Here comes a Tory minority.

October 14, 2008 11:11 PM

Any Canadians curious as to who their riding voted for?Nobody was willing to call this election and as it turns out the Conservatives won. Only a few ridings are left to be called. Here's what the CBC says about the results so far

For an added bonus, if your Canadian, post your riding. Here's mine

posted by Pseudology (88 comments total)

Vancouver South. Unlike last election, there was a Chinese-Canadian running. She nearly unseated Ujjal Dosanjh, former BC premier and Liberal cabinet member (and current critic). She is completely unqualified and the Conservatives were hoping to pull the votes of the notoriously racist Chinese majority in the riding. It didn't work, thank goodness.

In the riding across the street (Vancouver Kingsway), the Liberals won again; Joyce Murray re-elected after the recent byelection. After Emerson's defection, that riding will never elect a Conservative as long as people are alive to remember it.

Despite the fact that I know Troy Desouza, I was glad to see Keith Martin hold onto his seat in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, and by the skin of his teeth (0.11% margin).

With luck, the Liberals will replace Dion with someone who has charisma, and they'll try to unite the left as the Harperites united the right.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 11:29 PM on October 14, 2008

Here's mine. Worth $300 million!
posted by mazola at 11:33 PM on October 14, 2008

Zing!
I think it is time to go to bed.
posted by hip_plumber at 11:48 PM on October 14, 2008

Vancouver East (DTES!) remained solidly NDP (54%) ... I voted Green which was at 11% vs the conservative candidate who was at 15%.

It was a bit surreal voting at a detox centre, and having crazy recovering addicts trying to figure out which voting list I was supposed to be on. Thankfully, they had a supervisor, who sorted out all the chaos.
posted by niccolo at 11:51 PM on October 14, 2008

Representing Davenport
posted by ManInSuit at 11:53 PM on October 14, 2008

(also - I waited in line, like, 30 minutes to vote. And then my guy didn't even win!)
posted by ManInSuit at 11:54 PM on October 14, 2008

Of note in my riding: The Marxist-Leninists got 171 votes, and the "Work Less Party" got 1% of the popular vote.

But, lesbo Libby is mine - probably for as long as she wants to be. Despite how much I love her, I've never voted for her. Since I know she is going to win, I can vote Liberal.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next majority government with Prime Minister Ignatieff (left) or Rae (right) who will likely both run again for Liberal leadership in May.

I'm fine with a PM who is comfortable enough skinny dipping for a wildly popular TV show, and then smooches the gay host.
posted by SSinVan at 12:10 AM on October 15, 2008

Surrey North: voting was painless; I spent more time deciding on Green vs NDP than I did waiting for any step of the process. This may have been because I went in around 9:30am which strikes me as rather a weird, in-limboish time.

I voted Green -- the strategic move would have been to vote NDP but I didn't think that it would have been close enough to make a difference; to be honest I thought Cadman would take it pretty handily simply due to her Chuck-reputation-coasting and was wrong, as it turned out to be a tight race.
posted by heeeraldo at 12:14 AM on October 15, 2008

SSinVan, you're lucky. MY riding's always had nothing but mainstream party Candidates. I'd vote for a fringe Candidate in a heartbeat. Even if they represented the Brain Slug Party. I had to be satisfied with throwing my vote away on the only incumbent Green candidate.
posted by Pseudology at 12:28 AM on October 15, 2008

it was a pretty sad day, really. harper wanted to go to iraq, wants open season on the tar sands, uranium a go-go, drilling and tankers on the west coast, an end to hard-drug harm reduction, the rise of the prison industry and private health care... all the things that canadians make fun of americans for, and we voted for it.

a client of mine once asked me, "who votes in anything but their own self-interest?" "i do," i said. apparently, i'm in the minority and the promise of cheap(er) gas really is all you need to win.
posted by klanawa at 12:30 AM on October 15, 2008

If we start talking about how Ontario caved, I would just like to note that it wasn't 416 (aka Trana).

