Liberals Gain Third Party Status

The Liberals are not effective as Her Majesty's Official Opposition due to their failed fund raising .

The latest party financial returns published by Elections Canada show the Liberals raised $793,835 from June through to October, less even than the party's third-quarter donations last year.

The legendary "natural governing party" almost fell behind the NDP, which raised just $38,000 less than the Liberals during the same nine-month period.

The figures were released by Elections Canada only this week, but the Liberals were aware of their financial state well before Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean opened the new session of Parliament with a speech from the throne in mid-October.

Add to that any funds they do raise they have to use to pay off their Leadership convention debt. They have no election war chest. They are now just another third party in the House.

And as those of us on the left know politics is all about economics. And economically the Liberals cannot afford an election. Which determines their political praxis. It really doesn't matter whether they want an election or not, they can't afford it.

So they will shut up and sit on their bums fearful of challenging the Stephen Harper Party. And they will continue to claim it's all because the people of Canada don't want an election. When in fact it is because they are politically and financially bankrupt.

While the Tories awash in cash launch another attack ad campaign, we are in the midst of a protracted election campaign whether the Liberals want it or not.

Tories launch fifth negative ad campaign targeting Stephane Dion

Which Garth Turner notes on his blog. H/T to Take Off,eh for the Turner link.

When I spoke with a top dog in the OLO (Office of the Leader of the Opposition) Friday night, he said they were debating what to do about the new attack ad.

The Liberals cannot respond because they lack the moola. Also it doesn't help when your leader sticks his foot in his mouth and mumbles about increasing the GST.

Stephane Dion's suggestion that he might one day increase the goods and services tax had some of his Liberal troops shaking their heads yesterday.

One Liberal MP actually buried his head in his hands when told of his leader's public musings.

Another simply cursed.

Yep trust the Liberals to blow it. They are not on autopilot they are on auto destruct. And they will end up a third party come the next election.

SEE:

Harper the Mad Dog

Liberals Favorite Tax Cut

Poll Spin

A Reply To Northern Liberal

Jack Layton PM?

LiberalTory Surplus Story

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Poll Spin

I would spin this poll as the NDP gain in popular support, rather than how the MSM spin it. And clearly the NDP's principled stand over the Throne speech has resonated with Canadians.

Canada's ruling Conservatives have slipped slightly in public support but are still well ahead of the opposition Liberals, according to a new poll.

The Ipsos-Reid survey put the Conservatives on 39 percent, down one point from a poll done by the same firm a week before. The Liberals were steady at 27 percent while support for the left-leaning New Democrats rose three points to 17 percent.

SEE:

Jack Layton PM?

Facebook Politicians

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Facebook Politicians

Here is the Facebook listing for Canadian politicians.

It appears that Dion is more popular here than in Quebec. Jack Layton is in second place while our PM places third.

Poor Gilles Duceppe has the least support and he has no pic. And he can't blame Facebook for being Anglo it has hundreds of thousands of members in Montreal, QC and Quebec City, QC .

Name:

Stéphane Dion

Supporters:

11,557

Name:

Jack Layton

Supporters:

9,137

Name:

Stephen Harper

Supporters:

6,815

Name:

Gilles Duceppe

Supporters:

377

While the guy who wants Dion's job may have a lot of friends in high places and the back rooms of the party but not on Facebook. He has a ways to go to catch up with Dion, Layton and Harper.

Name:

Michael Ignatieff

Supporters:

3,969

Lucky for him the other contender for Dion's job, unelected, Bob Rae doesn't have a profile on Facebook. Come to think of it neither does Gerard Kennedy.

In Toronto Liberal Martha Hall Finlay, unelected, is in a race with Dipper Peggy Nash, elected.

Name:

Martha Hall Findlay

Supporters:

259

Name:

Peggy Nash

Supporters:

289

While Olivia Chow of the NDP is in a neck and neck race with Belinda Stronach who is no longer a MP.

