The NDP would very much like to repeat the 2011 election, thank you.
The pharmacare legislation and replacement workers ban were only achieved by holding a gun to the Liberal Party's head (I loaded one of the figurative bullets, will provide details if asked) and have come generally too late in the term to have become entrenched. Both are under threat of repeal from either a Conservative or Liberal majority.
I believe they call these weathervane bills, they flip when the wind changes.
It's not half a loaf, it's moldy and crumbling bread, if we are truly being realistic.
The realignment of Ontario provincial politics has made the Federal NDP see itself much more as a vehicle for power.
And there's no better bully pulpit than being Leader of the Opposition.
[NDP] leaders are not fools and can tell the difference between half a loaf and a loaf.
Well, "Liberal, Tory, same old story" is a time-honoured chant at NDP gatherings.
Now, some may argue that that doesn't apply anymore following the manning-ization of the Conservatives, but I think Mouseland is still held in high regard among the faithful.
I'll also observe(*) that when the 1984 saw the Tories triumphant, the Liberals annihilated, and the New Democrats treading water, it was regarded as very much a fantastic election for the NDP.
That said, they likely didn't get much accomplished during the Mulroney years, as compared to the 1970s when they were, at least for awhile, helping to prop up a Liberal minority.
(*) From my perspective, as a then-outsider but budding sympathizer. New Democrats seemed genuinely joyous, and the media sincerely awed.
I found that, over the years, my conversations with my NDP friends on these elections divided us into two distinct schools of interpretation. If one may use sports metaphors, they were cheering "We're number two!! We're number two," while I was observing that it was back to the bleachers for people trying to move things forward. You can be inside the room where decisions are made, or outside it.
As far as bully pulpits go, Mr Mulcair's vigorous presence as opposition leader was the most impressive performance I've seen in my years in Ottawa-- he wiped the floor with Mr Harper's ministers, but it reaped very little. Canadians appear to focus on political campaign commercials rather than parliamentary activity-- a source of regret to us politics nerds, but a cruel reality.
I remember part of the thing about 1984 for the NDP is that they weren't just closing in the Liberals but they won a relatively large number of seats in absolute numbers - 30 if memory serves - which is more than the 24 they have now in a larger House. (1984 was Liberals 40 NDP 30 and the rest to the PCs if memory serves.)
At the moment 338Canada is projecting somewhere in the order of 17 seats for the NDP if an election were held right now. That's unsually low compared to their recent numbers (mostly in the 20s) but I'm not seeing anything in these numbers to suggest that being number two after the next election is a likely prospect.
I remember part of the thing about 1984 for the NDP is that they weren't just closing in the Liberals but they won a relatively large number of seats in absolute numbers - 30 if memory serves - which is more than the 24 they have now in a larger House. (1984 was Liberals 40 NDP 30 and the rest to the PCs if memory serves.)
Thing is, though, the NDP in '84 actually LOST a seat, and declined in the popular vote relative to 1980. So, it was really just a matter of the party holding its own simultaneous with the Liberals having an utter collapse.
I remember part of the thing about 1984 for the NDP is that they weren't just closing in the Liberals but they won a relatively large number of seats in absolute numbers - 30 if memory serves - which is more than the 24 they have now in a larger House. (1984 was Liberals 40 NDP 30 and the rest to the PCs if memory serves.)
Thing is, though, the NDP in '84 actually LOST a seat, and declined in the popular vote relative to 1980. So, it was really just a matter of the party holding its own simultaneous with the Liberals having an utter collapse.
Thanks - somehow I’d got the impression from they actually gained seats in 1984, but obviously I was wrong.
I found that, over the years, my conversations with my NDP friends on these elections divided us into two distinct schools of interpretation. If one may use sports metaphors, they were cheering "We're number two!! We're number two," while I was observing that it was back to the bleachers for people trying to move things forward. You can be inside the room where decisions are made, or outside it.
As far as bully pulpits go, Mr Mulcair's vigorous presence as opposition leader was the most impressive performance I've seen in my years in Ottawa-- he wiped the floor with Mr Harper's ministers, but it reaped very little. Canadians appear to focus on political campaign commercials rather than parliamentary activity-- a source of regret to us politics nerds, but a cruel reality.
To extend that analysis a little more, there is a world of difference between having the power to implement policy as His Majesty's Government and just lobbying the government to implement policy. As you have said before, the purpose of a political party is to achieve government each and every time out. The NDP provincially in Manitoba, Alberta, BC and Ontario now firmly believe that. The fall of the Liberals in 2011 showed they were vulnerable federally. As I said, the analysis in the NDP federally has changed since the 1980's.
