Head Tale

So, I thought I might have something profound to say for my final post in this series.

But, as I sit here at 6pm on election night, watching election results (CTV on TV, CBC streaming on YouTube) plus about half a dozen other web sites open in my browser, and after spending most of the day pulling vote for my local NDP candidate, I think I’ll go to a patented “random thoughts” post with a bit of a live stream thrown in for good measure.

(Hit “Reload” to see the latest updates.)

• In some ways, I like that the polls close in a staggered fashion since the blackout on results until BC polls closed never worked, especially once the Internet allowed us to easily share information across the country.  But right now, the TV is showing 32 Liberals leading in the Maritimes and no other party holding even a single seat.  So I wonder if that could influence voters in other parts of the country who haven’t voted yet?
• It’s a weird thought but the reality is that the NDP could lose seats tonight and end up with more power.  What that means is they had their 2011 breakthrough and won Official Opposition but that was all but meaningless since Harper got a majority. But now, if the NDP end up with the balance of power in a minority situation, they could end up actually having more power and get more of their priorities moved forward.
• If the NDP *do* support the Liberals in a minority government, my hope is that some movement on proportional representation is one of their first joint initiatives.
• Weird factoid of the day: Pierre Trudeau was originally a supporter of the CCF in Quebec but he realised he’d have a better chance with the Liberals.
• If the Liberals do win, I will take some great measure of satisfaction in Stephen Harper losing to a Trudeau after Harper was basically inspired to get into politics to oppose the legacy of Pierre Trudeau.
• In my world, we always talk about how much impact social media has (or doesn’t have) on elections.  But I think a bigger question is how much impact polls have. I mean, every night the TV reports the *national* polls showed the Liberals growing.  That’s not necessarily relevant to local races yet it can unduly influence local races.
• Could CTV give more coverage to their former colleague, Seamus O’Regan?  (Lloyd Robertson has a good quip though: “You’re looking at a guy who now has a real job; not just a TV personality!”)
• The failing fortunes of the NDP are offset in my mind every time they announce another CPC Minister has lost their seat. 🙂
• The length of the campaign is something else that will also have to be discussed.  I think the CPC thought they’d bankrupt the other parties but it allowed the “Just Not Ready” candidate to *get* ready and grow.
• Lots of nautical analogies in the Maritimes: “Trudeau’s rising tide”, Peter McKay: “Tides come in and tides go out”, etc.
• Here was my post-mortem after the 2011 election.
• Watching Nenshi on CTV.  I suspect, like past Calgary mayors, he’s a Liberal.  But if he ran for the NDP, I wonder – could he be our Obama?
• They just showed the Trudeau kids playing with light sabres.  I’m getting to like that man more and more. 😉
• 7:20pm – Blue Jays are spanking the Royals 9-2 in the bottom of the third.  There are studies that show correlations between positive sporting events and politics. Does Trudeau get the Blue Jays rub if they win tonight (or go on further?)
• Hypothetical: Would things have been different if Stephen Harper hadn’t run again since the current government is so closely associated with him?  I love that one final act of hubris by that arrogant bastard could upend a decade of trying to replace the Liberals as the natural governing party of Canada in small, incremental steps.
• Hindsight now but how would the NDP have fared under a different leader?  (I’ll probably have more to say more on that in the days to come but right now, I’m still a Mulcair supporter for the most part for a whole host of reasons.)
• 26,000 watching the YouTube livestream of the CBC feed
• 7:32pm – Still 33-0 for the Liberals.  C’mon Quebec!
• 7:40pm – Liberals declared as government.  Still no call about majority or minority.
• 7:50pm – Outside pick for turning point in the campaign?  When Justin Trudeau beat Patrick Brazeau in that charity boxing match.  No one expected lanky Trudeau to beat heavily-muscled, bad-ass looking Brazeau but everyone underestimated Trudeau but he proved them wrong. Now history is repeating itself. (And Brazeau ended up voting for Trudeau too!)
• 7:53pm – Conservatives declared as Official Opposition.
• 7:58pm – Andrew Scheer is declared in Regina-Qu’Appelle undermining my theory that the NDP having a candidate with rural bonafides would help.  It did a bit but not enough obviously.  Oh well, at least I got to spend this beautiful election day walking around my riding while pulling vote for the NDP and chatting with some of my neighbours. 😉
• I wonder if Scheer will be in the conversation to replace Harper.  I don’t see his name popping up in the speculation but think he’s an under-the-radar contender – young, roots in Ontario but long time in the West, bilingual, obviously ambitious as the youngest Speaker in history. [2016-04-28 – Edit: Called it! A Leader Post story today speculates that Scheer could run.  One point I forgot to make – as Speaker he has more distance from the widely disliked Harper-era votes & policies than most other potential candidates.]
• 8:18pm – Liberals flirting with majority status.  Cons at 98, NDP at 23, BQ 9 and Green 0.  My pre-election predictions were *way* off.
• I had Liberals 126, Cons 124, NDP 85, Green 2, Bloc 1.
• 8:22pm – “Vegas Girl” Ruth Ellen Brosseau has won.  Yay for proving all the haters wrong.  (Uhm, I should do a quick blog search to make sure I never insulted Trudeau for being “just a teacher”) 😉
• 8:25pm – All along, I was hoping the pollsters got it wrong.  They did but not in the way I hoped.
• 8:33pm –  Liberal Majority Government called.  Well, shit.
• 8:36pm – Can we *please* ban public polling in the next election?  Did any of them get it even close?
  