Name:

Olivia Chow

Supporters:

2,486

Name:

Belinda Stronach

Supporters:

2,455

There are 166 politicians listed and the majority are men. However women politicians on Facebook are more popular than the majority of their male counterparts.

And of these three are openly gay, Brison, Davis, and Siskay.

Scott Brison, Carolyn Bennet and Dr. Hedy Fry were all wannabe Liberal leader. Maybe Ruby will try next time.

Name:

Scott Brison

Supporters:

1,819

Name:

Ruby Dhalla

Supporters:

1,812

Name:

Libby Davies

Supporters:

1,237

Name:

Carolyn Bennett

Supporters:

987

Name:

Dr. Hedy Fry

Supporters:

745

Name:

Todd Russell

Supporters:

685

Name:

Irene Mathyssen

Supporters:

517

Name:

Tina Keeper

Supporters:

428

Name:

Maria Minna

Supporters:

405

Name:

Bill Siksay

Supporters:

363

Another neck and neck race is between these two, and McGuinty has more name recognition.

Name:

Rebecca Coad

Supporters:

354

Name:

David McGuinty

Supporters:

353

File this under Geekiest photo.

Name:

Gord Zeilstra

Supporters:

395

Poor Paul Martin remains the forgotten PM. Heck the other Martin is more popular.

Name:

Paul Martin

Supporters:

55

Name:

Pat Martin

Supporters:

156

The NDP, Liberals and even the BQ outnumber the Conservatives. In fact it's hard to find any Conservatives outside of the boss in Facebook. Must be the long arm of the PMO. Somebody forgot to send the memo to this guy though.

Name:

Bev Shipley M.P.

Supporters:

278

Of course there is always the possibility that being on Facebook could be embarrassing.

FRENCH government ministers have faced embarrassment from their own children whose entries on Facebook were aired to the public.

Embarrassed ... French PM Francois Fillon's son Antoine has revealed some of his favourite pastimes on Facebook / File

French Prime Minister François Fillon's son, Antoine, 22, is a member of several “high-brow” chat groups including "I am too proud of my poo" which has 93 members who discuss the "16 different types of turd", Telegraph.co.uk reporte


You even find wannabe politicians here. This guy is running against right-whingnut Calgary West Conservative Rob Anders.

Name:

Kirk Schmidt

Supporters:

311

Heck even a wannabe B.C. Green candidate has a profile.

Name:

Dan Grice

Supporters:

312

While this would be B.C. NDP MP is driving a solar car.

Name:

Julian West

Supporters:

245

Being the NDP Defense spokesperson who has taken the lead on opposing Harpers War has not hurt Dawn Black's popularity.

Name:

Dawn Black

Supporters:

221

Despite his efforts to be the Blogging MP Garth Turner seems to have overlooked Facebook.

Name:

Garth Turner

Supporters:

241

And there is even one Senator listed from Alberta no less. And no it's not Bert Brown. Rather it is former leader of the Alberta Liberal Party.

Name:

Grant Mitchell

Supporters:

60

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Jack Layton PM?

The headline is misleading. Harper may be way ahead of Dion but Jack is right behind him in popularity

And in Qubec Jack beats him, Dion and Duceppe (!!!!) in popularity.

If as the article says his popularity is only 'slightly more' than Harpers in Quebec the same could be said of Harper in the rest of Canada. He is only slightly more popular than Jack. If the upcoming election is about leadership Jack wins.

Harper is way ahead in race for best leader, says poll

Nationally, 63 per cent of voters gave Harper "great" or "good" leadership marks, compared with only 36 per cent for Dion.

NDP Leader Jack Layton scored 57 per cent.

In Quebec, Duceppe's leadership rating (63 per cent) was in a virtual tie with Layton's (64 per cent), and only slightly above Harper's at 61 per cent. Dion was last in his home province with 33 per cent.

