A full Decision Canada update will be published at 8 p.m. this evening, PDT. Tonight’s posting will focus on the Tory position on the arts and culture.
In the meantime, we’ll leave with you the latest CPAC-SES Research Canada overnight tracking poll results, which shows continuing strength for the Liberals, growing support for the New Democratic Party, while Stephen Harper’s Conservatives would seem to be faltering in the late stages of the 2004 federal election campaign.
The CPAC-SES poll also shows a 3% rise in support for Jack Layton as Prime Minister, to 20 percent, while Stephen Harper’s support plummets.
One final item before signing off with this late morning post.
For those of you still confused as to whom (or for which party) to cast your ballot for next Monday, assistance in arriving at a logically consistent decision, based on your values, may be found by partaking of the Globe and Mail vote analyzer. Earlier on in the campaign, VanRamblings had offered the Politics Watch Quiz for vote placing assistance.
Partake of each quiz, and see which party’s positions on the issues are most in accord with your own.
Earlier today, in conversation with three friends in three different locations, VanRamblings found itself raucously chastised for choosing not to cast a ballot for the Conservatives in the upcoming election (makes one wonder as to whether any one of these ‘friends‘ had been reading VanRamblings’ Decision Canada coverage over the course of the past month).
While engaged in these three conversations, VanRamblings queried each friend as to whether each had read the Demand Better Conservative platform document. Turns out that not only had none of these friends read the document; each was unaware of its existence (did VanRamblings mention that these friends are educated professionals?).
During the course of these friendly (but often bewildering) series of exchanges, VanRamblings raised issues of concern with each individual, ranging from the Conservative party’s position on the independence of the Supreme Court (they’re agin it), to the Tory position on the arts and the CBC (virtually non-existent, and agin it again). Turns out that each of these friends are voting for the Conservatives for no reason other than the fact that the Conservatives represent the political party their families had always cast a ballot for, dating back generations.
So, as per the headline for today’s posting, and in anticipation of what would seem to be an assured Conservative minority government come next Tuesday morning, for my friends and for VanRamblings readers, over the course of the next five days, leading up to the election Monday, June 28th, VanRamblings will explore in depth reasons to be concerned about a Conservative government taking power in Ottawa, just what kind of Canada we’re likely to see with a Tory regime in power in the nation’s capital, and why VanRamblings will be casting an Anybody But Harper ballot.
We begin today with the Tory position on legal affairs and the judiciary. Tory Platform A ‘Legal Minefield’
Would you trust this man with your country?
According to an article that appeared in CanWest newspapers earlier in the week, “the Conservative platform is a legal minefield that contains at least 12 items that either violate the Charter of Rights, are ripe for serious court challenges or would require amendments to the Constitution.”
The Tory party’s plan to stop federal prisoners from voting, ban gay marriage and eliminate artistic merit as a defence for owning child pornography are blatant Charter of Rights violations, a group of constitutional experts told CanWest’s Janice Tibbetts.
Repealing the ‘faint hope’ clause that allows prisoners serving life sentences to apply for early parole after 15 years; imposing consecutive instead of concurrent sentences for people convicted of multiple offences; declaring an individual a dangerous offender after committing a third violent or sexual offence, thus mandating an indefinite jail sentence; and requiring violent or serious repeat offenders who are 14 or older be tried in adult court instead of youth court would most certainly result in a Charter of Rights challenge to the proposed Conservative ‘legal agenda’.
“Offenders under the Charter have all kinds of protections,” noted Lorraine Weinrib, a University of Toronto law professor.
The Tories have also said that a Conservative government would require a litmus test for appointments to the Supreme Court, and would move towards an elected, American-style Senate, both initiatives requiring amendments to the Constitution. Any constitutional change would need approval of seven provinces with at least 50 per cent of the population — a threshold that has proven thus far to be virtually unattainable.
More Decision Canada coverage of this issue is available here. And The Polls Just Keep on Comin’
With Election Day now just five days away, a poll released today by the Environics Research Group shows the Liberals and Conservatives are locked in a dead heat with a minority government an increasingly likely outcome.
The survey of 1500 adult Canadians shows the Liberals and the Conservatives each with the support of 33 percent of decided voters. The NDP is running third with 18 percent of the national popular vote, and the Bloc Québécois is at 11 percent nationally. Four percent would vote for the Green Party and one percent would support other parties. Twenty percent of eligible voters remain undecided.