• 8:37pm – I had mixed emotions after the 2011 loss – NDP becomes Official Opposition but Harper majority.  It’s sort of the same thing this time – Liberals gain majority (which is not great but *way* better than Harper) but NDP collapses.
• 8:44pm – It’s great that both kids pick tonight to refuse to go to sleep.  Pausing election coverage is worth than pausing a sporting event!  (Hmm, time to go check Blue Jays’ score.)
• 10-4 in Bottom of 7th.  At least there’s something that all Canadians can get behind! 😉
• 8:48pm – weird thought but maybe this loss was necessary for the NDP to learn some lessons – stay true to your values, don’t take anything for granted, find a way to get around the interests of powerful corporations/media/individuals – which could help them in the next election.
• Could this signal a return to (relative) normalcy for Canada?  Let’s hope so.
• Who will replace Stephen Harper?
• If he’d lost seats but held the balance of power, no.  But Mulcair might have to resign too.  At the same time, he had a huge challenge coming in as Jack Layton’s successor which were huge shoes to fill.
• To look on the bright side, I’m a lot more used to the NDP having 25-35 seats than 100+. 😉
• 8:57pm – Brian Mulroney (!) with a very insightful statement from a guy who’s been there.  “I won because I wasn’t Pierre Trudeau.  Jean Chretien won because he wasn’t me.  And now Justin Trudeau has won because he isn’t Stephen Harper.”
• Also gets a dig in on Harper – “Of course, I never had to face a loss like this.”
• Given the way Harper has degraded our politics, I fully expect a bunch of venomous attacks on Justin Trudeau similar to what Rachel Notley gets in Alberta, completely against the stated will of the people.  Sad but we seem headed down the American road where ultra-right wing partisans just attack, attack, attack no matter what logic or common decency might say.
• 308/CBC PollTracker had the Liberals Max at 185.  They’re at 185 right now.  So technically not wrong but the Average prediction was 146 seats so honestly, quite a bit off.
• 9:06pm – 37,000 watching the YouTube stream
• Shea just posted this on Facebook: “So VERY VERY VERY happy to see Harper get the boot! I was hoping for the NDP to hold the balance of power in a Liberal minority but anything is better than the last ten years. Be good to us Justin.”
• 9:15pm – Regina-Lewvan is currently 35.5% Conservative and 35.2% NDP with the Liberals at 26.8%.
• Reading lots of speculation about how things might’ve been different if Jack Layton hadn’t passed. Interesting to consider but there are so many “What if’s” you can go to – I think I already asked “What is Harper had resigned before this campaign?”  “What if someone else had won the NDP leadership?”  “What if the Conservatives hadn’t raised the issue of the niqab?”, etc. etc.
• 9:27pm – is weed legal yet?  Because I think I’m hallucinating.
• 9:36pm – Tom Mulcair wins his seat.
• 9:37pm – …and Mulcair quickly takes the stage to speak now that his seat is confirmed.
• 9:46pm – Somewhat ironic, especially with the Bloc leading in 10 ridings but Gilles Duceppe is behind in his riding and might be the only leader to lose his seat.
• Just realised my times will be a bit off on some of these updates as I’ve been watching but pausing at various points to deal with kids, chat with Shea, post to Facebook, etc.  I’m about 5-7 minutes behind.
• 9:52pm – Line of the night Shea saw on a CBC feed: “When Harper wakes up tomorrow, Nenshi will be his mayor, Notley will be his Premier and Trudeau will be his Prime Minister.”
• 9:58pm – CPC has announced Stephen Harper will be stepping down but no sign of the guy yet.
• 10:00pm – Here he comes.  This will have to be my highlight of the night I guess.  Don’t let the niqab hit you in the ass on your way out the door! 😉
• 10:14pm – yep, Gilles Duceppe is the only leader to lose his seat.  So there’s that.
• 10:15pm – Harper refuses to say he’s resigning in his concession speech and instead, has the party issue a press release.  Sore loser to the end.
• 10:21pm – Here comes the new Prime Minister.  I’ll steal a Facebook comment from a friend since I agree with most of it:
  While not quite the shift to the left that I wanted, I can go to bed tonight with a true feeling of optimism that the next 4 years will not be filled with policies of austerity, fear, xenophobia / islamophobia, and racism.I’m hopeful we can get back on track for environmental preservation, and freedom of science and research.I’m disappointed C-51 will remain, I hope C-24 is repealed. I wish for electoral reform. I hope for removal of mandatory minimum sentencing. I hope for policies decriminalizing drugs, and ending the war on drugs.

