Can Harper Win Again in 2015? You Bet He Can!

You might ask why Canadians would ever give the Conservative party another mandate in Ottawa when they go to the polls later this year (election date still to be determined).  The answer is, because only 30% or so of them need to vote for the Conservatives, that's why.

Huh?

That's right.  Canada's "First past the post" electoral system means that the candidate with the most votes in each riding wins that riding.  The party with the most ridings forms the government.  Since the advent of the Bloc Quebecois and the Green parties (ignoring the fringe elements, the Communist party and any other wackos), Canada has five parties that split the vote.  Mathematically, as long as you get over 20% of the vote, you win.  Practically, since the Greens get so few votes, and since the Bloc Quebecois (the separatists) only run in Quebec and therefore get a small percentage of the vote, that means you have to get around 30% of the vote to form at least a minority government.  A majority requires more like 40%, as Jeffrey Simpson stated recently in this G&M piece.

That means Harper, ever the political strategist, only needs to concentrate on his supporters --- business owners, farmers, gun-owners, old white guys, old white guys with money, the fossil fuel industry, the West, rural Ontarians, the wealthy, and young families with good paying jobs and kids in hockey who would like to pay less tax because, let's face it, who doesn't support kids in hockey and who doesn't want to pay tax?

What I'm saying is that Harper will pinpoint which ridings he can win and he will target the Conservatives' money on those ridings.  He will also target his platform to resonate with his supporters.  And he will go for that 40% to win another majority government.

Is that fair?  Of course, it is in Canada's system.

What can be done?

First past the post systems are supposed to eventually result in a two-party system, given enough time.  That hasn't happened in my lifetime (57 years).   In fact, it's gotten worse.  Canada has gone from three political parties to five.  Trouble is, there is only one Right-wing party, Harpers's, and there are now four parties to split the left-wing vote.

What to do?

How about adopting second-level run-offs, like they have in France and other countries?  Let's say the Conservatives and the Liberals come in 1 and 2 with, say, 38% and 30% of the vote.  Let's have a sudden-death final among the top two finalists to settle the score.  All of a sudden, we might find that the Liberals win and the result is 62% Liberal and 38% Conservative.  Huh?  That's right (or Left, depending on how you look at it).

Canada needs a two-stage election process.  Now!

Ontario Vote Projection

Based on the results of the 2011 election, I am projecting a Liberal majority.

Here is the table of results for 2011.  Voter turnout was 49.2% of eligible voters which means there were 9 million eligible voters.

Assuming 50% come out to vote this time, and taking into account approximately 5.5% population growth, there will be 4.757 million voters this election.  Let's round up to 4.8 million.

There are 1.1 million civil servants that Tim Hudak alienated with his 100,000 jobs cut slogan.  Let's assume most (not all) of them turn out to vote, to save their jobs.  Let's assume half of them are married and that, half of their spouses are not civil servants, themselves.  Let's assume that most of the spouses vote and that they cast their ballots for anyone but the PC's.

Let's assume ethnic groups comprise about one quarter of the voters who go to the polls.  Let's assume just 25% of them cast ballots for the PC's.

When you subtract the civil servants, their spouses and 75% of ethnic voters, Tim Hudak's PC's are competing for what's left of a drastically shrunken pool of voters, about 2.8 million.  If they weren't scared off by Tim's hundred thousand job cuts and they forgave him for the so-called arithmetic error (what kind of a bonehead makes a stupid mistake like that?) in his Million Jobs Plan, then there is a chance some of these remaining 2.8 million will vote for Tim.  But how many?

Let's assume Andrea Horwath does no better or worse than last time, about a million votes.  That leaves 1.8 million for Tim to split with the Liberals, the Greens and all the other parties running in this riding or that.  Last time, these fringe parties siphoned away nearly 300,000 votes.

I assumed that of the remaining 1.8 million votes, 200,000 went to the Greens and to the fringe.  That left 1.6 million.

The polls suggest the Liberals are capturing 35% of uncommitted voters.  But let's assume that, of this remaining 1.6 million, the Liberals gather just 25%, 400,000.  That leaves 1.2 million votes for Tim Hudak and his PC's.

The 2014 chart looks like this:

According to my calculations, owing to the fact that popular vote does not necessarily translate exactly into a proportional number of seats, my numbers project a landslide majority for Kathleen Wynne and her Liberals.

What if this is the year everyone turns out to vote?  Will that make a difference?  Yes, but no.

If all 9.6 million voters cast a ballot on election day, Tim Hudak's PC's have a bigger pool to work with.  But according to my calculations and resulting chart, below, even this kind of fantastic turn-out will not help the Tories win the election.

It looks like it'll be a majority under any scenario.

Coincidentally, a new poll released today seems to agree. 

Ontario Votes 2014 - Their Platforms on a Napkin

Any questions?

Only One Choice on June 12 in Ontario

Ontario goes to the polls June 12 to elect a new government.  Disclosure: I am a Liberal supporter.  But I will add in the same breath that I have voted PC in the past and would do so again if they represented the better choice.