Wasn't (most of) Mississauga or Brampton either, which is interesting. Conservative gains seem to be mostly small city and rural southern Ontario, less urban or suburban.
posted by jb at 12:36 AM on October 15, 2008

Bah. Mine's Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge/Mission. Last time around it was pretty close (5% difference), this time Conservative Randy Kamp is re-elected by a wide margin, and my guy lost. Guess those "What is Randy Kamp and Stephen Harper Doing For You?!" weekly mailers he sends around almost every friggin' week have their effect... The amount of paper that guy wastes on unsolicited mailers is almost enough to make me want to vote Green, I tell ya.
posted by barc0001 at 12:44 AM on October 15, 2008

Vancouver East here. The Elections Canada site is nice, it breaks down the results by riding and province, &c. You can see where, if there were any doubts, the votes are coming from.
posted by Alex Voyd at 12:44 AM on October 15, 2008

Oh, my riding is Ignatieff's, and he won (Etobicoke Lakeshore). But I didn't actually get my special ballot to vote from overseas until today. Which I'm not that cut up about, since I was holding my nose to vote for him anyways. Still creeped out by his justification of harsh interrogration techniques, which is just too damn close to torture.
posted by jb at 12:48 AM on October 15, 2008

I live in the Victoria riding, and boy, was the polling ever disorganized. It took forever for polling results to come in, and when they did, Denise Savoie, the NDP candidate, won in a landslide. Although I always thought I would, I could not bring myself to vote Liberal, purely because Dion (but not his ideas!) stinks - I could not bring myself to give even one vote to Dion that he could use to justify continuing on as Liberal leader. On the other hand, Denise Savoie, as a candidate, does not stink, but her party's outdated ideas most certainly do. But I voted for her anyway. Lesser of two evils.

BC went mostly Tory, except for Vancouver's downtown core (Liberal) and the rest of Metro Vancouver (save for West and North Van), which went NDP.

I suspect this Federal election here in BC was a referendum on the provincial Liberals' carbon tax (and a rejection of Dion's GreenShift), and, what with the strong-ish NDP showing coupled with the Tory surge, a harbinger of things to come in the spring provincial election.

It was also surprising that Gary Lunn, who was supposedly in the fight of his life after the NDP candidate dropped out, thereby giving Liberal Briony Penn an excellent shot at winning the Saanich and the Islands riding, actually *increased* his share of the popular vote this time around, from 35% to 50%. Just goes to prove that the Right is better organized and is better able to get the vote out.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:48 AM on October 15, 2008

(The Bob Rae and Rick Mercer thing was cool - I, too, am swayed in favour of politicians by skinny dipping. Also by them being against "right-wing ideology.")
posted by jb at 12:49 AM on October 15, 2008

Proud to be the lone orange dot out the the Western Ocean. A very close race which made my vote all the more satisfying.

No problems at the polls. Even at 5pm I was in line for maybe a minute and vouching for a friend who forgot proof of address was painless.
posted by megamanwich at 12:49 AM on October 15, 2008

considering the situation in saanich-gulf islands (and probably everywhere else), i'd really like to see what canada would look like if we'd used the STV this time.

briony penn is really the polar opposite of gary lunn and the fact that the votes cast for a candidate who wasn't even running, had half of them passed to her, would have given her the seat is pretty damn disappointing.
posted by klanawa at 12:54 AM on October 15, 2008

Oh, it seems since I last checked, Lunn went down to 43% of the popular vote, while Penn got 39% or so...
posted by KokuRyu at 1:17 AM on October 15, 2008

You know, I did post the link in question in the currently open thread like 6 hours ago. I'm not so sure that emulating the welter of American election threads is such a great thing for Metafilter.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:59 AM on October 15, 2008 [2 favorites]

I'm so depressed.
posted by Hildegarde at 2:09 AM on October 15, 2008

I scrutineered for Alex Atamenenko and was pleased to see him win handilly. He works hard, takes care of his constituents, hates war, and has actively supported American war resisters. I'm proud to have him as my MP.

Now, if Dion feels that wall against his back, maybe he'll quit kissing up to the Tories and we can see some progressive legislation. (God, I'm disgusted with the Liberals. I despise the Conservatives but the Liberals are contemptible.)
posted by CCBC at 2:32 AM on October 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

it was a pretty sad day, really. harper wanted to go to iraq, wants open season on the tar sands, uranium a go-go, drilling and tankers on the west coast, an end to hard-drug harm reduction, the rise of the prison industry and private health care... all the things that canadians make fun of americans for, and we voted for it.

Unless someone comes up with a better summary of these latest Canadian elections, I'm going to be quoting this to all the Canadians who (often rightfully) mock the brain-dead hide-bound US electoral system.
posted by telstar at 3:46 AM on October 15, 2008

Summary of Canadian elections:

1. One Conservative party, 3 (or 4) Liberal parties.
2. Winner-take-all first-past-the-post electoral system.
3. Vote splitting.

posted by anthill at 3:57 AM on October 15, 2008 [2 favorites]

Scarborough Southwest. No surprises that the Liberals got in here. Some disorganization at the polls, as some streets weren't correctly allocated, and some voters were being directed to a poll number that didn't exist.