Comparing these survey results to the popular vote in the 2000 election, Liberal support has dropped eight percentage points from 41% to 33%. Support for the Conservative Party, while higher than the vote for the Canadian Alliance alone in 2000, is five points lower than the 38% that the Canadian Alliance and the federal Progressive Conservative parties received between them in 2000. Support for the NDP has doubled since the 2000 election, rising from 9% to the current 18%.
In analyzing Environics’ results in comparison with the popular vote results of the last election in 2000, voting patterns in Québéc, Ontario and British Columbia have shown the greatest volatility. Liberal support in Québéc is 19 points lower than in 2000. While the Liberals still lead in Ontario with 40%, their support has fallen by 12 points in Ontario and that loss has been matched by an 11% increase in NDP support to 19%.
British Columbia stands out as the region where the survey results show the most dramatic change compared with 2000. Conservative support is 22 points lower and NDP support is 20 points higher than in 2000, confirming results released by the Mustelgroup Monday. Headlines of The Day Alberta promises reforms won’t violate Canada Health Act: A news release issued by Alberta Premier Ralph Klein’s office today did an about face on its much-touted new health policy by taking a less aggressive stance on privatization and users fees. Alberta Health Minister Gary Mar told reporters, “We are not moving forward on any privatization. The money is all going to public health care, nothing of which will violate the Canada Health Act.” Martin: Party with most seats ought to form government: According to a Canadian Press story, Paul Martin appears to have given up the idea of clinging to power if he wins fewer seats than the rival Conservatives in Monday’s election, saying common sense dictates the party with the most MPs should form the government. “It’s a common sense proposition that the party that has the most seats is the party that certainly ought to form a government,” Martin told an Edmonton audience this afternoon.
Advance poll voter turnout double that of 2000: As the leaders head into the final days of the campaign, they now know that a large part of the population has already made up its mind and acted on that choice. Elections Canada reports that 1.244 million people voted in the advance polls that were held last Friday, Saturday and Monday, a whopping 60 per cent increase over the 775,000 who voted in advance in 2000.
With fewer than six days to go before election day, support for the Conservative Party has taken a dramatic dip. The most significant change is in Ontario where — according to the latest Ipsos-Reid poll — the Liberals are surging, up eight points to 42 per cent, versus 30 per cent for a Conservative Party in steep decline, down an astounding eight points. The NDP remains firm at 20 per cent, with protest support for the Green Party stuck at six per cent.
As for who will govern the country, the race is still too close to call.
According to Ipsos-Reid’s seat projection model, if a vote were held tomorrow, the Conservatives would have a potential of 110-114 seats, the Liberals would have a potential of 107-111 seats, the NDP a potential of 19-23 seats, and the Bloc Québécois a potential of 64-68 seats.
The Ipsos-Reid results are not vastly different from the numbers reported this morning by SES Canada Research, whose overnight tracking poll conducted for the CPAC network shows the Liberals ahead at 34% among the electorate, with the Conservatives trailing at 31%, the NDP up a notch to 21%, and the Greens garnering 10% support. Liberal Support Climbs in the Final Week of the Campaign
In addition to the CPAC-SES poll results reported above, SES reports a dramatic decline in support for Stephen Harper as Prime Minister, to only 22%, while Paul Martin’s results have remained fairly steady at a hardly gratifying 28%. Jack Layton trails badly at only 10% support for Best PM. Tories Falter Elsewhere, But Remain Strong in B.C.
The headline above doesn’t tell the whole story.
While it’s true that support for the Conservative Party in British Columbia remains strong (as can be seen in the graph below) at 36% province-wide, in the city of Vancouver the Conservatives are running a distant third to both the New Democrats and the Liberals.
At the beginning of the final week of the federal election campaign, as James Travers wrote in Saturday’s Toronto Star, “voters are more or less equally divided between unsatisfactory options.”
In VanRamblings’ home riding of Vancouver-Quadra, NDP candidate David Askew has mounted a valiant campaign in an otherwise Conservative riding. In recent years, in order to keep the ne’er-do-well Alliance from taking the seat, NDPers (including myself, much to the chagrin of my children, and my friends) have voted strategically, electing Liberal Stephen Owen to office.