So I went to the Ontario PC website.  This is what I saw: Nothing.  Nothing but platitudes,that is, that are designed to look, feel and sound good at the thirty-thousand-foot level but, as soon as you click for more, well, there isn't any more.  For example, the website opens with, "Nearly 1 million workers in Ontario are out of a job or need a better one".  Wait a minute.  Ontario's population consists of just 13.5 million people of whom 68.4% are of working age (15-64) according to this government fact sheet.   That means there are 9.2 million working age residents.  The PC's assertion that 1 million of them are "out of a job" means that Ontario's unemployment rate is 11%.  That's funny.  Because I could have sworn Ontario's unemployment rate was 7.5%, as widely reported this week, including here.   Maybe the Conservatives really meant that, of the 1 million, more of them "need a better" job.  That makes sense.  My friends hate their jobs.  My relatives complain about their jobs too.  Heck, I'd be surprised if less than half of the people working today wouldn't say they "need a better" job.

After making a -- let's call it a weak case -- for 1 million higher quality jobs, the Conservatives lay out their plan for how they will create the jobs.  It consists of: (1) "Lower taxes and less debt" (sounds good but how do you lower taxes and reduce debt, I wonder); (2) "Affordable energy" (sounds great); (3) "Train more skilled workers" (we're doing that now, aren't we, and anyway, why, so they can go to Alberta -- in other words, how is that going to create jobs?); (4) "Increase trade with our neighbours" (isn't that what NAFTA and a ninety-cent Loonie are supposed to do?); and (5) "End the bureaucratic runaround that inhibits job creation" (translation, move government out of the way and let business do its job -- this is the piece we are all supposed to rally around, but what does it mean, exactly?).  As you can appreciate, I was left wondering what the PC's meant by these sounds-good-feels-good-must-be-good statements.  Trouble is, a click on any of them produced -- well -- again --nothing.

At least the NDP had a bit more substance in their website.  That is, until I was invited to download their Plan for Affordable Change and got to the part that said, "We will also work with Jack Layton and the federal New Democratic team to push for the expansion of Canada Pension Plan benefits".  Huh?  Jack's been dead for nearly three years.  Maybe the NDP plan needs to be refreshed a little.   Maybe the whole website needs to be updated?  Odd, because it's the NDP that triggered the Ontario election, after all.  I would have thought they'd have had their marketing materials ready to roll.

I was almost afraid to peer under the hood of the Ontario Liberal website but, to my relief, what I saw were mostly thoughtful and well-articulated policies and strategies, starting with an honest acknowledgment that Ontario operates in a highly competitive world.  Overall, in addition to a strong desire to attract businesses, create jobs, and foster economic growth, the Liberals seem to have good strategies for fighting income inequality and a scary dearth of retirement savings for a majority of Ontarions.  In that sense, they seem to be heeding the warnings of some of the most celebrated economists of our time, namely, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and, most recently, Thomas Pickety.

I have said before that capitalism is like a nuclear reaction which, if left to its own devices, blows up like an atom bomb.  Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario Liberals are the moderating rods in that nuclear reactor that tame the beast and harness its power to sustain society for generations.   Not only does she have my vote for Ontario in June, she has my vote of confidence for prime minister of Canada some day.  Perhaps that's why the current prime minister, Stephen Harper, feels threatened enough to break tradition and wade into this provincial election.

Mayor Ford Gone Wild

What more can I add to what's been said about Mayor Rob Ford?

Mayor Ford has, while in office, used illegal drugs, been inebriated in public, and driven a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.   He has also been caught driving distracted (apparently, he was reading printed material), and when caught, he gestured as if he was pointing a gun at the witness.  There have been other transgressions by this mayor against the people of the community, and against the finer sensibilities of decent, civil citizens.   This is no way for a government leader to lead.   This mayor has lost his dignity and his respect.

Mayor Ford is truly a politician gone wild.   For the good of his city, for the good of his family and all who are dear to him, and for his own good (not least his own health), he should step aside.  But, alas, this mayor will not go quietly.

One way or the other, Mayor Ford will not be mayor of Toronto much longer.  But the ending is likely to be ugly.

What a shame.

Abolish the Canadian Senate!

The Canadian taxpayer is fed up with the Senate, a government body that does nothing except rubber stamp all legislation and exhausts nearly $100 million of taxpayers' money each year.

Yes senators are connected to major Canadian corporations and can provide a back-channel conduit to Canadian business for the government.  Yes they sometimes give advice to our political parties in Parliament.   But those are weak reasons for preserving a body which, at the end of the day, really exists as a way for the prime minister of Canada to reward his influential supporters, to keep them comfortable well into their retirement years.

No thanks.

As long as we're doing some belt tightening, it's time to close down this useless (to Canadians) body of gas bags and use the hundred million dollars saved each year to help a few more poor people in this country.

Tea Party Terrorists

U.S. Tea party supporters ought to know better.  You don't hold a gun to someone's head until you get what you want.   But that's what happened with the debt ceiling stand-off last week.   That's what happened with the government shutdown that started on October 1.   That's what terrorists do.

You know what happens to terrorists?   They either get shot and killed or they get caught and then either executed or given a life sentence.

Tea party terrorists -- let's call them TeaTs, for short -- should be sent packing by voters, never to be seen again.   That would be the equivalent of political execution.   Unfortunately, with partisan redistricting and other tricks, it probably isn't going to happen.   And the unintended consequence for Republicans -- the upstanding kind, that is -- is that they will be stuck with TeaTs within their ranks for some time unless they do something to rein them in for the good of the Republican Party.

The best the United States can hope for during this president's remaining time in office is for saner Republicans (and that includes the deep pockets behind the party) to zip up their TeaTs.

There was a time, not long ago, when the GOP was indeed a grand party.  But to put the "G" back in G-O-P, first, it has to rid itself of political liabilities and useless baggage.

And there's nothing more useless than teats on a bull.