Comments on: Status Quo: Little Change in Canadian Federal Politics

By: Nick J Boragina

Nick J Boragina — Thu, 29 May 2008 02:51:28 +0000

Remember last time we were here?
When the 2006 election began, we were polling results identical to 2004, when all of a sudden one party (in this case the conservatives) jumped 20 seats in the projections.

there is no reason that we cannot be, a month from now, with one or the other party polling a majority.

By: Phillip Huggan

Phillip Huggan — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:53:14 +0000

I sent an e-mail to M.Bernier and many others regarding Canada’s NATO Afghanistan commitment. I basically adopted the position of several progressive NGOs that the opium market should be cartelized like OPEC, with existing suppliers being paid off by NATO and 3rd world countries short of medical morphine be subsidized where security of supply could be assured.
After watching House debates where the government ignored S.Dion’s very measured questions (just seeking a yes or no answer about whether M.Bernier’s relationship might be a national security threat), not even acknowledging the question…this makes me want to emmigrate to a naorthern European country.
This isn’t political; a Liberal or NDP or Bloc or Green government would have to work very hard to regain my trust lost by this retarded Conservative government. Who are these people in interior BC, Saskatchewan, AB, and rich Wpg, keeping these people in power?! Don they not realize just like the Republican and Al-Qaeda fortune rise and fall hand-in-hand (that is, Bush needs a prosperaous Al-Qaeda to succeed), organized crime and the Conservative rise and fall hand-in-hand. When money flows into the prison economy, it also flows into the Hell’s Angels and the Jewish mafia, and the Tamil Tigers, and the KGB, and many others…
If these types of organizations (who also do good, such as providing THC and imported hot rippers) can infiltrate government cabinet communications, WHEN individuals in Canada begin to be targeted for assasination, like in the UK in the 1980s and like in many 3rd world countries today, and if chemists or nanotechnologists synthesize a new type of drug that mimics brainwashing…if me or anyone else has solutions to offer the government of canada, why the hell would we e-mail Cabinet Ministers knowing full well the information might fall into the hands of the Hell’s Angels to be auctioned to the highest bidder?!
It isn’t the security breach. It is despite repeated attempts to address the scandle, S.Harper and M.Bernier (whose public salary funds amneties like clean clothes necessary to woo hot former biker chicks) didn’t. Cyber crime is now the leading productivity drag in Canada. S.Harper is retarded on the environment (yet still farmers that claim to be environmentalists vote for him), soft on pandemics (funding only $20 million of the $145 million the Winnipeg Virology Lab requested, a request granted by P.Martin), and surprisingly, soft on National Security. Its not like god is going to magically protect senstive national security info. Keeping the info at one’s house is apparently too much for Stevie the Republican pimp to handle.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 25 May 2008 23:03:29 +0000

The Laurier Institute just released (may 23rd) their latest seat predictions here:
http://www.wlu.ca/lispop/
Now, they were widely inaccurate the last two federal elections (compared to both Greg and the Election Prediction Project), so their regional swing model leaves something to be desired.
based on polls between May 6 and 11th they are saying

National

C: 121
L: 112
ND: 26
Bloc: 47
Other: 1

So not too different from the above.

Atlantic they are saying
L: 24 C: 5 ND: 3 which might be a bit optimistic, and might be assuming Casey won’t run as an Independent.

Quebec:
L: 14 C: 12: B: 47 ND: 1 IND: 1

ONT:
L: 59 C: 37 ND: 10 (very close to the above)

PRAIRIES + TERR.
20 7 4 (C, L, ND)

AB
C: 28

BC
C: 20 L: 8 ND: 8

I wonder what issues in (or before) an election campaign would break the deadlock.

By: Ken Chapman

Ken Chapman — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:50:09 +0000

Oops – the Greens are strongest in B.C. Sorry for the error but their strength in Alberta is still notable.

By: Ken Chapman

Ken Chapman — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:48:59 +0000

I think the best news from this aggregation of polls is that the Greens have more support in Alberta than anywhere else in Canada…and are ahead of the NDP too.

I wonder why? Seems counterintuitive but only to anyone who does not live in Alberta. Greens are a growing force in Alberta. A good thing.

By: Steve V

Steve V — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:42:46 +0000

That’s sort of what I meant, seems to be Ontario and Atlantic Canada, although always a big caution with the small sample sizes for AC. What is really interesting to me, the Conservative seat total in Quebec, the numbers suggest no breakthrough.

Good points on online polling. I would add, the British government now uses this methodology exclusively for all internal polling, which speaks to credibility.

By: democraticspace

democraticspace — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:26:42 +0000

Steve — national support is a poor measure of how many seats a party will win. While the overall support for the Conservatives did not change much, they improved in Ontario and Atlantic Canada over the last month, giving them a handful of seats at the expense of the Liberals. Also, the BQ improved, taking a couple away from the Liberals in Quebec. So, small changes at the regional levels can impact the seat allocations.

By: democraticspace

democraticspace — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:23:56 +0000

Scott — the techniques for doing polls using a pool of online participants (from which a small subset is polled) is getting much better. And, the reliability of traditional phone polls is getting worse as more and more people are electing to forego landlines. We must be cautious with self-selected samples, but if your pool of participants is controlled to match the characteristics of the general population, the results can be reliable. All companies have selection processes that can slightly tilt their results one way or the other. The key is to computer weighted averages across all polling firms — that’s the most reliable measure of current support.

By: Steve V

Steve V — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:33:05 +0000

Oh, on your seat projections, I notice a pretty significant change from your last posting, wherein the Cons were only up a few seats( plus 5). This despite the national numbers actually narrowing, which seems to be a slight change in Ontario and Atlantic Canada.

By: Steve V

Steve V — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:28:23 +0000

“And online polls, as we’ve seen south, can be rather hit and miss with regards to their accuracy.”

I question the AR Ontario numbers, they seem a tad close, relative to others.

Scott is using the same argument he has at my place, except he always conveniently ignores (you never have responded) the facts, that being, this online poll was bang on in the last Quebec provincial election, ditto for Manitoba, and did very well in the Ontario election. What’s more important down “south” or Canada, for a post of Canadian politics? Just the facts please :)