I remember part of the thing about 1984 for the NDP is that they weren't just closing in the Liberals but they won a relatively large number of seats in absolute numbers - 30 if memory serves - which is more than the 24 they have now in a larger House. (1984 was Liberals 40 NDP 30 and the rest to the PCs if memory serves.)
Thing is, though, the NDP in '84 actually LOST a seat, and declined in the popular vote relative to 1980. So, it was really just a matter of the party holding its own simultaneous with the Liberals having an utter collapse.
Thanks - somehow I’d got the impression from they actually gained seats in 1984, but obviously I was wrong.
Understandable you'd get that impression. The NDP results were discussed as if they were absolutely stupendous.
They did gain 11 seats in '88, but I have.a vague recollection of those results being viewed as somewhat disappointing.
I found that, over the years, my conversations with my NDP friends on these elections divided us into two distinct schools of interpretation. If one may use sports metaphors, they were cheering "We're number two!! We're number two," while I was observing that it was back to the bleachers for people trying to move things forward. You can be inside the room where decisions are made, or outside it.
As far as bully pulpits go, Mr Mulcair's vigorous presence as opposition leader was the most impressive performance I've seen in my years in Ottawa-- he wiped the floor with Mr Harper's ministers, but it reaped very little. Canadians appear to focus on political campaign commercials rather than parliamentary activity-- a source of regret to us politics nerds, but a cruel reality.
To extend that analysis a little more, there is a world of difference between having the power to implement policy as His Majesty's Government and just lobbying the government to implement policy. As you have said before, the purpose of a political party is to achieve government each and every time out. The NDP provincially in Manitoba, Alberta, BC and Ontario now firmly believe that. The fall of the Liberals in 2011 showed they were vulnerable federally. As I said, the analysis in the NDP federally has changed since the 1980's.
After the 2021 Mr Singh lacked a plurality of seats and had a choice of obtaining concessions from one of the two leading parties. One was not satisfactory, and the other was really not satisfactory.
Which is not really relevant. It's not an either/or choice. Bargain on the way to a larger seat count? Fine. But there is no longer an assumption in the NDP that it will not be Official Opposition and a government in waiting.
Which is not really relevant. It's not an either/or choice. Bargain on the way to a larger seat count? Fine. But there is no longer an assumption in the NDP that it will not be Official Opposition and a government in waiting.
Here we have a difference of opinion. I say it's extremely relevant. It was an either/or choice-- well, perhaps there was a third way, of argument, and hoping that one might persuade the government of the day.
Unlike other countries, Stetson, we do not seem to be very good at this overseas espionage thing.
Well, glass half-empty, half-full. If we're the first country to get the idea to use drones to make soccer training films, that's a pretty impressive innovation. But if everyone else is doing it, and we're just the ones dumb enough to get caught, not so impressive.
(And, yes, I think it's probably closer to the latter.)
John the Baptist this year will be remembered principally for the windstorm and power failure. 😞
I’ve been reading Stephen Maher’s book on JT. Appreciative but not adulatory. Only about a third of the way into the book so will report back when finished.
Finally finished Maher’s book. Almost finished it several weeks ago except for the last chapter and Epilogue.
In his review Ibbitson called it the second draft of history as far as JT was covered (journalism being the first draft of course) but it feels to me more like draft 1.5. Helpful on some things over the last few years when I wasn’t paying attention (especially the pre-PM years) but not really enough time for the dust to settle and do a fresh assessment of what went right and wrong and why. Worth reading as a reminder of the last 8 years of Canadian politics and some preliminary thoughts on what it’s all added up to.
John the Baptist this year will be remembered principally for the windstorm and power failure. 😞
I’ve been reading Stephen Maher’s book on JT. Appreciative but not adulatory. Only about a third of the way into the book so will report back when finished.
Finally finished Maher’s book. Almost finished it several weeks ago except for the last chapter and Epilogue.
In his review Ibbitson called it the second draft of history as far as JT was covered (journalism being the first draft of course) but it feels to me more like draft 1.5. Helpful on some things over the last few years when I wasn’t paying attention (especially the pre-PM years) but not really enough time for the dust to settle and do a fresh assessment of what went right and wrong and why. Worth reading as a reminder of the last 8 years of Canadian politics and some preliminary thoughts on what it’s all added up to.
I actually have a real aversion to books about politicians whose careers are still in progress. It seems like the writers are jumping the gun to capitalize on the guy still being considered relevant, but the analysis is basically on the fly, and could be made outdated quite easily.
I guess that would include Ibbitson's own book on Harper, credibly written though it is. Newman's Renegade In Power was written after Diefenbaker's defeat, but at a time when his future prospects were still unclear. Post-1967, it does feel like settled history, because the reader knows that Dief never returned to power.
