, 05.03.2019 06:14 AM

In other news, Messrs. Maggi and Graves continue to say that #LavScam has had no effect


https://twitter.com/davidakin/status/1124269630569062400?s=21

40 Comments

  1. Joseph Taylor says:

    I guess Forum, Ipsos, Legere and Angus Reid are all just schills to Frank.

  2. Leo Fleming says:

    yikes, trudeau is starting to look like the next coming of ignatieff.

  3. J.H. says:

    I’m always amazed that some pollsters would put their reputations on the line for the sake of their political agendas.
    We already know Graves’ leanings, so blatant that even CBC dumped him. Abacus is a joke, with boss Bruce Anderson’s daughter in the PMO as Trudeau’s Comms. Dir. Nanos & Pollara are known Lib supporters as is Mainstreet. Most also fk with the results to suit the client. None Have Credibility, nor does Grenier’s CBC Poll Tracker which continues to use these biased pollsters that skew his results. It’s also surprising that the whole gang of them, think they can get away with this stupid shite in this day and age. Some folks may be low – info, but even they are not completely brain dead, when it comes to pollsters and media games.

    • Joseph Taylor says:

      Nanos has been pretty bad lately. Their last poll in the Alberta election understated the UCP and overstated the NDP by >2 standard deviations.

      • Adam says:

        And isn’t it convenient how heavy a weight Grenier’s Poll Tracker puts on Nanos and other pro-Liberal pollsters?

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          Adam,

          Éric is not a Liberal.

          • J.H. says:

            May be not, but by using a majority of polls run by Liberals does skew the results. Maybe it’s CBC execs orders, but it still means the tracker has little credibility.
            And nobody can seriously believe that Toronto HQ is not calling the shots on political coverage leading up to the election. Why do you think Weary Wherry is back in the fold?

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            J.H.,

            Explain this to me. Before I was unenthusiastic CPC. Now, I’ve become unenthusiastic LPC. Pretend I’m running a polling company. Help me grasp why I would want to ruin my professional credibility with non-political potential and actual clients by deliberately squewing polling results? Isn’t unintended methodological errors more likely responsible for flawed numbers? Is it really as easy as that that it’s because I’m a Liberal that results may repeatedly suck?

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            Someone else here, not me, knows how to spell skewed!

  4. Steve T says:

    NDP + Greens > Liberals. That should be the biggest worry for JT and his cabal right now. Their virtue-signalling for the past 4 years has been nearly obliterated by the JWR matter.

    Therefore, I suspect the Libs may have permanently lost (or lost for quite some time) their left-leaning support. Probably their best strategy is to focus solely on grabbing centre-right votes from the CPC. Unfortunately for them, they’ve sort of burned the fiscal / economic banner over this past term through that virtue-signalling strategy. Gotta love kharma.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Steve,

      Momentum = Conservatives.

      • J.H. says:

        R’OD
        I can never explain why Libs do anything, but the firms named all have the connections to them as I stated. Their results always seem to favor Trudeau & LPC, even when others don’t. The agenda at the CBC has been such that there can be no other option but to think they are happy to have the poll tracker be skewed Lib & Left.
        Others using the likes of Pollara, Mainstreet, Ekos, Abacus, Nanos etc. must assume their work outside of politics is legit, but no one familiar with their ownership & principle staff can assume that of their polling magic tricks.

    • Walter says:

      Conventional wisdom was that Jasmeet Singh had to get the Party over 25% for the CPC to have a chance. But you are correct. It now appears the Greens are strong enough the NDP + Green > 30%. The Bloc also appears to be gaining with this wholesale exodus from the Liberal Party. By election time, the Liberals may not have the most seats in any Region in Canada.

  5. A. Voter says:

    Imagine if the NDP. let go of the past and decided to elect more progressive MPs. Singh could reach an agreement with May to not challenge each other in some ridings. The Greens not run in Halifax and the NDP not run in Fredericton etc. They would take a lot of seats away from the Liberals.

