Whoops! Dion Campaign at it again?

Some of you may recall some months ago some bloggers expressed concerns that the Dion campaign was plagarizing the David Suzuki Foundation in its environmental platform.

A tipster has advised me that a report of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce called "THE DEMOGRAPHIC TIME BOMB: MITIGATING THE EFFECTS OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE IN CANADA" and Dion's recent pension platform release have a lot of eery similarities.

From Recommendation 4 of the Senate report:

The federal government amend the Old Age Security Act to:

• allow receipt of Old Age Security benefits to be deferred, with appropriate actuarial adjustments;
  
• exempt a portion of employment earnings from the clawback provision associated with the Guaranteed Income Supplement program

Here is Dion's platform on OAS and GIS (emphasis added):

We will remove disincentives to work beyond age 65 by amending the rules for the OAS to allow someone who is 65 or over and still working to defer payments and receive larger payments when they do retire.

We will do this in a way that is actuarially sound so that the total value of OAS payments made will not increase. Payments to those who do retire at 65 will not be change.

(...)

A Stéphane Dion Government will help low-income Canadians over 65 who wish or need to work by exempting from the GIS reduction employment income up to $3000 for a single person, and increasing the amount that can be earned without the reduction to $9000 for couples.

This is not word-for-word but it is clearly a borrowing of the same idea and should at least carry a footnote. Some Dion supporters explained away the problem last time saying that a version lacking sources had erroneously been posted to the web. Could this have happened again?

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice...

On Bernard Lord and the future of the Tories

A welcome break from the Liberal leadership for some of my New Brunswick readers, I am going to write today about the future of the Tories and there potential leadership options.

First of all kudos to the journalist who took this neat shot with an exit sign in the background during Lord's speech:



Now on to the meat. First of all, in today's Telegraph-Journal Carl Davies has the following list of potential candidates, all former ministers:

• Jody Carr (MLA since 1999, Minister in 2006)
  
• Madeleine Dubé (MLA since 1999, Minister from 2003-2006)
  
• Bruce Fitch (MLA since 2003, Minister from 2003-2006)
  
• Trevor Holder (MLA since 1999, Minister from 2005-2006)
  
• Paul Robichaud (MLA since 1999, Minister from 1999-2006)
  
• Jeannot Volpé (MLA since 1995, Minister from 1999-2006)
  
• Claude Williams (MLA since 2001, Minister in 2006)

Davies had done an earlier piece on this - or at least I thought it was him - but I can't find it now. One name I remember reading about was Margaret-Ann Blaney, who I think would be obvious as she was a leadership candidate in 1997 when she had far less political experience than she does today. Perhaps there is truth to the rumours that she plans to run in Saint John in the next federal election?

This selection of candidates is pretty slim pickens. Of them, I think only Robichaud would be able to mount an decent performance in an election campaign. Holder and Williams both might be able to do something with a lot of work and they do have a few years for it. Hopefully Dubé will run so that there is a woman in the race, as New Brunswick politics desperately needs more prominent woman.

Of the candidates, all of the Anglophones are unilingual and most of the Francophones struggle with English; Dubé and Volpé in particular. Robichaud's English has dramatically improved over his time as minister but he still has a very heavy preference for French and falls to it whenever in a difficult spot in the House.

I wonder if anyone from outside of the caucus with calibre will come forward? Think Norm Betts in 1997. I doubt Betts himself would be interested but that is another option. Another former minister who has remained a prominent figure would be Dennis Furlong, but his heart never seemed to be into politics when he served. Peter Mesheau and Elvy Robichaud, in my view, were the strongest ministers in Lord's government, but both just retired so one presumes they are not interested in the crown.

Also, I wonder what about the new kids on the block? The Tories elected 4 freshmen on September 18: Claude Landry, Bruce Northrup, Mike Olscamp and Carl Urquhart. I don't know many of them but Landry, from what I've seen, seems charismatic and has political experience having served as Elvy Robichaud's EA for much of ther former's time in cabinet. He clearly had a good grasp on the files as he has been given the prominent Health critic portfolio.

From this early staging point, I would say that the best bet for the Tories would be Landry. However, he has yet to appear on anyone's list so we shall see.

What about the Lord?

As for Lord and whether he will stay or go, I would strongly suspect he will go. Even his supporters admit he has a strong ego and I don't think he could face the legislature as leader of the opposition, and, if he could, he certainly couldn't do it over and over for four years. He has said he intends to stay in Fredericton until June when his wife and children finish school (his wife works in a the public school system). Perhaps he will announce his resignation around Christmas (he has promised an announcement one way or another at that time) and stay on to lead the party through the spring until a new leader is chosen.

Otherwise, Davies article predicts Volpé would be interim leader. I would think that that would be a terrible choice, a tendancy to become easily angered, lack of charisma and poor command of English do not make for a strong opposition leader. A young Turk such as Holder would be a better choice for opposition leader. The Tories need to start off with energy or they will have a hard time to recover for lost momentum.

UPDATE: Harrap has a post up on the subject as well

LibLead II

As promised, here is Part II of my three part series on the Liberal leadership.

For Part I, which covers how each candidate would do in a general election, please click here.

This is: "Part II - How each candidate could win the leadership"

Though it is my belief that Gerard Kennedy will win the leadership, there are a number of scenarios that could play out which would see any of the "big four" winning the race. I will portay the scenarios.

The Hill Times recently reported that both Ignatieff and Rae believe that their best bet to win is an Ignatieff vs. Rae final ballot. I am sorry to let those two gents down, but I do not believe that this ballot is possible. I cannot conceive any situation where they will be the last two standing. For the record, however, I believe Rae would win under such a scenario quite handily.

So, how I will break this down is the possible final ballot match ups and who would win in each.

Ignatieff vs. Kennedy - Kennedy wins

Under this scenario, Ignatieff will not bleed very much support while Kennedy will have placed third in the final four and picked up the lion's share of Dion's support, pulling ahead of Rae and eliminating him on the second to last ballot.