CORRECTION: Apparently, Renegade In Power was published a few months BEFORE the tories got voted out.
But it still seems very up-to-date as per the time of publication. In addition to the hindsight of the post-67 readership, it uses the past tense throughout, which I find always adds a sense of authority to political writing.
As a member of the NDP I completely disagree. This agreement was on borrowed time. As much has been extracted as can be gotten. The Liberals had become a liability and have been cut loose.
Please be under no misunderstanding about what was done in lterms of actual implementation. The pharmacare and dental care plans are shallow half-measures taken late in the day. The Federal replacement worker ban isn't operative until after the next election (it was a sick joke). The railways were just ordered back to work which is an NDP red line.
The NDP will not benefit in the next election. They will return fewer seats. If the NDP thinks it has a chance to be the alternative to the Liberals down the road, they have another think coming. Singh is not Jack Layton. I never thought I would see any form of dental care or pharmacare in my lifetime.
Some of this looks like optics… though I suppose we will see soon enough if Singh actually pulls the plug before next year. Given where their numbers are right now I can’t see this making sense at the moment.
In other news Ford has said there may be an election in Ontario in 2025. I sense he would much rather have Trudeau as an enemy than Poilievre as a friend federally.
The NDP will not benefit in the next election. They will return fewer seats. If the NDP thinks it has a chance to be the alternative to the Liberals down the road, they have another think coming. Singh is not Jack Layton. I never thought I would see any form of dental care or pharmacare in my lifetime.
The NDP will not benefit in the next election. They will return fewer seats. If the NDP thinks it has a chance to be the alternative to the Liberals down the road, they have another think coming. Singh is not Jack Layton. I never thought I would see any form of dental care or pharmacare in my lifetime.
It worked in Ontario.
If "worked" means giving the Tories two consecutive governments with large majorities...
There's really no point in being Number 2 if number 2 is a distant second, without any clear path to becoming number 1. At the moment 338 Canada is projecting Tories 93 seats to 16 for NDP and 12 for the Liberals in Ontario, and I'm at a loss to understand how that is a victory for anyone but the Tories. Of course that's based on an election being held right now which is not going to happen, but all indications are that the Tories are going to call an election sooner rather than later and with those numbers it's not hard to understand why.
And in case you hadn't noticed, the NDP are currently projected to win 16 seats (down from their current mid-20s) federally. The Liberals are not doing particularly well either but 81 > 16 by a large number. Of course this could all change, and it's probably to the NDP's benefit to see if they can improve their numbers by distancing themselves from the Liberals before an election is called, but obviously that means not forcing an election right this minute, or most likely any time much before well into 2025.
338 Canada also has a long, documented record of being down on the NDP between elections but then popping up closer to elections. The NDP's Alberta seats are not felt to be vulnerable while 338 keeps saying they are write-offs. The other loss is the loss of one seat in Northern Ontario due to redistribution. Sad but that's population for you.
I'm not a Ford fan by any means but seeing as vote splitting did not deliver Ford his majorities then the rest really doesn't matter. Being number 2 is definitely better than being number 3.
The word “documented” makes me curious to see the documentation… given that 338 is basically a poll aggregator ISTM this is really saying that the NDP polls better at elections than in between elections which may well be true but if it is true I’m sure there must be evidence somewhere. I’ve found 338 pretty reliable on calling the bottom line as the date approaches - much more so than any of our best guesses in this forum have ever been.
Given that neither the Liberals nor the NDP have remotely competitive numbers in Ontario right now I don’t think second vs third here and now is nearly as important as the potential for improvement. I’m not seeing a lot of profile from either party right now but we may need to wait for Ontario voters to get fed up with the Tories before this becomes clear.
338 Canada also has a long, documented record of being down on the NDP between elections but then popping up closer to elections. The NDP's Alberta seats are not felt to be vulnerable while 338 keeps saying they are write-offs. The other loss is the loss of one seat in Northern Ontario due to redistribution. Sad but that's population for you.
I'm not a Ford fan by any means but seeing as vote splitting did not deliver Ford his majorities then the rest really doesn't matter. Being number 2 is definitely better than being number 3.
As an aside, having just looked at the current Alberta predictions - of the two seats the NDP won in 2021, 338 predicts one of them as a safe NDP win and the other as a toss-up with the Conservatives. Neither one of them as a write-off.
Having worked for and, in recent years, supported, candidates who came in second, I have never found the "We're Number Two!! We're Number Two!!" cheer particularly comforting, nor am I enthralled by the vision of a two-party system, with its failure yo-yo approach to policy-- especially when one of the two sides is absorbing its politics from south of the border at an especially unhealthy time.