    • Gord Tulk says:

      The last thing the NDP should do is be more progressive. They need to rediscover their roots – fiscally sensible working man politics that instead of being targeted at the factory floor it’s targeted at the office and service sector. Think Biden and you aren’t far off.

      • Warren says:

        Totally agree

      • Adam says:

        Trying to be “Liberal lite” will just elect more Liberals.

        You underestimate how much of the NDP’s potential support base has been put off and even enraged by the centrist direction over the past several years.

        It’s no accident that the ONDP got a much improved result from taking a more clearly progressive path and nearly took that to a win before Ford did a better job of channelling people’s anger against the Liberal government.

  6. Gord Tulk says:

    Question for you warren:

    If the cpc wins a minority- which essentially every poll for the past two months would suggest – is JT finished as leader?

    Supplementary to that.: if your answer is “yes” to the above and if that is the almost certain outcome say around mid-august (pre-Norman trial) what reason would the LPC have to keep him as leader?

    • Gord,

      You don’t seriously expect Warren to prognosticate on that, do you?

      • Gord,

        Political parties are seriously and purposely dysfunctional operations — they demand absolute loyalty and obedience to the leader — when the opposite is never true. As soon as it becomes politically expedient to throw someone under the bus, the leader does so in a New York minute.

        Trudeau is perfectly safe in his job, come hell or high water. It’s not at all in the nature of the beast to take him on, much less attempt to remove him as PM. I have a better chance of leading a national political party than MPs have of conditioning themselves to a non-theoretical leadership challenge.

        • Vancouverois says:

          But only as long as the leader is leading them to victory, surely?

          Admittedly the current LPC is a special situation, because without Trudeau they basically have nothing. That will remain true even if he drops down to a minority, or even if the minority goes to the Conservatives, I think. It’s only if Scheer gets a majority that JT may have to consider resignation, IMHO.

          But it is still way too early to be making predictions anyway…

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            Vancouverois,

            Bottoms drop out when they drop out and that happens even before campaigns begin. Let’s go back when I was still CPC and writing that if Harper was as good a tactician as he himself believed, after the two minority mandate lesson, he would hold the road at centre-right after getting the majority. But in fact, he foolishly chose to do the opposite and red-meat everything from census to scientists. That finished Harper off even before the writ dropped. Too far right, too fast, for the voting public. I thought Harper was in his heart of hearts a true incrementalist but also a guy politically sensitive enough to smell the winds and correctly take in those vibes. I was dead wrong.

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            If I ever come face to face with Harper again, I’ll gently remind him that I was the better tactician. LOL.

  7. Leave-Justin-Alone says:

    I’m here to inform you that political polling deeply skews toward sample size that is not random, not representative and landline based. Never trust anyone over 40 is my motto, except Justin.

    • Walter says:

      Sadly with Trudeau – every politician under 50 will be viewed with suspicion. If you look at details of the polling, it is awfully embarrassing for women under 35.

  8. Karl-Milton Marx-Friedman says:

    KmmF, here with some valid truth bombs.

    A) the civil service let Trudeau down so we need to be looking st civil service reform; technology disruption within service deliver is the future of any successful government. Unclog the union barriers to innovation for the sake of society at large.

    B) Cannibis was delivered, Medical assistance in dying was delivered, training holidays was delivered, the economy is okay. There must be some other wedge to block a Tory majority…ah yes, a sweetheart pipeline to The heart of every Canadian; a small business stimulus package, implement better immigration management…. lots of ideas

    • KMMF,

      How can you expect this government to find the strength to wedge-out anyone when they are already completely politically hemorrhaged?

