Reading the entrails of the Quebec By-elections

Even if the NDP wins in Outremont I don't see this as a trend for or against the Liberals. The NDP is able to throw everything at this riding as they have a lot to gain but in a general election Mulcair will be on his own and Layton's overall performance will be on view. Mulcair himself is a wild card as he doesn't play party politics very well and thus he could be a maverick for even Layton to manage.

Harper is not going to do as well as he thought in these elections either so I see another parliamentary stalemate until spring unless Harper is really feeling his oats and tries to bring up something in the throne speech that cannot be approved by any other party.

In my opinion Dion is doing well enough and is getting a good handle on being a leader. He appears more confident now and he is patient because he knows Harper is never going to be popular and this gives him time to find his wedge issue.

The fact these bi-elections are competitive is good for Quebec and the Country.

[updated Sun Sep 16 15:13:05 EDT 2007]

I think an election before the New Year. As whatever happens in Quebec, momentum will be gained to push for an election. All parties seem locked in and ready.

[updated Sun Sep 16 15:13:16 EDT 2007]

Hello Nik,

I don't! Even should Thomas Mulcair, former Minister of the Environment win this by-election will have no future adverse effects for the Liberal party in the event of a Federal election.

Thomas Mulcair is a much better known, ex-Provincial Liberal, and unfortunately Jocelyn Coulon is just not a well-known candidate, but a professor-journalyst whom I believe is just not that well-known by the grassroots. He has a quiet low-key profile, but much experience and knowledge in international affairs. He will stand strong with those who oppose the Afghanistan mission from continuing after February 2009, and with the Environment and at least trying to achieve the objectives of the Kyoto Accord.

I have no sense that whatever the outcome of this by-election is going to change one iota for the lack of support of the Conservative government in Qc. The transfer of votes to the Harper gov/t is just not felt out here.

Cheers,

[updated Sun Sep 16 15:54:56 EDT 2007]

There will be no election this fall because it is not in the best interest of the opposition parties all for different reasons. However, the opposition better not get too cute because if they put the Afghanistan mission or the environment as drop dead issues in order to support the Throne Speech they could get an election if Harper declares any or either of these issues a confidence vote.
Mr. Dion is looking pretty silly these days saying he wants 4 things included in the TS including the old Liberal canard ending poverty. I seem to remember the Liberals touted that in one of their Throne Speeches way back when. So what's the problem? There is still poverty? Another broken Liberal promise.
The loss of Outremont will not spell the end of the Dion leadership yet. It takes too long to organize a convention (it took a year last time) and so there is not enough time before the next election even if it is in Oct. 09. However, the long knives will come out because Dion will have shown he cannot deliver Francophone Quebec. They still hate him for the Clarity Act and his many letters written to the sovereignists telling them how terrible they were.

Anybody who watched Dion's interview with Peter Mansbridge this week and the reason given for not going to Afghanistan will see him as a weakling and maybe even a coward. Somebody not prepared to ensure he has all the relevant facts first hand about the situation on the ground before making a final decision on the future of Canada in that war torn country.

[updated Sun Sep 16 17:28:45 EDT 2007]

I don’t think the results of the by-elections, per se, will cause any of major parties to seek an election in the near future.

Since, to force an election the three opposing parties must all vote (with a descent and/or absentee here or there) against the government (presumably on the Throne Speech).

This will maintain after the by-elections in Quebec on Monday, no matter what the result (even if the Lib’s, say, won all three seats, which they, obviously, won’t). In fact, a quick calculation shows that this situation maintains even assuming the 3 Independents vote against the government and all 7 vacant seats go to one of the opposing parties (e.g. the Lib’s, or the Block – that is very unlikely off course and the more seats the Con’s pick up the harder it will be for them to be defeated).

As things stand right now there are four parties and they are very much polarized, each with respect to all the others. Thus, any gain, even perceived, in the by-elections in Quebec or elsewhere for one party will result in a loss, or perceived loss, for at least one of the other parties. So, one of the three will not be spurred to force an election simply based on the results of the by-elections.

This is a prime illustration of what I mean when I refer to the current situation as a ‘local stability’ (see in my reply to a comment for the blog entry “Green Party of Canada - Likely the Political Wildcard in the Next Election”).

The above is, of courser, taking into account only the impact of the results of the by-elections.

As things stand I thing Dion should be seriously trying to force an election whether the Lib’s do well in the by-elections in Quebec or not (to me he should have been trying since the Spring). Basically, it seems Dion’s only real chance at this time is to try to win a minority government. Even for this there will have to be some event(s) to destabilize the current situation (as above, I don’t think this the by-elections are sufficient). If the Lib’s do poorly, especially in Outremont, then Dion might as well try to force an election since he may not get another chance.

Of course Dion downplays the polls, especially Outremont, suggesting that they may not be accurate do to there being such a large undecided and many immigrants do not like to answer polls. This is an issue with any poll, even one taken very close to the actual day of the election. As long as there is a significant % of undecided and/or those not wishing to give an answer, in the poll; and/or, a significant number of no-votes in the election, then the poll should be inaccurate (it seems to me anyway). It may be that it predicts the order, but I don’t see how it can be relied on to predict the actual vote. So, Dion may have a point although the spread is a bit wide.

