With election day only hours away, Milton Chan and the folks at the Election Prediction Project are predicting a Liberal minority government, which in coalition with the New Democratic Party would leave the Liberals five seats short of a majority with which to conduct the parliamentary affairs of all Canadians.
Based on an EKOS poll conducted with 5,254 respondents, on behalf of the Toronto Star, EKOS’ seat projection model predicts the Liberals coming out slightly on top with 117 seats, with 109 seats for the Conservatives, 55 for the Bloc Québécois and 27 seats for the NDP, a whopping gain of 13 seats.

As you can see on the graph to your left, the Election Prediction Project calls for 121 seats for the Liberals, with 105 for the Conservatives, 29 for the New Democratic Party, 52 for the Bloc Québécois, one independent (that would be former Alliance MP Chuck Cadman, running in the B.C. riding of Surrey North), and a shutout for the Greens.
Province by province, the Election Prediction Project (EPP) predicts …

• British Columbia: 23 seats for the Conservatives, 7 for the NDP, and 5 for the Liberals. This result would see a gain of 5 for the NDP, 1 for the Liberals, and a loss of 2 for the Tories.
• Alberta: Conservatives: 27; Liberals 1. David Kilgour keeps his Edmonton-Beaumont seat, while former PC leader Joe Clark’s support notwithstanding, Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan looks to be going down to defeat to Tory candidate Laurie Hawn in Edmonton Centre.
• Saskatchewan and Manitoba: Conservatives, 15; Liberals, 4; and NDP 4 — which represents a loss of 2 for each of the Liberals and the NDP, and consequent gains for the Tories. Former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray looks to lose in Charleswood-St.James to Conservative Steven Fletcher.
• Ontario: ‘In seat rich Ontario’ (how many times have you heard that phrase during this election campaign?), the Liberals have mounted something of a comeback, and are expected to take 66 out of a possible 106 seats (a drop of 29 seats), while the Tories may pick up 28 seats for a total of 32, and the NDP gains 5 for a total of 7, including leader Jack Layton, his wife Olivia Chow and former NDP leader Ed Broadbent.
• Québec: Bloc Québécois, 52, and Liberals, 23 (a loss of 14 seats in Prime Minister Martin’s home province). A large undecided could push the Liberal seat total a little higher, but pretty much whatever the election results tomorrow evening, the Bloc will hold the balance of power in our nation’s capitol come Tuesday morning.
• The Maritimes: The Liberals look to hold on to 20 seats, a drop of one from the time of dissolution of the most recent Parliament, while the Tories drop one seat for a total of 5, and the NDP gain 1, for a total of 5 Maritime seats.

The seat projection models are significant because late last week Prime Minister Martin declared that whichever party wins the most seats should be declared the winner, even if it did not win the required 155 seats needed to form a majority government.
Needless to say, the seat projections provide a recipe for an extremely fragile House of Commons, one that rests on the support of a separatist party and a slightly re-energized party of the left.
As election results start to roll in on Monday night, British Columbia will still be voting and the results are likely to be so close that west coast voters could end up steering the final outcome.
As EKOS president Frank Graves told the Star, “B.C. voters have essentially moved from bystanders to final arbiters in this election.”

There aren’t many people in Canada’s major metropolitan centres that relish the prospect of a Conservative government — majority, minority or coalition — least of all those who work in the Canadian cultural industries.
In an article published earlier this week in the Toronto Star, columnist Antonia Zerbisias writes …

“If the popularity of the red and white ‘Stop Harper’ buttons at Sunday night’s raucous MuchMusic Video Awards was any indication, nobody in the business is rocking to the Conservative tune.

A Canadian music channel with Canadian music and Canadian talent and Canadian veejays and Canadian awards in a Canadian building which houses other Canadian channels (Citytv, CP24, Bravo, Star, Space, etc.) which employ Canadian journalists and Canadian producers and Canadian writers and Canadian camera crews … hundreds of people working at the awards show, (including) security guards and caterers … In Stephen Harper’s Canada, none of this would have happened.”