      • Karl-Milton Marx-Friedman says:

        Ronald O’Dowd, with all due respect, the idea that Trudeau has spent all his political capital is misleading (but a nice rhetorical flourish)…although another leader could help out this fall, Trudeau needs to declare a reset with Canadians, a mea culpa that he and the civil service (the operators) could not deliver on his lofty “we’re-in-third-place-according-to-very-reliable-polling-agencies” style promises in ‘15, and reframe the election around principles with painful consequences for failing to deliver. Now that we can promise with better information. This next Liberal government will be “toughest on itself”; The specific carefully formulate promises will have fail safe consequences such as a) fining and garnishing wages of MPs and civil servants who missed targets even with extenuating circumstances, b) automatically triggering resignations upon missing baseline targets, c) public investigations into why a given policy was not fulfilled and remedies, d) bonuses delivered to constituents for good performance by an MP…and some other stuff I cannot share here. I mean this promise fail safe alone would be an excellent campaign promise…to them break (so very meta).

        *Scheer would prefer to make as few commitments as possible with this false lead 5months out. He hasn’t taken a view on SNC Lavalin for example. Will he repeal Cannibis, MAID (medical assistance in dying? He’s an inside baseball guy who is also an intellectual novice. If he wins on a “Trudeau sucked” ticket, Scheer will have a Cart Blanche to basically carry on mediocre Harper-style government and make Indigenous leaderhip (very different from indigenous people) rather unhappy indeed. It takes intellectual maturity to realize that in advance of whistle blowing: Jody Wilson Rayboald!

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          KMMF,

          With respect right back at you, allow me to work this from the bottom up: first and foremost, are any of the parties supposed to be there to work on behalf of First Nations leadership? In my book, the interests of First Nations people must always come first.

          Next, I don’t necessarily disagree with your characterization of Scheer and the CPC. They are quite deliberate opportunists like any official opposition.

          Finally, as to the reset itself: hope it won’t end like Hillary’s with Russia. Also would expect every bit of it to be legally permissible. But most important of all, how can we as Liberals take Trudeau seriously if he still foolishly refuses to get that reset going where it counts the most: in his OWN PMO?

          I’ve been literally alternating between begging and screaming since India to clean out the damned place and still nothing. Remember, Butts left on his own. Remind this Prime Minister that yours truly and quite a few others won’t remotely take Trudeau seriously until the PMO SNC-L-Norman gang are gone, period.

          Justin is lucky that we can’t fire him as leader — because right now, by his own actions or lack thereof, he’s put me and a lot of other Canadians in that sort of mood. A full PMO cleanup is MY litmus test. And to get my vote: reinstate JWR and JP as Liberal candidates. Don’t expect poll changes until that’s done, cause they ain’t happening without it. Think I’m full of shit? Maybe. But I’m taking my view to the bank.

          • Karl-Milton Marx-Friedman says:

            Yes, I’d say the PMO should see more changes post-election. Pre-election? It would take more than a 24 hour day can muster x several months of recruiting. Maybe there are good people in the PMO that could shine with a 25% dismissal rate? A bit of a gamble and those leavers would need cushy jobs otherwise they might leak; more harm then good to fire PMO staffers now?

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            KMMF,

            Let’s bring it down to a personal level. I don’t know about you but when I’m REALLY pissed off at someone, the last thing that works with me is the power of inertia. That only makes things much worse. It crystallizes already held feelings and poisons the present and future relationship.

            Transpose the situation as regards this PM: He’s seen as incessently digging the hole deeper and bigger rather than digging himself and his government out. That’s what they don’t get. Who is master of this government? PM or caucus? Right now, THEY are calling all political shots and if decisions aren’t reversed with at least the Chief of Staff and Comms. Director going, this government is done.

            Martin was a much stronger PM and yet got done in by previous political decisions. This government will almost inevitably go down because of its own decisions. No runway until October can change that once public opinion has hardened into stone. And we are already almost there. Allowing caucus to hold sway re: JWR and JP is the most serious and grave error made since 2015.

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            Now, as to Butts: it will come as no surprise to you that I had the same bone to pick with him as with the other two.