When you've been number 3 for a while it's a nice step up. Being Oficial Oposition gets you more and better media coverage.
Marsupial:
338's sear-prediction algorithm is known in NDP circles to routinely under-predict the NDP between elections and then always rises in prediction as election day approaches. It's a conceit of their algorithm.
I’m not finding “known in NDP circles” very persuasive, especially since the one example you gave happens to be wrong. But whatever. They’re projected to lose a third of their seats federally if an election is held right now and whatever the quirks of the algorithm might be if I were running the NDP that would make me wary of forcing an election right now.
Yeah, and 338 had no NDP seats in Alberta two weeks ago last time I checked.
It currently predicts no seats in Atlantic Canada. Halifax (the seat) under the new boundaries is only 900 votes down. Ottawa Centre is competitive for NDP
They currently have òne NDP seat in Alberta, the rest are predicted Tory and all the predicted seat losses come from BC where we lose to the Tories.
Yeah, and 338 had no NDP seats in Alberta two weeks ago last time I checked.
I'm not clear about something. Why do you consider a seat count of 0 or 1 to be implausible for Alberta? I'm not neccessarily saying it won't be higher, but I think it's well within the realm of plausibility that it won't be.
To be clear, it predicts one safe NDP seat in Alberta and the other as a toss-up with the Tories. The Tories seem to marginally higher because the seat is coloured blue, but the actual prediction is that they can’t predict.
I’m not surprised we’re seeing some back and forth on individual seats but that said there has been a consistent trend over the last few months and it has been not good for both Liberals and NDP as against the Tories. Undoubtedly if an election were called right now it would focus voters’ minds on whether they really want what they’ve been telling the pollsters they want, and let’s hope the answer to that is not as unambiguous as what the numbers are telling us right now. Or as we unambiguous as it has proved to be (twice) in Ontario.
Yeah, and 338 had no NDP seats in Alberta two weeks ago last time I checked.
It currently predicts no seats in Atlantic Canada. Halifax (the seat) underage New boundaries is only 900 votes down. Ottawa Centre is competitive for NDP
Yeah, and 338 had no NDP seats in Alberta two weeks ago last time I checked.
I'm not clear about something. Why do you consider a seat count of 0 or 1 to be implausible for Alberta? I'm not neccessarily saying it won't be higher, but I think it's well within the realm of plausibility that it won't be.
I do consider 1 or 0 to be implausible for Alberta at the present time. Both seats are in Edmonton, Strathcona and Griesbach. I'll not wager a gain to three but I wouldn't call either a toss up. It is, as I said a symptom of 338's prediction algorithm as it depends its assumptions for vote distribution and efficiency.
I am being more seat-specific than 338 is as clearly I am employing more local factors and knowledge than they do. That is always the risk when you try to translate polls to seats.
I wouldn’t rely on 338 to predict the results in individual seats, at least not at this stage in the game, though that said their predictions closer to the event are not bad:
I would rely on them more heavily for overall numbers and trends which include both highs and lows and a midpoint that they estimate as having the highest degree of probability.
When you've been number 3 for a while it's a nice step up. Being Oficial Oposition gets you more and better media coverage.
*snip*
In terms of getting things done, this is not a step up, but a stumble. This is not the Olympics with silver and bronze medals, but it is simply Win or Lose.
AFAIK the only serious advantage is parliamentary precedence, where the Opposition Leader gets priority, and in staffing for the OLO and research. Likely foreign embassies will pay more attention. There is still no seat at the table nor even as with the confidence arrangement, when ministers accommodated policy initiatives (albeit with about as much fervour as they accommodated their own).
None of this explains to me why Mr Singh did not respond to Mr Polièvre's incredible insult about parliamentary pension in P2's open letter... in the good old days, there would have been a challenge to meet at dawn...
We are always going to disagree on that, but not as much as you may think. I never said it was winning, but the glass is most definitely fuller than when you're number 3. When you are Official Opposition you get more media coverage, better media coverage and a better chance to use that media to shift the narrative in the direction you prefer. That is not nothing, media being the oxygen of politics.
As for that ad (had to look it up) I see no reason to dignify Captain Soundbite with a response. Besides, if you remember the NDP's Dean Del Mastro attack ad, we've done the same thing. So take it like an adult and save the vitriol for the campaign.
Pistols at dawn? This hardly even rates. I've sent dirtier tactics during local campaigns.
I have a political nerd friend who had a good theory of the differences between the Liberals and NDP, which illustrates the two schools of thought. (This does not reflect on any shipmate).
The question isn't really about power but about what method and tradeoffs you are going to use to achieve power; that is the road to power and what you do when you get there. There are advantages and disadvantages in both models.
