By-election results

I have mixed feelings about this week’s by-election results. The Liberals did incredibly well in the Toronto by-elections and increased the Liberal vote percentage in both ridings by several percentage points. The Conservative went down several points in Toronto Centre and went up only .76% in Willowdale. I personally do not consider such a marginal increase in the Tory vote to be very significant. My feelings are mixed however because the by-election results outside Toronto were far worse news for the Liberals. The Liberals lost the Northern Saskatchewan riding badly but I was not surprised by that. I was expecting the Liberals to lose that riding. We badly messed up our chances in that riding by appointing Joan Beatty over the wishes of the powerful and influential David Orchard supporters in the riding. Orchard wanted to run for the Liberals in the by-election and was miffed at being denied a chance to do so. Had Orchard been the candidate it would have still been a tough by-election for the Liberals but the Liberals would have had a fighting chance. Causing so much controversy by appointing Beatty removed any chance the Liberals had in the riding. Now Beatty has no political office and I don’t think she would be allowed run in a by-election for her old Cumberland provincial seat after having already defected from the NDP.


Vancouver Quadra was also bad news for the Liberals. The Liberals held the riding by a mere 151 votes. The Liberal vote in the riding dropped significantly and the Tory vote surged. The Green vote surged as well from low single digits to 13% of the vote. On election night I was shocked when the final two polls came in to see that the Liberal lead had shrunk to 151 votes. Those final two polls must have been won by a landslide by the Tories. Now the Tory central party wants a recount of the results. I highly doubt that a recount would change the outcome but it could delay Liberal Joyce Murray’s ability to take her seat in parliament. From what I read, Tory candidate Deborah Meredith was not consulted on this recount ahead of time and the central party announced the desire for a recount without talking to Meredith first.

So my feelings are very mixed considering the incredibly strong showing for the Tories in the two Western Canadian by-elections. Now there is unfortunately a whole new set of by-elections that the Liberals could always lose. These by-elections would occur if the government does not fall. The riding of Westmount—Ville-Marie is already vacant. It was held by the Liberals and astronaut Mark Garneau is the Liberal candidate. Saint Lambert (south of Montreal) is also already vacant as former Bloc MP Maka Kotto recently resigned his seat to run for the PQ in a provincial by-election. Two more ridings, both held by the Liberals, will become vacant in the near future. Guelph Liberal MP Brenda Chamberlain has announced that she will resign her seat on April 7. Don Valley West Liberal MP John Godfrey has announced that he will resign his seat on July 1 to accept a position as headmaster of a Toronto French school. Guelph is very iffy for the Liberals because the Liberals only won the seat last time with 38% of the vote and only 8% over the Tories. The NDP and Greens had a strong showing in the riding as well. In the recent provincial election, the Greens received a whopping 19.5% of the vote. That means that in a by-election even the Greens could win the riding. The NDP has a star candidate – Thomas King. King is a prominent Metis writer and commentator who talks extensively about Metis and aboriginal issues. The Conservatives have a well known candidate – Guelph City councilor Gloria Kovach. Her ability to be elected to Guelph council could propel her to parliament. The Liberals have a much lesser known lawyer. In a by-election the riding could go to any of the four major parties including the Greens. The Greens are a particularly distinct possibility due to the 19.5% they got in Guelph in the provincial election.

Don Valley West was won by 20% over the Tories with 53% of the vote. Local gay United Church minister Rob Oliphant has been nominated for the Liberals. The Tories have nominated the 2006 candidate John Carmichael. This riding is not as safe for the Liberals as Willowdale and in a by-election it could sadly conceivably go Conservative. The Liberals are very likely to again lose Saint Lambert which they lost in the 2004 election so a Liberal loss there would be no surprise. Sadly none of the upcoming by-elections look like a sure bet for the Liberals.

However, I am still delighted at the wonderful Toronto by-election results. Another bright note is that the Liberals easily won the popular vote of the 4 by-elections put together.

Joan Beatty, David Orchard, Nick Clegg

Dion is appointing Joan Beatty to be the candidate in the Northern Saskatchewan riding federal by-election. I have certain reservations about appointing her over David Orchard but think she is likely to be a better candidate than the disaster that was Jocelyn Coulon. Beatty is an NDP MLA in the Saskatchewan legislature and will have to resign her seat immediately. Because she is running for the federal Liberals, I doubt she would be welcomed back into the provincial NDP to run in the provincial by-election for her seat should she lose the federal by-election. This means that she has no job if she loses the federal by-election. Beatty herself has made some implication that running federally for her is all about being a member of the government. Beatty implies that she did not want to be an opposition member for the next 4 years in the Saskatchewan legislature. Beatty therefore must have believed the Liberals could return to power federally in a shorter time than that and she wanted to be a part of that new governing team. Beatty herself has stated she sees a return to power for the Liberals in the next federal election. I dearly hope that is true.


I would also like to congratulate Nick Clegg on his recent leadership victory that gives him the leadership of the UK Liberal Democrat Party. Under Clegg and his recent predecessors, the Liberal Democrat Party seems clearly to the right of Labour over economic issues. That may have been less so under leader Paddy Ashdown. Prior to the 1997 UK election Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown held private talks about forming a possible coalition government after the 1997 election. The idea would have been that Labour would have only a narrow majority or only a plurality of seats and thus the Liberal Democrats would be the coalition partner to create a stable coalition government. Once the large size of Labour’s majority in the 1997 election became apparent, the possible coalition did not happen. However, in the 2001 election, Labour and the Liberal Democrats coordinated their campaigns in a way that would inflict the most damage on the Conservatives. On a side note, Labour’s vote in the UK is very efficient. The Tories won more votes within England in the last election, but Labour had significantly more seats. This meant that 35% of the vote translated to 55% of the seats in Parliament and a comfortable majority. Since the fall, that parliamentary majority has been the only thing keeping Labour in power. I hope Labour’s fortunes can improve over the coming years.