It will be interesting to see how close this poll is to the actual results on Monday. However, I don’t see the results changing the current political power struggle situation in any significant way.

Lloyd MacIlquham

[updated Sun Sep 16 17:37:40 EDT 2007]

I'm not exactly sure what the point of this thread is. The by-elections will have an impact on general election calculus. Parties that do well will be emboldened. This is stuff that we've read in the papers for weeks. It's not what I'd expect from a pollster whose supposed to give us numbers you can't find anywhere else, right?

Of course it's been frequently noted that in Quebec in particular the Afghanistan issue is a hot button, but to what extent do voters in Quebec equate the Harperites with the Mario Parti? (otherwise known as ADQ) Certainly they are birds of a feather, does a rising tide for Mario lift Harper's boat as well? Hopefully someone more knowledgeable on Que issues could comment on this.

It would be interesting if the NDP won in Outremont, but if they do it won't be on their own merits. Of far more long term value to the NDP are the fortunes of Pierre Ducasse, a young man now living in Hull who ran for the NDP leadership last time and was very impressive in (dare I say it) a Trudeauesque way. If he were to win a seat in the next federal election I think he could instigate a very dramatic shift in fortune for the NDP in Quebec.

By tomorrow night we'll have the answers - so this topic is (almost) already outdated.

A better topic, perhaps introduced on Tuesday, might have been - 'what do you see as the political fallout of the results of the 3 Quebec byelections?'

Then we would have something to sink our teeth into - concrete results.

Nik, Quebec polls vastly under rated the fortunes of the NDP and Conservative parties in the Quebec byelections. One has to ask why? Were these polls, so far from the actual election results, meant to direct public opinion?

As one watched the Liberals after the main results were announced one saw:

Stephan Dion - looking as if he really wanted to go to bed and cry, but bravely carrying on as if these results were mere short term aberrations that could quite easily be overcome;

Michael Ignatieff - standing as far apart from his 'leader' as he could comfortably get - these results were I think worse than he had imagined such that they may even assault his leadership aspirations (who wants to lead a party going nowhere?);

Gerard Kennedy - looking crushed;

Martha Finlayson - looking not only crushed, also totally stunned.

Bring on the Ontario byelections.

Bob Rae may have a fight on his hands, Kennedy and Finlayson might as well retire into the limelight now - they don't have a snowball's chance in Hades.

Needless to say, the Liberals and the Bloc were very disappointed about yesterday's results. The Conservatives and NDP are elated. The results were not entirely surprising, if you have been reading Chantal Hebert's columns. This is especially so in Outremont where Mulcair, who is a veteran Liberal, now calling himself NDP, and who is a good politician and very popular. Had he run as a Liberal, or for any other party, he would have won. In Roberval I wasn't surprised either. but I must admit that I did not think the Conservatives would do as well in St. Hyacinthe, being closer to an urban center, Montreal., where conservatives have more difficulty getting support.
However Dion and Duceppe's disapppintment and Harper and Layton's ecstacy may be tempered by the following observations.
By-elections have little enfluence on the nation scene; They usually have very low turnouts, serious national voters are not all that interested; voters like to send messages in by-elections ; they tend to vote for the person and the local issues and they feel they don't have to be responsible as in national elections and as always things can change very quickly in politics.
Even with that the losing parties have some soul-searching to do and corrections to make before the next elections

The bottom line is Canadians do not want Dion as Prime Minister, only corrupted Liberal members do!

There is not much to read in the tea leaves of the by-elections:

Liberals: Everyone is quick to critcize Dion but they forget that since he's taken the helm of the party, nationally, the Liberals are running neck-and-neck with the Conservatives. That, already, is a feat! It is a bit much to expect Dion to do well in Quebec when the Liberal brand has been beaten down to a pulp there before he won the leadership race.

Conservatives: The Bloc has been propping up the Conservatives so the Québecois have been asking "why vote for the Bloc and get none of the federal largesse, if the Bloc is only going to support the Conservative position?". This played in Roberval, where the forestry sector has been decimated by the Conservative sell-out to the US of our economic trade sovereignty for the price of $4 billion. In addition they found a star candidate in the former mayor.

NDP: This is indeed interesting. The Bloc is bleeding support and the Québecois, finally, are starting to realize that there is another federalist leftist option. Some of the disaffected Bloc vote that was traditionally Liberal could very well go the way of the NDP. After all, the party did triple its vote in that province in the last federal election. As well, Mulcair is a name around which the NDP could start to build a bit of an organization.

Bloc: The biggest change was for this party. The Bloc was going to be content to keep propping up the Conservatives until such time as the next provincial budget could be presented in Quebec. It was their hope that new PQ-leader Pauline Marois and ADQ-leader Dumont would defeat the Charest budget to provoke another provincial vote. This is no longer an option and hence Duceppe came out with his non-negociable list.

The significant change is that Quebec is no longer, federally, a two-party area.

There will always be a hardcore 33% Bloc support. The rest, for the first time, will be divided between the other three parties.

Don't be surprised to see some NDPers and Liberals coming up the middle in some rural regions in Quebec and some Conservatives slip up the middle on the island of Montreal.

The biggest change now is that Quebec can't be won. At least four parties will split the available seats.

[updated Wed Oct 03 17:56:06 EDT 2007]