A great deal of Rae's support would go to Kenendy seeing him win by a marin around 55%-45%.

Ignatieff vs. Dion - Too close, slight edge to Dion

Under this scenario, Ignatieff will not bleed very much support while Dion will have placed third in the final four and picked up a substantial amount of Kennedy's support. However, a good number of Kennedy's delegates west of the Ontario/Manitoba border will have been uncomfortable with another Francophone from Quebec as leader and move to Ignatieff and Rae. However, enough will move to Dion to allow him to place second in the final three.

On the final ballot, Kennedy's remaining supporters will spilt around 55-45 to Dion over Ignatieff however a strong number of Rae's supporters going to Dion should push him over the edge possibly winning in a very tight contest over Ignatieff by about 52 to 48, however it could go either way.

Rae vs. Kennedy - Kennedy wins substantially

Under this scenario, Ignatieff will bleed substantially. He will not meet the promised 35% on the first ballot or even come close to it, instead finishing near 30, perhaps in the high 20s. On the second ballot, many of Ignatieff's supporters will bolt causing him to slip to below 25% and either just ahead or just behind Rae.

Situation A

Kennedy pulls well ahead of Dion as many disaffected Ignatieff supporters come to him as they are turned off by Rae and Dion who have been very negative towards their candidate who they would like to support in their hearts. By the time Ignatieff and Dion drop off, Kennedy is well over 40% while Rae is around 30%. Ignatieff's remaining supporters swing quite hard to Kennedy giving him over 60% on the final ballot.

Situation B

Kennedy does not manage to pull to far ahead but in a dramatic shock, Ignatieff slips to fourth of four just behind Kennedy. A great deal of his supporters go to Kennedy, as they are turned off by Rae and Dion who have been very negative towards their candidate, causing Kennedy to surge from third to first on the ballot of three candidates. From their momentum and the support of most Dion delegates push him to a win of >55%.

Rae vs. Dion - Too close, slight edge to Rae

Under this scenario, Ignatieff will bleed substantially. He will not meet the promised 35% on the first ballot or even come close to it, instead finishing near 30, perhaps in the high 20s. On the second ballot, many of Ignatieff's supporters will bolt causing him to slip to below 25% and either just ahead or just behind Rae.

Notwithstanding gaining ground from Ignatieff supporters, Kennedy will not be able to stay ahead of Dion thanks to the support of many of the supporters of the "lower tier" four candidates going to the lone Quebecker.

The ballot with four candidates will see Rae and Dion duking it our for first at around 30%, while Ignatieff and Kenendy will be fighting for third at around 20% each. Ignatieff holds third causing Kennedy to drop with his supporters splitting between Rae and Dion with a slight edge to Dion, causing Dion to pull into first place.

On the final ballot, Ignatieff supporters, many shocked, will not vote, while the remainder will split slightly in Rae's favour. Rae would beat Dion by no more than 52% to 48% under this scenario but it could go either way.

Stay tuned for Part III where I will do a ballot-by-ballot prediction. Sneak peak: It will go 5 ballots.

For a good cause

A friend of mine sent me this site and asked me to post on it. I am happy to do so as it looks like a really good cause. Moreover, it is run by UNICEF which I think proves that it is honest and worthy and, after all, UNICEF is "my charity", I contibute monthly.

Chantal Hébert agrees with me

Noted columnist Chantal Hébert seems to agree with my electability analysis in her column today.

In particular, she agrees that Kennedy is the best candidate to win in Ontario and will hold what we have in Quebec. She also agrees that Dion cannot grow in Quebec and is likely to lose ground elsewhere. She also agrees that Rae could gain disaffected NDP votes outside of Central Canada and grow in Quebec. On Ignatieff, she doesn't dare go as far as I have suggested (complete disaster) but says he "remains a wild card" and that his bolder policy positions could gain support in certain sectors but "could also lose the party support in crucial areas of the country".

Shame on our big parties

Both the governing Liberals and the opposition Tories have had their websites down for weeks. The Tory site went down days after the election with its sole content being a thank you letter from Bernard Lord. The Liberal site stayed up with the occassional update between election day and the swearing-in of the new government since which time it has been down for "post-election retooling".

Come on! The election was 8 weeks and 3 days ago. This is the twenty-first century. A website is not a luxury, it is a neccesity.

Kudos to whichever of the parties gets their site up first. I'm watching, as I am sure are many other bloggers and web savvy New Brunswickers.

LibLead I

I am going to be doing a three part series on the Liberal leadership race which will be laid out as follows:

Part I - How each candidate would do in the next election

The Liberals are historically a very, very successful electoral party. Though many thought Harper would be guaranteed a win in the next election - likely a majority - early in his mandate, polls and pundits now say the Liberals have a chance of winning.

I will assess the likely results of the next election under each leadership candidate.

Part II - How each candidate could win the leadership

Though it is my belief that Gerard Kennedy will win the leadership, there are a number of scenarios that could play out which would see any of the "big four" winning the race. I will portay the scenarios.

Part III - My predictions as to the results of the leadership race

A bit of the suspence for this one has been ruined as I have already said I think Kennedy will win. I will spell out why in a ballot-by-ballot guesstimation of the results.


So, without further ado, here is...

PART I

Michael Ignatieff

A combination of Harper's desire to go to the polls and the zealousness and over confidence of Ignatieff's insiders will almost certainly mean an election in March or April 2007.

Ignatieff will be well prepared and well scripted and will come out of the gate strong, perhaps even pulling substantially ahead of the Tories in polls. However if you thought the 1984 leader's debate was good - LOOK OUT!

Messrs. Harper, Duceppe and Layton will spend almost the whole of their debate preps in "bait Ignatieff" practice sessions. Each will find, quite easily considering Mr. Ignatieff's incredible number of detailed works, four or five areas where Ignatieff has made comments on an issue which are both (real or perceived as) contradictatory to his current position and offensive to their base supporters.