Model A is a "sales" based party. The NDP is a classic example. The Conservatives in their transformation from the PC party of old have become this sort of party (The PC's were more Model B and it killed them). Model A parties have a rather unchanging ideology and believe that elections are a chance to sell that ideology. The goal is to sell that ideology well enough that you get a majority government eventually. The plus side is that you almost always get a coherent party political agenda. The downside is that you spend a lot of time out of power.
(Sidenote: I never saw the NDP/Liberal deal as anything more than a temporary expedient. It was never an end in itself.)
Model B parties are brokerage-based parties. The Liberals are a classic example, The strategy is broker a winning coalition out of various interests. The asset is that this strategy wins power often. The downside is that a supporter may not have there interests addressed and may be discarded and if you are along-term supporter, you have to be ready for policy reversals. In other words the political agenda can be incoherent and changeable and there are costs for that for individual supporters. On a larger scale this model is vulnerable if the coalition it attempts to broker becomes incoherent and incompatible (see the PC's in the 1980's) in which case the meltdowns are spectacular and often fatal. The New Deal Coalition in the US also melted down this way.
The brokerage model is also vulnerable in the presence of two sales-based parties which form a spectrum pair. The Conservative/NDP dichotomy is the classic example in Canada where it has marginalized or eliminated the provincial Liberal party in all provinces west of Ontario and appears to be happening in Ontario for the past eight years. The two sales based parties split the soft supporters between them and eliminate the brokerage-based party.
The open question in Ontario is what effect moving to a western-province style political system would have federally. It could harm the federal Liberal Party's longtime strategy if Ontario takes its provincial habits federal as other provinces do.
Lots to chew on here. As I’ve said before, I think the jury is still out on what’s happening in Ontario; the only party that is really doing well at the moment is the Tories. I’m not convinced that the NDP’s Model A is really going to be more successful at winning back Tory seats than the Liberals’ Model B. We shall see what happens.
Alberta seems to be a cautionary tale about the potential effect of wiping out the Model B party on the left, given that what we’ve seen in Alberta is essentially right-wing governments within living memory with the exception of a one-term NDP government when the vote on the right split. Recent experience in Saskatchewan isn’t particularly encouraging either, particularly in comparison to what Saskatchewan politics used to be like.
The other wrinkle here is what happens to a Model A party when it starts to form governments. We’ve seen zero NDP governments federally and just one in Ontario, and I’m not really familiar enough with provincial politics in the West to comment intelligently on how the NDP has governed in practice. But at least from a distance Labour in the UK seems to have become much more a (sometimes fractious) big tent than a Model A party with a consistent ideology.
(Note to anyone who may be tempted: my last comment was not intended as an invitation to turn this thread into Yet Another Thread About UK Politics.)
Stephen Maher has a piece on this in the Globe today. Unfortunately it’s subscriber-only, but he discusses the forces undermining centrist brokerage parties in Canada. He doesn’t seem very bullish on the Ontario NDP (“unwilling to put water in their wine” is how he describes them) and he seems to see some kind of Liberal-NDP merger as more probable outcome federally than the NDP coming into power as is.
I have been hearing talk about a Liberal-NDP merger since the 1970s-- about a half-century now. It seems to exist primarily at the opinion page level. Over the years there were occasional local pacts where the Liberals in a place with 3-4 seats will quietly be absent from the campaign in one of them, with the silent understanding that the NDP may concentrate its town-wide forces in that place but there is usually grassroots discontent when that happens.
In my experience, the discussion is usually influenced by single malt, and fades away as the bottle empties. Canadian politics is full of unexpected phenomena.
Alberta seems to be a cautionary tale about the potential effect of wiping out the Model B party on the left, given that what we’ve seen in Alberta is essentially right-wing governments within living memory with the exception of a one-term NDP government when the vote on the right split.
Actually, the Alberta PCs under Lougheed and Getty basically governed as centrist keynesians, switching to austerity politics under Klein in the early 90s, at a time when conservatives elsewhere were also heading in that direction. (Hello, Mike Harris!) Overall, I'd say they fit the model of a brokerage party pretty closely, but traditionally minus an alternative BP to fill in when voters get tired of them.
(Oddly enough, left-wing critics of the Alberta conservatism are given to simultaneously complaining that a) Alberta is a one-party state, and b) the red-tory Lougheed was the only PC premier who was any good. Even though the PCs came closest to being a one-party state under Lougheed.)
Recent experience in Saskatchewan isn’t particularly encouraging either, particularly in comparison to what Saskatchewan politics used to be like.
