Winners: Tories and NDP, Losers: Bloc Quebecois and Liberals

What a night it has been for by-elections. The results were certainly much different than some of us expected. Now before commenting on the specifics, I should note by-elections have low turnouts and often produce different results than what would happen in a general election, so one should be careful about not reading too much into these. So below will be my analysis for each party.

Conservatives: If you are a Conservative, you will no doubt be happy with these results. Not only did the Tories win Roberval-Lac Saint Jean, they got close to 60% which is far more than most predicted. They also had a strong respectable second place showing in Saint Hyacinthe-Bagot. These numbers certainly suggest the Tories could make big gains in rural Quebec, although not necessarily a majority as I doubt they will gain much if anything in Atlantic Canada (they are more likely to lose seats here than gain) and there is still Ontario and unless the Tories can pick up some suburban and mid sized city seats, getting a majority will be really difficult. Never mind, voting Conservative in the West will no longer be a protest vote, so people in the West will probably take a closer look at the party before voting for it. Still the Conservatives should be happy with the results, but those predicting a Conservative majority should lay off on it at this point.

NDP: The NDP has never won a seat in Quebec in a general election and only once in a by-election so this is a big gain for them. The question is will they hold onto this in the general election or lose it like they did last time. In addition the size of their win in a safe Liberal riding is something Dippers should be really proud of. If anything we could see a historical re-alignment of Quebecers voting along left-centre-right lines instead of separtist vs. federalist, which I see as a good thing even if it regretably means more seats for the NDP and Tories in some parts of the province. As long as we can as Liberals pick up some of the seats is what matters.

Bloc Quebecois: Definitely a bad night for them. Lost Roberval-Lac Saint Jean badly, won Saint Hyacinthe-Bagot by a narrower margin and fell to almost 10% in Outremont where they were competitive last time around. They may want to think twice about voting against the throne speech with these results. They seem to have encountered trouble after trouble since last election in Quebec, so obviously they need to figure out why they and their provincial counterparts are losing ground. Off course I am quite happy to see both of them continue to lose ground.

Liberals: This finally brings me to the party I support. Tonight was definitely a bad night as we lost badly in a safe Liberal riding and failed to get above 10% in the two rural Quebec ridings. However, we have two paths we can take from here going forward. Through out my life I've suffered several setbacks, some worse than others, but I never lose sight of my long-term goal and I have usually eventually achieved it, even if it happened later than I wanted. So we can start a dump Dion movement and fight amongst ourselves over what wrong and lose the next election or we can unite together and start working towards winning the next election. This means uniting behind our leader, this means no longer taking ridings for granted that we have won in the past, and this means no longer assuming we will win because it is our God given right to win. We are not entitled to anyone's vote, we have to earn it the hard way and unfortunately I feel too many Liberals still think it is our God given right to be in power and Canadians are obligated to vote for us rather than earning people's trust. We are still quite strong in Ontario and unlike Quebec, Ontario results tend to be far more predictable. We have a great shot at picking up seats in Atlantic Canada and in fact we could have one of our best showings in that region ever. Also, with the prospect of a Conservative majority, people in the West will no longer be able to vote Conservative as a protest vote and therefore as Western Canadians have doubts about the Conservatives we must move those doubters over to the Liberal column. And in Quebec, we need to not let this setback cause us to give up because I've found in life, those who give up usually fail, while those who continue to try not only succeed, but come out stronger when they do. As for the throne speech, we probably aren't ready for an election, but lets not look weak and vote for it just to avoid an election. Lets see what is in it and decide accordingly.