Ignatieff will be prepared for this, but, with some many hooks being through, it is inevitable that he will bite on at least one, setting him up for a trap which will see him bombarded by his three opponents. The campaign will be over at this moment.

This result will see Harper grow, possibly to a majority, with the Liberals loosing large numbers of seats to both the Conservatives and the NDP. It is unclear whether or not the Liberals would be official opposition after the vote.

Bob Rae

Bob Rae believes, as does his team, that he is the most prepared of any candidate to assume the office of Prime Minister and I suspect that this is probably true. Rae actually suggested we should have an election this fall while the leadership is on, so he will certainly want to go to the polls. Election again would be in March/April 2007.

Rae would grow slowly but steadily in the campaign. In the debates, watch for Harper to go after him hard on his record in Ontario. Rae has a pretty strong defence to this, I've see him address it, and he has said if Harper goes after him on his record, he can effectively turn the tables on Harper. "Mr. Harper speaks of my record of 15 years ago, what about 4 years ago when he supported the Iraq War? What about 7 years ago and the Alberta Firewall?" This strategy should be able to at least hold Rae to a draw.

Rae's flawless French and natural charisma on the campaign trail will do him well.

In Ontario, where Rae's record will likely result in lost seats to the Tories, he will probably break even or be down only a few seats due to seats gained at the expense of the NDP in Northern Ontario in particular, but also in Toronto.

In the West, the NDP has been shut out of its traditional Saskatchewan stronghold for an unprecedented two elections in a row (in 1993, the NDP won 5 of its 9 seats there). This is because Layton's brand of social democracy does not play to the prairie populists who have traditionally backed the NDP. Rae's does and he will pick up a surprising number of seats in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and may also grow in BC.

In Quebec, his French and his record as an ally of Quebec in the Meech and Charlottetown debates will help him and he may gain a handful of seats as well.

The result will likely be a large minority Liberal government.

Gerard Kennedy

Kennedy, I do not suspect, will be so anxious to go to the polls. He has a fairly strong grasp of the issues but will want to make a greater impression on an electorate that does not know him and improve his French. He will do his best to avoid a spring election.

Under Kennedy, watch for an election in October/November 2007 or possibly April 2008. The most important question of how successful Kennedy will be depends on how soon he is able to get into the House. His lack of a national profile and the likelihood of a delayed election call means his getting into the Commons will be far more important than Bob Rae.

Perhaps interim leader Bill Graham, aged 68 by next March, and having already been both Foreign Minister and Defence Minster, would retire and enable Kennedy to gain his Toronto Centre seat, which is not far from where Kennedy was elected in Ontario? This would probably be the safest and most ideal route to the House and I will operate on the assumption that there would be a quick by-election seeing Kennedy elected in January before the House returns from its Christmas break.

Kennedy I think will be very effective against the Conservatives in the House. It may take him a month or two to adjust to the much different universe that is Parliament Hill as compared to Queen's Park, but he does have experience in having found the most effective messages to use against a similar government during his 7 years in opposition to the Harris/Eves administration in Ontario. He will manage to avoid defeating the Spring 2007 budget and will then raise the Liberals so significantly in the polls, that the Tories may not want to go in the fall of 2007.

An election campaign would be hard fought, but Kennedy's natural grassroots appeal will help him to gain ground in all corners of the country. Watch for Kennedy to run in an Edmonton seat and if he can secure some star candidates, likely considering his support by Alberta Liberal MLAs who may be endangered in the next provincial election, he will win 2-3 seats for sure in Alberta, possibly as many as 5. He will also see growth in British Columbia with an outside chance in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In Ontario, his strong record as Education Minister, where he has been hailed by teachers, parents and students, will see him manage to gain seats both from the NDP and the Conservatives.

In Quebec, despite his French challenges, which should be markedly improved by the time of the election anyway, he will do well. I have been told by Quebeckers that just because you can't speak French, doesn't mean you don't speak the same political language as Quebeckers, while many who are fluently bilingual can't get the mentality of Quebec voters. Kennedy will have better command of French by then and, in any event, already speaks the political language of Quebec. At the very least, he will hold what we have which is in my mind a low watermark. However, I think he will be able to steal progressive votes from the Bloc and gain 5+ seats in Quebec.

The result, a strong Liberal minority or possibly a slim majority.

Stéphane Dion

The election timing is unclear here but I would again expect to go in the spring.

Dion has a real challenge in the election. He is essentially a more moderate, Francophone Stephen Harper. He is an uncharasmatic intellectual who is more interested in thinking than communicating.

So, at the end of the day, English Canada will have this choice: A boring man I can understadn well who is already PM, or a boring man whose English is hard to follow and who I've probably never heard of unless I am a very close follower of politics. This is not a good ballot question for Liberals.

I think Mr. Dion would hold our solid federalist seats in Quebec but would have little room to grow there, while he may slip slightly in Ontario but lose a lot of ground in the West.

The result, Harper with a strong minority or a slim majority.

* - I have left Atlantic Canada out of specific analyses as I don't see any major changes here in any of these scenarios.

"Greening Government" continues

Further to my last post, and to Scott's complaints that the government is not doing anything substantive on the file, here is an article from today's Times & Transcript (emphasis added by me):

N.B. gov't goes green
Liberals push aggressive plan to make gov't buildings more environmentally friendly

TIMES & TRANSCRIPT STAFF
As published on page a1 on November 14, 2006

FREDERICTON - The new Liberal government is pushing forward with an aggressive greening of government initiative aimed at curtailing harmful greenhouse gas emissions created by the province's buildings.

Almost 20 government-owned buildings in Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton have been converted to natural gas, a decision Supply and Services Minister Roly MacIntyre said is targeted at cutting pollution, but not necessarily power bills.

"It's not always more cost-effective but it is a major reduction in greenhouse gases," MacIntyre said.

The environmental push by the province is taking two distinct tracks, according to the minister, one for existing building stock and another for new construction. MacIntyre said new projects, such as the new justice centre in Moncton, are easier in the sense that they will be built with helping the environment in mind.

