11.18.2010 09:09 AM

Boy, it sure is a good thing we ruled out that crazy cooperation/coalition/merger idea!

47 Comments

  1. Blair Shumlich says:

    The Liberals >20% in Sask/Manitoba, and ahead of the NDP?

    I have questions about this.

  2. Christian says:

    One of the best definitions of insanity is doing the same thing but expecting a different result. I think that nicelysums up the mindset of the current Liberal-NDP leadership.

    • Shaun says:

      I think we need to change that definition of insanity. It should reflect the confused belief that Conservatives are fiscally responsible. Also, that the Conservatives are open, transparent and accountable.

    • Ted says:

      We’ve been doing the same thing for decades and generally winning as a result. It’s only been 5 years since we were last in government. The world is not collapsing

  3. Peter says:

    Well Christian that comment can be equally applied to the Tories and the Bloc.

    Nothing new, period !!

    And those poll numbers really represent the malaise amongst the public. They trust none, believe none and hence in all likelihood will vote for none !!

  4. I thought polls didn’t matter? And I’ve gotta say it’s great to see you Liberals split on every issue that comes your way. Or are you secretly working for the CPC?

  5. IC says:

    Yeah, well – Iggy is about as effective as a chocolate teapot – and it shows in these results, given the Great White North is under the grip of the equivalent of Jack Torrance in the Shining. Mind you, Harper is an insult to psychopaths everywhere. Time for Iggy to step up to the plate – or abdicate to…..??

  6. MississaugaPeter says:

    Polls and projections are irrelevant.

    What is relevant is that this supposed mirage of an Opposition appears to be waiting for its pension benefits to kick in – February 2012.

  7. james Smith says:

    Here’s a crazy idea, what if the public were whipped into righteous indignation by an opposition that forced an election over an unelected senate killing a bill the commons passed, I wonder what would happen to the poll numbers then? Ain’t going to happen, but I wonder what would happen.

    • MississaugaPeter says:

      To whip “into righteous indignation” one would require a history of integrity or they would be seen as “opportunists” or “hypocrites”.

      To be successful it also would require motivated supporters.

      Over the weekend, Ignatieff, Rae, and The Dauphin (who was the only person within the party who could have stood up to the leader) lost us all the upcoming bye-elections.

      • james Smith says:

        Call me crazy, but I seem to remember a happy Christmas election nobody (read the media) wanted where the O & H words were used against the present PM; BTW still the present PM. Folks get PO’d when they hear something that PO’s them – Over, & Over, & Over again.
        By the weekend thing do you mean the lack of truthieness quotes in the W FP or the chickens running to the G&M?

        • MississaugaPeter says:

          This weekend revealed that the present Liberal leadership (Ignatieff, Rae, The Dauphin):

          1. Does not consult with caucus over significant issues
          2. Does not consult with grassroots Liberals and other Canadians over significant issues (Ted and the paid and unpaid Ignatieff folks, please don’t tell me that criss-crossing Canada was consulting, it was I am listening and I act like I will consider your point of view, but I am much wiser and probably what you said went out the other ear)

          The present Liberal leadership this weekend not only lost all the bye-elections, but they lost many grassroots workers and a lot of end-of-the-year donations.

          OTHER BEEF: Having for-profit fundraisers phone donors and refer to Ralph Goodale as “Ralph Go Dale” just does not cut it.

          • Ted H. says:

            Who is the Dauphin?

          • Warren says:

            I’m glad you asked that. I was wondering the same thing.

          • james Smith says:

            MP, He’s a LIBERAL Leader. While I share your displeasure, I know that is way it is. I mean I got stacks of HoC speeches from both JT & JC over the years, guess they would have considered those gems as CONSULTATION too. Lets face it, both the LPC & the OLP for that matter are not the NDP. Guess it’s better in the BP & the CPC. 😎

          • Does not consult with caucus over significant issuesDoes not consult with grassroots Liberals and other Canadians over significant issues

            Sounds like the Liberal leadership thinks and acts just like the Conservative leadership, right?

            The only difference is that the Conservative bench and supporters actually believe they have a voice (they don’t, and never have had) while Liberal bench and supporters are only now just realizing that they have no voice.

            Different strokes, same essential problem.

  8. CQ says:

    If a Lib/NDP coalition/merger, one could reasonably expect a potential 25% of Liberal votes* to choose the Conservative side as red tories. 33.8% +(29.2*0.25= 7.3%) adds to a 41.1%, or an over 40% majority range. And isn’t that what you recently tried to avoid by supporting Rossi instead of joining with the Smitherman mayoral campaign against Rob Ford?

    *excluding central downtown T.O.