Props to former colleague Glenn for getting 8% of the votes for the Greens in Newmarket-Aurora.
posted by scruss at 4:02 AM on October 15, 2008

KW here, both of our city ridings went Con from very strong Liberal wins last time, and I'm near to tears. Pollworkers describe hordes of the elderly coming in on wheelchairs, hobbling in on canes, limping through the doors with war wounds, and very few 20-somethings.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:44 AM on October 15, 2008

It took forever for polling results to come in, and when they did, Denise Savoie, the NDP candidate, won in a landslide. Although I always thought I would, I could not bring myself to vote Liberal, purely because Dion (but not his ideas!) stinks - I could not bring myself to give even one vote to Dion that he could use to justify continuing on as Liberal leader.

Identical sentiment wrt Layton. I wish they'd get someone else but it's not gonna happen.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 5:16 AM on October 15, 2008

Here in York Centre, we elected Ken Dryden. Was anyone surprised by that? No? Me, either.

I'm moving to Parkdale-High Park in the quasi-near future so I was watching that race with interest. I'm sad to see Peggy Nash go, but I can't say I'm heartbroken about Gerard Kennedy being in, despite being a member of the NDP.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:46 AM on October 15, 2008

I live in Layton's riding (Toronto-Danforth) and voted for him. Don't quite get why so many people seem to hate him so much.

/ spent the first hour of the CBC's election coverage shitting my pants every time they said a Conservative majority was a possibility, albeit a slim one
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:54 AM on October 15, 2008

So, what mandate does Harper have?
As far as I can tell, he is now free to say "Stephane Dion isn't worth the risk" with impunity.
posted by Chuckles McLaughy du Haha, the depressed clown at 5:55 AM on October 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

Very disappointed in Ancaster-Dundas-Flanborough-Westdale. Its a sea of blue, but I'm not surprised.
posted by phirleh at 5:58 AM on October 15, 2008

I should also mention that my wife (a Thunder Bay native) is absolutely flabbergasted that both of the T-Bay-area ridings went NDP this time around.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:58 AM on October 15, 2008

I also don't understand the Layton hate. I've met him and I find him smart, sincere and committed. Quel horreur!

Also representing Davenport here. Unfortunately the Liberals have a very strong hold here both provincially and federally.

It was a shame, and a surprise to see Peggy Nash lose to Gerard Kennedy.

The Tory gains in Ontario were disappointing; Harper has treated Ontarians poorly and the 905ers just lap it up. They were up 6% or so even in the 416... I was disgusted to see Tony Clement win so handily this time around after he just squeaked in last time.

I wonder if Harper will pull his "every vote is a confidence vote" nonsense out again in the Throne speech. Served him well last time. And will the media continue their love affair, or will they start trying to trip him up so that there's a more 'interesting' election next time out?
posted by sevenyearlurk at 6:22 AM on October 15, 2008

59% voter turnout. I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed in my country right now. Well, not the people who did make an effort to vote, but yeah. I was excited when I got to my polling station and stood in line behind lots of young people (with lots more behind me), seeing young families going out to vote together, even teens in their first election. Heck, one of my co-workers, her daughter just turned 18 yesterday, and eagerly went out to vote. I went to bed somewhat optimistic. Turns out our riding was an abberation, I guess.

At least we stayed Liberal.
posted by sandraregina at 6:43 AM on October 15, 2008

1. One Conservative party, 3 (or 4) Liberal parties.
   
2. Winner-take-all first-past-the-post electoral system.
   
3. Vote splitting.

I ask as a somewhat ignorant but curious outsider: Canada's system is parliamentary, yes? How is it necessarily first-past-the-post? Is it really not possible for the other (non-plurality) parties to form a coalition?
posted by kittyprecious at 6:50 AM on October 15, 2008

Here in Ottawa Centre, Paul Dewar held on to it easily. The riding was created 40 years ago and was consistently liberal until Ed Broadbent came out of retirement in 2004 and took it for the NDP; it is the very definition of a safe riding.

