potential voters, but I recognize the realpolitik underlying the decision.

But if you're one of the over 937,000 voters who supported the Green party in the last election - the only party, incidentally, to increase its total number of votes from 2006 to 2008 - or one of the many young voters who might want to hear what this party's leader has to say in an exchange with the other party leaders, you're still out of luck.

The lesson from these decision-makers for Canadians: It's more important to engage hockey fans in the electoral process than environmentalists, youth or Green supporters.

Tune in next week for commentary on polling trends, debates and the fate of the nation (after I get a big stack of exams graded).

P.S. - Although my blogging has been irregular and will likely continue to be so, you can follow my efforts at pithy commentary on Twitter. Follow me at @mhayday.

Recommend this Post

Debates, Debates, Let's Have More Debates!

Most of my current students are too young to remember the now infamous election debate clashes between Brian Mulroney and John Turner. So I like to show them the Free Trade Clash from 1988 or the patronage kerfuffle of 1984. Both debates were widely acknowledged as game-changers for their respective campaigns, with Mulroney the winner of '84 and Turner in '88. Ever since those debates, pundits have longed for a return to this clear-cut era where there were fewer candidates on the podium, and thus a greater chance of a knock-out blow, or certainly longer periods of direct confrontation. (Lest I be accused of the sin of omission, both debates also featured NDP leader Ed Broadbent, a solid debater in his own right).

And so here we are in the same position as we were in 2008, debating whether Green Party leader Elizabeth May should be allowed in the Consortium-managed leadership debates. (Is it just me, or does Consortium sound vaguely ominous and evil.) And even if she isn't allowed in, should we perhaps also have an Ignatieff vs. Harper one-on-one debate, since most experts think these are the two most likely candidates to form the next government? Herewith, my two cents.

As a supporter of some variant of proportional representation, I support May's inclusion in an all-leader debate. Given that the Greens won over 900,000 votes in the last election, about 6% of the total vote, under pretty much any system of proportional representation or mixed-member proportional system they would currently have seats in the House of Commons. The fact that they do not hold an elected seat is the excuse being advanced by the Consortium for their exclusion. To my mind, the fact that our first-past-the-post system is an antiquated electoral model that ill-reflects actual voting patterns is not a valid excuse to exclude the Greens. This position, incidentally, is supported by Jean-Pierre Kingsley, former chief electoral officer for the country. It is a decision which only benefits those who are the current victors under the status quo. Moreover, if the Bloc, which doesn't even run candidates in three-quarters of the country's riding, is permitted in the national leaders' debates, then the Greens, which run in all ridings, definitely should be included.

That's my ethical, principled position. Now for the other side, which is how I feel as a television viewer. I found the five-leader debates of 2008 to be tedious and long-winded. Too much time was taken up with the initial series of statements about each issue, and then a number of, to my mind, tedious and dreary question exchanges between pairs of candidates who agreed with each other. The Dion-May and Layton-Duceppe interchanges, in particular, tended to drag on. With five candidates, and a limited time frame, there is not much opportunity for the front-runners to confront each other, but the time allocated to each exchange is not reflective of the relative standing of the parties in the polls (and, presumably, viewer interest). With this in mind, I'd love to see a series of one-on-one exchanges, such as the one that Michael Ignatieff was proposing to Stephen Harper. I think many voters might find these more compelling to watch, as they would allow for more sustained and direct interaction between the leaders. So by all means, I'd support having these types of exchanges in addition to the all-leaders forum.

Finally, with respect to the events of the past couple of days, I think Michael Ignatieff was smart both to propose the one-on-one debate with Stephen Harper, and to avoid the snare of accepting this encounter in lieu of the all-party debate. Ignatieff is going to be counting on soft NDP and Green support in this election, and will need to avoid looking like he is disdainful of those parties. But nor will I be surprised if Harper does not cave on this issue. It's to his benefit to limit the number of chances that the opposition leaders have to take him on directly. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't back the inclusion of the Greens in the debate. Every minute that Elizabeth May gets on stage is one less that Layton and Ignatieff have, which only hurts them. The front-runner could have afforded to appear to be magnanimous, and it probably would have helped him in the long run (although perhaps not Gary Lunn).

Recommend this Post

Too early for a post on strategic voting?

In a historic vote today, the Canadian government was found in contempt of Parliament. It's a shame they couldn't have also been found in contempt of the Canadian people, of logic, of sound policy-making and in contempt of a host of other principles that I hold dear. But I digress.

Unfortunately, the polls show that a sizeable proportion of the Canadian electorate doesn't care what Prime Minister Lego-Hair does, they still plan to vote for him. This means that we're likely to see a variant of the 2008 election, with nailbiter races across the country. It'll be particularly bad in my neck of the woods, southwestern Ontario, where Canada's Action Plan signs have proliferated in an effort to win votes for the Conservative contemptuous government.

So what is a left-of-centre voter to do? Is it even possible to vote strategically? Should you vote for the best party, or the least objectionable of your non-Conservative options? Do you vote for the well-intentioned local candidate or the party? Do you try to read the proverbial tea leaves and cast your ballot for the candidate who might be best positioned to beat the local Conservative?

There will be better-informed posts on the issue of strategic voting as the campaign unfolds. But here's my two cents. In many ridings across the country, your preferred non-Conservative candidate might well be a complete no-hoper to win. In many cases, an opposition party might have won a squeaker race in your riding the last time around, beating the local Conservative, but it might not have been your preferred party. In those cases, I would urge you to vote for the opposition party that is best positioned to beat the Conservatives, whether they be a NDP or Liberal incumbent MP, or the Green, NDP or Liberal challenger who stands the best chance of unseating the local Conservative. Inform yourself before you vote - look at the results of past elections in your riding to see how the parties have historically fared. Strategic voting, to my mind, means voting a certain way only if there is a high probability that one party's candidate is the only one likely to defeat a certain candidate.

So if your riding is usually a toss-up between the Liberals and the NDP, with a Conservative no-hoper, then vote your conscience! If all the opposition parties fared equally well last time around in your riding, then pick the one you like best and hope they come out on top. But if the last race was a nail-biter between the Conservative and a candidate from another party, and your top priority is to defeat Harper, then I'd urge you to hold your nose and vote for that party, even if it's not your absolute favorite. For me, this means I'll probably be voting Liberal here in Guelph, even though I haven't voted for the federal Liberals since 2000. (I probably would have in 2004 if I had been living anywhere other than Outremont - but Jean Lapierre was simply too horrible to contemplate supporting.) If I lived in another part of the country, say Edmonton-Strathcona, I'd be urging my Liberal friends to vote NDP. It's only in the really close races that I'm urging this type of voting strategy. But to my mind, any of the parties outside of Quebec are better than Harper.

Fingers crossed, we won't be in this same mess six weeks from now, or at least, the mess won't be any worse.

Recommend this Post