Seat projections for Sept 27 2008

There have been some shifts in the election lately.


Quebec
The biggest has been the rise in the Bloc fortunes in Quebec. They have moved from the low 30s to around 40% in the province. This rise brings them back into the 50 seat range because the federalist vote is much more divided.

The issue will be what happens to the seats in the Liberal heartland of Montreal and Ottawa-Hull? I do not see the Conservatives doing well in these areas and I am not sure NDP support will rise enough to win seats. The Bloc may pick up some surprising seats in these areas.

In the more Francophone Quebec, the race really is a two party race - Conservatives versus the Bloc. I believe the Conservatives will be able to hold seats in this area and may pick up a coupld of seats.

Atlantic Canada
I will say I am surprised at the how well the Conservatives are doing in the Atlantic provinces. The rumours of their demise are a bit early. I am assuming they will do badly in Newfoundland and their support is elsewhere in Atlantic Canada. I can see them gaining seats in the other three provinces. Could they break in on the red island? I think so and a sweep is more likely than Jack Layton as leader of the Official Opposition.

Given the rise of the Conservative fortunes in the region, I give the edge to MacKay over May.

BC
Nothing much is changing here other than the Liberals know they are in very serious trouble. A shut out in BC is possible for them. Retaining more than a handful of their seats is simply not on the cards.

The question in BC is if the NDP can hold all their seats or not.

Ontario
This election is playing out in Ontario. This is where Harper needs the seats to get the majority. It also the place where Dion has to retain his seats to stay ahead of the Bloc, or maybe ahead of the NDP.

What I can make out of the polling is that every riding where the Liberals did not win by more than 10 percentage points is now clearly lost to them - 13 to the Conservatives and 6 to the NDP. There are about ten more ridings that were once considered safe that are more likely Conservative than Liberal this time.

Party	BC	AB	SK	MN	ON	QC	NB	NS	PEI	NF	Nth	CAN
CPC	28	28	13	10	59	13	6	5	1	2	2	167
LPC	1			2	29	8	3	3	3	4	1	54
NDP	7		1	2	18	3	1	2		1		35
Bloc						50						50
Ind						1		1				2

Whatever the result in the election, there is a new reality dawning in Canada. The 2006-08 Harper government was the first one in Canadian history that had a majority of their caucus form the west. The next Harper government will be close to having a majority from the West again.

When the new seats are added in Canada, 12 of the 22 will be from BC and Alberta. These provinces have 20.8% of the seats in Canada now but will have 23% by the next election. They will have more seats than Quebec. Western Canada will have almost as many seats as Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

When Mulroney won in 1984, the west only had as many seats as Quebec. For generations Canada's national elections have been about which party can win both Ontario and Quebec. With the rise in seats in BC and Alberta, future elections will require winning in these provinces.

This change is very bad news for the Liberals in the long term. The Liberals are not a strong party west of Ontario. The natural opposition to the Conservatives in the west is the NDP.

Before 1984 the Liberal party went into most national elections with a safe 50-70 seats in Quebec, more or less half way to a majority. Now we have the Conservatives going into federal elections with a safe 70 seats in the West and after the new seats are added this will rise to 75-80.

The 12 seats in BC and Alberta are balanced by 10 seats in Ontario. The Ontario seats will be slightly more prone to be Conservative than any other party as many of them will be in the 905 area.

If we look further into the future, by 2020 BC, Alberta and Ontario will gain more seats. If it is the same number as now, this takes us to 352 MPs of which 88 will be from BC and Alberta, a full quarter of the MPs. BC alone will have around 48 MPs. Even with all these new MPs, BC, Alberta and Ontario will still be underrepresented.

By 2030, BC and Alberta are estimated to have a total population of between 9 000 000 and 10 500 000. If we are anywhere close to the larger number, the underrepresentation will mean the two provinces are down by about 10 to 13 seats.

Jack Layton in Victoria

Yesterday I took my 11 year old son to a Jack Layton rally at George Pearkes Arena. I am not about to come out and support the NDP in this election. I went because I wanted to show Ben what a political rally is like and to show him that someone running for Prime Minister is someone you can see in person.

I explained to him the theatrics that is politics, the playing to the camera, th earchestrating of the event. Ben made a very observate comment, he said it felt like being an extra in a film.

The concept was that this was a townhall meeting, but in reality it was an NDP rally. I doubt there were more than a few of us there that were not going to be voting for the NDP. Still, it is nice to know that in Canada you still get close to the leaders of the country, that it is possible to interact with them and speak with them.

Since I have been telling Ben about elections he had wanted to know why youth are not allowed to vote. Yesterday he had his chance to ask Jack Layton if the NDP would let kids vote. He said the NDP would lower the age to 16 but maybe theuy would have to consider something lower.