SEE:

Quebec By-elections

Rudderless Liberals

Layton and May Winners

Ouch

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Taliban Karzai

Well, well, once again it appears that the NDP has had the right policy towards Afghanistan all along.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has offered to meet personally with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and another top insurgent for peace talks.

Something Karzai would have told Parliament if his speech had not been ghost written for him by the Department of Defense. They took particular pains to single out the NDP for criticism in support of their Kandahar operations.

He also took direct aim at NDP Leader Jack Layton's opposition to the war, saying that those who believe the mission was weighted too heavily toward combat and not enough toward reconstruction were wrong.

And while Peter Mackay's office denies it the facts at the time bear it out. Because Layton met Karzai and they discussed peace talks.

The irony is that while Jack promotes peace talks, and is blasted for it being called Taliban Jack, Harper actually has hung out with Warlords connected to the Taliban.

One Blogging Tory tries to spin the bad news this way;

The Difference Between NDP Surrender & Afhganistan Democracy

Once again providing disinformation by generalization; that the NDP is calling for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Which it isn't. Its calling for withdrawal from Kandahar with reduced forces stationed in Kabul doing peace keeping.

And actually would it be any different in Afghanistan if the Taliban were part of parliament? He asked tongue in cheek.


A woman casts her ballot in Afghanistan’s
September 18, 2005, election, for which
Canada provided support.
Afghan voters elected the members
of the Wolesi Jirga (lower chamber
of the National Assembly) and
representatives of 34 provincial councils.


Also See:

NDP

Afghanistan




Job Protection for

Canadian Reservists

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Denis Lebel Nationalist

As newly elected Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean Conservative MP Denis Lebel told CPAC last night "I am a nationalist and Mr. Harper knows that." Well that says it all. Harper played the Mulroney nationalist card and has won over voters from the BQ as well as the ADQ.

In fact this can also be seen in Saint Hyacinthe-Bagot which went neck and neck all night between the BQ and the Conservatives. While the NDP came in third there. In playing the nationalist card Harper bought himself a round of support in rural Quebec. It is the nationalists in rural Quebec who voted Conservative as they do BQ.


The NDP on the other hand are now a viable left wing alternative to the BQ in Quebec. Their position on the War and the Environment resonated with voters in Outremont and will in other urban Quebec ridings come the general election. Mulcair's acceptance speech last night emphasized that he was the Peace Candidate first and then the Environmental Candidate. The war will be as big an issue as the environment come the general election and that bodes well for the NDP.

"Today, Quebec has chosen a new direction," NDP Leader Jack Layton told supporters in Outremont, and praised them for "making history and changing the direction of politics in Quebec and across Canada. For the future we are hoping that what people see here now about the NDP is something that we are going to be able to take to the ballot box, not only in the election here in Quebec but the rest of Canada as well, as people realize we are a national party with representation everywhere," he said.

The Liberals lost last night, in all three by-elections and thus they can no longer claim the mantle of the Natural Governing Party. They can no longer take Quebec for granted and will be forced to retreat to Ontario as their base. They are no more important in Quebec now than the NDP and anyone who says they are a player needs only look at their standing in Roberval and Saint-Hyacinthe after last night. Those are not big numbers.

In a Liberal nightmare scenario-turned-reality, the party lost a traditional Montreal fortress and was reduced to single-digit support in two other Quebec ridings. A party that owned the province through much of Canada's history has now fallen below what was supposed to be the nadir of the post-sponsorship election last year.

Francophones deserted the party in all three ridings on Monday. Their last remaining stranglehold on multi-ethnic, federalist pockets of Montreal was slackened.

And in Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean the Liberal candidate was high profile, a businesswoman who was head of the Chamber of Commerce, while the NDP ran a parachute part time candidate. She certainly lost big for the Liberals.

With high profile candidates the NDP can make a break through in the next election in Quebec while the Liberals will need to rebuild. Something they have failed to do for the past year. Petulant over Dion's victory, the Quebec Liberals abandoned the party to work for Charest and his victory should have been telling about the party's loss of power in Quebec. And last night was the result of their petulance.