"The architects know that is what we are looking for (with Moncton justice centre). These are huge projects. We are going to make sure that building is state of the art," he said.

The proposed justice centre is among a growing list of green buildings owned by the provincial government.

For instance, new district ranger offices in Bathurst and Florenceville, the new Havelock elementary school and the new Waterville hospital have all met the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), an industry standard for environmentally friendly buildings.

Meanwhile, Ottawa has recognized the new Complex Scolaire in Moncton, Bathurst's new elementary school and a Department of Transportation maintenance garage in Lameque through the Commercial Building Incentive Program.

In the future, all new green buildings will adhere to the LEED principles and MacIntyre said the department will exceed the national energy building code for new construction and retrofits by 25 per cent. The supply and services minister said these plans, as well as the recent decision to switch the government's vehicle fleet, to environmentally-friendly cars and trucks is a clear move by the Liberals to lead by example on energy efficiency and conservation.

"The greening of government is one of our highest priorities but it is a quiet priority, you don't hear a lot about it," he said.

MacIntyre said the government is also doing a lot of work to make existing buildings more green and many of those changes are being done without much attention. Not only are low-emission lights being installed, new sensors are also being purchased so the lights automatically turn off when the building is not occupied.

The Department of Supply and Services is also turning to new windows, heating systems and ventilation units to help curb greenhouse gas emissions. Into the future, MacIntyre said construction decisions will be made on energy efficiency and reducing emissions.

"One of our biggest objectives is the reduction of greenhouse gases, at the same time energy efficiency is very important to us," he said.

Prudent policy

This is a good move which I wholeheartedly support.

Post US election thoughts

Well folks, it is going to be a loooooong election night this year, even longer than 2000.

The results in Virginia are very close and under state law, a recount is guaranteed for races closer than 1% if requested. Incumbent Senator George Allen was on TV last night saying he would be requesting a recount. Just FYI, there was a recount in Virigina last year for the race for Attorney General. There were fewer votes cast in that race than in this one and it took until December 22 to complete the recount. So it looks like control of the Senate will be a very nice Christmas present from the Commonwealth of Virginia, the question is whether or not the Republicans or the Democrats will be the recpients.

That is unless the Republicans hold Montana. The Democratic candidate leads there but it is just as close as in Virginia. It is a much smaller state (about 400,000 votes cast as opposed to about 2.5 million) so presumably a recount would be easier. I am not aware, however, what the recount rules are in Big Sky Country.

So for my Senate predicitions, I was pretty close to on the mark. The only state I've missed so far is Rhode Island which I predicted would go Republican but instead it went for the Democrat by a margin of 53-47.

If the Democrats carry both of Virginia and Montana, I will have predicted all but one race right, if they carry one of them, I will have had the total Senate numbers right but will have missed two races.

Over in the House of Representatives, there was no surprise to see a Democratic victory however, my prediction of a minimum gain of 35 seats seems unlikely, though possible. The Democrats currently have a gain of 27 seats, with 14 up in the air. If those seats split 50-50 for the Democrats, then I will miss my target by 1.

UPDATE

So we are now down to 11 races up in the air, with the Democrats still having an gain of 27. One of these races is actually decided in terms of party affiliation.

In Louisiana, they have "open primaries", where anyone who wants to run, runs and then if no one gets 50%+ on election day, they have a runoff election with the top two finishers. In LA's 2nd district, the top two finishers are Democrats so this seat will be in Democratic hands. So we are at +28.

In Texas, the courts ruled a number of boundaries as illegal late in the election cycle. As a result, the court ordered open primaries as there would not be time to nominate new candidates for election day. In TX's 23rd district a runoff will be necessary as the Republican incumbent got only 48% of the vote. All of his opponents were Democrats, except for a lone Independent who got 3%. So the result here is D49-R48-I3. I think there is a fair shot the Democrats could win this in the runoff considering it would be a choice between a representative in the majority or the minority.

One other race, Washington's 8th district, has the Republican incumbent leading by a small margin but only 48% of the returns are in. This race could go either way.

The remaining 8 races are all close, but most of the returns are in.

They are:

CT 02 -> Courtney (D) leads Simmons (R-inc)
GA 12 -> Barrow (D-inc) leads Burns (R)
NC 08 -> Hayes (R-inc) leads Kissell (D)
NM 01 -> Wilson (R-inc) leads Madrid (D)
OH 02 -> Schmidt (R-inc) leads Wulsin (D)
OH 15 -> Pryce (R-inc) leads Kilroy (D)
PA 08 -> Murphy (D) leads Fitzpatrick (R-inc)
WY 01 -> Cubin (R-inc) leads Trauner (D)

So if these leads hold, we'll have 3 more Democrats for a gain of 31 with a possibility of 1 in Washington and 1 more in a run off election. So close to my 35... sooo close. Hopefully 2 more of these will flip before the results are certified.

UPDATE 2

The Democrats have won the Senate. Outgoing senator George Allen will not exercise his option to request an automatic recount, this Jim Webb will become the 51st Democratic Senator for the next session.

It is do or die for the NB NDP

Friends, my earlier prediction of ultimate doom for the NDP may have to be revised. My thesis included a proviso that doom would come "unless there is a change in leadership". Ladies and gentlemen, there has been a change in leadership.

Allison Brewer has resigned.

First, though I have tried to be fair to Brewer, I have no choice but to take a few parting shots at her because of the way she has stepped down.

After claiming that they "won" the election despite the worst showing virtually ever for the NDP and then stating the nonsense that 5% of the popular vote is not really worse than 10% of the popular vote and saying she would not resign, she has.

No one would blame her for saying that she had said she wouldn't step down while she considered her options but then decided it was the best course. Instead she gives some sob story about how "she can't afford" to be NDP leader because there is no salary and hopes that she "doesn't have to leave the province" to find work. She then goes on to say how the next leader must be bilingual and also be absent of her other flaws.