Ben has now had a chance to see how a major national politician answers his question. He has also seen that in a democracy one of the best ways to make your issue matter is to let the leaders know what you think. My goal out of this whole exercise was for Ben to understand more about civic engagement and democracy and to inspire him to become active.

Personally I would like to see Layton become Prime Minister sometime in the future. Canada needs the NDP to be in power nationally from time to time to balance the Conservatives. What Canada does not need is any sort of a federal Liberal government ever again.

Post Script some hours later - Andrew Macleod mentioned Ben's question in his article.

I have surprised myself

It is official, I am bored of the federal election. I am a complete election junkie and I have lost interest in the election.

I can see little or nothing that will stop a Harper majority. I have seen almost no one running that is exciting me on any level. In my own area I see the election as defacto over as the results are obvious.

I will try to keep on covering the election, but I will see how much I can keep it up. Next big thing is the leader's debate and I can already predict the headlines. Only Elizabeth May will come out of it without being vaguely sneered at.

I am in a Cranky Mood

I have a headache at the moment, a killer one, and this is making me cranky.

There are a lot of centre left political elites out there promoting strategic voting to stop a Conservative government. They seem to think the NDP and Liberals are identical, which would mean in BC we are nirvana because the NDP/Liberals hold all the seats in the province.

If the environment is your number one issue you need to be voting Green. If not Green, Conservative. Mulroney did more for the environment than Chretien or Martin. The Liberals are the kings of bait and switch, the Green Shift will not happen under the Liberals, the party that promised an end to the GST and a national daycare program. Stephen Harper has done more with his minority for the environment and climate change than the 13 pervisous years of Liberals.

If you are with the labour movement, you have to vote NDP. Voting for the Liberals is voting for the most senior top down business owners in Canada. The Conservatives are a lot more grassroots and connected to the labour movement than the federal Liberals are.

Vote for what you believe in, do not vote for a chrimera pretending to be something you do not like.

I am voting Conservative because I trust them as the only party not to screw up the economy and they might finally work on reducing the millstone around our neck called the federal governmen. Honestly on a day to day basis the federal government does little or nothing for Canadians, it is our provincial governments and local goverments that deliver the services.

More polling results and more analysis of the election

All of the polling companies offer some degree of data, we are seeing a lot of information in this election from the polls and not only national numbers, but regional and sub regional numbers.

Ekos yesterday released data on the big cities and their suburbs. When looking at their data, I can see a few interesting trends.

In BC the data seems to indicate that outside of the Vancouver area the Liberals really are completely out of the race. The NDP is also far behind the Conservatives. What I take from this is that the NDP will be lucky to hold all four do the seats it has outside of the lower mainland. I personally believe they will lose Vancouver Island North and are in danger in BC Southern Interior.

In the suburbs of Vancouver the numbers say to me that we are looking at a Conservative sweep.

In Vancouver itself the Liberals are in the most trouble because they have dropped to 25%, effectively in a tie with the Conservatives. The NDP has a nice lead. I can see the Liberals only managing to retain Vancouver Centre and losing the others to the NDP and Conservatives.

In Ontario there is a nice divide in the province, the further you get from downtown Toronto the stronger the Conservatives get and the weaker the Liberals get. At this point the Conservatives are strong enough outside of the GTA to take a large percentage of the seats. The worst news in Ontario is for the NDP because they are running a distant third in all areas. The Liberals have enough strength in Toronto that the should be able to hold many of their seats there, but they are still going to lose some to Harper.

In Quebec the Liberals are the leading federalist party in the Montreal area but completely out of the money in the rest of the province. But even in the Montreal area the Bloc is the most popular party. Outside of Montreal the race really is Conservative versus Bloc with the Bloc marginally in the lead.

Looking at the Polling Observatory numbers updated yesterday. the Conservatives remain more or less stalled in the low 38% range, the Liberals are continuing a slow deline and are now 11 percentage points behind. The last few days have seen a decent rise for the NDP and taking them to almost where they were in 2006. The BLoc and Greens remain in and around 8%.

I am still convinced the trend is showing a strong Conservative majority, but not as strong as before. The biggest changes are in Quebec where the Bloc is gaining from the Conservatives. Also with better data from Ontario the Liberals are more concentrated and hold more seats.

Here is the quick and dirty seat projection based on no change in the numbers by Oct 14th:

• Conservatives - 158
• Liberals - 69
• Bloc - 45
• NDP - 33
• Ind - 2
• Green - 1

Recent polls are showing Quebec being in utter voter turmoil, the best I can read from the tea leaves is that there is some recovery among the Bloc and a nice split in a lot of ridings that should allow them to win a lot more than I orginally expected.