    • james Smith says:

      CQ, I think you are Right-On here. If there was a formal merger I also think two other things could happen. The Tories might use the moment to change leaders this would mean closer to 50%. Alternatively a formal merger would have the effect of long time workers like me just sitting on our hands. We might vote for a Sid Ryan or the like, but we would not work for them.

  9. James Bow says:

    Nothing should prevent any party from working with or forming coalitions with any other party… after an election takes place. That’s simply good sense, and part of the give-and-take that’s essential to the democratic process after an election. However, I find the attitude that voters have to hold their noses and pick from a limited number of choices to be profoundly UNdemocratic.

    The NDP and the Liberals speak to two very different constituencies, and a big tent party is essentially going to disenfranchise people in the centre as well as on the left, and that’s unfortunate. I was against the merger between the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservatives for exactly the same reason, and I notice that the new Conservatives are polling well below the combined vote total of the PCs and the Alliance when they were separate parties in the 1993, 1997 and 2000 elections. Only in 2008 did the Conservatives receive the combined support of the two parties, and things have since dropped off precipitously. I cannot help but wonder where the 8% of voters (representing as much as ONE FIFTH of the voters who used to vote PC or Reform) went. They’re probably not voting, and that’s a unfortunate. That’s bad for democracy.

    The solution, clearly, is to adopt some form of proportional representation, be it mixed-member-participation or single-transferrable-vote. No vote should EVER be considered a wasted vote. No one should EVER feel that they HAVE to choose a party that they DON’T like simply to keep out a party that they like even less. We need proportional representation now; we needed it back when the Liberals were benefitting from vote splitting on the right. Frankly, we needed it back in 1993 when 18% of Canadians ended up being spoken for by less than 1% of parliamentarians. Enough of these undemocratic results!

  10. Tim Alin says:

    Data of this poll collected before Afghan issue, Liberal doomed with Boby and Iffy forcing own personal agenda

  11. J. Coates says:

    Ottawa clearly needs Rob Ford. 🙂

  12. Tim says:

    If I might aski what would be the Liberal NDP coalition’s position on the HST.

    • Warren says:

      What coalition? What are you talking about?

      • Tim says:

        I was trying to be somewhat tongue in cheek. My point is the Liberals and the NDP as are quite divided on many issues like the HST that having a coalition or governing arrangement between the two would in my mind have many obstacles. I also say this as someone who views a coalition as a perfectly legitimate governing option. Personally I put a lot of the blame on the NDP side for constantly trying to score political points on issues like the HST that even a lot of the members have to believe in the heart of hearts is the right policy.

  13. Sheila says:

    The problem with your header Warren, is that it leads one to believe that you think that (pre-election, I assume) cooperation equals a (pre- or post-, I am not sure, usually when we speak of coalitions it is in respect of governments) coalition which also equals a merger (a merger of parties would presumably offer the electorate a brand new option). I’m pretty sure that a student of democracy like you knows well the difference. Nonetheless the numbers and the projections are disturbing.

  14. Sheila Gervais says:

    Oops! That last comment was meant to be from Sheila Gervais, not just Sheila!

  15. Brendan Kane says:

    One extra seat. Not exactly a sure thing.

    • Derek Pearce says:

      Exactly. They’d lose votes on the right, so even that one extra seat is no guarantee. I think the data above is actually an argument against a merger.

  16. Marc-Andre Chiasson says:

    Prince Dauphin: I suspect they are referring to Justin son of Pierre Trudeau. Here is the short definition, courtesy of Wikipedia: “The Dauphin of France (French: Dauphin de France, IPA: [dof??])?strictly, The Dauphin of Viennois (Dauphin de Viennois)?was the title given to the heir apparent to the throne of France from 1350 to 1791, and from 1824 to 1830. The word is literally the French for Dolphin, as a reference to the animal they bore on their flag.”

  17. Student501 says:

    The 2008 Federal election had a voter turnout of 59.1 %, the lowest in Canadian electoral history.

    source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/10/15/voter-turnout.html

    Now this poll.

    Proof positive that ALL parties are just preaching to their converted. It’s the same crowd (59.1%) who come out to vote every election and as a matter of fact it keeps getting lower, and lower every time: http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/historical-turnout.html

    ROTFL… it’s like having a Starbucks, a Tim Horton’s, a Dunkin Donuts and a Second Cup all on the same corner all competing for the same coffee consumers.

    Voters are just like Consumers, they have habits which are hard to break.

    Once they become faithful to a brand, it becomes very hard to persuade them to switch.

    It’s clearly apparent from this poll that Canadian voters have anchored their preferences.

    Like it or not, get used to it, it’s Minority governments for the foreseeable future

    • Namesake says:

      actually, student: keep hittin’ the books, ‘cuz your conventional wisdom here has already reached it’s best before date: a new article today about a Nanos poll taken last week shows there’s a lot more volatility than that (altho’, sigh, it’s still likely to result in a minority gov’t):

      “In the next federal election, I will vote for a different party than the last election.