            Butts fiercely believes he did nothing wrong — and that’s a fair point. But the reason why I have come to admire his conduct is because he chose to do his job up to the highest possible standard namely, protect his prime minister and take the political bullet for him. Butts did his job 110%, his colleagues in the PMO Trinity, not so much.

  9. Cam Kroeger says:

    I live in Ladysmith and we are having a federal by-election on Monday. This is NDP territory, and I would expect that to not change. I do think it will be interesting how the Greens do, they may very well surprise with a strong uptick. The conservative candidate will come in 2nd, and the liberal candidate will be in single digits.
    Justin relied on the woman vote in 2015, but you know its game over when my Mom thinks he’s a pansy. ( my Mom has worked longer and harder with less than the pansy has for his entire life)

  10. Karl-Milton Marx-Friedman says:

    Warren hasn’t said it yet but Doug Ford is helping Justin quite a lot.

    • Warren says:

      Agreed. Writing a column on it soon.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Don’t agree. That federal-provincial Ontario alternation is just bullshit in 2019. If they increasingly don’t like Ford, it logically holds that it should help the provincial NDP or Liberals — not the federal PM who is increasingly unpopular, just like Ford.

        • A lot of people (who don’t comment here) are vague on the difference between federal and provincial, especially in Ontario where all three (four?) major parties are closely linked to their federal counterparts.

        • Karl-Milton Marx-Friedman says:

          Ford has introduced more uncertainty by reducing government services etc in order to lightly chip away at fiscal debt interest payments which are massive and benefit bond holders ie the 35% of Canadians who invest in risk free govt bonds for their own private wealth (another reason the wealthy might support deficit spending governments)

          Ford’s changes (or his team’s changes based on the TStar expose) hurt pension managed public sector jobs in education and healthcare principally. It’s embarrassing but once a paradigm is stabilized, these civil servants (understandably) wish to avoid the uncertainty that the rest of us strive in. Understandable because Canada’s private sector is really small and largely a branch plant for US conglomerates.

          Since, the public sector and left leaners cannot retaliate with a direct democracy arsenal as of yet, this federal election is a chance to buttress Ford (so goes the narrative). AND the CBC has played up this story because it is easy to explain a map of Canada with blue and red and orange provinces even though it has very limited predictive power (it’s still a variable in the calculus of course)

          Trump is supposed to help Trudeau massively, but events my dear, events! Perhaps there is still time to 1 way collude:-) for a few percentage points. So desperate.

          In reality, voter preferences are complex and inputs must be weighted against the fresh variables (-SNC -India, +Cannibis +MAID -/+Trudeau himself) that comprise the cognitive load of each swing voter (the deciders in October).

          Ultimately partly imagined partly real, this Fed/Prov foil narrative is used by parties: The LPC door knock against Ford to galvanize leaners and declareds to show up, just as the reverse can be galvanizing at the campaign level in Alberta. If the Blue Jays are in the World Series, you could argue build a narrative about Canada is winning…

          (secretly) It is better for Ford et al to have a Liberal federal government so that blame for underperformance can be channeled there for the election 2022. IF Ford believes Trudeau helps him, he might do the Machiavellian things he has a mandate to implement.

  11. Gord says:

    The Greens are the ultimate “none of the above” / parking vote. Outside of a few pockets in Atlantic Canada and Vancouver Island, they’re pretty much non-existent on the ground. I highly doubt they’ll crack double digits when the chips are down.

    That said, my guess is a lot of that upswing in Green support is disaffected Liberals. A lot of them will drift back (plus some people may not want to tell a pollster they’re supporting them), but if a good number of them stay, or decide to go for the Dippers, that’s a big problem for JT.

    I’ll close with this – at the drop of the writ in 2011, the CPC was polling in the high 30s/low 40s, the Liberals around 25%, and the NDP in the high teens.
    Make of that what you will.

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