So which is it? The leader has to be something she is not, or she can't be leader due to financial circumstances? When she ran for the leadership she knew that the party would never be able to pay her a salary so, if she was to ever get paid she'd need to win a seat. On September 18 she didn't win a seat. Thus, it should not have been a matter of her waking up two months later and thinking, all of a sudden, "holy shit, I haven't been getting a pay cheque!"

Methinks that the pressure was building for her to step down and that this is a cop out.

Any way, end of rant.

Free advice for the NDP

Don't elect Yvon Godin as your leader. Yes he has name recognition and political experience and yes he has had a great deal of electoral success in the Northeast but an impressive resume does not an impressive leader make. Please see examples of Stockwell Day and to a lesser extent Paul Martin, both of whom were heralded as the future of their respective parties and led them to certain doom.

Here are the problems with Godin as leader:

• His victories in Acadie-Bathurst are not provincially transferable: Godin could probably win a seat for himself but his coattails would not be that long. The voters in the Northeast are dependent on government and provinical politics is too parochial to risk electing a distant third place party to the legislature. They used to have a similar view on federal politics but when the minister responsible for cutting EI was their own MP, it was time to put the boots to him and Godin, a successful champion of EI, has been re-elected ever since.


• His in not bilingual: His English may or may not be better than Allison Brewer's French, but it is not very good. I have had a very hard time understanding him in English, and this is bad news for the NDP as I think their prime areas of growth are not the North. This follows in my next point.


• He will not play well in areas of NDP strength: The NDP's base is in Saint John. Period. Many argue that the North holds the key to the NDP's future because of Godin's success there but I do not believe that that is the case. The NDP has always been strongest in Saint John and has had consistent strength in Saint John. This was not just the Elizabeth Weir factor, it was true before her leadership as well. Several ridings, particularly Saint John Harbour and Saint John East, are dream NDP seats and should be strongholds regardless of tides. There are other seats, such as Saint John Lancaster and maybe Fredericton-Silverwood where the NDP should be a serious contender. Godin will not play well in these areas.

What the NDP needs may not be out there, but they need a non-abrassive, non-controversial leader with tremendous energy and charisma who speaks effortless English and is fluent in French. With a leader like this, they could position themselves to win up to 5 seats in any election and build from there. This leader could have been Elizabeth Weir, but an analysis of her campaigns seems to show she preferred failure. When a certain region went well for her in election A, she would ignore it in election B rather than concentrate on building on the strength. Why? She liked being the only NDP member, she knew she could never be premier or even opposition leader so why build a small third party caucus when she could be the whole show. The next leader must be selfless and avoid this.

Some may argue that the NDP should go with Godin and make a hard target for the north, but that is not realistic. There were blips in Dalhousie-Restigouche East in 1995 (34.7%) and Nepisiguit in 1999 (27.8%) but those were due to unusual external circumstances and not reflective of a consistent or even repeatable trend. The North will try to be with the government unless the government screws them. Considering that almost half of Shawn Graham's caucus is from the north, the screwing is unlikely to have happened in time for 2010.

Saint John however is fickle. It is almost all Liberal and as a result will be ripe for the picking for either the Tories or the NDP in 2010. With the proper strategy, the NDP could win 2 to 4 Saint John seats with relative ease in 2010. That is where they must focus.

Final thoughts on US midterms

The Republicans will retain control of the Senate.

The Democrats will gain control of the House.

These are not bold predictions, they are relatively widely held though some believe that the Senate will go Democratic as well and a small minority (I know of one) think the House will stay Republican.

Recent polls have shown that the race is tightening and that the Republicans have far greater hope than they did a week or two ago, however it is my view that the large general malaise towards Congress and the President remains and that this will not be good. Couple this with the Mark Foley and Ted Haggard scandals, which will likely supress conservative turnout, and it looks very good for the Democrats.

BOLD PREDICTIONS

The Senate: Republican control may hinge on a victory in Rhode Island. I am convinced that Senator Lincoln Chafee will be re-elected here, despite the fact that I cannot find anyone of the prognasticators agreeing with me. Chafee and his father before him have been on the ballot and successful in 1976, 1982, 1988, 1994, 2000. Rhode Island is used to electing liberal Republicans named Chafee. Chafee openly admitted he did not vote for George W. Bush in 2004. He has kept it close in the polls and the fact that most have ceded the race to the Democratic challenger will likely stay home now. No one in Rhode Island (except conservatives) want Chafee to lose, the momentum for his opponent is a desire to defeat any Republican to give the Democrats control of the Senate. If they think that this will happen without having to vote against Chafee, they will gladly avoid the vote.

UPDATE: Chafee has been declared defeated and I predict the Democrats will now win the Senate with victories in Pennsylvania and Ohio (already called), Virginia, Missouri, Montana

The House: The Democrats will win at least 35 seats, perhaps as many as 40-50+. Republican record turnouts in the past few election cycles will not hold in 2006. This will cause the Democrats to carry a lot of seats that would otherwise be marginally Republican.

It's all over but the voting

With apologies to the Toronto Star, I think their new poll all but guarantees that my candidate of choice, Gerard Kennedy, is all but guaranteed to win the Liberal leadership on December 2.

The Star/EKOS poll is a survey of almost a quarter of Liberal delegates to the Montreal convention. The Star bills it as good news for Stéphane Dion, but I just don't see it.

I think most people who are watching this race closely, it is becoming more and more evident that whichever of Mr. Dion and Mr. Kennedy finishes third on the ballot with four candidates will win the leadership race. Why? Their combined vote totals put them in first place and their campaigns have almost publicly admitted an alliance which would see one go to the other.

So why do I see Kennedy as the candidate pulling in third?

First, the important fact to cite is that Kennedy currently stands at 17.3%, while Dion stands at 16.0%... that is a significant gap for Dion to make up over the course of one or two ballots until one of them is eliminated. Thus, I have always thought that the odds are that it would be Kennedy, not Dion, that would be in the showdown with Ignatieff and Rae.