The finger-pointing began before the ballot boxes even closed.

Some said it was incompetence on the part of Liberal officials. Others said it was the result of leadership rivals sabotaging the Liberal campaign.

Less than a year after Liberal Leader Stephane Dion moved to reunite his party after a winning a bloody leadership race, that fragile unity was in danger last night and questions swirled about his leadership ability after his party was shut out in three byelections — including the traditionally Liberal bastion of Outremont.

Liberal insiders recount a litany of organizational problems with the Outremont campaign, including an apparent power struggle between members of Dion’s entourage and personnel in the Quebec wing’s headquarters. For example, while some in the Quebec wing tried to keep Dion’s appearances in Quebec to a minimum, personnel in Dion’s office insisted on him making trips to his home province to campaign.

Fuelling the discontent even more was an article published over the weekend in which unnamed Liberal supporters of Dion and Michael Ignatieff traded barbs over whether the poor campaign was the result of incompetence, or of sabotage by Ignatieff supporters trying to undermine Dion’s leadership.

And so while the Liberals regroup some to lick their wounds and others to sharpening their knives. Good thing then that newly elected Saint- Hyacinthe MP Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac is not a Liberal.

Born in Vietnam, Thai Thi Lac was adopted by Quebecois parents and raised from the age of two on a local farm. She speaks French and reminded voters of her local roots by telling them during the campaign that, unlike the other candidates, she knows how to castrate a pig.

SEE:

Sept. 11 for Dion

Politics is Local

Quebec By-elections

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Politics is Local

If the Conservatives win the byelection in Roberval-Lac-St-Jean today it will be because this former BQ stronghold has seen a neighboring riding get largese from their Conservative MP Jean Blackburn, and because the Conservative candidate is a former Mayor who is personally popular as this CPAC report shows. Harpers coat tails will not count as much as local politics.

And while all politics is local, it is also interesting that in CPAC's coverage of all three by-elections the top national issue discussed was Afghanistan.

Quebec By-elections

Carole-Anne Guay looks at the by-election taking place on September 17, 2007 in the Quebec riding of Roberval-Lac-St-Jean.

SEE:

Quebec By-elections

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Quebec By-elections

As fellow blogger Gone Green In Alberta points out CTV has a media bias in its Quebec By-election polls when it comes to the Green Party.

The Greens are ahead of the Conservatives in Outremont. But you wouldn't know it from the way it is posted.

The Greens are ahead of the Liberals too, in Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, again you wouldn't know it from how the poll is set up.

And the only poll that is unaffected is that of Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean, where they are neck and neck with the NDP.

And Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean is the only riding the NDP is not ahead of the Liberals.

It is not just NDP candidate Thomas Mulcair who is popular in Outremont, and Quebec in general, it is also Jack Layton who has scored well in polling of Quebecers.

In Quebec, support for Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe now sits at 17 percent (up 1 point), compared with 29 percent for Stephen Harper (down 3 points), 18 percent for Jack Layton (up 3 points) and 10 percent for Stéphane Dion (down 2 points).



Leader Approval. There have been some shifts in the approval ratings of the party leaders over the past three months. The proportion of Canadians approving of the job being done by Stephen Harper has fallen below the 50-percent mark for the first time since he became prime minister and now stands at 48 percent (down 6 points from March). Approval of Stéphane Dion has declined once again to 38 percent (down 2 points) and the proportion expressing disapproval of him has risen to 48 percent (up 5 points). Jack Layton has the highest approval rating of any of the party leaders at 56 percent (up 2 points), and a similar share of voters in Quebec approve of the job being done by Gilles Duceppe (53%, down 3 points). Approval of Elizabeth May has dropped three points to 42 percent.

Which leaves Dion as the dud. And it doesn't help when the dud chooses his doppelgänger to run. But then Dion has been more of a similcarum of a leader than a real leader.

