the best thing trudeau can do to win, right now, is keep his mouth shut and let harper continue to hang himself.

he needs to keep to the platform, repeat his talking points, avoid controversy and let the other guys take the risks. and don't fall for any obvious bait.

it's hard to see where he can get the seats for a majority. if current ontario numbers hold, he could get upsets in seats like newmarket, but it's still not enough. rural quebec is a waste of time. and, the liberals are in a distant third in the union ridings (hamilton, windsor); he gets a breakthrough there, it's just going to elect a conservative. northern ontario is a stretch for cultural reasons.

i'm skeptical about models that give them 4-5 seats in alberta. but, these are urban ridings and they have the same concerns as other urban ridings. cutting right into the heart of the beast is probably his best tactic, right now. if i were him, i'd be flying into alberta and staying there for several days. a hard sell, but the best fight he's got.

"the ndp can't win, vote liberal"

the conservatives are usually under 50% in most of the urban ridings. and albertans tend to vote in blocks. it's feasible.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/multimedia/strategy-time-what-the-liberals-need-to-do-to-win-1.3264658

Thetop1%
Most albertans seem to remember his dad. He will never win a seat in Alberta.

jessica murray
you know, it's interesting that you bring that up.

because i'm 34 years old. and my parents were not old enough to vote for trudeau, except in 1980. my octagenarian grandmother has memories of him, but that's about as close as i'm going to get.

let's do the math.

if you were 20 years old in 1968, you would be 67 years old today. you would need to be retired to have any concept of trudeaumania.

and, if you were 20 years old in 1984, you would be 51 today.

that means that anybody under 50 has no meaningful recollection of pierre trudeau.

now, if you want to debate the merits of the nep, we can do that, too. just so long as you don't tell me to freeze in the dark.

Mac Skychief
Irrespective of the mass media agenda, I see a guy with long hair..

jessica murray
you know, as a trans person i don't exactly disagree with this.

the problem in this debate is that it sets up this strawman that trans people see ourselves as biologically identical to the gender we identify as. of course we don't. i'm fully aware that i don't menstruate, for example. but, it's really missing the point.

whether you wish to define transwomen as exceedingly effeminate men that choose to live in a female gender role or as female souls converting their exterior to better match their personality is a broadly irrelevant debate around meaningless points of semantics. i, personally, do not really care which of these things you actually think. i just expect a level of basic respect to be attached to my life decisions.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-transgender-woman-challenges-social-media-with-topless-photos-1.3267068

Iknewthat
You have my respect. It's just hard for most of us to understand, because we don't have your point of view and never will. It's confusing.

jessica murray
a lot of people will throw science at you, but if you ask them to actually cite any you won't get any good answers. there's a hypothesis that there may be genetic factors. i'm not going to throw the idea out the window entirely because there are certainly people born with unusual chromosome matchings and it does stand to reason that there may be additional factors. but there's not actually any hard data on the table, and i'm pretty skeptical about it being a general explanation.

i've been posting here a lot since the election call, and i've let on more than once that i'm somewhat of an anarchist that is leaning liberal at the moment. but, social anarchism is essentially extreme liberalism on social issues. and, my actual viewpoint on this is that it's none of your business. a truly liberal perspective on transsexuality is perfectly comfortable with arguing that transition is a harmless personal choice, and that harmless personal choices should be respected for what they are. that applies as equally well to gender identity as it does to marijuana consumption, sexual orientation or whatever other harmless personal choice you want to cite.

that's going to get me on the wrong side of a lot of debates. but, i think we're collectively asking the wrong question, and it's the fact that we're asking the wrong question that's created all these ridiculous perspectives.

