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.

Retirements, and then more retirements

I am shocked at all the politicians these days who are quitting politics either due to health concerns or strains on their family. First Jennifer Mossop announces that she will not run again after only a single term in the Ontario legislature due to her lack of time with family because of her job. At the same time a sitting cabinet minister, from Hamilton Mountain, Marie Bountrogianni, announced that for similar reasons she would not run again for the Ontario legislature. Then yet another woman cabinet minister, Mary Anne Chambers, announced that she too would not run again for the Ontario legislature after only a single term for health reasons. She apparently has health concerns and therefore wants to leave politics to allow herself to slow down and recover. She apparently even told Dalton McGuinty the gory details of her health concerns. She is not leaving because she thinks she’s leaving a “sinking ship”. It’s obvious she really does have health concerns. I am thrilled however to learn that her replacement candidate will be another black woman.

At the Federal level, Stephen Owen is also quitting his seat near the end of July. He also had previously announced that he wouldn’t run again but once again was probably expecting to retire at a spring election. When that didn’t happen he seems to have decided to become a professor. I do not understand why Owen is quitting politics. My only guesses are that he was a cabinet minister and does not like sitting in Opposition and/or Dion is leader and Dion was not who Owen endorsed for leader. Former MP and Conservative spokesman John Reynolds claims that the Liberals are vulnerable in Owen’s Vancouver Quadra. Owen however won by almost 12,000 votes. The Tories apparently have yet to select which candidate will run in Quadra. The Liberals will run former BC Liberal cabinet minister Joyce Murray. She ran in the 2006 election in New Westminster-Coquitlam and received only 23% of the vote, which was low enough to allow NDPer Dawn Black to defeat Conservative incumbent Paul Forseth. Murray’s former provincial riding was New Westminster. She is however seemingly a good fit for Vancouver Quadra. I do not see how the Conservatives can win the riding if the last numbers from Mustel (a polling firm that polls British Columbia federal voting intentions using decently sized samples) that I saw hold: Conservative, 33% (-4 from general election), NDP, 29% (about the same as general election), Liberal 28%(the same number as the general election if you round up). I liked seeing this poll because it showed that Liberal support in BC is holding steady, and at least staying where it was at the last general election. If Liberal support in BC stays where it was at the general election at the time of the by-election, I do not see how the Conservatives can win Vancouver Quadra.


What is absolutely shocking is that Saskatchewan Liberal MP Gary Merasty is going to quit his seat at the end of August to get a job in the private sector. He says it is due to his lack of time with his family. But it is shocking because Merasty is a first-time MP. How could a first-time MP who has only been in office for 18 months and been a very successful MP quit before his first term in Parliament is even finished? How can this happen? He only won his seat by less than 70 votes, but he would have had a strong chance of re-election at the next general election. Any chance he’s hoping that the Liberals will find a new strong candidate for the by-election and hopefully win it due to the fallout from the federal budget (oil revenues), the Kelowna Accord (this is a riding with a high aboriginal population and the Tories abandoned the Kelowna Accord and have a poor record on aboriginal issues), and the wheat board (which the Tories are defanging and/or abolishing following a plebiscite with unclear and leading questions)? Perhaps Merasty thinks he may as well quit now so as to allow a by-election while those fallouts are still fresh in people’s minds. I am still just shocked that such a successful MP would just so suddenly quit politics.