Of course, as VanRamblings has written previously, the Conservatives would scrap the CRTC. Ms. Zerbisias points out that such a move would hand over broadcast licensing directly to government …

“Just like they do in banana republics where dictators decide who owns the TV stations. Think about that. If, say, a newscast runs an unflattering report about el presidente, then yank goes the license. And Conservatives now call CBC a ‘state broadcaster’?”

click above

Ms. Zerbisias, a former Star television columnist, also expresses concern about the potential for “Fox News (which) would be a shoo-in to acquire access to Canadian viewers,” potentially displacing CBC Newsworld on the dial, as she mourns the Conservative record on arts and culture, a record she says is playing “the red, white and blues.”
Abortion: A Disconnect Between Harper and the Tory Caucus?
In 2000, it helped undo his predecessor, Stockwell Day. Therefore the last thing Stephen Harper wanted in the 2004 election campaign was to go anywhere near the issue of abortion. But, courtesy of two of his Conservative party members, the issue came to him.
First there was Tory health critic Rob Merrifield, who mused to a Toronto newspaper on the advisability of mandatory, third-party abortion counseling, setting off a firestorm of protest. Next, comments made by incumbent Cheryl Gallant (RealPlayer required) surfaced. In an interview with the Western Catholic Reporter, she compared women who have abortions to the terrorists who beheaded American civilian Nick Berg in Iraq. No hotter election button could have been pushed.
“A Conservative government has no intention of tabling abortion legislation,” Stephen Harper has said, although always with the caveat, “in the first term in office.” Yes, he has said, a Tory government would allow a private member’s bill to go forward, and yes, there would be a free vote on whether a woman’s right to choose would be preserved.
As for his own views, Mr. Harper has acknowledged that in the past he was firm in his pro-life values, but during the current campaign he’s refused to say how he feels on the issue now, saying repeatedly that he would not “get into a detailed discussion of abortion” during the election.
Harper’s refusal to clarify his personal views, or the Tory party’s position, and his attempt to shut down further inquiry raises a red flag for many women voters. Many of us ask, “Since when is the personal autonomy of 52 per cent of the population a marginal issue in an election? It’s central, it’s pivotal, it’s not marginal.” And, yet, for the most part, the media have not focused on the abortion issue, because it is seen as too inflammatory and prejudicial to the hopes of a Conservative Party win on Monday.
The abortion issue is a defining one for many in the Tory party, but it isn’t a priority for the leader. But if the Tories are elected by voters angry with the Liberals, Harper may have no choice. His caucus is fanatically anti-choice and they have a lot of power, unlike the Liberal pro-life contingent who have none. The fear is that he would cave in to caucus pressure.
At the very least, the Conservatives would cut funding, perhaps even, as has been speculated, de-listing abortion as a service covered by the Canada Health Act; make it difficult to get the morning-after pill; and bring in third-party counseling. Sure, it’s one thing to say women have the right in law to abortion; it’s quite another thing for them to have access to it.
Headlines of the Day

Conservative MP Randy White

We’d Use Notwithstanding Clause: Tory MP: Conservative MP and Tory party Justice critic Randy White, in a May 19th interview for a documentary on same-sex marriage by Alexis Mackintosh called Let No One Put Asunder White spoke frankly about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and suggests many in his party feel as he does:

“The heck with the courts, eh? (RealPlayer required) You know, one of these days we in this country are going to stand up and say, ‘The politicians make the laws and the courts do not.’ The courts interpret that law. And if we don’t like that interpretation, there’s the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which the Liberal government has never invoked and said they will not use. I believe we’ll see that with us in the House of Commons because enough is enough of this stuff …
I think most people are getting sick and tired of judges writing the law to suit themselves and to suit the current Liberal government, in fact.
It’s time that we started to exert our responsibility as politicians in the country. If the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is going to be used as the crutch to carry forward all of the issues that social libertarians want, then there’s got to be for us conservatives out there a way to put checks and balances in there. ”

Liberal Leader Paul Martin responded by saying, “The Conservative party would make impulsive and widespread use of the notwithstanding clause to rescind the fundamental rights of Canadians.”
Martin said there’s a good reason that the federal government has never used the clause since it came into being 22 years ago.