Albertasucks
So if I think I'm a chick I can use the chick change room? I can request a police search from a chick? Use the chick washroom? Scream sexual harassment and get a large cheque if a male colleague smiles at me? Just like a chick? Even though I'm a 200 pound male that likes hockey and wears a shirt and tie?

jessica murray
i'm just curious - what's you're opinion on lesbians using the female change room? or gay men using the male change room?

you don't actually have a point. i mean, do you want to tell a trans male with a beard to use the women's change room? or a trans female with breast augmentation to use the men's? but, even if you did, you might want to think it through a bit more. the reality is that gay people exist, and they use public facilities. it is already a fact of life that you have a relatively high chance of bumping into somebody that may be attracted to you when you're using a public facility.

just as an aside about the police check thing, though. about a year ago, i had to go over to detroit to get my border papers signed. i don't have a vehicle, so getting in to the border office was difficult [i ended up getting a lift by a kind fellow at the "welcome to the usa" info station]. in trying to figure out how to get in, i accidentally ended up walking past security on the ambassador bridge, looking for some cops to talk to. they said that the only way they could shuttle me over was to pat me down first, due to protocol, but they couldn't do it because they didn't have any female border guards. i was not able to wave the necessity of being patted down by a female officer, and allow a male officer to pat me down instead. thankfully, that wasn't a huge problem, but it could have been.

the consequences of all of these things can be pretty complicated, when you actually work them out beyond simplistic analyses.

i don't expect the liberals to support proportional representation; i expect them to push for preferential voting. i'd actually expect them to vote against pr. i also think it's more likely to win a referendum than pr, which i don't think canadians will ever support. the ndp would have to push it through against large scale opposition. the serious options on the table are av, or the status quo. we don't like fptp, but we like local representation [as a trade-off for taxation].

and, i wouldn't expect trudeau to budge much on his platform, either.

a lot of this depends on how fast mulcair goes. easiest answer is he loses his seat, and that's probably likely - it's outremont, and the liberals are way up in montreal. the cbc projections won't budge on it, but they seem to have some kind of clause built in for the party leader; most of the other models are calling for a liberal win in outremont. then, the ndp have to turtle and we get at least one budget in before there's any serious sabre-rattling.

even if he wins his seat, you have to expect he's going to face pressure to resign after losing close to half his caucus. is there a leadership review soon? it's clear that the base is unhappy. then, the ndp has an opportunity to step back from the brink, reconfigure itself and adopt some more characteristic positions.

and, if he somehow holds on and wants to play chicken? i'd expect trudeau to call his bluff and call another election. let's see the ndp try to argue their way out of that one...he'd be more likely to get a majority on it, while the conservatives are picking their own new leader.

it's true that the setup is to vote against the budget. that's what the balanced budget thing is about, it's a tactic to take down a conservative minority, but translates now into a tactic to take down a liberal minority. and, if it's a small minority then expect the government to come down before the first budget - mulcair can't vote for deficit spending, not after the fuss he made about it. he was supposed to get harper on it (expect a deficit next year, regardless of who wins). but, he painted himslf into the corner. however, it seems as though the liberals are like to get a pretty strong minority right now, and that gives them a strong upper hand and mulcair the door.

the large ticket items in the ndp platform are consequently almost certainly off the table. trudeau is going to be able to push through almost whatever he wants. the optimal ndp strategy for the immediate future is going to be to claim victory on a few of the shared points in their platform. they're actually going to want to avoid pushing any of their own signature policies, because they know the liberals will get credit for it.

so, it's...

weak minority - expect another election soon
strong minority - mulcair is done, and the liberals get at last one free budget through.

ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/william-watson-platforms-might-not-mean-much-without-a-majority

he was being more reasonable last week, but we see he's back to the demagoguery again.

get as much information about your local riding as you can if you plan to vote strategically.

but, he surely knows that the liberals are ahead in most of the lower mainland right now. and, his argument about existing seats is so ridiculous as to be insulting.

same old same old.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/mulcair-blitzes-western-provinces-where-ndp-hopes-to-make-gains/article26770357/

i actually think it's mostly pretty clear, but take my word carefully - and check as much information as you can before you make a choice.

the general rules are...