Romanticization of Saskatchewan by progressives was still a thing into the 1990s("Socialist farmers who invented medicare, you can't make this stuff up!" in the words of the ever-twee Allan Fotheringham), but has obviously dissipated since the political effects of resource-extraction began to be felt. Nowadays, "Alberta and Saskatchewan" has the same connotations that "Alberta" alone used to have, in discussions about the ideological make-up of various regions.
Thanks for the perspective on Alberta. That makes sense to me.
Re. a Liberal-NDP merger I wouldn’t have thought it was a likely prospect but then I wouldn’t have thought the demise of the Liberal party as we know it was a likely prospect either. I’m not really convinced that what we’re seeing federally and in Ontario is anything other than a blue moment within the scope of ordinary politics, but I thought it was interesting that Maher seemed to be endorsing SPK’s view that there was a long term trend against the Liberals at work. (Though as I was saying he didn’t seem convinced that the trend would necessarily benefit the NDP as currently constituted, which is rather odd since these consequences seem to be two sides of the same coin.)
I was reading on the CBC app today that if an election was held today, the Conservatives would win 218 seats, Liberal 64, Bloc 38, NDP 21, and Green 2.
Comments
The pharmacare legislation and replacement workers ban were only achieved by holding a gun to the Liberal Party's head (I loaded one of the figurative bullets, will provide details if asked) and have come generally too late in the term to have become entrenched. Both are under threat of repeal from either a Conservative or Liberal majority.
I believe they call these weathervane bills, they flip when the wind changes.
It's not half a loaf, it's moldy and crumbling bread, if we are truly being realistic.
The realignment of Ontario provincial politics has made the Federal NDP see itself much more as a vehicle for power.
And there's no better bully pulpit than being Leader of the Opposition.
Well, "Liberal, Tory, same old story" is a time-honoured chant at NDP gatherings.
Now, some may argue that that doesn't apply anymore following the manning-ization of the Conservatives, but I think Mouseland is still held in high regard among the faithful.
That said, they likely didn't get much accomplished during the Mulroney years, as compared to the 1970s when they were, at least for awhile, helping to prop up a Liberal minority.
(*) From my perspective, as a then-outsider but budding sympathizer. New Democrats seemed genuinely joyous, and the media sincerely awed.
As far as bully pulpits go, Mr Mulcair's vigorous presence as opposition leader was the most impressive performance I've seen in my years in Ottawa-- he wiped the floor with Mr Harper's ministers, but it reaped very little. Canadians appear to focus on political campaign commercials rather than parliamentary activity-- a source of regret to us politics nerds, but a cruel reality.
At the moment 338Canada is projecting somewhere in the order of 17 seats for the NDP if an election were held right now. That's unsually low compared to their recent numbers (mostly in the 20s) but I'm not seeing anything in these numbers to suggest that being number two after the next election is a likely prospect.
Thing is, though, the NDP in '84 actually LOST a seat, and declined in the popular vote relative to 1980. So, it was really just a matter of the party holding its own simultaneous with the Liberals having an utter collapse.
Thanks - somehow I’d got the impression from they actually gained seats in 1984, but obviously I was wrong.
To extend that analysis a little more, there is a world of difference between having the power to implement policy as His Majesty's Government and just lobbying the government to implement policy. As you have said before, the purpose of a political party is to achieve government each and every time out. The NDP provincially in Manitoba, Alberta, BC and Ontario now firmly believe that. The fall of the Liberals in 2011 showed they were vulnerable federally. As I said, the analysis in the NDP federally has changed since the 1980's.
Understandable you'd get that impression. The NDP results were discussed as if they were absolutely stupendous.
They did gain 11 seats in '88, but I have.a vague recollection of those results being viewed as somewhat disappointing.
After the 2021 Mr Singh lacked a plurality of seats and had a choice of obtaining concessions from one of the two leading parties. One was not satisfactory, and the other was really not satisfactory.
Here we have a difference of opinion. I say it's extremely relevant. It was an either/or choice-- well, perhaps there was a third way, of argument, and hoping that one might persuade the government of the day.
Well, glass half-empty, half-full. If we're the first country to get the idea to use drones to make soccer training films, that's a pretty impressive innovation. But if everyone else is doing it, and we're just the ones dumb enough to get caught, not so impressive.
(And, yes, I think it's probably closer to the latter.)
Thanx
Gramps
Finally finished Maher’s book. Almost finished it several weeks ago except for the last chapter and Epilogue.
In his review Ibbitson called it the second draft of history as far as JT was covered (journalism being the first draft of course) but it feels to me more like draft 1.5. Helpful on some things over the last few years when I wasn’t paying attention (especially the pre-PM years) but not really enough time for the dust to settle and do a fresh assessment of what went right and wrong and why. Worth reading as a reminder of the last 8 years of Canadian politics and some preliminary thoughts on what it’s all added up to.