So what does the poll tell us? Dion has the greatest growth potential of any candidate, therefore, the Star argues, he will surge and win. However, growth potential is largely irrelevant until one of the "big four" drops off and a large chunk of delegates become avaiable. In order for Mr. Dion, or another candidate for that matter, to exploit major growth potential, they must first hold in third or higher until the weakest of the big four falls.

According to this poll, in my view, it is unlikely that Mr. Dion will be anything but the weakest of the big four.

A few selected quotes from the Star, emphasis added by yours truly:

Asked if there is "any candidate you would definitely NOT like to see win," ... Gerard Kennedy, who resigned as Ontario education minister last spring, scored the lowest at 2 per cent.

EKOS found 21 per cent of delegates prefer Dion as their second choice, ahead of Rae and Kennedy. Trailing was Ignatieff, with 8 per cent. (It is unclear where Kennedy stands here but it is less than 21% but higher than 8%, presumably significantly higher)

The undecided vote is also a big unknown. Asked for their second choice, 38 per cent of delegates declined to answer.

(Kennedy's) delegates are "fiercely loyal, determined to come to the convention and convinced he is the man to beat the Conservatives in the next election."

In contrast, Dion had the lowest delegate attendance intentions, with 13 per cent of his delegates saying they are unlikely to be able to travel to Montreal.

Without tapping in to the support of Ignatieff, Rae or Kennedy's supporters, Dion has to make up 1.3% on Kennedy while 13% of his supporters (2.1% of convention delegates) are unlikely to attend. So, with only a small fraction of delegates opening up, Dion needs a gain in the neighbourhood of 3.4% to pull ahead of Kennedy. This is very unlikely.

Thus, it would seem, the inevitable result would be for Dion to drop and go to Kennedy, catapulting him into a strong second or a weak first. It also seems likely that whoever is in third at this point, either Bob Rae or, less likely, Michael Ignatieff, they are likely to go to Kennedy due to the growing animosity between the two candidates and their supporters.

Thus, ladies and gentlemen, it's all over. Kennedy wins.

National Unity

I thought you might all enjoy the cute joke that just popped into my inbox...

Two boys are playing hockey on a frozen pond in Red Deer, Alberta, when one of the boys is suddenly attacked by a crazed Rottweiler.

Thinking quickly, the other boy takes his hockey stick, shoves it under the dog's collar, twists it, and breaks the dog's neck, saving his friend.

A reporter is strolling by, sees the incident, and rushes over to interview the boy. "Young Flames Fan Saves Friend From Vicious Animal" he starts writing in his book.

"But I'm not a Flames Fan," the little hero replies.

"Sorry, but as we are in Alberta, I just assumed you were," says the reporter and he starts writing again.

"Oilers Fan Rescues Friend From Horrific Attack" he writes in his notebook.

"I'm not an Oilers fan either," the little boy says.

"Oh, I assumed that everyone in Alberta was either for the Flames or the Oilers. What team do you root for?" the reporter asks.

"I am a Maple Leafs fan" the boy replies.

The reporter starts a new page in his notebook and writes: "Little Bastard from Ontario Kills Beloved Family Pet"

US midterms

I have been watching the US midterm elections with a great deal of interest. After the massive comeback in the Senate in 2004 for the Republicans and the ludicrouslly gerrymandered nature of House seats, I figured there was no hope in heck for the Democrats to even come close to taking either chamber.

However, this is the election that has gone right for Democrats beyond their wildest dreams. It is now essentially a foregone conclusion that the Democrats will win the House of Representatives and have a relatively good shot at the Senate.

I haven't written much on this because U.S. politics is complicated and, I would expect, to most of my readers the intracies of House and Senate races aren't that interesting. Moreover, the US blogosphere is massive and has way more written about this than anyone could ever want to read so I don't really need to get into it.

The reason I am writing this post is because my arch-right wing nemesis Scott over at The Sorry Centrist has put together a cool pool on predictions for these races.

It is part of a massive pool of people all over the place, and Scott has a "sub-pool" that has a number of recognizable NB bloggers in it. It is neat to prognasticate and Scott is going to give out a prize to the best guesser in the pool. Check it out.

How it works is it will walk you through each of the "competitive" House and Senate races. Unless you are an ultra-nerd, at least some of the House races will be complete guess work. If you want to make a more educated guess, a good site is electionprojection.com. It has a summary of all of the competitive races and, if you are interested in the nitty gritty details, you can sign up to get all kinds of information. I have done so and found it very interesting.

Just for the record my predictions worked out to be:

Senate - R 50, D 50 (this gives the Republicans a majority because the "speaker" of the Senate is the Vice President, i.e. Republican Dick Cheney)

House - D 234, R 201

My thoughts on the final (?) Liberal numbers

Barring an appeal in BC, and allowing for campaigns to appoint people to fill vacancies, we now have the final delegate totals for the Liberal leadership:

Michael Ignatieff 1309 (30.2%)
Bob Rae 881 (20.3%)
Gerard Kennedy 751 (17.3%)
Stéphane Dion 694 (16.0%)
Joe Volpe 211 (4.9%)
Ken Dryden 187 (4.3%)
Scott Brison 153 (3.5%)
Martha Hall Findlay 38 (0.9%)
Undeclared 109 (2.5%)

In my earlier post on this, I already pointed out how factoring out Kennedy's poor showing in Quebec shows that he dominates in a very strong second in the rest of Canada. I won't rehash that here.

There some good news in this for Ignatieff and Rae - in that they both broke through the psychological barriers of 30 and 20 percent respectively and for Kennedy who in widening his lead of Dion makes it more likely he'll survive the second ballot making him the come-from-behind contender and Dion the king maker.

Also in my earlier post, I pointed out how in the U.S. - where their primary/caucus system bares a resemblence to the Liberal proportional delegate system - the media and momentum does not depend on number of delegates but instead on states won. I was thinking through why this is and I believe it is due to electability. In the U.S. system it doesn't matter how many votes you win in the general election, it matters how many states you carry to raise your electoral vote total.