The biggest loser of all, if Mulcair pulls it off, would be Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. The loss would be a devastating blow to his already shaky leadership.

"If his party underperforms, Dion -- as an untested leader -- will take the biggest hit," wrote Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hebert on Friday.

"By all indications, Dion's candidates in Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot and Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean are not even in contention for second place."

The degree of pressure on a leader also depends to a large extent on how closely the party's candidate in a by-election is identified with the leader.

This plays heavily in Outremont because Coulon was handpicked by Dion, who also blocked Justin Trudeau from the nomination, though some Liberals maintained Trudeau would have been the party's best hope in the riding, said Antonia Maioni, director of McGill University's Institute for the Study of Canada.

"Dion's claim was that he'd win back Quebec, and this is what potential Liberal voters are going to look at, and more so people in the party. If he fails to capture the riding, one of the safest Liberal seats in the province, it's not going to play well outside Quebec."

"Coulon is sort of Stéphane Dion's alter ego," said Antonia Maioni, a political scientist at Montreal's McGill University. "He's like Stéphane. An academic, quite reserved, very well spoken. And so in many ways, this is not only a by-election, but it's also a referendum on Stéphane Dion because he's chosen someone who resembles him the most."

SEE:

Rudderless Liberals

Layton and May Winners

Ms. Joe Clark

Waiting For Dion

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Atlantic Alberta Accord

Alberta and Atlantic Canada share an accord. The Federal NDP have gained in the polls in both provinces. This is an interesting poll result for the NDP in Alberta. It is the first time they have been in second place in the polls.

The Conservatives are continuing their free-fall in Atlantic Canada, taking only 13.9% of the vote compared to the Liberals 49.2%, the NDP’s 23.9% and the Greens’ 13.1%. These fortunes are mirrored in Alberta where the Liberals find themselves at 12.6%, marginally ahead of the Greens at 12.1%. The Conservatives lead that province with 52.1% of decided voters with the NDP in second place at 23.2%.

Which bodes well for my prediction of the impact a provincial election in Alberta would have on Federal Conservatives. The concern about the 'out of towners' impacting on Stelmach's regime has not been missed by the man himself.

"We've had over 500,000 new Albertans move to the province within the last six years."

SEE:

Williams Out Deals Stelmach

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Not Before Alberta Votes

Hey, hold off those plans to bring down the Harpocrites.

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe vowed Thursday — in the wake of the deaths of three Quebec-based soldiers this week — to bring down the Conservative government if it does not commit to a full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2009.

He said if Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not soon notify NATO and participating countries of Canada's withdrawal plans, the Bloc will vote against the expected autumn throne speech with the hopes of bringing the government down.

Ignoring Kyoto law could bring down Conservatives, opposition warns

Federal opposition parties say a Conservative decision to ignore a law requiring them to find ways to meet Kyoto targets is a provocation that could spell the end of the minority government.

"It is an explicit and important example of how the government is not respecting the wishes of the majority of elected parliamentarians," NDP Leader Jack Layton said. "They can't expect our party to take that kind of disrespect lying down."

Not until we have a provincial election in Alberta, folks.

Why? Because with our unelected Premier and his gang of Tired Old Tories messing things up, business as usual in the One Party State, the PC's are in for a trouncing at the polls when an election is finally called.

A loss of seats and popular support in Alberta for Stelmach and the PC's will mean the conservative voting base will also be weakened. It is this same voting base that the Harpocrites take for granted in all Blue Federal Alberta. With a seismic voting shift provincially there will be a resulting Tsunami away from the Harpocrites.

With the influx of 'Eastern bums and creeps' from the ROC, the political landscape in Alberta has changed. And not in the Tories favour. Instead the mass of these are like other Albertans, middle of the road Red Tories, Lougheed liberals by any other name, wondering where to go.

Across the province, the percentage of undecided voters doubled, from 18% in January to 36% in August.

Dem's da folks dat don't know much about the opposition parties, dey just know dey don't like da folks in power.

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