Liberals call Canadian election. Thoughts? Predictions?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Not sure if IMHO is the correct forum - please move if this is the wrong one.

Politically, this seems a questionable move.

The Liberals have been steadily losing support since the beginning of the year. The sponsorship scandal hasn’t been fully resolved (at least resolved to the point that blame has been deflected from members of Martin’s government).

The timing of the election is bound to be criticized as inconvenient for families embarking on summer vacation.

The opposition Conservative and BQ parties are positioned to benefit from the Liberals misfortunes.

A very real scenario is a minority government.

Obviously, the Liberal Party is convinced that delaying an election until autumn would be more risky than holding one now. Why?

What will be the key issues for the parties? Overall I think Canadians are content with the economy which will be a big plus for the current government. The Conservatives will pound at the issue of accountability. And the EI deficit. And the gun legislation. The NDP (I like the NDP’s spirit, though they will never get close to power. They are the conscience of the country) will have a platform of social and environmental goodness combined with accountability.

My prediction - the Conservatives will not suffer the vote splitting that has prevented them from mounting any serious threat to the government in the past two elections. They will experience healthy gains in the West and the Maritimes. More importantly, they will pick up some Ontario seats. Quebec is poised to increase Bloc Quebecois seats at the expense of the Liberals. The NDP won’t experience any real gains, but they will be the balance of power in a Liberal minority government.

Total seats 308 - majority government 155

Liberals 145
Conservatives 105
Bloc Quebecois 45
NDP 13

Anybody have an opinion / prediction?

2

My suspicion is that voter turnout is probably going to be the lowest it’s been in some time. For that reason, I think it’s going to be a hard election to call. I think a significant portion of Liberal voters are disillusioned enough with the Martin reign to not vote Liberal on June 28, but not pissed off enough to switch allegiances and vote Conservative or NDP.

Similarly, I think that those unhappy with the Alliance-PC merger will similarly just stay home, though I don’t think this apathy will hurt the Conservatives as much as it will Liberals.

If anything, the NDP will see percentage gains but I don’t think that’ll translate to any real seats, aside from possibly ridings where they’ve been neck-and-neck with the Liberals in the past.

The Bloc will sweep through Quebec like wildfire.

Prediction: Liberal minority government.

3

This would probably be best in GD.

I suspect that he doesn’t want to alienate voters by staying too long. Given how many people’s he’s pissed off in such a short time, I doubt his popularity is going to get much better.

Don’t leave out the NDP. An Ipsos-Reid poll from last week showed the Liberals had declined four percentage points, while my party has gone by three points:

I can only speak for my own party, but there are a large number of things for us.

Health care is big, and so are social programs. Martin’s ties to big business and his lackeyism with the United States are also important. The gay marriage issue is important, because we’re the only party other than the Bloc that’s been unequivocably in support of it.

Our new leader (Jack Layton) is a passionate environmentalist and a big believer in a new deal for cities, so I suspect he’ll make these issues as well.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if everyone who said “I’d vote for the NDP, but they’d never win,” actually did or the NDP, we would easily win.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy, and one that’s kept the Liberals in power.

When the Alliance party swallowed the Conservatives, they lost a lot of popularity. I’m an ex-Westerner, and I know that a lot of their supportcomes from being “the Western party.” The more they play to Ontario and Quebec, the more they risk losing that. Meanwhile, Ontarians and Quebeckers will never vote for a party that’s clearly the same old Reform-CRAP-Alliance party under yet another name. All the decent, well-respected Progressive Conservatives jumped ship.

I think we’ll surprise you.

But if it is a minority government, I wouldn’t be surprised if Paul Martin joined forces with the Conservatives. The Liberals under his direction are closer to them than they are to us. They certainly can’t be called a left-wing party anymore.

A good prediction. And if the election were to be held tomorrow, I’d probably bet on it.

But I also think this’ll be the most volatile election we’ve seen in this last decade. all bets are off.

Plenty :wink:

4

I think the Liberals called the election because the Conservatives are in disarray themselves, and the longer they wait, the more organized the opposition becomes.

I agree that a Liberal minority is possible. And if there is one, the Conservatives are their natural partners.

5

I ran this through at work, and I got something similar to the following:

Liberal 130
Conservative 110
NDP 20
Bloq 48

Although if the Liberals do win a minority government, I’m not sure who they’d turn to for help. A couple people here predicted the Conservatives, but I heavily doubt that. Either the Conservatives would say no right off the bat and try to form a coalition government with someone else (the Bloq?), or there’d be a HEAVY price to pay for the Liberals.

6

Well, I think they’re much closer ideologically to the Conservatives, but you might be right. Ideology isn’t the only factor, here, and there may be too much of a rivalry between the two parties for it to work. I can always hope.

But the Conservatives and the Bloc? Not impossible, I suppose. After all, Mulroney built a coaltion of disaffected Westerners and disaffected Quebeckers, so a coalition of regional parties is not beyond the realm of possibility.

It would be fascinating how they’d justify that to their constituents, though. Could you imagine? They couldn’t be more different in ideology.

7

This is an interesting question.

I can’t see the Bloc forming a coalition with any other Federal party.

A) No other party would cater to a separatist agenda as it would be very damaging nationally and B) The Bloc would not consort with a federal agenda that did not have separatism as a goal as it would be damaging regionally (nationally?)

I think that the Liberal and Conservative parties are much closer ideologically than they were 15 years ago. They must, especially for the Liberals, label themselves as different to justify continued support.

The Liberals might benefit from an association with the NDP to pull themselves away from a perception of their party as ‘right wing lite’.

What would happen if the Conservatives were in a position to form a coalition government? How utterly uncomfortable for them ;j

8

Why not? That’s what Mulroney and Bouchard did.

9

Looking at what happened at the 80’s was my basis for a possible CPC-BQ coalition, although I don’t know what would really happen.