HarboursVille
Nanaimo Ladysmith is one of those British Columbia ridings where the decision could by decided by the mail-in ballots.
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Update Sat Sept 25th: Dipper Barron wins in Nanaimo, Lib Miao wins in Richmond, Lib Noormohamed wins in VanGranShaughnessyBigHouseFlippedOrNotLand
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Apparently, there are approximately 8,000 mail-in/special ballots that are currently being verified by Elections Canada. The plan is to start counting them tomorrow/Friday.
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Here are the current numbers in the riding:
Paul Manly, the Greeniac, was the riding's MP in the previous parliament. Currently, he's on the outside looking in by 2,800 votes. Here is what he had to say about the situation late on election night:
The Dipper, and current leader by 1,000 votes, Lisa Marie Barron had this to say early the morning after the election:
As for the second place Con?
Well, who knows what Tamar Kronis thinks and/or has to say about anything, including the fact that the PPC vote in the riding is considerably greater than the difference between herself and Ms. Barron.
After all, as of today, the last time she said anything to anybody on social media was September 6th.
Yes.
You read that right - fourteen days before the actual election.
Imagine that!
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StealthCon?...It's a CPC strategy that started in, surprise!, the Harper era.
And we thank longtime reader e.a.f. for bringing the multitude of different demos in Nanaimo-Ladysmith to our attention awhile back.
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5 comments:
Biggest gift for myself was the FPTP lesson served to the Cons. More vote but less seats. I favour proportionality of some sort.
Chuck--
Agreed, re: proportionality because this.
(of course, the linked graphic above illustrates precisely why the Big Red Laurentian Machine said no to PR)
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New Van-Gran Liberal theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEOeTX1LqM
S-B--
Faster than lightning!
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Man! What a ride!
Unfortunately my girls in Vancouver-Granville were disappointed with their riding’s result—but happy, nonetheless, that the NDP still holds the balance of power. It was a very good stab by the NDP—best ever in this riding.
JT’s promise to make the 2015 election the last to use FPtP might have been more politic if it was completed. Liberals probably had in-house polls that said voters liked the status quo: no alternative was promised and interference was evident. At least they could have tried to see if the result was consistent with every other referendum over the last 18 years (three in BC): pro-rep was rejected in each one. Anyway, JT just won his third mandate, so it couldn’t have hurt much.
It seems habit to call for electoral reform after every election, most likely by electoral reform advocates who are, by all sampled and counted measures, a clear but vocal minority. Notably, reform wasn’t much featured in any party’s 2021 platform—not too surprising in the Liberals’ case, but notable omissions by the NDP and Greens. After so many referenda, politicians’ in-house polls probably tell them that many Canadians are tired of hearing it.
I suspect the rise of the PPC tends to question pro-rep rhetoric that we needn’t fear pro-rep empowering extremist parties because there aren’t supposed to be such in “Canada The Good.” Also, pro-rep’s praise for hung parliaments (which pro-rep almost always elects) has been blunted by the fact that FPtP has elected 5 minorities and only 2 majorities over the last 15 years. These factors likely undercut support for reform.
The answer, IMHO: avoid citizens’ assemblies, all-party committees, cabinet-made referendum design, and funding of ‘sides’ and biased propaganda that make voters wary; delegate the process to the impartial chief electoral office to review and, if warranted, design and conduct the referendum while rigorously invigilating campaign propaganda for accuracy and providing official, correct info about the options available. I petitioned BC Chief Electoral Officers to take charge impartially and was disappointed ( orders from above would violate their officially independent, nonpartisan position). The last BC electoral referendum was designed by the NDP cabinet, an obvious conflict of interest that shouldn’t have happened, and didn’t need to happen because we already pay an independent agency to do such exercises with proven expertise, making government participation in the process doubly suspect: the perception of conflict is tantamount to proven conflict. I don’t support pro-rep, but felt that referendum was very unfair to voters who do—some say intentionally so. Another trust issue.
Trust in our elections seems to be eroding with respect both electoral and voting systems; in the USA, such devolutions are very serious, indeed.
The dearth of CPC candidates at town halls, all-candidates’ debates and other campaign stumping opportunities (discounting invite-only engagements) is characteristic of the right since Mulroney’s ProgCons. It’s been a stock tactic for the CPC almost since its inception. But I worry if it preludes electoral fraud accusations like in the USA—the kind made weeks or months before the vote is even conducted! After losing the 2019 election, CPC-dominated Alberta started to threaten secession! Calls for electoral reform now follow every election, almost by rote, when the results are deemed “illegitimate” by voters who don’t like them.
Electoral reform seems to be off the agenda. The FPtP result is proportional in it’s way and there isn’t any serious doubt about the count. But we should be a more careful with rhetoric— like calling FPtP results a “false majority” and other caricatures which are, in fact, just a step away from calling a result “illegitimate”, and not many more steps away from believing a result is “fraudulent”. Trust in the system, whatever it is, is the most important psephological value we have.
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