  I hope our military stays out of the middle east, and instead we can focus on relief and aid. I hope we take a serious look at our endorsements and relationships with Isreal.

  I hope the Liberal party rejects the Trans-Pacific-Partnership.

  I hope there will be a proper inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

  Overall I’m happy we’ve voted for change. And stood up against fear, austerity, and deceit.

• Trudeau says NDP activists (well, the translator said “militants”) should remember the Liberals recently suffered a major setback but not to be disappointed or stop fighting for what they believe.
• Regina-Qu’Appelle Lewvan and Kenora are two *very* close ridings I’m watching but I’m sure there are others.
• Nice story from Trudeau about telling a Muslim mother that he’d fight for her daughter’s right to wear whatever *she* chooses.  “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”
• Wow – as he wraps up, our new Prime Minister almost sounds like Jack Layton. 😉
• And Craig Oliver on CTV is now *slamming* Harper – intolerance, lying, cheating, report on your neighbours.  “This is a night many of you feel we should say nice things about Mr. Harper but he was caught lying.”  Wow.  But Oliver’s also implying that Mr. Harper started his mandate by promising openness and hope and accountability and truth and almost everything Trudeau just promised.  “Some of us wonder if that’s even possible in modern politics anymore.”  Ball’s in your court, Justin.  Prove him wrong.
• NDP total of ~41 seats is still one of their best results ever (43 in 1988 and then obviously 103 in 2011 was going to be hard to repeat, no matter what.)
• Update: NDP ended up with 44 seats after taking all of a handful of close races they were in.  So yes, still second best result of all-time which is a positive.  
• 2011 – 61% turnout; 2015 – 67% turnout (with votes still being counted so not a final number)  (Prairies at 69%)
• We *need* proportional representation!  NDP got 19% of vote and only 12% of seats.  Will Trudeau keep that commitment now that he has a majority or will he once again forget now that his party is out of the wilderness?
• Bill Daniel Blaikie just won in Elmwood-Transcona in a nail biter!
• YES!!! Erin Weir has just won by a razor-thin margin (143 votes out of  48,000 cast!  And that out of 63,000 registered voters) in Regina-Lewvan  over Conservative Trent Fraser. (If he’d lost, I’d have felt major guilt.  I had the choice to volunteer in his campaign which I knew was the best chance for an NDP win in Regina but elected (ha!) to stay in my home riding and close to home out of loyalty to where I live.)  I got to know Erin a bit during the last Sask NDP Leadership campaign and he really grew on me – I think he’s uber-smart and contrary to what some people see as his stiff-economist personality, he’s actually super quick and funny too.

On Monday, either Thomas Mulcair or Justin Trudeau could become the Prime Minister of Canada.

Forget attack ads.  Forget haircuts & beards. Forget party policy.  Forget polls. Forget strategic voting.

If you only look at them side-by-side, who is more qualified to be the leader of a G-7 nation, Thomas Mulcair or Justin Trudeau?