I suspect the Liberal performance will put Stephane Dion into a very exclusive club: he will be the first liberal leader since Edward Blake (in the 1880s) and only the second one in history never to have become PM.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:05 AM on October 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

The other parties can form a coalition, but they won't. One of the parties that would need to join the coalition is the separatist party, which usually doesn't like hanging out with the federalist parties.
posted by chunking express at 7:07 AM on October 15, 2008

I'd love to see what the map would have looked like if instant runoff were in effect with green voters ranking ndp second, liberal third, ndp ranking green second liberal third (or vice versa, I doubt it would matter), etc. Spot checking here and there it looks like it would have produced a very different outcome.
posted by bigschmoove at 7:17 AM on October 15, 2008

kittyprecious, there's nothing stopping parties from forming some form of coalition, other than their disagreements (which are not insignificant). And a coalition would be weak - only 5 MPs need to defect to the Conservatives on a given vote to neutralize the opposition.

The first-past-the-post system I was referring to is for the election of each Member of Parliament - just as in the USA, the candidate with the most votes wins, and votes cast for a loser are wasted. This results in all sorts of wedge-issue strategizing by politicians and convoluted 'strategic voting' by citizens.

I'm really ashamed that Canadians voted to continue ignoring our contribution to climate change.
posted by anthill at 7:21 AM on October 15, 2008

No surprises in my neck of the woods... Hamilton : NDP :: Toronto : Liberal (normally).
posted by lowlife at 7:29 AM on October 15, 2008

I'm really ashamed that Canadians voted to continue ignoring our contribution to climate change.

We also love wasting water.

The election was a big non-event. It was pretty clear that the Tories weren't going to get a majority because they are fuck-ups. I was hoping for a Liberal / NDP coalition, but the Liberals lost too many seats to make that happen. Things are more or less the same as how they were before. Layton must be happy, but everyone else, not so much.
posted by chunking express at 7:30 AM on October 15, 2008

Oh, and Ottawa Orleans here. Conservative candidate took it by 3702 votes.
Green votes here: 3833. NDP votes here: 6127.

The Conservative, in addition to being anti-environment, anti-child care, anti-minimum wage, anti-aboriginal assistance, anti-public health care, and even anti-old age security, is a complete nutbar.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 7:36 AM on October 15, 2008

I worked the polls as a DRO in a very small town in the Wellington-Halton Hills riding. Of the 150 or so voters at my poll station, I probably had three or four under the age of 25. Add another dozen or so between 25-35 and you can see why over 50% of my ballots were for the conservative candidate, who eventually won the whole riding in a landslide.
I'm also disappointed in Kitchener-Waterloo. How can a riding with two universities go conservative? I'll tell you how: Young people don't vote in this country.
posted by rocket88 at 7:39 AM on October 15, 2008

I'm really ashamed that Canadians voted to continue ignoring our contribution to climate change.

Hey man, don't blame me. I voted Green...
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 7:43 AM on October 15, 2008

59% voter turnout.

No kidding? Damn, it would be something if US turnout was the third-worst in the world this year instead of the second-worst. God bless little Switzerland.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:47 AM on October 15, 2008

It seems that US and Canadian politics are converging toward a common center. I wonder if we'll see a decline in disillusioned Americans threatening to move to Canada.
posted by crapmatic at 7:51 AM on October 15, 2008

St. Paul's (Toronto) here, which cast 50% of the popular vote for Liberal Carolyn Bennett, who has held the seat for over a decade now. In this riding the Greens almost doubled their share of the vote from 2006, while the NDP went down by a near identical percentage. Even a combination of NDP and Green puts them in third place.

I can't see an elected Green MP happening for quite a while, anywhere in Canada.
posted by Paid In Full at 8:05 AM on October 15, 2008

Peterborough (northeast of Toronto).

We just re-elected one of the Conservative Party's least competent and least interesting backbenchers. He'll be a rubber-stamp vote for anything and everything Stephen Harper wants to do.

I wish I could say this result was about vote-splitting. It was true in 2006: our no-name Tory (a former used car dealer) won with 37% of the vote then, in a 3-way race.

This time he had 47% of the vote, a 9,000 vote margin on a strong Liberal candidate and almost 20,000 more votes than the NDP. An effort I joined, to direct NDP and Green strategic votes to the stronger Liberal, failed.

Voter turnout locally was down by a few thousand. Nationally, turnout was the lowest in Canadian history, at 58%. I think a lot of people felt disenfranchised by the fact that three parties (Liberal, NDP, Green) shared a lot of common territory, especially on environment and climate change, and none of them had the momentum to beat the (environmentally regressive) Conservatives.

