1988:
Progressive Conservative: 169
Liberal: 83
NDP: 43
1993:
Liberal: 177
Bloc: 54
Reform: 52
NDP: 9
Progressive Conservative: 2
Yeah, I’d say going down by 99% is a big swing :D.
The destruction of the old PC party was mainly due to
- Voter fatigue
- A visceral hatred of Mulroney
- Defection of Quebec nationalist from the PC party due to Meech Lake failing
- Defection of the Western populists from the PC party due to perceived Quebec favoritism (e.g. CF-18 contract)
Put all that together and there’s next to no way in hell a party could survive intact. The past 12 years have basically seen the western populist party try to win the hearts of vote rich Ontario conservative voters.
I doubt you’d see anything similar with the liberal party.
Thanks for the stats- but why is this? Is party loyalty much less of a factor than in the US? It’s hard to imagine why such a large percentage would swing so drastically in 1993 and then swing back 13 years later.
A lack of gerrymandering, in my opinion. Canadian electoral districts are drawn by independent commisions.
We’d see the same thing here if the districts weren’t drawn so that they are 90% safe for one party or the other.
Add up the Bloc, Reform and PC numbers. Those were the groups that emerged out of the implosion.
Yeah, that PC example is obviously a pretty extreme case, but there are large swings fairly often. Wikipedia has all the old election results. I’d have a couple more guesses as to the reason these swings are prevalent in Canada:
-
We have multiple parties, which I think increases strategic voting in many cases, and also may introduce more weirdness with vote-splitting and things like that, which can cause smaller changes in raw votes to appear as larger changes in number of seats.
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I’m not sure how much bigger the swings really are here as compared to the US. Really it may be better to compare our election to your presidential election, where you have things like Reagan cleaning up in 84 swinging to Clinton in two elections.
I’ll go with
Conservative: 135
Liberal: 93
Bloc: 57
NDP: 22
Independent: 1.
As Grey says, what happened is that the Progressive Conservative party disintegrated in several factions. The new Conservative party is made up mostly of the Western populists (who became the Reform Party) who are trying to appeal to Eastern voters by adopting more centrist ideas. It didn’t work in 2004, and Martin tried to demonize them again this year by claiming that they’re still a far-right party, but it seems that they will be able to form the government anyway.
I would add
- A visceral hatred of Kim Cambell. Honestly, I never met ANYONE that liked or respected that women.
Ahem.
So:
PC - 104
Liberal - 104
Bloc - 50
NDP - 50
I can’t actually imagine what would happen if there were ties like that, but boy I think it would be wacky to watch. Who will make an aliance with who?
I’m not even sure who would get to be the leader, but I have a feeling it might be the incumbent. (Martin)
I think this is it precisely.
If Mulroney hadn’t thrown away the old Progressive Conservatives through corruption and obsequiousness… we’d be in a better spot now, IMHO. I distrust the new Conservatives because I have a feeling that they aren’t being completely transparent in their intentions: their takeover of the PCs didn’t ring true for me. And I completely disagree with their stance on gay marriage. 
I’m pissed at the Liberals for throwing themselves away through corruption, and I’m annoyed at the NDP for pulling the plug on the minority govenrment. Liberal-NDP coalitions seem to work well: the Libs have the political know-how, and the NDP keeps them honest.
I wonder whether the Greens are really green enough for me.
As usual, I’m undecided between NDP and Green. I think we’ll get a minority Conservative government.
Might as well give it a shot.
I’ll go with:
Conservatives: 122
Liberal: 98
Bloc: 57
NDP: 31
Oh, and in reply to the OP:
Conservatives 110
Liberals 102
Bloc 60
NDP 35
Green 1
And I have no freaking idea who’ll win in my riding, Etobicoke-Lakeshore.
I would normally say the Liberals, but the Liberal candidate, Michael Ignatieff, has been under a cloud of controversy due to his earlier writings, and the fact that he was parchuted in over the wishes of the local Liberal riding association. The head of the Liberal riding association defected to the Conservatives last week.
On the other hand, I expect a lot of people, though not as many as last time, to vote Liberal so the Conservatives don’t get in.
On the third hand, the NDP candidate kicked everyone else’s butt at the all-candidates meeting, so I expect a lot more people will vote for him.
On the fourth hand, the Conservative candidate is a local, and what with the disgust at Liberal corruption, and local crime fears, I expect a lot of people to vote for him.
