2008 CANADA ELECTION » David Pagé (Bloc Québécois)

NDP as the official opposition?

David Pagé (Bloc Québécois) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:09:10 +0000

Recently, and especially since the two debates, Jack Layton has been claiming that his party could form the Official Opposition on October 14th! But when you look at electoral history and the number of ridings where the NDP is seriously in play, could this really happen?

I was hoping all of you could chip in with your point of view on the local campaigns in your region, your province, and your riding. Can the NDP really win more than 50 ridings throughout Canada and set a record for New Democratic MPs?

Based on what Iâ€™ve seen, there are only a few ridings where the NDP has a chance.

In Newfoundland, the NDP could take St. Johnâ€™s South-Mount Pearl, while Prince Edward Island is out of the question. In New Brunswick, only Acadie-Bathurst is on the table. They have more opportunities in Nova Scotia in the ridings of Halifax, Halifax-West, Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, and Sackville-Eastern Shore.

In Quebec the best chance is in Outremont, with long-shots in Hull-Aylmer and Gatineau.

Ontario is more fertile ground for the New Democrats, such as the ridings in the north (eight of them), Ottawa-Centre, the three in Hamilton and maybe Welland. The NDP can also potentially pick up four or five seats in Toronto.

In Manitoba, the NDP could win four or maybe five ridings, and probably only one each in Saskatchewan (Palliser) and Alberta (Edmonton-Strathcona).

British Columbia is the NDPâ€™s real chance for a breakthrough, where they could take seats from both the Conservatives and the Liberals. We could be talking about as many as 15-18 ridings. And then thereâ€™s one in the North.

So, in total itâ€™s a maximum of 50 ridings where the NDP has even a slim chance. This is not enough to form the Official Opposition (even the Bloc has a better chance of that!). Unless, of course, the Liberals have such a bad result that they canâ€™t even win their â€˜chÃ¢teaux-fortsâ€™!

(Thanks to Ã‰ric Grenier for his help editing.)

Laurentides-Labelle… -2-

David Pagé (Bloc Québécois) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:15:10 +0000

Les pancartes conservatrices sont finalement apparuent dans le nord de la circonscription. Le NPD tant qu’Ã lui n’a des affiches que dans le grand “Tremblant”, lieu d’origine du candidat. Il est cependant clair que les machines de ces deux partis sont moins nombreuses que celles du Bloc QuÃ©bÃ©cois et du LibÃ©ral.

Fait intÃ©ressant pour les amateurs de statistique; Le Bloc QuÃ©bÃ©cois a toujours obtenu la majoritÃ© des votes dans les limites actuelles de la circonscription. La plus faible majoritÃ© du parti fut d’un peu moins de 7000 voix lors de l’Ã©lection catastrophique pour le Bloc de 2000.

Il est clair en tout cas que mÃªme Ã‰lections Canada n’avait pas prÃ©vu ce dÃ©clenchement d’Ã©lection puisque les bureaux de la Directrice du scrutin dans la circonscription ne sont pleinement fonctionnels avec tÃ©lÃ©phones et tout que depuis dimanche le 14 septembre soit une semaine aprÃ¨s le dÃ©clenchement!

Ã€ suivre…

Laurentides-Labelle… c’est parti!

David Pagé (Bloc Québécois) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:51:35 +0000

Day 6 of the campaign! Liberal and Bloc candidate areÂ definitely ahead in this race here! Liberal candidate, Pierre Gfeller and Bloc QuÃ©bÃ©cois candidate and actual MP for the riding Johanne Deschamps have posters all around the riding. Not any from the NDP, Conservative or green north of Mont-Tremblant. The Conservative Guy Joncas and the NDP David Dupras both are from Tremblant while Gfeller is from Nominingue and Deschamps from Mont-Laurier…

The Bloc is the only party yet to have there office open both in the north and the south of the riding while Gfeller is driving the Liberal mobile, aÂ kind of “office on wheel”Â … for those who don’t know, Laurentides-Labelle is aÂ 3 hours drive to cross from the south to the north…

More to come, stay tune!