Nearly a million Canadians voted Green in this election. Based on pre-election polls, close to a million more had the Greens as their first choice, but voted strategically to defeat the Conservative in their riding. With a little under 7% of the vote nationally, and 11-13% support nationally in pre-election polls, the Greens have NO representation in the new Parliament.

Some form of proportional representation is the only way to fix this, and the Conservatives are extraordinarily unlikely to have anything to do with this, as they benefit so much from the distortions of the current system.
posted by namasaya at 8:08 AM on October 15, 2008

I can't see an elected Green MP happening for quite a while, anywhere in Canada.

Especially if they all have the political acumen to try their hand at seats like McKay's.

My friend got this letter from Fair Vote Canada.

The chief victims of the October 14 federal election were:

Green Party: 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no one to Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that gained no parliamentary representation. By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs.

Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times as many seats.

Urban Conservatives: Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.

New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37.

Had the votes on October 14 been cast under a fair and proportional voting system, Fair Vote Canada projected that the seats allocation would have been approximately as follows:

Conservatives - 38% of the popular vote: 117 seats (not 143)
Liberals - 26% of the popular vote: 81 seats (not 76)
NDP - 18% of the popular vote: 57 seats (not 37)
Bloc - 10% of the popular vote: 28 seats (not 50)
Greens - 7% of the popular vote: 23 seats (not 0)

posted by chunking express at 8:10 AM on October 15, 2008 [6 favorites]

The first-past-the-post system I was referring to is for the election of each Member of Parliament - just as in the USA, the candidate with the most votes wins, and votes cast for a loser are wasted.

Ah, of course. Silly me, confusing the local results for the big picture. I suppose proportional representation would make things interesting even if it doesn't change the overall outcome.
posted by kittyprecious at 8:14 AM on October 15, 2008

Lots of liberal hate out here in BC. They got beat out by the greens in almost a dozen ridings which has to hurt.
posted by Mitheral at 8:20 AM on October 15, 2008

Green Party leader Elizabeth May made an incredibly poor choice running in Central Nova against very popular cabinet minister Peter MacKay. She could have won her party a seat in parliament if she had run in a more friendly riding (Guelph might have gone Green under her name).
Dion isn't the only Leader who should be considering stepping down.
posted by rocket88 at 8:21 AM on October 15, 2008

Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times as many seats.

Now to be fair, I know that Elections Canada wanted to redraw the electoral boundaries in Saskatchewan to create something like 6 or 7 urban seats and the politicians - including NDP MP's had a shit fit over it, and elections Canada pulled the plug. Probably 5 of those seats would be NDP and one of the others would be Ralph Goodale.

The real problem is that the NDP/Libs/and Left wing Seperatists believe in most of the same things they just don't like the labels on any other party. By the way, I thought the red-baiting Dion engaged in - late in the campaign was sick, calling Layton something to the effect of an "old-school socialist". We won't have anything resembling left-wing unity when the discourse between left-leaning parties sinks that low.
posted by Deep Dish at 8:23 AM on October 15, 2008

rocket88 writes "I'm also disappointed in Kitchener-Waterloo. How can a riding with two universities go conservative? I'll tell you how: Young people don't vote in this country."

Lots of students vote in their home town instead by absentee voting.
posted by Mitheral at 8:24 AM on October 15, 2008

Laurier-Sainte-Marie - Duceppe's riding.
Really happy to see the Conservatives do so miserable here (5th with 5%).
NDP is still solid - we're just aside Outremont which remains the sole NDP spot in Montreal/Quebec.
NeoRhino gets close to 1% (probably fueled by the missing Marijuana party vote).
posted by zenzizi at 8:25 AM on October 15, 2008

From the GTA, proud that my riding voted strongly for the Liberals.

"...the Conservatives were hoping to pull the votes of the notoriously racist Chinese majority in the riding"

Ten Pounds - you want to expand on what you're saying there? Do you have sources to back that up? Are you saying that certain ethnic groups are more racist in Vancouver South or should we intimate that ALL Chinese are racist in Vancouver?
posted by phyrewerx at 8:42 AM on October 15, 2008

phyrewerx, the trick with these sorts of things is to just ignore the stupid people. ten pounds is probably afraid of all the Chinese people in Markham too.
posted by chunking express at 8:45 AM on October 15, 2008

My riding of Mississauga South has been Liberal since 1993, so no surprises there.