Similarly, in Canada it doesn't matter how many votes you win, but how many seats. As we saw just a few weeks ago in New Brunswick, you can win less votes and more seats. So while delegates will decide the next leader, the main reason why I like the delegate system as opposd to a one-member-one-vote system is because it gives the leadership candidates a trial run at an election campaign. They have to do well in many ridings across the country to get enough delegates to win.

So, as a result, I thought like the U.S. counts states won to measure success not delegates, I would count ridings won to measure success as everyone else is covering counting delegates.

In 27 ridings there were ties (mostly two way, but there were three three-way ties and a four-way tie). In these cases I have allotted 0.5, 0.33 or 0.25 ridings to a candidate as appropriate.

The results

Ignatieff won 100 ridings
Kennedy won 54 ridings
Rae won 49 ridings
Dion won 43 ridings
Volpe won 11 ridings
Dryden won 9 ridings
Brison won 8 ridings
Hall Findlay won 1 riding
And the "undeclareds" carried 5 ridings

When I factor in the ties and round them off, we end up was a 309 seat Liberal House of Commons if this were an election and we had the Ignatieff Party, Kennedy Party, etc.

Ignatieff 100 + 5.92 ~= 106 seats
Kennedy 54 + 7.92 ~= 62 seats
Rae 49 + 5.25 ~= 54 seats
Dion 43 + 4.08 ~= 47 seats
Volpe 11 + 3 = 14 seats
Dryden 9 + 0.83 ~= 10 seats
Brison 8 + 0.5 ~= 9 seats
Hall Findlay 1 + 0.5 ~= 2 seats
Undeclared = 5 seats

Here is what the Liberal House of Commons would look like. As the winner I gave Ignatieff Liberal red and as the longest running Liberal in the field I gave Kennedy the Wikipedia Liberal colour. I couldn't resist giving Rae NDP orange and Brison Tory blue. Dion got the Bloc's colour as the only Quebec candidate. Finally I rounded it off by giving Dryden purple, Volpe green and Hall Findlay yellow. The undeclareds get independent grey.

So although the Ignatieff Party is the clear winner, his minority is far smaller than Harper's and barely bigger than the current Liberal opposition. He is far ahead of his nearest competitor but the Kennedy Party or Rae Party could both form coalitions with smaller parties to make a larger minority, while the Kennedy Party could form a majority in coalition with smaller parties. A Kennedy-led coalition of all parties in opposition would form a massive majority of 202 seats. A Kennedy Party led coalition without the Dion Party would control a bare majority of 155 seats, while a Kennedy-led coalition without the Rae Party would form a large minority of 148 seats. An Ignatieff-Kennedy or Ignatieff-Rae coalition would form a majority, while any other majority coalition combination for the Ignatieff Party would require 3 or more parties.

Obviously there is not going to be a scenario where all other parties fold and the Liberals split into 8 factions behind each of the leadership candidates. However, considering that, at the end of the day, the main purpose of parties and leaders are to win elections under our first past the post electoral system to implement the policies we believe in, the above analysis gives us the best measure to see which leadership candidate (or coalition of candidates) have the best shot of doing so. Moroever, the Americans who have been using a system like this for far longer than us use the "winning in a real election" method to handicap the race so there is no reason why we shouldn't.

The Tories doth protest too much

Every time I see a comment from the Tory Opposition, which I don't think is at all comfortable in their new skin, it is full of disdain and irrational logic.

There are three constants in any and all comments from the Opposition.

1. "We won the popular vote, the Liberals have no mandate." There may or may not be merits to this argument but Bernard Lord himself pointed out that his hero Richard Hatfield won both the 1970 and 1974 elections while losing the popular vote and then lost seats when finally winning it in 1978 so he had no grounds on which to complain. Clearly he has forgotten that statement.

2. "The Liberals aren't prepared to govern." With all due respect, nearly a majority of New Brunswickers (over 44% in 2003 and over 47% in 2006) disagree for two elections in a row. This is democracy. The voters get to make that decision, not some bitter former ministers. Common sense requires that Tories should at least give the Liberals a chance before criticizing, lest they look like angry raving lunatics. Moreover, criticism of this announcement is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. The concept of every minister knowing every file in the government will make for a more proactive cabinet and innovative program thinking. It is a great idea. We have 19 ministers, 16 of whom have never been in the cabinet room before, obviously they need to brush up on their files. In a government backbench caucus or in opposition you may learn some things on files but you aren't allowed to get into the nitty gritty. This is not symptomatic of lack of preparedness, it is a sign of the humility to say "we are taking on a tremendous task, we don't have all of the answers but we are willing to learn and do our best". It is very refreshing. We have had perhaps the most arrogant government in history for the past 7 years and now we seem to have the most humble. Ministers working nights and weekends to make sure they know their files, and the Premier in the papers today saying he is letting Frank McKenna open doors to bring business to New Brunswick and he doesn't care who gets the credit so long as New Brunswick gets the jobs. Very refreshing. (Sorry for the rant)

3. The biggest issue with me is the constant comments from Jeannot Volpe, and now from Bernard Lord, about how the Liberals are going to have to go in the red to deliver on their promises. This is wholly untrue and, if the Liberals do end up in the red, it will be because the Tories have fudged the budget and misled as as to how the finances in New Brunswick truly are. This will be the primary subject of this post..

The Liberal promises are costed out at $200M in year one and $75M in every subsequent year.

This year's budget had a surplus of $22.2 million so at first glance you might say the Liberals are running head first into a $180m deficit. However, that is not true.

In March, Jeannot Volpé's budget forecasted $2.1 billion in transfer payments. However, the federal Finance Department numbers of August show we'll actually get $2.4 billion. So, presuming the rest of the books are sound. New Brunswick has a ~ $320 million surplus for 2006-2007. Add in the Liberal spending and we still have a $120 million surplus - enough left over to pay for year 2 and part of year 3's Liberal commitments.