      Agree: 23.6%
      Somewhat agree: 9.3%
      Somewhat disagree: 7.1%
      Disagree: 42.8%
      Unsure: 17.2%”

      http://www.nikonthenumbers.com/topics/show/173

      http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/coalition-fear-mongering-falls-on-deaf-ears-poll-finds/article1803937/

      • Student501 says:

        Don’t worry, like all polls, the numbers will change

        • Namesake says:

          Don’t worry: given your hasty conclusions & inattention to detail, I can’t get too worried by ANYthing you say.

          — The “this poll” you’re referring to from WK’s post is actually the aggregate result of SIX different recent polls in Nov.

          — And that aggregate Nov. result plus the continuing decline in voter turnout as of ’08 is hardly “Proof positive” that “It?s the same [diminishing] crowd… who come out to vote every election.”
          – For one thing, the voter rolls do change: obviously, due to serious illnesses, etc. or actual death, numerous past voters cannot continue to vote; and, even tho’ only 40% or so of them vote, there are newly eligible voters in each election (both young people reaching the age of majority and landed immigrants who have been granted Citizenship).
          – And for all you know, there’s a significant no. who just sit out selected elections for one reason or another (e.g., Adscam, Income Trusts, a decision to engage or prolong a war (or not), etc.), and the deck gets reshuffled each time.

          Finally, apropos your assertion that most voters’ preferences are pretty much set in stone:

          well, as I mentioned, the recent Nanos poll contradicts that, finding that as many as a THIRD of voters are now so fed up that they’re prepared to switch parties.

          And your glib reply to that: “like all polls, the numbers will change.”

          Well, sorry, but considering how LITTLE change there’s been in the overall federal polling these past four years (only a see-saw of a couple of points over the margin of error), I find that: utterly unconvincing.

          So, don’t quit school! You’ve got a long way to go. (But maybe you should quit whatever school you’re in, if you’ve been gettting a passing grade for these types of “analysis.”)

          • Student501 says:

            Well, it would appear that I am not alone in my thinking:

            ?The country is essentially split into big blocks defined by geography, traditional voting habits, language and identity (see the Bloc), and nothing any of the parties tries shakes the grip of the other. Occasionally, it looks as if a party might be making a move on one front (Conservatives for a while in Quebec; NDP in B.C.), only to watch the offensive go nowhere. Meantime, no policy has caught the public?s imagination enough to cause major shifts.?

  18. Steve T says:

    As I’ve said before, in the case of coalitions, 1 + 1 doesn’t always equal 2. If there is even a sniff during an election campagin that the Libs and Dippers might merge, just watch about 10 – 15% of voters trickle over to the CPC (from the Libs) and the Greens (from the NDP).

    So, the only way for this coalition to truly work would be to keep it a secret until after the election. Which is exactly what Harper is fear-mongering about – and he’ll come out looking like not such a fear-monger after all.

  19. jon evan says:

    There won’t be a coalition for sure not in BC!
    If the open line shows were any indication here today, folks are darn mad!!
    BC soil is very fertile these days for a homemade Canadian tea party movement — an anti-tax, anti-Liberal, anti-NDP, anti-land transfer tax party!
    Yes, we are ripping mad here and an anti-tax party is ripe for the pickin! Just like in Toronto folks here have had it and are ready for the plain and simple.
    We need a “stop the gravy train” man/women here too please!

    • WesternGrit says:

      Most BC tea-partiers reside within the so-called BC “Liberals” (who are really mostly Federal Reformers who have taken over the BC Provincial Libs)…

      • jon evan says:

        But they all have been tainted by Mr. Campbell and are now scorned.
        They must take full responsibility for the stupid way the HST was introduced and they all now must wear it.
        There is the aroma in the BC air of a new political party brewing out of the ashes of the BC “Liberals” and perhaps even some defectors from the BC NDP which is likewise disintegrating! These are interesting times here.

    • allegra fortissima says:

      BC.’s New Democrats have seen their lead over the Liberals shrink since Premier Gordon Campbell announced he would step down, says a new poll.

      The Mustel Group survey was conducted Nov.4 to 15 and found that if a Provincial election was held, 42 per cent of voters would support the NDP while 37 per cent would support the Liberals. Campbell announced Nov.3 that he would give up party reins.

      (The Globe and Mail, Friday, Nov.19, 2010)

  20. Marc L. says:

    Anything for power, right. Even teaming up with the economic illiterates of the NDP.

  21. Brett says:

    There’s a coalition right now but it’s the Conservatives working with the rightwing elements of the Liberal party to take the country back in time.

  22. John Wright says:

    Yawn…same old, same old…

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