Note: the information on this page is now out-of-date, since the polls have shifted since this was posted. To see current battleground ridings, please visit our Strategic Voting Guide (en français)

Here are the current 68 battleground ridings that will determine the election. These are the ridings that DemocraticSPACE is currently listing as “too close to call”, which means the margin of victory is 5% or less. While other ridings may be competitive (say margin of victory between 5-10%), these are the 68 closest ridings in our projections.

ONTARIO (23)
ALGOMA-MANITOULIN-KAPUSKASING
BEACHES-EAST YORK
BRAMPTON WEST
DON VALLEY WEST
GUELPH
HALTON
HAMILTON EAST-STONEY CREEK
HAMILTON MOUNTAIN
KENORA
LONDON-FANSHAWE
MISSISSAUGA-ERINDALE
MISSISSAUGA SOUTH
MISSISSAUGA-STREETSVILLE
NEWMARKET-AURORA
NICKEL BELT
NIPISSING-TIMISKAMING
OAK RIDGES-MARKHAM
OAKVILLE
OTTAWA SOUTH
PARKDALE-HIGH PARK
THUNDER BAY-RAINY RIVER
THUNDER BAY-SUPERIOR NORTH
WELLAND

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This is a follow up to my last post.  The question of Afghanistan came even sooner than I thought.  The Information came out from Kevin Page, the parliament’s budget officer that he holds the bill, he has the numbers and all he needs is all-party consent to release it.  Opposition parties all want the information released, Layton even wrote a letter to Harper demanding the numbers.

Canadians have the right to know how much taxpayer money is going to the army.  Now we must remember that Canadians are in majority against that war and for a number of people, that money could have been better invested elsewhere, in our health care, education, public transport, etc.  This is why this issue will be a major shift in the campaign.  The conservatives will probably drop in the polls on that one, especially if the bill is higher than the 8 billion $ the they predicted. All eyes are now on Harper to see his reaction.

Also, interesting point too, even though this is a major issue, Google news french Canada has only one article on it and doesn’t even have the canadian press french version as I write.

Nous en sommes aujourd’hui au jour 10 de la campagne électorale fédérale et si ça ne serait pas des campagnes nationales, je pourrais croire que le Bloc Québécois a décidé de déclencher des élections privées. À Joliette, les affiches de Pierre Paquette, député sortant du Bloc Québécois, sont bien en vu partout. Au travers de cet océan d’affiches vertes se mêlent, en minorité, quelques pancartes bleues de la conservatrice Sylvie Lavallée.

Pierre Paquette tente de se faire réélire pour la quatrième fois en 8 ans, le sixième mandat consécutif du Bloc. Il mène actuellement largement sur sa rivale conservatrice. Les libéraux, le NDP et les Verts traînent loin derrière et je ne vois pas de revirement de la situation possible avant la journée de l’élection.

Je traverse trois districts électoraux différents à tous les jours et je n’ai vu qu’une seule réclame du Parti Libéral, le seul parti qui peut briguer la gouvernance de la Chambre des Communes présentement. Le NDP est tout simplement absent du paysage et les verts ont parsemés leurs affiches anonymes à quelques endroits plus ou moins stratégiques. Ces trois partis ont-ils abandonné le Québec rural ou est-ce simplement l’échec du choix démocratique au Québec?

Some people tend to rely on government for everything. Surely, some of them would like to be dressed and fed in the morning by government as well. It would be nice if we all had a benevolent government to watch over us and wait on us hand and foot. Only trouble is that we would have to hand over our hard-earned cash in taxes to make that happen – and even then it would not be nearly enough.

Government in Canada has grown way too big, particularly since Pierre Trudeau. The lesson that must be imparted now is that government must learn to do more with a lot less, to become leaner and meaner. The old Trudeau-style, utopian and socialist fantasies are nothing more than fantasies in today’s world. Anyone still clinging to those ideas should be examined, because he just might be a candidate for a padded cell, heavy psychopharmaceutical treatment and round-the-clock observation.

Various successive Liberal governments have done a lot of damage to Canada in this respect. Most of the problems we grapple with today are the direct results of a “Liberal legacy”. To put it more bluntly, this type of Big Government thinking has taken on the form of a disease that has infected even some Conservatives, such as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his finance minister Jim Flaherty. Their government spending in the last two and a half years has set a new record and even exceeded any of the previous Liberal governments in recent history.
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This is a potentially significant endorsement — the mayor of Canada’s largest city (and the man who receives the most votes in any election in Canada!), former NDPer David Miller, says that the Green Party has the best platform for cities. Miller is particularly impressed with this Green commitment (from David Curry article in today’s Globe):

“Restoring the GST to 6 per cent from its currently 5 per cent, and transferring that revenue to cities for environmental infrastructure projects such as public transit. That last pledge received praise Tuesday from Toronto Mayor David Miller, a former New Democrat, who told a local radio station the Greens have the best policies for cities.”