Are there any comparisons between election results and census data available anywhere? Age, income, that sort of thing?
posted by howling fantods at 8:51 AM on October 15, 2008

@rocket88, @Mitheral I have a feeling a lot of students didn't get to vote at all.
posted by howling fantods at 8:55 AM on October 15, 2008

I also don't understand why the voter card wouldn't be enough if you have some sort of ID on you. I mean, the voter card is mailed to you. I still had to bring in an old gas bill to vote because my expired license has my old address on it.
posted by chunking express at 8:59 AM on October 15, 2008

Also of interest, Justin Trudeau was elected to his first term. The Liberals desperately need a leader with his charisma.
posted by howling fantods at 9:02 AM on October 15, 2008

@chunking express It should also be noted that the voter cards are mailed to anyone on the Canada Revenue Agency's list, many of whom aren't citizens and therefore ineligible to vote.
posted by howling fantods at 9:08 AM on October 15, 2008

With a minority Parliament, Canadians can expect more wheeling, dealing, negotiating, intra-party bickering and finger-pointing among the parties. Such is the nature of minority governments, when no previous arrangements have been made among or between parties to co-operate. Such will especially be the nature of this minority government with severe economic dislocations ahead and cavernous divergences among parties as to what remedies are required.

From Jeffrey Simpson's column in today's Globe + Mail. The title kind of says it all: Harper has a future; Dion's history .
posted by philip-random at 9:10 AM on October 15, 2008

Charleswood - St. James - Assiniboia Lots of old people to get the vote out, lots of middle class who worry about the price of gas and "teenage" - read: Aboriginal - crime, and lots of proles and young people who don't give a shit.

It's a good thing I didn't run, Fletch would have bashed my brains in worse than Olivia Chow did to poor ol' Chester Brown.

Yeah, that Chester Brown.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:11 AM on October 15, 2008

@howling fantods, true, but then wouldn't you be missing from the actual voter lists the volunteers have? Maybe i'm misunderstanding how it all works, but I don't see why the extra piece of mail is needed at all. (Maybe if you are registering to vote in a new riding all sorts of extra identification is needed, otherwise i'm not so sure.)
posted by chunking express at 9:16 AM on October 15, 2008

Lots of liberal hate out here in BC. They got beat out by the greens in almost a dozen ridings which has to hurt.

Four words explain this: Gordon Campbell's carbon tax
posted by KokuRyu at 9:17 AM on October 15, 2008

Also of interest, Justin Trudeau was elected to his first term. The Liberals desperately need a leader with his charisma.

Good lord, no! Sure, Justin Trudeau looks good in a designer suit, but the guy is an inarticulate moron.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:18 AM on October 15, 2008

... and for a little international perspective, Canada doesn't even earn a mention on the front page of the Guardian.
posted by philip-random at 9:19 AM on October 15, 2008

I wish to thank Edmonton-Strathcona for electing an NDP and redeeming my whole pathetic province just a tiny bit.

I live in Calgary Centre and of course our CPC MP (Lee "refugees are crimials" Richardson) won, BUT the Green candidate (Natalie Odd) took 17% of the vote- once again, Calgary Centre is the best Green showing (for a non-leader's riding) in Canada.

I really thing that Liz May had a better chance of winning here than she did in Nova.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 9:25 AM on October 15, 2008

@chunking express That seems logical, but Elections Canada seems to suggest otherwise. I've only ever had to prove I live in the riding to get registered for the first time, I've never been asked for proof of citizenship.
posted by howling fantods at 9:31 AM on October 15, 2008

Also of interest, Justin Trudeau was elected to his first term. The Liberals desperately need a leader with his charisma.

Also, the name "Trudeau" doesn't carry a positive vibe in the West. The country needs unity...
posted by Deep Dish at 9:36 AM on October 15, 2008

old riding that I voted in: incumbent Liberal defeated by Conservative. I was hoping we'd stay Liberal but considering the riding went PC in the last provincial election, and considering it's one of the richest neighbourhoods in Ontario (probably Canada)...

new riding that I did not vote in: incumbent NDP defeated by Liberal. I don't feel so bad about this because I, too, don't mind Gerrard Kennedy. But I just moved here and don't know either candidate very well, so who knows? I'm just glad to be living in a riding where I'd be happy with either of the top candidates.
posted by chrominance at 9:51 AM on October 15, 2008

Here's a link to Calgary Centre - my riding as well - where I'm pleased with the Green vote but just wish Natalie had managed to finish second.

Much as I wish the Conservative minority had shrunk enough to create the possibility of a coalition supplanting it, I still look at this as a pyrrhic victory for Harper's party and the high-water mark of their shoddy, opportunistic reign. They called a snap election because the series of algorithms that stands in for Stevey's soul churned out a cost-benefit analysis and risk quotient that could be cross-calibrated to read like he just might be able to steal a majority.