So where do I see the trends going? Given the Liberal Party induced problems in the NDP and the emerging vicious fight between the two parties, I can see the both parties being harmed by that. I can see both parties shedding some support to the Greens and the Conservatives.

If there is movement of voters I see it as the following. I see populist NDP supporters splitting 2 for 1 in BC for the Greens. Modern left New Democrats I see splitting half to the Greens and half staying at home, hardcore New Democrats feel there is no second choice for them. As to the Liberals, in BC I see most of them going to the Greens and in Ontario breaking 2 for 1 to the Conservatives. I refuse to guess how this will play out in the Atlantic provinces or Quebec.

My new estimate of final party support is as follows:

• Conservatives - 40%
• Liberals - 25.5%
• NDP - 16.9%
• Greens 9.2%
• Bloc 8.2%

I need to crunch these numbers to see where it takes the election results, but I do think the NDP being Official Opposition is now outside the realm of realistic. Now having the Bloc there may become possible. Much depends on the Liberals being able to maintain a fortress of ridings in Montreal and Toronto.

BC Ridings

Of the ridings in BC, I believe that only 10 are at all in question at the moment.

The Conservatives are safe in 20 ridings
The NDP are safe in 6 ridings
The Liberals are now safe in none.

This leaves 10 ridings still in question

Esquimalt Juan de Fuca
This is a race between the NDP and Conservatives. Keith Martin's personal popularity allowed him to squeak back in twice as a Liberal but the tide is so strongly against him that he is being swept out to sea.

At this time I favour the Conservatives.

Vancouver Centre
This is a four way race I would not put money on who will win. If I had to choose, at the moment the Liberals.

Vancouver South
As the Liberal fortunes fail in BC, the riding comes closer and closer to the Conservatives. I still think Liberals will win at the moment.

Burnaby New West
An NDP - Conservative battle that might flip the riding back to the Conservatives. NDP most likely to win.

Vancouver Quadra
The very close by-election means this riding is in play for the Conservatives. Conservatives most likely to win.

Vancouver Island North
Bell v Duncan for the third time. NDP - Conservative battle with everyone else an afterthought. NDP most likely to win.

North Vancouver
A Liberal Conservative battle with the edge to the Conservatives at the moment. Conservatives most likely to win.

New Westminister Coquitlam
Another close NDP Conservative fight. Conservatives most likely to win.

Vancouver Kingsway
A Liberal NDP fight with the NDP gaining the upper hand.

Surrey North
Another NDP - Conservative battle with the Conservatives winning.

BC Results

• Conservatives - 25
• NDP - 9
• Liberals - 2

Best Site for Polling Averages

I highly recommend Mark Pickup's Polling Observatory. He is doing a much better job of taking the polling results that are coming out and averaging them, taking into account house bias and other things to get what look to be the best measure of national political party support in Canada.

He does a good job of correcting for issues that happened in the polling in 2006.

At the moment his numbers give us:

Conservatives - 38.3%
Liberals - 27.6%
NDP - 15.2%
Greens - 8.7%
Bloc - 8.1%

I will look at this and see how I think this plays out for seats at the moment and where I think it is headed. His graph shows a consistent gentle decline for the Liberals since the start of the campaign. This is matched by small increases for the NDP, Conservatives and Greens.

If the Liberal decline is a trend, which I think it is, I see them finishing the election at 23% to 25% of the vote. I see the Conservatives at 39.5%, NDP at 16% and the Greens at 9.5%

The current state and the trend are really bad for the Liberals, but it is also not good for the NDP. The NDP is still behind where they finished in 2006.

I still see the result on October 14th being a large Conservative majority. Details on why later today

Another Zip Uo Into the Interior

I had to go back up into the interior over the weekend. This gave me a chance to see again how the campaign looked on the ground with signs. A couple of weeks in and it still looks thin on the ground.

The Greens are only in evidence in Saanich - Gulf Islands and Okanagan Shuswap. Given the money effort Huguette Allen is putting into her campaign, I can see her coming second in the race. The NDP had a decent number of signs up in parts of the Okanagan Shuswap and the Liberals had some as well. MP Colin Mayes looks nicely safe.

In the Surrey/Delta areas I am surprised at how few signs there are out there and by how much the Conservatives are winning the sign war. Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwahl does not have the presence out on the ground that I would have expected for an MP that knows he is in a very marginal riding.

As to Surrey North and Fleetwood Port Kells, I can see little to lead me to believe that anyone other than the Conservatives will win. In Penny Priddy had run for the NDP again, I think that Surrey North could have been an NDP hold.