I actually have a real aversion to books about politicians whose careers are still in progress. It seems like the writers are jumping the gun to capitalize on the guy still being considered relevant, but the analysis is basically on the fly, and could be made outdated quite easily.
I guess that would include Ibbitson's own book on Harper, credibly written though it is. Newman's Renegade In Power was written after Diefenbaker's defeat, but at a time when his future prospects were still unclear. Post-1967, it does feel like settled history, because the reader knows that Dief never returned to power.
But it still seems very up-to-date as per the time of publication. In addition to the hindsight of the post-67 readership, it uses the past tense throughout, which I find always adds a sense of authority to political writing.
Please be under no misunderstanding about what was done in lterms of actual implementation. The pharmacare and dental care plans are shallow half-measures taken late in the day. The Federal replacement worker ban isn't operative until after the next election (it was a sick joke). The railways were just ordered back to work which is an NDP red line.
It was time to cut the cord. Good riddance.
In other news Ford has said there may be an election in Ontario in 2025. I sense he would much rather have Trudeau as an enemy than Poilievre as a friend federally.
It worked in Ontario.
If "worked" means giving the Tories two consecutive governments with large majorities...
There's really no point in being Number 2 if number 2 is a distant second, without any clear path to becoming number 1. At the moment 338 Canada is projecting Tories 93 seats to 16 for NDP and 12 for the Liberals in Ontario, and I'm at a loss to understand how that is a victory for anyone but the Tories. Of course that's based on an election being held right now which is not going to happen, but all indications are that the Tories are going to call an election sooner rather than later and with those numbers it's not hard to understand why.
And in case you hadn't noticed, the NDP are currently projected to win 16 seats (down from their current mid-20s) federally. The Liberals are not doing particularly well either but 81 > 16 by a large number. Of course this could all change, and it's probably to the NDP's benefit to see if they can improve their numbers by distancing themselves from the Liberals before an election is called, but obviously that means not forcing an election right this minute, or most likely any time much before well into 2025.
I'm not a Ford fan by any means but seeing as vote splitting did not deliver Ford his majorities then the rest really doesn't matter. Being number 2 is definitely better than being number 3.
Given that neither the Liberals nor the NDP have remotely competitive numbers in Ontario right now I don’t think second vs third here and now is nearly as important as the potential for improvement. I’m not seeing a lot of profile from either party right now but we may need to wait for Ontario voters to get fed up with the Tories before this becomes clear.
As an aside, having just looked at the current Alberta predictions - of the two seats the NDP won in 2021, 338 predicts one of them as a safe NDP win and the other as a toss-up with the Conservatives. Neither one of them as a write-off.
Marsupial:
338's sear-prediction algorithm is known in NDP circles to routinely under-predict the NDP between elections and then always rises in prediction as election day approaches. It's a conceit of their algorithm.
It currently predicts no seats in Atlantic Canada. Halifax (the seat) under the new boundaries is only 900 votes down. Ottawa Centre is competitive for NDP
They currently have òne NDP seat in Alberta, the rest are predicted Tory and all the predicted seat losses come from BC where we lose to the Tories.
I'm not clear about something. Why do you consider a seat count of 0 or 1 to be implausible for Alberta? I'm not neccessarily saying it won't be higher, but I think it's well within the realm of plausibility that it won't be.
I’m not surprised we’re seeing some back and forth on individual seats but that said there has been a consistent trend over the last few months and it has been not good for both Liberals and NDP as against the Tories. Undoubtedly if an election were called right now it would focus voters’ minds on whether they really want what they’ve been telling the pollsters they want, and let’s hope the answer to that is not as unambiguous as what the numbers are telling us right now. Or as we unambiguous as it has proved to be (twice) in Ontario.
It currently predicts no seats in Atlantic Canada. Halifax (the seat) underage New boundaries is only 900 votes down. Ottawa Centre is competitive for NDP
I do consider 1 or 0 to be implausible for Alberta at the present time. Both seats are in Edmonton, Strathcona and Griesbach. I'll not wager a gain to three but I wouldn't call either a toss up. It is, as I said a symptom of 338's prediction algorithm as it depends its assumptions for vote distribution and efficiency.
I am being more seat-specific than 338 is as clearly I am employing more local factors and knowledge than they do. That is always the risk when you try to translate polls to seats.
https://338canada.com/record.htm
I would rely on them more heavily for overall numbers and trends which include both highs and lows and a midpoint that they estimate as having the highest degree of probability.