But, perhaps not this time.
Last evening, Don, calling from David Askew’s NDP headquarters said,
“Look, I know David isn’t going to take the seat, and his vote in the riding is probably strong enough that Stephen Owen will lose, leaving Vancouver Quadra as another win for the Conservatives. But no matter what happens, the Conservatives are not going to win a majority; they’ll only be an interim government, and by the time another election is called — and that next election will happen soon, very soon — Canadians will see what a threat the Conservatives are, and vote them out.”
“In the meantime, we need your support, because the NDP needs the research money the government will grant us based on the national vote for the NDP, to hold the Conservatives’ feet to the fire.”
Am I convinced? Will I vote for David Askew? Or, will I vote strategically, and cast my ballot for Stephen Owen, who I know and like, and believe to be a decent person? Quite honestly, I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. I suppose, like many Canadians, I’ll wait to make my decision til the moment I find myself sequestered in the voting booth. Child Tax Credit Reveals Harper’s Mindset
Writing in the Toronto Star, rabbler Linda McQuaig (that’s rabbler, as in rabble.ca) explores the regressive nature of Stephen Harper’s child tax credit, a legislative initiative that will succeed in …
“… reintroducing a programme that provides bigger benefits to the richest Canadians and no benefits whatsoever to those at the bottom. This is where Harper plans to put all that new money — $3.5 billion a year, once fully phased in.
Under his proposed scheme, a Bay Street executive with two children and an annual salary of $225,000, would receive a total benefit of $1,746 a year.
But if that executive gets laid off from his Bay Street job and ends up flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s, he’d lose his benefit entirely. Indeed, he’d receive absolutely nothing from the extra billions Harper plans to hand over to families — even though the executive-turned-hamburger-flipper would still have two children to feed and clothe.”
McQuaig writes: “As an economist, Harper is aware of what he’s doing.” Tories May Scrap Air Canada Bilingual Requirement
As reported in the Globe and Mail today, Conservative leader Stephen Harper would change federal legislation to allow Air Canada to move its head office from Montreal to Toronto, party officials confirmed last night.
Harper is prepared to scrap the Air Canada Public Participation Act, which would allow the national carrier to no longer be forced to provide more bilingual services than other competing airlines.
“We’re talking about a level playing field,” said Jim Armour, the Conservative Party of Canada’s communications director. “Right now there are requirements that only apply to one (airline). It doesn’t apply to WestJet, it doesn’t apply to JetsGo.”
“We have said that the act should be eliminated. That doesn’t mean that bilingualism requirements would be eliminated on airlines,” Armour said. “What we are saying is that bilingualism requirements should apply equally across the industry.”
Although the Conservatives have said they would not change the basic principles of the Official Languages Act, they have indicated that with a Conservative government there would be an open debate on the question.
Bloc Québécois MP Benoit Sauvageau said abolishing the Air Canada Public Participation Act would be “really catastrophic.”
“It’s a concrete demonstration that if the Conservatives are elected it’s the end of French at Air Canada in spite of all efforts,” he said. Voter Apathy Expected To Reach New Highs
What is wrong with Canadians? In what may prove to be the closest race in Canadian electoral history, a record number of Canadians are expected to opt out come June 28th.
Turnout countrywide has dropped steadily to 61.2 per cent from 75.3 per cent in four federal elections since 1988, and election experts say nearly half of us will not cast ballots this time.
“Fifty per cent is the symbolic number,” says Larry LeDuc, a University of Toronto political science professor who co-wrote Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global Perspective. Anything below that “undermines the legitimacy of governments.”
The Globe and Mail suggests that voter apathy is “an inexplicable global malaise.”
One supposes that voter apathy has nothing to do with right-wing talk show hosts, the Murdoch media empire and its ilk, and corporate media the world over doing everything in their power to convince citizens that politicians are corrupt, in the process succeeding in their mission to alienate a majority of the populace from engagement in the political process.
Or, that government’s failure to to protect workers, communities, and the environment; deep cuts in social programmes, turning the tattered remnants over to the private sector; an utter failure to address youth unemployment, which remains at twice the rate for the rest of the population; and the ongoing failure to provide adequate child care, thus responding to the needs of young families; none of this could possibly have anything to do with a pervasive sense of alienation felt by most Canadians.
Oh no, that couldn’t possibly be.