Mulcair: 60 years old
Trudeau: 44 years old

Mulcair: Second oldest of 10 children
Trudeau: Eldest of three children

Mulcair: Father was a middle class insurance agent who was laid off from his job later in life
Trudeau: Father was Prime Minister of Canada

Mulcair: One grandparent was a tailor known for making suits for Montreal lawyers and other well-to-do clients
Trudeau: Inherited a $1.2 million dollar trust fund from his wealthy grandparent

Mulcair: Worked tarring roofs in Montreal as a young man
Trudeau: Worked as a ski instructor in Whistler as a young man

Mulcair: Lawyer by training
Trudeau: Teacher by training

Mulcair: Has worked in public service since 1979
Trudeau: Has been involved in public advocacy for a number of causes since 2000

Mulcair: First elected to public office in 1994
Trudeau: First elected to public office in 2008

Mulcair: Became party leader in 2012 after the passing of Jack Layton
Trudeau: Became party leader in April 2013 after the third Liberal leadership contest since 2006

A choice quote about each from a recent Sun News article called “The Truth About Trudeau” (The Sun News chain is very right wing so it’s interesting to see their take on the Conservatives’ two main rivals.)

Mulcair:

If you’re that anti-Harper there’s a very credible and experienced alternative in NDP Leader Tom Mulcair. It’s been clear this campaign that Mulcair is more moderate and pragmatic than Trudeau on a number of issues. Plus Mulcair has the mature “serenity” – a phrase he used to describe himself to the Sun editorial board Tuesday – to represent Canada ably on the world stage. Trudeau lacks that.

Trudeau:

It’s almost as if there’s a pact among my colleagues in the media not to talk about it…how shockingly inexperienced Trudeau is for someone seeking to lead our country.

In terms of career experience, all the 43-year-old’s chalked up is a couple years as a teacher in British Columbia. After that, he entered an engineering program but soon dropped out, then started another MA program but dropped that too. He became an MP shortly after, in 2008.

In other words, he spent the years before entering politics dabbling in this and that, drifting about without any commitment to work or school.

Mulcair:  Best known in Parliament for being “Prosecutor-in-Chief” of Stephen Harper during the Duffy affair revelations…

Trudeau: I’m trying to be fairly fact-based with this post and this will look like a cheap shot but I’ll say Trudeau is *arguably* best known in Parliament (so far) for calling another member a “piece of shit” and other verbal gaffes…

Much of this election has been about the battle between the NDP and Liberals for who would be voters’ choice as the “change” party.

Except, the reality is that one of these parties’ last time in government ended in scandal and one party is the NDP who are the only party that represents real change for Canada in both precedent and in practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewDn92Edthk

Lately, it’s true that the Liberals were flying high in the polls so, almost as if to remind Canadians of their party’s history of scandal, the Liberals’ campaign co-chair chose to resign yesterday after it was revealed that he had been contacting oil companies to tell them how to best lobby the government to get pipelines passed.

The email included, somewhat awkwardly for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, advice on how the energy company could go about lobbying a minority government led by Trudeau.

Earlier in the day, when the Canadian Press first broke the story, the Liberals stood by Gagnier, saying he did not break any ethical standards.

Despite that, it appears the optics were bad enough that Gagnier’s tenure with the party was to come to a quick end — just four days before Canadians head to the polls to elect a new government.

To put it another way, we haven’t even counted the ballots and the Liberals are already back to the old ways of corruption, influence peddling and scandals at the highest levels.

The choice is clear.

If you want change on October 19, don’t go back to the scandals of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin – vote NDP!

via Broadbent Institute

Originally coined by Bill Clinton advisor, James Carville, the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” has become a useful shorthand for what many elections are really about no matter how much politicians try to focus voters on other meaningless distractions.

This holds true in the current Canadian election where surveys have shown that 60% of people feel that the economy is the single most important issue.  And if you figure in that “jobs” comes in at 20%, that means up to 80% of Canadians feel that some aspect of our economy is the most important issue in this election.

So let’s take a look at some of the…

Facts About The Canadian Economy Under Steven Harper

• Simply put, the Harper Conservatives have the worst economic record of any government in Canada’s post-war history.
  