What do you think, are the Greens the best choice for cities?

Note : le présent billet est plombé de mauvaise foi. Yeux chastes d’abstenir.

Si vous êtes de religion catholique et que vous voulez savoir comment Dieu voterait s’il le pouvait, la Conférence des évêques catholiques du Canada vient de publier un court guide de quatre pages (au format PDF) sur les prochaines élections.

La pauvreté, l’avortement, l’Afghanistan, l’Église vous dira ce qu’un bon catholique doit penser lorsqu’il ira cocher son bulletin de vote le 14 octobre…

hello from the wonderful world of a probably decided urban riding.

i’m trying desperately to find something interesting to say about toronto-danforth and failing miserably.

as you may know, Jack Layton holds this riding and is expected to win it again, at least according to everything i’ve heard to date.  it’s a tough slog fighting against a national party leader in a local riding, and i don’t really expect anyone to take this one from the ndp.

regardless, the liberals are running Andrew Lang, who is apparently the son of aTrudeau era cabinet minister and was the constituency manager for Bill Graham. the conservatives are running Christina Perreault, a political novice and sacrifical lamb (given the chances the conservatives have of winning this very left leaning riding). the greens have fielded Sharon Howarth, a local environmental and community activist.

so that’s what we’ve got to work with. last election Jack won the riding by 7156 votes, which is a pretty big margin to beat all things being equal.  of course things aren’t ever equal in politics, but it seems unlikely that he’ll lose. i’m going to keep my ears open though, i’d love for this race to get interesting.

Elgin-Middlesex-London is a good riding to live in if your politics lean to the right. The twelve-year old riding has seen four elections since its creation and although the Liberals managed two wins in 1997 and 2000, conservatives and right-of-centre parties have always done well here.

The riding is represented by Conservative, Joe Preston, who swept to power in the wake of the sponsorship scandal in the June 2004 election, garnering 20,333 votes and defeating the incumbent Liberal, Gar Knutson. In the January 2006 election he held his seat and defeated the Liberal candidate and former mayor of Thames Centre, Crispin Colvin, by almost 10,000 votes.

The New Democrats have never elected an MP here and have usually trailed behind in third or fourth place. The Canadian Alliance in 2000 and, back when the riding was part of Middlesex-Lambton in 1993, the Christian Heritage party, surpassed the NDP in the number of votes. Not the most promising of prospects for NDP candidate Ryan Dolby.

Dolby’s strategy will likely concentrate on the loss of manufacturing jobs in the riding, an area of expertise for him being a Union Benefits Representative with CAW Local 2168 and a local trustee and chairman of the Union in Politics committee. He is hoping his success in union politics will have prepared him enough for his first foray onto the national scene. Whether or not this will be a winning strategy remains to be seen. The London Free Press has mentioned that Dolby is a “particularly strong candidate” because he is “attuned to the layoffs that have hit the auto sector and left thousands out of work in the London area.” Dolby, is a native of Chatham, Ont. and moved to St. Thomas in 1994 when he landed a job on the assembly line at Lear Corporation. He now lives in Shedden with his wife Laura and their three children.

This morning there were signs of real life from the campaign of Dennis Galiatsatos, the candidate from the Conservative Party. The candidate was shaking hands with people this morning at the Cote Vertu Metro, and I was able to chat with him. To my surprise, Mr. Galiatsatos thinks he has an excellent chance of beating Stephane Dion, in spite of this being a Liberal stronghold. His take on things was that this time around, voters knowing that this time Mr. Dion is running to become Prime Minister, will feel less inclined to vote for him than in previous elections. Mr. Galiatsatos also has noticed that many voters are not happy with the deal he made with Elizabeth May. Later, I decided to check out Mr. Galiatsatos’ website. It is extremely well done, and while playing up the candidate’s involvement with the political process, also uses photos of his meetings with Harper to reinforce the “Leadership” focus of the Conservatives’ strategists.

In my opinion, and having lived in the riding so long, I will be very surprised if anyone can beat Mr. Dion, simply because of the amount of loyalty citizens here feel towards the Liberals. St-Laurent is the borough of Montreal with the largest number of new Canadians and immigrants. The Bloc’s second place finish here the last few elections seems to represent the still francophone portion of the riding.

In the last campaign, the Conservative Party ran a Muslim woman who ran a small campaign office on Decarie, but otherwise, her candidacy was almost invisible. She finished behind Liz Elder of the NDP.

The NDP chose a candidate over a year ago, Carole Haddad. It is official now that she has had to withdraw. A replacement will be named by Monday. There should be some Jack Layton signs appearing in the coming days.

But today, from the grass roots level, it looks as if the Conservatives could finish a strong second this time around…

After a lacklustre performance in week 1, the national Liberal campaign seems to have made some changes. The performance of Dion to date is worrying many Liberals, no doubt because they realize what a swing in the overall vote means: a loss in their local riding.