“Canadians care deeply about the protection of individual and minority rights. And I believe that a true national leader recognizes that the use of the notwithstanding clause will take us down a slippery slope toward the erosion of individual and minority rights and freedoms. It is a step that we should not take. It is a step that we must not take.”

The NDP joined in slamming White: “His views reflect the extreme social agenda of Stephen Harper’s party, their lack of regard for Canada’s Charter, and their contempt for Canada’s courts.”
Like elections? Another likely around the corner: In a front-page story in yesterday’s Halifax-Chronicle Herald, reporter Stephen Maher writes that, “If the pollsters are right, Canadians will elect a minority government on Monday. It’s too close to tell if it will be Conservative or Liberal. History suggests if it’s a Conservative minority, it won’t last very long. Liberal minorities last longer (because) the Liberals tend to be better at manipulating the levers of power than the Conservatives, and more pragmatic … when it comes to making deals to stay in power.”
VanRamblings On a Pre-Election Weekend Hiatus; well, kind of …
In the waning days of the election campaign, VanRamblings will be taking something of a break from pre-election coverage. Rather than post lengthy Anybody But Harper treatises, instead we’ll post brief items (well, relatively brief … after all, the sobriquet VanRamblings was chosen for a reason) on election news events of the day, and items of election-related interest.
In the meantime, for insight into Stephen Harper’s policies, as well as important 2004 federal election news events, we would encourage you to click on, and read through, all of VanRamblings’ Decision Canada coverage.

In the final daily update on the pulse of the campaign from SES
Research Canada, the CPAC-SES overnight tracking poll shows the Liberals are still marginally ahead of the Tories in popular support: Liberals 34%,
Conservatives 30%, NDP 20%, BQ 12%, Green 4%. An analysis of the regional
breakdown indicates that the Liberals lead in Atlantic Canada,
Manitoba / Saskatchewan and seat rich Ontario. The Conservatives lead in
Alberta and British Columbia. The Bloc Québécois lead in Québéc. High
undecided in Québéc (29%) may be a Liberal Trojan Horse.

In his published essay accompanying the polling results above, SES President & CEO Nikita James Nanos writes that …

“Québécers like to throw pollsters the odd ‘curve ball’. Our polls show undecided in Québéc at 29%. My instinct tells me that this is too high; there are more Liberals than BQ supporters in that group. Although some Québécers won’t openly support the Liberals, in the privacy of the voting booth it may be a different story. In a close race, this may alter the outcome of the election. Watch Québéc.”

SES’ four week regional tracking poll shows that Atlantic Canadians will vote overwhelmingly for the Liberals, with the Liberals running at 45%, the NDP in second place with 25%, and the Tories with 24% of decided voters. In Alberta, the Conservatives have gleaned 62% of decided voter support, as compared to only 23% for the Liberals and a paltry 13% for the NDP.
Everywhere else in Canada — outside of Québéc, that is — it’s a race to the finish, a neck-and-neck battle between the Liberal and Conservative front-runners, leaving the NDP as strong third-place contenders.