- heavily unionized ridings (hamilton, windsor) are ndp locks. liberals are not competitive in rural ridings in most of the country, outside of southern ontario - that has to do with things like gun rights. the other exceptions are the northern prairies and out east. there are also a handful of legitimately solid mps (like paul dewar) in what should otherwise by liberal ridings that have earned their seat. if you're in a riding with a multiple term high profile ndp mp, consider the incumbency effect.

- liberals are the more competitive option in almost all non-unionized urban and suburban ridings, and in rural ridings in southern ontario. the exceptions are ndp-liberal races, and some western ridings. it should be obvious to most people in saskatchwan that the ndp is more competitive, and it should be obvious to most people in toronto that the liberals are more competitive.

the places where it gets confusing are in mixed ridings. that kitchener riding is a good example. kitchener has some union workers, but it's also somewhere between a big town and a small city, so it gets the rural/urban split vote. but, it's the exception, not the rule. most small town ridings are still too small town for this to work itself out. but, i'd keep an eye on growing cities like kelowna and lethbridge in the next election.

so, thankfully, i really don't think the split is as much a concern as it seemed like it was going to be, because the vote seems to be aligning rationally. i was freaking out a few weeks ago that the ndp were going to get a boost in ontario, and it would just elect conservatives. but, thankfully, that's not actually happening.

excluding the mixed ridings, the only other place where i think this is going to be a big issue is alberta. the conservatives are down. it seems like they're polling in the high 30s and low 40s in a lot of places. but, the vote is not coalescing around either the liberals or the ndp. it seems like long time conservative supporters are giving the liberals a sort of a break, here. it remains to be seen whether ndp supporters line up or not. if they do, we could finally see edmonton and calgary align with the cross-country urban consensus. and, i think that would not just be good for the parliament, but good for the country. the really key argument that both leadnow and the liberal party need to make right now is to line up behind the liberals in calgary and most of edmonton (excluding those two ridings where the ndp are ahead).

there's also eastern quebec, where bloc/ndp splits may elect conservatives. that should also be keyed on, but it probably won't affect the outcome of the election.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/elections/the-big-experiment-of-voting-strategically-this-election/article26767617/

Formerlyrbfromcalgary
Outrageously funny misreading of Alberta data, I hope your incompetence is reflected in other areas.

There are precisely 6 out of 34 Alberta ridings, and that would be 6 out of 19 urban Alberta ridings where non-Tories have a good chance of winning.

Percentage of vote for the Tories, province wide AND in totalled in urban ridings will be well over 50%

The NDP support is clustered in 2 Edmonton ridings: elsewhere they are almost non existent.

Of the 28 Alberta ridings with the Tories polling in the lead, there are a total of 6 of those ridings where 100 % of the combined vote for the Libbies and NDP would exceed the Tories.

Given the massive buyers remorse at the provincial NDP victory, it would be fair to assume that any strategic voting in Alberta would have a quite different target - Mulcair.

A "big issue" in Alberta?

Too funny

deathtokoalas
i'm going to reiterate that if you look at the data more closely, you'll see that the conservatives are down a good ten points, at least. you can exaggerate that a little in the urban ridings. so, that takes them down to the high 30s and low 40s. strategic voting could pull off some upsets, if they're targeted well.

if i was the liberal party, i'd have trudeau on a plane to calgary. it's his best fight right now. let toronto's local candidates keep up the fight in the 905.

and, frankly, i think the idea of trudeau showing up and campaigning in harper's riding is excellent theatre across the country.

2011 results - 66%.
cbc poll average - 53%

Formerlyrbfromcalgary
You're numbers vis a vis Alberta are way out. Check out ThreeHundredEight.

Their history is actually pretty good. In the few ridings where Tory support is in the thirties, those ridings can be expected to go Liberal or NDP already.

Elsewhere, not even close for the vast majority.

Absolutely no groundswell for Libbies or dippers breaking through meaningfully
in Alberta.

