By-Elections tonight

Tonight, we have four by-elections, all in four formerly held Liberal ridings. In the case of Toronto Centre and Willowdale, I expect the Liberal to win those easily as well as Bob Rae and Martha Hall Findlay will both be strong additions to the opposition bench and hopefully government some day. Vancouver-Quadra will almost certainly go Liberal and in fact it would be a huge blow to the party if they lost here. Even if the Tories come within 10 points of winning here, I would say that is bad news. Joyce Murray, although less known is a very capable candidate and hopefully will be an MP soon. Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River is probably the most unpredictable. Considering that the Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP have all won this riding since 1997, anyone of the three parties could win here. For the Conservatives, it wouldn't be a huge gain as they only lost by 67 votes, still any gains in seats is a good thing for them and a bad thing for the Liberals. An NDP win would finally put them back on the map in Saskatchewan, which despite being the birthplace of the party, they have been shut out for two straight elections. A Liberal win wouldn't be as big a boost as some may thing since the riding went Liberal last time around, still four wins by the Liberals, especially if strong ones would give a strong impression of momentum. As for bringing down the government, my view as stated earlier, is the Liberals should vote against any money bill or legislation that is a matter of confidence if they believe it is bad for the country and goes against their principles irrespective of their poll numbers. By the same token, they should support any legislation or money bill that is good for the country and comptable with their values regardless of their poll numbers. Voting based on poll numbers just feeds into the cynicism the Liberals only care about winning and nothing else and this is partly why they are in opposition. However, the Liberals need to quite abstaining and start showing up and voting either Yea or Nay on all confidence measures.

I'll have more later. In the mean time happy St. Patrick's Day to all.