As part of VanRamblings’ Decision Canada review of key issues in the federal election campaign which cause us concern about the prospect of a Conservative government in Ottawa, in this second instalment of our series, VanRamblings reviews the Tory platform position on the arts, culture and Canadian heritage.
The Selling Off Of Cultural Identity In A Free-Market Economy
As Margaret Atwood wrote in a June 9th piece for the Globe and Mail, culture hasn’t exactly grabbed the spotlight in this election campaign. But considering that, according to Statistics Canada, there are 740,000 direct jobs in the cultural sector — more than in forestry, agriculture, and mining combined — and given that cultural activities generated $26-billion of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product in 2001, and exported $2.88-billion worth of it in 2000, the dearth of coverage of culture and the arts in the current federal election campaign is a disservice to all Canadians.
Considering the indirect jobs and the revenue generated by cultural activities — the spinoffs generated in the travel industry, hotels and bed-and-breakfasts, in restaurants and in small businesses — and the thousands of unpaid volunteers who work in this area for the satisfaction of it and to help their towns or cities, and factoring in the audience — the listeners, the viewers, the readers — any reasonable person will soon come to realize the impact the arts has on the lives Canadians is immense.
The position of the ‘new’ Conservatives on culture? The Tories are the one national federal party that would kill the CBC, eliminate the CRTC, abolish the Canada Council and take away all funding to Heritage Canada, theatre, film, dance, multicultural agencies and each and every arts organization that currently receives some form of federal subsidy. Those monies (and a great many more of our tax dollars) would instead be re-directed towards the build-up of a wartime-equipped and ready Canadian military.
In her June 9th Globe and Mail and article, Ms. Atwood writes …

“A long time ago, the party best on Culture was the now-defunct Progressive Conservative Party. Under the old Tories we were given Flora MacDonald, no slouch, and Marcel Masse, the best culturecrat we ever had.
However, things have changed radically. Those calling themselves the Conservatives are really the Body Snatchers. They’ve eaten the comfy old Tories … and now they’re prowling the earth with destruction in their hearts. When these neo-Cons hear the word Culture, they reach for their nugs. (Guns turn into nugs when you pretend you didn’t want Canada to join in the invasion of Iraq, although you did, too, want it). Be very afraid!
What the Social-Credit-Alliance-Reformers-in-Conservative-clothing say is that they have nothing against Culture as long as they don’t pay a nickel toward it. They don’t mention the whacking great benefits the public gets back. Instead, they say, ‘Let cultural items compete on their own merits in the marketplace.’ These neo-Conservatives are not pragmatists, they’re ideologues, and ideologues will ignore any fact that doesn’t fit their worldview.”

The percentage of Canadians who attend cultural events and festivals exceeds 70 per cent, yet the arts and culture — for the most part — has emerged as a non-issue in this election campaign.
As VanRamblings wrote in an earlier posting, for many of us one of the most distressing aspects of the election campaign occurs in consideration of what a Tory government would mean to the arts in Canada.
According to Guy Mason, president of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, Conservative cultural polices would gut film and television production in Canada.

“What we’re seeing could be a devastation of the industry in a free and open market in North America,” says Mason. “Who’s going to be creating Canadian content?”

In their pre-election report, the Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) gave the Conservatives a C- (by far, the lowest ranking among the five major parties), for “no sign of support for the arts.”
In an article published written by award-winning writer and journalist Todd Babiak for the Edmonton Journal, Mr. Babiak writes …

In its 46-page policy platform, the Conservative Party doesn’t mention art and culture. Not even in the appendix. The word art only appears once, in quotations, decrying the “artistic licence” defence for child pornographers. Stephen Harper and other Conservatives have said they would cut finding to the CBC in whole or in part, and Heritage critic Jim Abbott supports lifting foreign ownership restrictions on telecom companies and broadcasters.

Babiak concludes his article, by writing, “In all our current excitement about change, we should notice what the parties ignore. We may not know what we’re voting to abandon until it’s gone.”
In respect (or lack thereof) of the CBC, Ontario Tory hopeful Joe Spina, a two-term MPP under Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, stated he wants funding for the CBC switched off, calling it the Communist Broadcasting Corporation and saying it serves as a mouthpiece for the federal Liberals.
Repeated polls have shown Canadians strongly approve of the mandate for the broadcaster, which receives approximately $1 billion in annual government funding to operate in both English and French.
The Culture War: Election 2004’s Unreported Issue
Ian King, writing in this week’s Terminal City, discusses the possible impact of a Conservative Party win and how a Tory government would deal with the arts, the entertainment business, and the media.