By-Election tonight

Tonight we have three by-elections in Quebec and this could have profound meanings for each party on whether they want to trigger an election or hold back after the throne speech is delivered. For the Conservatives; although not winning any seat wouldn't be a loss per se, as they hold none of the three, the fact they have expended so much effort on courting Quebec and cannot even pick up their 11th best riding in the province (the other 10 they won), will bring into question whether they can get a majority at all without gaining seats in Quebec. Off course if they win one of the two, it will show their efforts are producing some results and if they win both Bloc ridings, you can bet Harper will do everything possible to ensure the opposition opposes the throne speech and triggers an election. For the Bloc Quebecois, a win in Outremont (which is highly unlikely) would be a sweet victory for them and probably cause them to vote against the throne speech. Holding the two ridings, they have now, probably would as well, however if they lose either of the ridings they hold, I suspect they will want to figure out why the sovereignists movement has had nothing but trouble since the last federal election. The Liberals absolutely must win Outremont if they are to avoid any problems. While I doubt Dion will be turfed as leader before the next election, it could weaken the unity of the party, so I hope they do hold Outremont. For the NDP, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Since they were not a factor in Quebec in the first place, a loss in Outremont, means the status quo, while a win would be a huge coup as they have never won a seat in a general election in Quebec and only once in a by-election before. Below I have each riding listed and will post my projection once the results come in and I feel one candidate is ahead by enough to be declared elected. Below that I will give a summary on how things shaped up once all the polls are in.

Outremont

It pains me to do this but I'm calling it for Thomas Mulclair (NDP). Boy I hope I am wrong here

Saint Hyacinthe-Bagot

Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac (Bloc Quebecois) elected

Roberval-Lac Saint Jean

Denis Lebel (Conservative) elected

Ontario Election officially underway

Today, the Ontario election for October 10th, 2007 has officially began. As a relatively new resident to Ontario, this will be my first election in this province although my third provincial election I've voted,as I've voted twice in British Columbia before (2001 and 2005). In terms of making predictions, I will wait until later as we've seen cases such as 1990 and 1995 where parties in third place at the beginning go on to win the election. While I doubt something that dramatic will happen this time around, we could see a different result than expected. Also on October 10th, Ontarioans will vote as to whether they want to keep the first past the post system or switch to MMP (Mixed-Member proportional representation)

No to MMP

I will be voting No to MMP and encouraging all others I know to do so as well. I oppose it for a few reasons.

1. Our ridings are already large enough as they are, especially in rural areas. Making the ridings larger means even less effective local representation

2. An MP's job is to represent his/her constituents, not the party. By choosing someone from a list, we will likely get party hacks whose main loyalty is to the leader rather than their constituents. More importantly those elected from the list will be difficult to hold accountable for bad decisions, especially if placed near the top of the list since almost every party that wins seats or gets above 5% will get at least the top few slots chosen as MPs so those MPs are essentially safe.

3. It will lead to less stable governments. Some people say minority governments are a good thing, but I disagree. Governments sometimes have to make tough decisions that are right (such as free trade, GST, cuts made to balance the budget in the 90s, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Bilingualism etc.) but not necessarily popular at the time. By having a stable majority government, this will allow them to pass those policies and then voters can judge based on their results. In addition fringe parties on the far left or far right could hold the balance of power, whereas with the current system, parties that are too far to either the left or right are unlikely to win any seats.

4. It will lead to more not less party discipline. As it is now, leader's already hold a lot of power, but since MPs are still accountable to their constituents they will break ranks with the party if something that is unpopular in their constituency is adopted, as Bill Casey did with the budget vote federally. Those appointed by the party are accountable to no one but the party leader and will never likely challenge him or her no matter how bad their decision is.

Now some say that it is unfair to have the majority of seats without winning the majority of votes. And I agree, but there is a better solution, which is an instant run off vote whereby to be elected an MP must get 50% or more and if they don't, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped and their second choices re-allocated and this is continuously done until someone has more than 50% of the vote.

Opinion of Leaders

Although I was initially quite enthusiastic about supporting John Tory, as I am a former Progressive Conservative myself, since his views are very similiar to mine, my enthusiasm has waned incredibly since the whole religious schools issue broke out. In fact if he makes one more gaffe, I may consider not voting PC altogether.

I think Dalton McGuinty has done an average job as he has not done anything spectacular, but nothing really bad either. He doesn't deserve to be re-elected on his record alone, but neither does he deserve to be defeated. Instead one should look at the alternatives and decide accordingly.