Yesterday, the Liberals finally launched a decent English ad pointed at Harper for the first part, offering their policies in the second part and interestingly ommitting Dion. Today, we see photos of Dion campaigning in Nova Scotia with Bob Rae and Scott Brison, while yesterday Ujjal Dosanjh was given the task of a policy announcement in B.C. It seems like the leadership has finally responded to the criticisms of its strategy. Up until now, Dion looked like he had been hung out to dry by the rest of the Liberal stars. It’s crucial for the Liberals to use their star lineup to highlight that the Conservatives are nowhere to be seen: where are Flaherty, Prentice, Cannon, … ????

Sault Ste. Marie’s Liberal candidate Paul Bichler obviously learned nothing about his party’s beer & popcorn moment during the last election. Bichler was parachuted in as an ‘all star candidate’ to knock off NDP incumbent Tony Martin. Local voters generally view Tony as “a nice guy,” but nowhere as effective in bringing money to the riding as his provincial counterpart Liberal MPP David Orazietti.

In responding descriptions of Tony as a nice guy, Bichler states: “I also had a nice guy serving me breakfast this morning. I don’t want him representing me in Ottawa.”

I’ve worked both American and Canadian campaigns as a communications strategist. I learned long ago not to let the rough and tumble of politics bother me personally. But I’m offended by Bichler’s comment.

During high school, I worked counter as a McDonald’s food server to help pay for university. The same with my wife. So did most of our friends at one time or another. It is good honest work (Which is why I would trust a server in political officer before I trusted a politician involved in Adscam to serve me breakfast). Serving food is something to which I and about half the population can relate. So branding Tony a food server actually works… for Tony. In contrast, few Canadians have experienced the perks of being elected a Liberal politicians, whose superiority Bichler is asserting over mere food servers.

Three years’ ago, I ran the communications strategy for Ken Walker, the local Conservative candidate. The first rule I instituted on Ken’s campaign was the following: “Never insult waiters/ waitresses, taxi drivers, or barbers/ hair dressers.” There’s lots of them within our community, and their job entails listening all day to people talk. I often find people working these trades more accurate political predictors than pollsters and political scientists.

The second rule follows closely: “Always tip them 10 percent more than expected.” Simply put, because they talk to people all day, you want them to carry a favorable impression (and hence talk favorably) about your candidate.

The third rule in our working-class riding became, once uttered: “Hammer home the beer & popcorn comment.” This was key to stopping the Liberals last time around, because it showed the smug disconnect between their leaders and the people they governed.

Chantal Hébert writes that Liberal leader Stéphane Dion is running out of time:

Dion has at most a week to recast himself as a credible alternative to Harper or else the Liberals will find themselves on an irreversible course to a near-historical defeat next month. Based on current numbers, some Liberal projections give the party no more than 65 seats on election night. They also confirm that Dion is an albatross around the party’s neck.

One reader of Hébert’s column has seen through Dion’s Green Shift:

I’ve seen some of the details of the proposed tax “cuts” proposed under the Green Shift – besides a reduction in the bottom rate of a whole 1% there isn’t much except various tax benefit increases to people with kids etc. For the unmarried income earner making more than $40K it will mean nil, as usual. If Dion were serious about slashing all federal income rates to say maybe 12%, 18% 21% and 25% I would consider giving my vote but this sort of tax reform would be anathema to any Liberal so I’ll take the safe route.

Exactly, which means that Dion’s promise that his Green Shift would be revenue-neutral was a lie. Only very few and tiny groups of society would see some tax offset, whereas the large majority of Canadians would have to part with a lot more of their hard-earned cash.

Other readers and commenters have prefaced their comments with such headlines as “The wheels are coming off” and “No way Dion gets it together”.

There is an old adage in politics that you should be wary of declaring victory based on the number of signs because, “signs don’t vote.”  This is certainly true here in Willowdale where a large portion of voters live in condominiums that cluster around Yonge Street, Toronto’s main thoroughfare.  Condo apartment dwellers don’t have lawns signs of course.  There was a by-election here last March and the signs on private property seemed to be split between the Conservatives and the Liberals.  In the end this was deceiving because the victor, Martha Hall Findlay, got much of her support from the high rise set.

To date, I have yet to see a Liberal sign.  Jim Peterson, the long serving former Liberal MP, used to have his signs out when the writ was dropped.  I see nothing so far from the Liberals.  It is not that they don’t have them.  They definitely have an inventory from Hall Findlay’s March 2008 by-election run.  Jake Karns, the Conservative candidate, already has a few signs up (despite being the York-South Weston candidate until a short while ago).   Also fast out of the gate is Green candidate Lou Carcasole.  Lou is running for his second consecutive time.  The NDP’s Rini Ghosh is running again too but I’ve yet to see any presence from her.  As for other candidates, I’ve heard nothing yet but there still a bit of time for them to register and we usually have a number of them.  Willowdale is a pretty diverse place.