In fact, a reasonable chance that NDP percentage of vote will be lower than last election

deathtokoalas
i have a background in math, and trust me when i say that those models are making a lot of guesses. they use a proportional model, and they argue that it's better across the board. i think the better argument is that you need to use a mixed model, based on what you understand about the specific cases. in alberta, you don't expect rural ridings to swing much, so you want to avoid the kind of proportionality they're using, which is going to underestimate the swing by distributing it province wide. you want the opposite effect. so, if they're down 10-15 points province wide, then they're down 20-25 points in the cities, to balance out for stasis in the rural regions. that means 55-65 falls down from 30-35, to 40-45.

but, you're not really getting what i'm saying - what i'm saying is that if strategic voting groups get behind the liberals (who are clearly polling higher in calgary and most of edmonton), then getting ndp voters to support the liberals could create some serious upsets.

the models haven't been very good with the last few alberta elections, and i think this is the reason why - they take the province wide numbers and proportionally decrease them. so, 66--->53 would be a 20% decrease. they would then conclude that they're down 20% across the province. so, if they got 80% in some rural riding in 2011, they would cut them down 20%, which is 16 points, to 64. but that's likely inaccurate. they're probably still running at 80% in those rural ridings.

conversely, if they won a riding with 55%, they would take that down 20%, which is 11 points, to 44. but considering that they're running down 20%, and they're probably not down at all in the rural ridings, what you want to actually do is amplify that so that the total gets to 20%. it turns out calgary and edmonton are about half of the population of alberta. so, what you want to actually do is double it 40%.

then 55% becomes 33%, and 65% becomes 43%.

(sorry. the 55-65 is urban. to be clear.)

but don't listen to me. nobody ever does. just wait for the result to prove me right, and watch edmontonians and calgarians bang their head against the wall for splitting the vote.

Shannon Mitchell
Pardon me if I'm mistaken, but aren't you the guy who helped run the Liberal Party into the ground?

jessica amber murray 
dion was competitive. the conservatives didn't improve their vote share much; it was a redistrbution of votes on the left that cost him, and i don't think he was responsible for that. i think he would have improved his vote share had he stayed on and run in 2011. it was ignatieff that was unelectable, created an increase in conservative support and is solely responsible for nearly destroying the party.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/stephane-dion/two-sides-of-the-ndp_b_8209544.html

there's a constitutional idea in canada called the division of powers that separates provincial and federal responsibilities. it has historically led to some lengthy court battles. that firewall between provincial and federal politics is a big part of the legal framework of the country. it is the federal government's legal responsibility to *not* involve itself.

this is really just another media construction. next, we're going to be arguing about evolution because the headlines are good click bait....

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/12/greater-toronto-area-home-to-a-few-distinct-fights-in-this-election_n_8278682.html

wackado
Mulcair blew the election on the niqab issue.... now JT will gather all the orange wave in Que. ,,, Oh well

Elvislevel
Anybody have a theory of how the niqab issue hit the NDP but not the Liberals who have the same position? One theory is that the pro-racism parties picked up NDP votes in Quebec but then lost it all in the rest of Canada, where the "defending women" argument makes a lot of people want to throw up.

deathtokoalas
it's nonsense. if anything, it seems to have helped the liberals in toronto and vancouver, which the conservatives needed to win. and, the polling has not consistently demonstrated a bump for the conservatives in quebec, either. my read is that a bit of sampling error coincided with the fiasco, and the media jumped all over it like the vultures that they are.

you can explain the ndp's fall almost entirely on their collapse in quebec. they were never running much higher than 20 anywhere else, to begin with.

when people look back on this election, they're going to point to the niqab as a massive blunder, not as a brilliant tactic. it's going to cost the conservatives the election on a massive urban and suburban collapse.

it's beginning to look like they may lose every single urban seat they have outside of alberta, and even calgary and edmonton are starting to loosen up.