On the fifth hand, the last question at the all-candidates meeting was, What is your stance on smae-sex marriage, and the Liberal/NDP/Green stance that it was a matter pf human rights and a done deal, decided on by Parliament, was MUCH more popular–judging by audience response–than the Conservative stance that the issue can be reopened and subjected to a new vote in the Commons.
Arrghh.
What you need my friend, is a prehensile tail. Should take the load right off that fifth hand.
Party loyalty as it exists in the US is pretty much an unknown concept in Canada. While there are certainly voters who are die-hard supporters of a specific party, there are numerous others who change the party they vote for for a number of reasons, and there is no equivalent to “voting the straight Party ticket”. The large number of different political parties also limits the type of “red/blue” polarization seen in the US (there are a dozen or so wanna-be parties running candidates in addition to the 4 major and one minor parties who can actually expect to end up with elected MPs).
Canada also lacks the vertical integration of the US parties, with the federal and provincial parties operating independantly of each other (if they even exist at both levels), with little or no party organization at the municipal level, and the election system largely operated by non-partisan agencies. Voters regularly vote for one party federally and a different one provincially.
The 1993 PC meltdown was partly a reaction to the legacy of the Mulroney Conservative government (probably even more scandal-riddled than the current Liberal government and with Mulroney still heartily disliked by a large part of the population even though he had quit politics by election time), and partly due to the creation of new parties which sucked away a large part of the traditional Conservative support, with the more right-wing voters moving to the Reform party and much of the party’s support in Quebec moving to the Bloc Québecois. The Conservative percentage of the popular vote was actually quite strong, but running second in the polls in riding after riding doesn’t actually elect anyone.
So far as the OP goes, I won’t put out any numbers, but will predict a minority Conservative government. Technically, even if he has fewer MPs than the Concservatives, Martin as the existing PM will get first crack at forming a new government by assembling a plurality of supporters (i.e. Liberals and anyone else he can get to agree to support him in a coalition government ), but is unlikely to be able to do so and would be stupid to even try, under the circumastances.
I expect a minority Conservative government to last an even shorter period than the Liberals. The Liberals had much in common with the NDP and could count on their support in a lot of issues, and the support of the Bloc on many social issues. The Conservatives are unlikely to get any support from the NDP. The Bloc may support them on an issue-by-issue basis, as long as there is something in it for Quebec and/or it helps to weaken federalism, but are opposed to them on too many issues for this to be any more than temporary.
My own riding has voted Liberal on all but two occassions in the past 120 years, but has Allan Cutler as a celebrity candidate for the Conservatives, so may be too close a race to predict. I confidently predict that the riding of Jeanne-le-Ber will go solidly NDP in recognition of the merits of the first Doper MP, however. 
Two election prediction sites:
ElectionPrediction.org predicts:
Conservative 118
Liberal 104
NDP 29
Bloc 56
Other 1 (an independent in Quebec)
DemocraticSpace.com predicts:
Conservative 128
Liberal 94
NDP 29
Bloc 56
Other 1 (same as above)
They have comment pages for each riding. Interesting stuff.
The best example is in British Columbia, where the provincial Liberals are fiscally and socially in lockstep with the federal Conservative party, and far to the right of the federal Liberals…
And another, from Ipsos-Reid:
I don’t know why different pollsters would be so far apart, but there you go.
Okay, based on aggregated polling, and presuming that the Greens get no seats, my prediction is the following:
Conservatives – 130 seats with around 37% of the vote
Liberals – 105 seats with around 27% of the vote
NDP – 31 seats with around 19% of the vote
BQ – 41 seats with around 12% of the vote
Greens getting around 5% of the vote, but no seats.
I’m not a Canadian, so I can’t vote. If I could, I would vote Liberal because… well, because I’m a ideological liberal. I fear the social conservatism and hatemongering of the Conservative Party.
My question: By my count, the Conservatives are getting about 42% of the seats, which is not a majority. But could the Liberals still form a government, if they caucus with the NDP and the BQ? Clearly, anything that prevents Harper from being PM is my preference, but I’m not sure how the procedures work.
If matt_mcl should win, I believe that the Administrators should set a precedent for Dopers elected as national legislators of their respected country, and make him a “Right Honourable Charter Member” or some such.
Motion seconded!
It’s theoretically possible, but practically impossible that the BQ would form an alliance with the Liberal Party.
It’s funny, though, how partisanship affects impressions. The Liberals have been painting Stephen Harper as a Bush clone. Yet to my eyes, it’s clear that the leader who most resembles - actually, very closely resembles - Bush is, in fact, Paul Martin.
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