So, all in all, it is pretty sleepy here despite a national election campaign now in full swing.

The NDP has selected former city councillor  Rick Downes as candidate. Downes ran in the 2007 provincial election. Downes was a three-term city councillor for King’s Town district before coming within 700 votes of Mayor in 2006. In 2007 he was the provincial NDP candidate for Kingston & the Islands New Democrats, winning 22% of the vote. The party is asking people to re-use signs from the 2007 campaign.  Eric Walton is the Green Party candidate and party signs are up. From 1986 to 1994  Walton was a founding member and the part-time agency director of the Kingston Environmental Action Project (KEAP).  He is the Green Party of Canada shadow cabinet critic/advocate for international affairs.  Liberal speaker of the house Peter  Milliken will face off this year against Brian Abrams, a Kingston lawyer with Templeman Menninga who spent 18 years as an RCMP officer before being called to the bar. According to a Milliken news release “Abrams represents fresh blood for the local Tories, and hopes to tap into the Red Tory sentiment that made Kingston a federal Conservative stronghold in the 1970s and 1980s, in the days of Flora MacDonald.”

Ce dimanche, Stephen Harper déclarait que le gouvernement fédéral avait la responsabilité de promouvoir les deux cultures nationales. Il répondait par le fait même à deux demandes venues du Québec. L’une de Jean Charest affirmant deux jours plus tôt qu’Ottawa devait laisser au Québec les pleins pouvoirs en matière de culture. L’autre de Mario Dumont qui, la semaine dernière, demandait aux chefs des partis fédéraux d’ouvrir la Constitution afin d’y enchâsser la reconnaissance du Québec comme nation et d’ainsi y encadrer le pouvoir fédéral de dépenser.

Actions speak louder than words

Deux ans après que cette reconnaissance eut été formulée, il serait en effet temps qu’elle s’accompagne de gestes concrets de la part des conservateurs, à défaut de quoi ces derniers pourraient en faire les frais durant la campagne. À ce sujet, Jean Charest affirme d’ailleurs qu’il espère que les débats des chefs, qui auront lieu le 1er et le 2 octobre prochain, seront l’occasion de pousser plus loin cette revendication du Québec.

Il serait logique pour le Bloc Québécois de marquer des points sur ces enjeux qui lui sont naturels. Pourtant, à l’heure où la bataille s’annonce des plus serrées au Québec, il n’en faudrait pas beaucoup au Parti conservateur – ou même au NPD qui s’affiche comme étant un parti beaucoup moins centralisateur qu’il ne l’était dans le passé – pour espérer tirer le tapis sous les pieds des bloquistes.

Nul doute que les coupures conservatrices de 45 millions $ dans les programmes culturels seront également à l’ordre des débats. Coupures qui, rappelons-le, ont été dénoncées par une pléiade d’acteurs, de réalisateurs, de producteurs et de gens d’affaires lors du Gala des prix Gémeaux dimanche soir.

Chose certaine, il n’y a rien de plus pressant culturellement parlant que de mettre fin à ce mur à mur culturel qui est plus souvent qu’autrement une source d’irritants pour le Québec. Quand on sait par exemple que des séries canadiennes anglaises comme Regenesis ou Degrassi sont traduites en France, et ce, avec l’argent même du Fond Canadien de la Télévision ou de Téléfilm Canada – deux organismes financés en partie par le Québec –, il y a en effet de quoi se poser de sérieuses questions… surtout quand ces séries sont diffusées au Québec par la suite.

Afin de promouvoir les « deux cultures nationales » telles que le formule Stephen Harper, il convient de permettre à chacune de s’épanouir à sa propre façon et d’ainsi sortir de ce carcan indésirable. Pour ce faire, rien de plus simple que de suivre les voies proposées par Jean Charest et Mario Dumont.

Le ballon est là. Reste à savoir qui, de Gilles Duceppe, Stephen Harper ou Jack Layton, saura le prendre afin de marquer des points durant le débat des chefs…

C’est tout de même curieux que personne n’y ait pensé. La traduction de “Green Party of Canada” donne “Parti Vert du Canada”. Pas de problème, jusque là. Et si “GPC” ne semble pas du tout bizar en Anglais, en Français “PVC” a l’air vraiment curieux pour un groupe écologiste. Au Québec, “PVC” est synonyme de “tuyau de plastique”. Au niveau symbolique, on est pas mal loin de la “verte nature”. Contre productif pour le moins. J’imagine qu’on n’utilisera jamais ce sigle.

Faut dire qu’au Saguenay, il n’y a pas encore de pancarte verte, ni non plus de porte étendard.