Harper faced a rudderless, flailing Official Opposition obliged to begin every presentation with the word "tax." (Carbon taxes are good policy but bad politics - I have it on reasonably good authority this is how the exasperated Liberal braintrust felt as well - and Dion's GreenShift should've predicated itself on a German-style feed-in tariff, which allows you to start the conversation by talking about job creation and industrial renewal.)

He faced an old left party obliged to mount a ferocious attack on a policy it knows is a smart one (i.e. the carbon tax) and to cynically deny the growing role of the Greens and the legitimate political force it represents. (These two things are, in a nutshell, the reason some of Layton's longtime supporters - including me - were so disgusted with him, Card Cheat. He traded seven more seats in Parliament for a career's worth of trust. The guy who talked my ear off about climate policy at his very first barbecue down in Chinatown when he launched his run for the party leadership was not and is not opposed to a carbon tax. The guy who turned the Federation of Canadian Municipalities into a major political force knows better than this divisive horseshit about a "working families" versus Bay Street dichotomy. Sure, all's fair in love, war and politics, but I lost a lot of respect for Jack in the process. But I digress.)

Back to Harper, beyond this he faced a regional party that has essentially lost its raison d'etre and abandoned its base to chew on federal pork, and an economy teetering on the edge of a terrifying precipice (which naturally makes people wary of lefties and carbon-taxers).

Despite all this, this scheming triangulating hypercalculating sweater-vested robot of a PM couldn't eke out a majority. Last night someone on the CBC was talking about his "incremental" strategy for a majority, but that was lipstick on another minority pig. Harper went all-in and gained one percent in the national vote and eighteen new seats, and he's still got to cut deals just to table a budget.

That's not a victory, that's treading water.
posted by gompa at 9:54 AM on October 15, 2008 [6 favorites]

I'm in Calgary SE and obviously wasn't surprised by the Conservative win (Jason Kenney is basically flown in from Ottawa to be guaranteed a win) but was pleased to see that the Greens edged out both the Liberals and NDP in votes.

No one from any party did much visible campaigning in my area and there was hardly any signs other than the big ones at major intersections (all blue and almost all vandalised with swastikas for some reason).
posted by jeffmik at 10:11 AM on October 15, 2008

My riding (Calgary West) voted in Rob Anders. Again.
posted by hamfisted at 10:17 AM on October 15, 2008

I went to university with Troy deSouza -- he was the young Republican wanna-be writing idiotic Reagan free market anti-communist crap in the Martlet and wearing a fucking tie. I always wondered what happened to him, absolutely no surprise to find he had turned into a conservative party lawyer. Unless he had a personality transplant he is a ginormous jackass.

It was a real shame to see Briony Penn go down in Saanich -- I know her, she is smart and passionate and well educated and everything you want in a candidate, so thanks idiot NDP voters for checking the box beside a guy who wasn't even running any more, and Greens for voting for a no-hoper against a legitimate Green-in-red-dress. IDIOTS!

Problem with the Liberals now is: who they gonna call? Dion is a massive liability (much as I think he is better than portrayed), Rae has massive baggage, Ignatieff I really like but he was soooo wrong about Iraq and maybe Harper can get past that but not on the left.

Meanwhile, NDP will never have much credibility on the environment because of their historic ties to loggers and miners and so forth and their shallow opposition to carbon tax in BC makes them look like fucking clowns. So no Orange-Green coalition likely anytime soon. If Dion had been smart he would tried a coalition of Red-Green but the Red would have to swallow too much pride.

Anyway, Denise Savoie is a decent MP and in Victoria the Liberals barely even made an effort so fuck'em anyhow.
posted by Rumple at 10:22 AM on October 15, 2008

My riding (Calgary West) voted in Rob Anders. Again.

That's what I don't get. The guy is an absolute buffoon who does nothing.
posted by chugg at 11:10 AM on October 15, 2008

Ten Pounds - you want to expand on what you're saying there?

Try being a non-Cantonese living in my riding for a few years -- hell, a few *days*, and then we'll talk about whether or not you get to question this. And in a different thread. Your knee jerking is not enough payment.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 12:59 PM on October 15, 2008

On coalitions...

There is really no such thing as a coalition after a new government has already been sworn in. That would simply mean the house loses confidence in the gov and that triggers an election. Seems to defeat the purpose.