  The most damning aspect of the Conservative legacy is not a short-term cyclical downturn. It is a longer-run failure to stimulate growth, job-creation, innovation, and investment.

• A big part of this is their unrelenting focus on the resource sector instead of diversification so that when the price of oil tumbles, the entire economy slumps.
• Canada has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs under his watch.  Steven Harper has the lowest change in the employment rate since Louis St. Laurent and is the first government to have negative growth since John Diefenbaker 50 years ago
• The Canadian dollar is at its lowest level in nearly a decade when only five short years ago, it was trading at par with the US dollar.
• We’ve had not one but two recessions under Steven Harper’s government.  (To steal a line from Tom Mulcair:  “Steven Harper’s Conservatives are the only government who, when asked about the recession they governed through, can say ‘Which one?'”)
• Contrary to their campaign messages, the Harper government raised, not lowered, your taxes.
• As illustrated by the graph at the top of this post, Harper has had the lowest GDP growth of any Canadian Prime Minister in the post-war era and is the only one with <2% growth.
• The Harper Conservatives have repeatedly focused on policies that benefit the wealthiest Canadians rather than those who struggle with less.
• Compared to other G7 nations, the Harper Conservatives rank last in 7 of 16 indicators of economic performance.

Conservatives tend to be perceived as best party for the economy but, as much as it pains me to say, the Liberals actually have a *way* better track record than the Conservatives in managing the economy in good times and bad.

Beyond that, the fact is that the NDP actually have the most fiscally responsible record of any governing party in Canadian history – a huge surprise to most people who buy into the idea of “tax and spend socialists”.  But the reality is, going back to Tommy Douglas, the NDP realised the banks and corporate sector were not allies for their ambitious plans to improve the lives of everyday workers.  So by keeping the books balanced, they stood the best chance of getting things done (not to mention the benefit of not paying a bunch of money in interest.)

There’s a lot of commonly accepted wisdom you hear that reflect the increasing amount of cynicism that people have towards the political process…

They’re all the same.
There are definitely good and bad people involved in all parties.  But saying that all politicians are bad simply because they’re politicians is as simplistic (and wrong!) as saying “all teachers are the same” or “All doctors are the same” or whatever.

My Vote Doesn’t Matter
Even if you’re in a riding where your preferred party isn’t likely to win or you vote for a fringe party, it’s still important to vote.  Beyond that old line about “You can’t complain if you don’t vote” (which many people agree with but I’m not a particular fan of since I think everyone has the right to complain no matter what!), there’s the reality that, in recent elections where turnout usually hovers around 60% and is split between 3+ parties, there’s not a single election where 100% turnout couldn’t have changed the results of the election.  I think I read somewhere that any party that gets over 10% of the vote (?) in a riding also gets a refund on a portion their eligible election expenses so even if you live in the heart of Tory Alberta and vote NDP or Liberal, you’re helping the democratic process by ensuring those parties get some money back for their efforts.

I Don’t Have Time
There are people whose personal circumstances do make it more of an effort to get to the polls – a single mom with three kids, someone without transportation, or whatever. But a federal election happens only once every four years or so.  And since this is the longest election campaign in history, there’s been plenty of time to make arrangements to get to the polls.  Most parties also have “get out the vote” (GOTV) efforts on election day where volunteers will offer rides to the polls or help facilitate the process for you in any way that they can.  As my grade seven teacher used to say when someone said they didn’t have time to get their homework done, “You didn’t have the time or you didn’t *make* the time?”

The Government Sucks/They Don’t Do Anything For Me Anyhow
General cynicism about politics can lead to increased cynicism about the important role of goverment.  This is even helped along (hopefully unintentionally) by the media, which should have a role in impartially covering the issues but end up creating cynicism by covering politics and elections like they were horse races or sporting events.  Even political parties can contribute the cynicism with their attempts to discourage certain groups that are unlikely to vote for them from participating or just by giving the impression that they don’t listen to the public.

But ultimately, you don’t have to agree with everything the government does (I don’t like high military spending for instance) to still recognize that part of your social contract as a citizen of our society is that by pooling our resources, via the government, everyone gets to share in the many important services that the private sector can’t or won’t provide as effectively – healthcare, highways, economic policy and about a zillion other things that we all benefit from. If you try to take a larger view and not be cynical about things that only affect you but keep a focus on how our society is doing overall, you can approach these issues in a less cynical fashion.