I consider myself to be very similiar to John Tory philosophically. Unlike Stephen Harper, John Tory was a Progressive Conservative right up until the merger and never supported the Reform/Alliance parties. Unlike Stephen Harper, John Tory is not a social conservative. He is unequovically pro-choice and supported gay marriage from the beginning. He is a fiscal conservative who believes in smaller government, but not a slash and burn one like Mike Harris. While I agree with what Mike Harris did in his first term, since Ontario needed radical surgery then, such policies would not be appropriate today as we are in far better shape than in 1995. I also think John Tory falls more in the Bill Davis mold than Mike Harris one.

On the issue of funding religious schools, I understand why Catholic schools were initially created. At the time they were created, we still said the Lord's Prayer every morning and we were a more religious society. Back then almost all Ontarioans were either from the Protestant majority or Catholic minority and since the other schools were de facto Protestant ones, it made sense to have a separate Catholic system. Today, we are far more secular, have many faiths in addition to Protestantism and Catholicism and many who are not religious at all. Therefore, I believe the time has come to end public funding to all religious schools including Catholic ones. I have no problem with private religious schools existing though. While I agree John Tory's plan to fund all religious schools is better than the status quo, it is not the right direction to go.

On the issue of teaching creationism, I have no problem with it being taught in Social Studies or comparative religion classes, but I am dead set against it being taught in science classes. For something to be a science it must be tested, be testable again and have had several repeated tests coming to a similiar or the same conclusion. Creationism does not meet this as it cannot be tested and there is no evidence that can be verified to prove or disprove it (although it has been disproven that the earth is only 6,000 years old). However, social studies only talks about what some believe, it does not try to present those beliefs as facts. In my social studies classes in High School, we studied almost every religion and even some ancient ones such as Greek mythology. In fact, in many history classes, you cannot study a society without studying the religion as religion often played a very central role in the country's history and still does for some cultures today. However, the point is this is about teaching what people believe, not how things actually are.

I will have more as the campaign continues.

Throne Speech and Election

Stephen Harper has prorogued parliament and is going to deliver a throne speech on October 16th. Personally I think this is unnecessary, but this leads to the possibility of an election as the Throne Speech is a vote of confidence and if the government loses it an election will be called. With no credible poll showing the Conservatives anywhere near majority territory, it seems bizarre to me why the Tories would even want to take this risk. I can understand them not wanting the government to fall while Ontario is in the middle of election as far each party this could mean fewer campaign workers and also runs the risk of possibly causing voter confusion. However, this could be achieved by each party agreeing not to introduce a non-confidence motion and likewise the Tories will not bring forward any bill which is a motion of confidence until the Ontario election is over.

As for what will happen, I cannot say. An election is not really beneficial to any party as there is no party who has consistently polled higher than what they got last election save for perhaps the Liberals, still most polls only show us only tied with the Tories meaning winning the next election at this point is far from certain. By the same token, we may just get an election no party wants.

Liberals: The Liberals have set out a list of priorities they want included in the Throne Speech and seeing what they are, I have a tough time believing Harper will include them so to get the Liberals to support it, one of the parties will have to blink, which will not look good for whichever party that is.

Bloc Quebecois: To date the Bloc Quebecois has voted with the government on three confidence motions, but this time around they are demanding the Throne Speech include pulling out of Afghanistan in 2009 and considering how unpopular the Afghan mission is in Quebec, I believe they would vote against it if the Tories don't include this promise. Considering how Stephen Harper has made clear he strongly believes in the mission and doesn't believe in "cutting and running" he would look like a hypocrit if he did include this although it could happen since he has flip flopped on other issues when defeat is staring him down.

NDP: They haven't really set any demands and have more or less argued the Throne Speech is just a bunch of promises, which they claim past governments rarely keep. At the same time they are the party who has voted with the government the least amount of times.

So in summary, I cannot really predict what will happen. One party may decide going to an election is too risky and therefore blink or all the opposition parties may worry more about how they will look if they blink and therefore vote against the Throne Speech causing an election no party wants.

On Monday, I will have more on the upcoming provincial election here in Ontario when the writ is officially dropped.