Canada: GovGen dissolves Parliament, Carney drops the writ, and the election is on!

Politics & Elections
741

As much as I dislike PP and his policies, I think he has good grounds for staying on as leader, since the Cons actually did pretty well in the election and the loss of his own seat could be regarded as a fluke of that particular riding. The resignation of a party leader is usually due to abysmal election results and the loss of their own seat is just the icing on the cake. Anyway, to be clear, I hate the guy and hope he quits, but that probably won’t happen.

It’s not just counter-intuitive, it’s downright silly. What would lead you to such a conclusion?

742

In the short term I see this Parliament lasting because the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc are now broke (the CPC never goes broke); the NDP is leaderless; and PP’s Conservatives still threaten the Liberals vote share and the NDP’s social policy rollout.

In the long term (1 year or longer), if the Liberals get a bit more popular (it doesn’t need to be by much, but they’ll want to feel safe), they’ll pull the trigger on an election again by acting in a way to displease all the others (most likely through a confidence/budget vote that they’ll campaign on).

743

I’m not sure this is true. If you compare vote totals from the last election, it might look like it, but if you look at the polling over time chart from 338 you’d see that until last November the Liberal vote had almost entirely collapsed, mostly to the Conservatives. Then after JT resigned and Carney became heir apparent, it started shooting up, taking from all three parties. But some former Liberal voters didn’t come back from the Tories (thus increasing the Conservative vote share) and meanwhile the NDP voters abandoned orange for red in droves, boosting the Liberal vote share.

There might be some orange>blue vote shifting, but I doubt it was very significant.

744

Not over yet as mail in ballots ( except PPs ) started to be counted at 9.30 am EST

Elections Canada decided early Tuesday morning to pause the marathon counting of special ballots with a handful of ridings still too close to call.

The Liberals were leading or elected in 168 seats when the counting was paused, four short of a majority. Elections Canada estimated that the uncounted votes could affect the result in about a dozen ridings.

Those situations favour the Liberals.

:popcorn: :kangaroo:

745

Wow, thank you for that update!

746

The NDP collapse most definitely happened AFTER the Trump bomb landed. Had an election happened on January 5, in all likelihood the NDP would have essentially matched their vote total from 2021 (and 2019, and 2015) but they lost well over half their support in a remarkably short period of time.

I’m no NDP supporter, but I hope this doesn’t last. What we saw this time around is a polarization of Canadian federal politics; this is the closest we have been in my lifetime, and I’m in my 50s, to a two party election. For all the Conservatives are disappointed, they gained eight points over 2021. They got a higher percentage of the vote than Justin Trudeau or Stephen Harper ever did, and as of now than Jean Chretien ever did, and each of those men actually won three elections.

I don’t think two party systems are healthy.

747

I know it’s hard to say (with the new districts this election), but were there any seats which were previously Conservative that went Liberal?

748

I would think there had to be. One for sure is PPs :face_savoring_food:
With a dozen up in the air then more likely since early voters including me were Libs tho my seat was never in doubt.

749

I hope you have your credit card ready!

750

The Liberals are going to represent Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Outside of those urban centres, they have about 18 seats.

751

and ???

In 2020, Toronto’s GDP was $430.9 billion, Montreal’s was $228.7 billion, and Vancouver’s was $163.7 billion. Toronto, being Canada’s largest city and financial hub, had the highest GDP.

If you pulled oil and gas out …the reason for the city dominance is clear.
While a Toronto vote is still worth less than a rural vote - it’s been rebalanced somewhat by adding seats in the population growth areas.

752

Where does this talking point come from? The Liberals have 25 seats in Atlantic Canada alone. I stopped counting at that point, but they certainly have other seats outside of the three largest cities.

753

The Liberals are well represented, seats in all regions, provinces and territories (save Nunavut).

754

A hearty congratulations to our northern neighbors for not joining us down here in the US in jumping off the Cliffs of Insanity!

755

There is a saying that people vote, land doesn’t.

756

I mean, Trump helped a ton.

757

…

You’re welcome?

:face_vomiting:

758

The actual “seats outside of Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal” count for the Liberals is somewhere around 65, and that’s being extremely generous with the definitions of those cities (I didn’t count Hamilton as “outside of Toronto”, for example). And I didn’t count Ottawa seats either, just on general principles. If we made the criteria “seats who represent at least some people who don’t pay property taxes to one of those cities” the number would be significantly higher.

I presume this is some sort of right-wing commentator talking point making the rounds, but it’s just blatantly false.

759

Far from over

the CBC Decision Desk are watching 11 ridings in particular before making a call on a majority or minority government.

They are all ridings where the Liberals are currently in second place. Last night, they went from 163 projected seats to 168 as advance and special ballots were counted, in some cases making up several hundred or even 1,000-vote deficits — so these could flip. The Liberals need four of the following 11 ridings to do that.

Terrebonne in Quebec: It is the closest race in the country right now, where the Bloc is leading the Liberals by 28 votes. Two polls are left to report, which could be 880 votes.

Nunavut: There is a 54-vote margin with at least 647 votes to come.

Vancouver Kingsway: The NDP’s Don Davies is leading the Liberals by 308 votes.

Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore (Ontario): The Liberals are trailing by 359 votes and we are expecting at least 3,500 special ballots there.

Miramichi Grand Lake (New Brunswick): There is a 394-vote margin here. One of the two special ballot polls has reported, where at least 2,700 special ballots were cast.

Milton East Halton Hills South (Ontario): Former Ontario Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Parm Gill is leading the Liberal candidate by 556 votes. Again, one of the two special ballot polls reported and at least 2,800 special ballots were cast.

Shefford (Quebec): Here, there is a 651-vote margin for the Bloc. The Liberals were in the lead for part of last night. Again, one of the two special ballot polls reported and there were at least 1,800 special ballots cast.

Cloverdale Langley City (B.C.): This is a large margin, at 923 votes. But neither of the special polls have reported and there are at least 5,500 votes in those polls.

Kitchener South Hespeler (Ontario): Conservatives are leading the Liberals by a little more than 1,100 votes with one of the special polls having reported — and 3,000 special ballots were cast.

Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge (B.C.): Right now the Liberals are trailing by 1,400 votes, but they were trailing by 2,500 votes last night and there are still eight polls yet to report.

Hamilton East Stoney Creek (Ontario): The incumbent Liberal is trailing right now by 1,500 votes. At one point last night, the Liberals were trailing by 3,000 votes. They’ve now cut that in half, and there are still six polls left to report, including a minimum of 4,800 special ballots.

The Liberals also need to hold the two races where they have a close lead — Kelowna and Terra Nova The Peninsulas, in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Canada election: Vote counting resumes with some key races still too close to call | CBC

Not sure what CTV were thinking when they called minority with this many seats in play :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

760

I wish I understood this election better. The outcome was a repudiation of Trump, but the vote share for both Liberals (+10.9%) and Conservatives (+7.6%) went up, with the NDP (-11.6%) and to a lesser extent the People’s Party (-4.2%) taking the hit.

I do understand that the Trump Effect being talked about is specific to the demolition of the Conservatives’ polling results as little as four months ago, but still, the net impact is Conservatives up quite a bit, Liberals up even more, and the NDP imploding.

All part of heading to a two-party system I guess.