As for that ad (had to look it up) I see no reason to dignify Captain Soundbite with a response. Besides, if you remember the NDP's Dean Del Mastro attack ad, we've done the same thing. So take it like an adult and save the vitriol for the campaign.
Pistols at dawn? This hardly even rates. I've sent dirtier tactics during local campaigns.
The question isn't really about power but about what method and tradeoffs you are going to use to achieve power; that is the road to power and what you do when you get there. There are advantages and disadvantages in both models.
Model A is a "sales" based party. The NDP is a classic example. The Conservatives in their transformation from the PC party of old have become this sort of party (The PC's were more Model B and it killed them). Model A parties have a rather unchanging ideology and believe that elections are a chance to sell that ideology. The goal is to sell that ideology well enough that you get a majority government eventually. The plus side is that you almost always get a coherent party political agenda. The downside is that you spend a lot of time out of power.
(Sidenote: I never saw the NDP/Liberal deal as anything more than a temporary expedient. It was never an end in itself.)
Model B parties are brokerage-based parties. The Liberals are a classic example, The strategy is broker a winning coalition out of various interests. The asset is that this strategy wins power often. The downside is that a supporter may not have there interests addressed and may be discarded and if you are along-term supporter, you have to be ready for policy reversals. In other words the political agenda can be incoherent and changeable and there are costs for that for individual supporters. On a larger scale this model is vulnerable if the coalition it attempts to broker becomes incoherent and incompatible (see the PC's in the 1980's) in which case the meltdowns are spectacular and often fatal. The New Deal Coalition in the US also melted down this way.
The brokerage model is also vulnerable in the presence of two sales-based parties which form a spectrum pair. The Conservative/NDP dichotomy is the classic example in Canada where it has marginalized or eliminated the provincial Liberal party in all provinces west of Ontario and appears to be happening in Ontario for the past eight years. The two sales based parties split the soft supporters between them and eliminate the brokerage-based party.
The open question in Ontario is what effect moving to a western-province style political system would have federally. It could harm the federal Liberal Party's longtime strategy if Ontario takes its provincial habits federal as other provinces do.
Alberta seems to be a cautionary tale about the potential effect of wiping out the Model B party on the left, given that what we’ve seen in Alberta is essentially right-wing governments within living memory with the exception of a one-term NDP government when the vote on the right split. Recent experience in Saskatchewan isn’t particularly encouraging either, particularly in comparison to what Saskatchewan politics used to be like.
The other wrinkle here is what happens to a Model A party when it starts to form governments. We’ve seen zero NDP governments federally and just one in Ontario, and I’m not really familiar enough with provincial politics in the West to comment intelligently on how the NDP has governed in practice. But at least from a distance Labour in the UK seems to have become much more a (sometimes fractious) big tent than a Model A party with a consistent ideology.
(Note to anyone who may be tempted: my last comment was not intended as an invitation to turn this thread into Yet Another Thread About UK Politics.)
But my initial reaction is 🤣.
In my experience, the discussion is usually influenced by single malt, and fades away as the bottle empties. Canadian politics is full of unexpected phenomena.
Actually, the Alberta PCs under Lougheed and Getty basically governed as centrist keynesians, switching to austerity politics under Klein in the early 90s, at a time when conservatives elsewhere were also heading in that direction. (Hello, Mike Harris!) Overall, I'd say they fit the model of a brokerage party pretty closely, but traditionally minus an alternative BP to fill in when voters get tired of them.
(Oddly enough, left-wing critics of the Alberta conservatism are given to simultaneously complaining that a) Alberta is a one-party state, and b) the red-tory Lougheed was the only PC premier who was any good. Even though the PCs came closest to being a one-party state under Lougheed.)
Romanticization of Saskatchewan by progressives was still a thing into the 1990s("Socialist farmers who invented medicare, you can't make this stuff up!" in the words of the ever-twee Allan Fotheringham), but has obviously dissipated since the political effects of resource-extraction began to be felt. Nowadays, "Alberta and Saskatchewan" has the same connotations that "Alberta" alone used to have, in discussions about the ideological make-up of various regions.
Re. a Liberal-NDP merger I wouldn’t have thought it was a likely prospect but then I wouldn’t have thought the demise of the Liberal party as we know it was a likely prospect either. I’m not really convinced that what we’re seeing federally and in Ontario is anything other than a blue moment within the scope of ordinary politics, but I thought it was interesting that Maher seemed to be endorsing SPK’s view that there was a long term trend against the Liberals at work. (Though as I was saying he didn’t seem convinced that the trend would necessarily benefit the NDP as currently constituted, which is rather odd since these consequences seem to be two sides of the same coin.)
Granted, things will change as time passes.