So, now I put you on notice, if the Liberals run a deficit it will be because the Tories fudged the books. We'll have some indication of whether or not this has happened in December when the Liberals release the independent audit of the books.

However, the Tories do have a rich history of screwing the books. We have examples of the Auditor General catching them breaking their own rules and blatently lying about the budget being balanced when it was infact in the red by over $100m in an election year. Then last year, after cutting the winter road budget to balance the books, they blamed a bad winter (it was one of the warmest on record) for having been way over budget in that area.

The Liberal promises leave lots of room in the budget, unless the Tories didn't present accurate figures.

Sigh. Disappointment #2

I was a bit surprised to see this appointment today. Not because I think it is a bad idea, in fact I think it is a very good idea. New Brunswick having a presence in Ottawa is key when you consider that other provinces, with whom we are often competing, have them as well.

However, it disappoints me when two years ago the Liberals were saying that such a position was a waste of money.

News roundup

I haven't done one of these in a while but there were a couple of interesting piecs in the papers today I wanted to comment on.

HST heating rebate

All of the dailies are reporting that Finance Minister Victor Boudreau is saying that the HST rebate program is under review and may or may not proceed. He says his intention is to proceed but they are not sure they will need to see the results of the audit. Boudreau is quoted as saying "the previous government had not done what needed to be done to be able to meet (the) deadline". I am very curious about this and am hoping that more details will come out over the next few days.

Some may recall that back when this program was announced there were no details and, two months after it was announced, then Finance Minister Jeannot Volpe told people to keep their heating bills because they might need them. The whole program seems to have been dreamed up when the Tories wanted a popular budget to run on should their government have fallen in April.

The very same Jeannot Volpe and his master Bernard Lord were harping on the Liberals for potentially scrapping the program.

Volpe: They seem to be very good at spending the money. Now I'm waiting for them to say where they will get that money. Will they cut the HST rebate? Will they increase taxes? If they are ready to start spending money, they have to be ready to make some decisions.

Lord: First of all, they got less votes. More people voted to keep the HST rebate and I think if they would have been clear with the public of New Brunswick that they were considering canceling the HST rebate then we would have had even more votes. The real issue for the Liberals is not doing audits about the past, it's trying to figure out how they're going to pay for their expensive promises and obviously they don't know.

The Liberals have not said they are scrapping the program, they are figuring out if it is even possible to make it work, something the Tories should have done when they were in power. I fully expect that the Liberals will make this program work and continue forward with it, as they promised. If they don't, they'll catch hell from yours truly.

As for Lord's remarks, evidentally the defeat didn't give him and humility. I guess we are never going to hear the end of the popular vote thing. Ever. But his comment about audits is very interesting considering that he conducted an external audit in 1999 and so did his hero Richard Hatfield in 1970. If it is good for the goose, it is good for the gander.

Lord to Paris?

I am not too sure about this rumour but it got a lot of print today because the incumbent Ambassador to France was in Moncton yesterday and got scrumed about it.

I don't really see Harper appointing Lord as Ambassador to France and, if he offered it, I don't see Lord accepting. It isn't a good move for either of them.

From Harper's perspective, if he thinks Lord is an asset, he'll want him in his cabinet and encourage him to run in the next election. If Harper thinks Lord is a threat, he'll strategically realize that there really isn't a federal seat Lord could win and encourage him to run and fall on his sword.

From Lord's perspective, if he wants to move into federal politics this may give him some foreign affairs experience to round out his resume but it also takes him out of the country for at least a few years and doesn't, unlike McKenna's gig in Washington, give him a lot of profile. Moreover, Lord has said his wife and family are happy in Fredericton and despite anything negative you may have to say about Lord, he is a family man and I suspect that he'd prefer to keep them comfortable in Fredericton, something he could do either running federally or even by doing some Canadian corporate gigs basing himself out of Fredericton and doing some travel.

Shawn Graham on equalization

Graham is following Lord's principled policy on equalization. In that all resource revenues should be included. It drives me crazy to hear that talk about the "clawback" on revenues in Newfoundland. It is not a clawback!

This is how it works (very over simplified version, but the gist is there). If the national average revenue for a province of your size is X dollars, and your province makes Y dollars and Y is less than X then you get the difference between X and Y.

So lets say X is $5 billion and the revenues of Newfoundland are $4 billion. Newfoundland would receive $1 billion in equalization. Now, if Newfoundland has a really good oil year, and their revenue is $4.5 billion, then they are only going to get $500,000. They are arguing that oil revenue should not be included so they would still get a total of $5.5 billion while other provinces still get only $5 billion. In what universe is this fair?

Graham names deputy speakers

Graham named widely-expected-to-be-Speaker Gene McGinley and Campbellton MLA Roy Boudreau as Deputy Speakers. This is something that would not usually happen until the legislature comes into session.

I am assuming that Malley has resigned now with a handsome severence package, which the paper says was agreed to though they cannot confirm or deny whether or not the resignation has actually taken place, and that this will allow McGinley to act as Speaker until he is elected? Not sure but this seems to make sense as McGinley has indicated he is running for Speaker in today's papers and it would make no sense to appoint someone as Deputy Speaker who is going to run for Speaker and then never actually serve as Deputy Speaker requiring you to appoint a replacement Deputy Speaker.

The problem however is whether or not this is even possible?

According to the Standing Rules of the Legislature: "12. Within the first five days of the first session of each House, or whenever a vacancy occurs, the House shall elect two Deputy Speakers from among its members." And the Legislative Assembly Act does not provide any provision for the appointment of Deputy Speakers when the House is not in session.

Seems fishy.

Charles LeBlanc breaks news ages before CBC

I tip my hat to the blogging Charles LeBlanc who broke the news last Friday that the NB legislature would be getting metal detectors. Four days later, the CBC caught up to him.

Well done Charles!