“Of course, funding for the Canadian Television Fund, FACTOR, the Canada Council, the Canadian Magazine Fund, and the myriad other cultural granting programmes aren’t the only government supports for Canada’s cultural industries. There are restrictions on foreign ownership of broadcasters and newspapers and CRTC rules that give Canadian TV channels first priority on cable and satellite systems, but also force broadcasters to air Canadian programming to get that unfair advantage. None of this regulatory regime impresses the Conservatives much.
The Conservatives have made no firm commitment to protecting any of those programmes or regulations. With budget crunches likely to come in a Conservative regime, and with most of the existing caucus unenthusiastic about existing granting programmes, expect cultural funding to shrink.
If you like your CBC, fear the Tories. The Conservatives’ antipathy towards the CBC is legendary — partisans still mope about MotherCorp’s look at Stockwell Day’s religious beliefs back in 2000, believing somehow that that documentary, as opposed to a blundering leader and party, cost the Alliance the election. Alliance Heritage critic Jim Abbott summed up his party’s feelings in 2002, when he told the National Post (itself legendary for self-interested CBC-bashing), “It’s a sincere question. Why do we need [the CBC]? Why should we have it?”

Ian concludes his piece by writing, “The next government could seriously change how Canadian arts and culture operate, and the changes could be dead ugly if we make the wrong choices. Do you really want to risk it by not having your say on Monday?”
Ian King is the administrator of the weblog The Vancouver Scrum.
ACTRA: Conservatives Mum On Culture
In a story published in the Toronto Star, the paper reports that ACTRA, the actors’ union, says the response from the Conservatives to its list of culture-industry priority questions has been … silence.
There are three major issues for ACTRA: keeping limits on foreign ownership of Canadian airwaves; reviewing CRTC policy to reinstate Canadian content requirements on Canadian broadcasters; and changing federal tax laws so performers can make a living in this country.
The union’s pleased with responses from the NDP, Bloc and Green party, who “took strong positions against permitting more foreign ownership…” says national executive director Stephen Waddell. The Liberals gave “some positive responses,” but didn’t adequately address foreign-ownership concerns.
The Conservative party, he says, did not respond at all.
No Tory Defence for Artistic Merit
Mark Leiren-Young, at The Tyee.ca, offers analysis of the Tory’s scorched earth policy toward Canadian culture, in an article published June 24th.
Covering much the same territory explored by VanRamblings and Ian King, above, Mr. Leiren-Young provides information on “Tory plans to neuter the CRTC, relax foreign ownership regulations and deregulate the airwaves”, as well as rescind tax breaks for the film and TV industry, which North Vancouver Tory MP Ted White referred to as “corporate welfare”; a Conservative government would eliminate this subsidy, Mr. White said.
Although “arts and cultural communities might have a raft of grievances against Paul Martin’s Liberals … the Tories could be a bigger threat to Canadian culture than free trade,” writes Mr. Leiren-Young, as a précis response to a conversation he had with Clem Martini, president of the Playwright’s Guild of Canada. The full Tyee.ca article is available here.
Canada’s Heritage At Risk
According to Liberal Heritage Minister Hélène Scherrer, a Conservative government would eviscerate Canadian culture by ending its fundamental protections and leaving control of the airwaves to the likes of global media baron Rupert Murdoch. The Conservatives’ market-driven policy would allow unfettered foreign competition, encouraging multinational corporations to purchase Canadian radio and television networks.
Government support, including government support by previous Progressive Conservative regimes — whether through funding or protectionist laws — have succeeded in building a homegrown cultural industry where one barely existed decades ago, creating a situation today where Canada is one of the world’s largest exporters of cultural products.
But the so-called free-market philosophy of Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party is one where the marketplace — and only the marketplace — rules, no matter the industry. Ask yourself: Is a Canada bereft of a proud Canadian cultural identity, a Canada we would wish to bequeath to our children?