A true coalition would mean that two parties make a formal enough agreement in advance of the new government being sworn in, and going to the Governor General and being able to convince her that they can hold the confidence of the house. They would have had to have worked on the agreement in advance so it was formal enough to convince the GG.

Given our system, it would could only be successful with an NDP/Liberal coalition, and combined, they don't have enough to form a majority.

I sincerely doubt the GG would grant ANY coalition formed by more than 2 parties (couldn't hold confidence), or even one that includes the BQ. That would be an abomination to our country.
posted by SSinVan at 1:03 PM on October 15, 2008

If they formalize it properly, I don't think the GG realistically has all that much latitude in what they do and don't grant. And this one in particular would be far more likely to allow a BQ coalition than most GGs, assuming she had more than ceremonial say in the matter in the first place.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:19 PM on October 15, 2008

If they formalize it properly, I don't think the GG realistically has all that much latitude in what they do and don't grant. And this one in particular would be far more likely to allow a BQ coalition than most GGs, assuming she had more than ceremonial say in the matter in the first place.

We are a consitutional, not absolute monarchy. The GG has to follow the advice of the Prime Minister.
posted by Deep Dish at 1:41 PM on October 15, 2008

@ howling fantoids: I don't think that article is representative. I had four people show up at my poll without proper ID. All four of them voted after being vouched for by a neighbour or family member. I don't think anyone was turned away from our entire location (four polls).
I also had eight people who weren't on the voter's list. We got them registered on the spot (They had to have proper ID for that) and voting. I can't believe many people were shut out yesterday.
posted by rocket88 at 1:48 PM on October 15, 2008

I'm from South Winnipeg, which last election had the Conservative candidate win against a Liberal cabinet minister by about 100 votes. In this election, the Liberals seemed to have a strong candidate and it looked like they had a shot at getting the riding back.

No such luck. Rod Bruinooge won by a good margin.
posted by Quiplash at 1:50 PM on October 15, 2008

... having spent the last few hours out in the more traditional media environment (radio, newspapers etc), it appears that the "expert" consensus is that financial worries trumped environmental concerns in this election, which brings to mind a line from a movie I can't even remember the title of:

"There won't be an environment if we can't figure out how to make it profitable."

(or words to that effect)
posted by philip-random at 2:31 PM on October 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

We are a consitutional, not absolute monarchy. The Governer General has to follow the advice of the Prime Minister.
posted by Deep Dish at 1:41 PM on October 15 [+] [!]

In rare cases he/she can go against the PM. There was a famous case in 1925-1926 called the King-Byng affair.

Basically the Liberals lost an election 99 seats to the Conservatives 116 but refused to give up the PM seat because they were counting on the Progressive party's 26 seats to form a government. When the Progressives stopped supporting Mackenzie King's Liberals, instead of calling an election like King requested Governer General Byng invited Arthur Meighen's Conservatives to form a government. This ended really badly for the Conservatives. Especially because the Governer General interference became a popular election issue and led to the liberals regaining their minority government.

In short, the Governer General can act against the PM but almost never does.

PS: a special thanks to wikipedia for filling in all the gaps in my recounting.
posted by Pseudology at 3:34 PM on October 15, 2008

Another from Ottawa-Centre. I voted for incumbent Paul Dewar (NDP) and was glad to see him re-elected by a nice margin.

Apparently all of Ottawa looks exactly the same as it did last time.
posted by aclevername at 7:15 PM on October 15, 2008

In short, the Governer General can act against the PM but almost never does.

Like our current Prime Minister sneered in 1997, the GG "is an appointed buddy of the Prime Minister".
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:07 PM on October 15, 2008

The Conservatives are going to stay in power until some consensus develops as to what should replace them.

First-past-the-post favors big tent parties; I may not like that as a Green fan, but it isn't undemocratic. The idea is that you have to build your ruling coalition before the election, when your party sets its platform. Building consensus across constituencies wins elections. If we lefties are tired of Harper we have to somehow agree on how to run the country differently.

Yes, the lefty parties agree on a lot of things, but each is in some way intolerable to the others. For example, Ignatieff Liberals favor continued war in Afghanistan (and perhaps elsewhere) while most Green and NDP supporters can't stand the thought.

A duct tape coalition (Red Greene) is probably the best we can do. If the Liberals are willing to tack left a little, it could work. What demands should the Greens make of the Liberals in exchange for giving them their full support? (if not union, at least not running opposed candidates)
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:19 AM on October 16, 2008 [1 favorite]