the ndp got a lot from the bloc in 2011, yes. but, they also got a nice ten point swing from the liberals in quebec. now, they're down that same ten points to the liberals and really only a couple to the bloc, while the conservatives have stayed roughly steady. i don't think you really need an explanation for this at all. it was just soft support, based on perceptions and other things. the biggest thing trudeau has going for him is that he's not ignatieff - and that he's a native french speaker, as well. and, everybody should have known it was going to be hard for the ndp to hold bloc support.

the media wants an easy to understand story. they want cause and effect. i don't think that's what is actually happening. i think the lead was sort of an apparition in the first place, and all that soft support is just realigning with where it really always was in the first place.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/elections/parties-take-aim-at-trudeau-as-liberals-lead-polls/article26768494/

careful...

i'm not arguing. i'm just saying: carefully, please.

the ndp is about as far down as it's going to go, out of quebec. that's mission accomplished. this is what he's gotta do, now.

it's just...

careful. please.

ipolitics.ca/2015/10/12/confident-trudeau-makes-pitch-to-conservative-voters-in-areas-held-by-rivals/

so, the deficit.

a lot of people think it's what gave trudeau a boost. and, it's likely to be a big factor in passing a budget if we end up with a liberal minority that needs ndp support. so, what's the deal with this, anyways?

the conservatives made a big stink about balancing the budget, and they're within a sort of error point. a budget is an estimate. it has a margin of error. so, you're up a billion, down a billion - it doesn't matter.

what allowed them to pull this off this year was a large sell-off of automotive shares. that goes back to the bailouts. canada actually had a substantial interest in some auto companies for a while. selling those shares brought in a lot of cash, which got them just over the hump.

but, there's another side of this: oil revenues. had oil not crashed early this year, they would have posted a substantial surplus on the back of the sell-off. but, oil crashed, and it's pulled them down to the margin of error.

now, a big part of the conservative party's messaging to it's own base is about balancing budgets. i'm very to the left on this; i don't think money is real, i'm ok with printing it, and i don't care. but, it's a big thing for conservatives that naively understand the government as needing to follow a family-style budget. there's been much written about this, i won't bother. but it doesn't really matter, so long as interest rates are at reasonable levels.

but, the fact that oil has crashed, and probably isn't coming back for a while, means that the conservatives are not going to be able to balance the budget next year, because they won't have the auto sell-off. they'll say otherwise. but, it's pretty clear.

enter the ndp. a few weeks ago, it seemed like the most likely outcome of the election was going to be a conservative minority with an ndp opposition. that would create a parliament where the ndp is waiting to pull the plug on the conservatives - and the usual way to do this would be to vote against the budget. so, they came up with this strategy of being staunchly opposed to deficits. the plan was that they could vote down the budget because of the deficit, then hopefully convince conservatives to vote for them.

so, the liberals decided that they would run deficits. now, you can analyze this a few different ways. the conventional analysis is that it was to position themselves left of the ndp, and it may have some truth to it - i'm certainly more in favour of that. but, it may have also been because they realized there was going to be a deficit due to oil sales, and they wanted to give themselves a little bit of room to not automatically vote against the budget. last month, it would have been reasonable to conclude that a snap election on the ndp rejecting the budget could have hurt them pretty badly.

so, the key thing to understand is that this is all about the next budget. the ndp are trying to create a situation where they can vote against it on terms favourable to conservative voters that they'd like to swing, and the liberals are trying to position themselves in a way that they're not forced into a second election that, relative to polling last month, could have been a disaster for them.

which is not to say that the liberals are being disingenuous, it's more to point out that the logic is something along the lines of "if we're going to run a deficit anyways, let's not set ourselves up to get nailed when we do, and let's get some infrastructure done that needs to be built anyways.". the liberals are very pragmatic, always have been.

so, now, weeks later, the polls have changed dramatically, with the ndp falling to a distant third and the liberals in possible reach of a majority. the most likely scenario at this point appears to be a liberal minority that will need ndp support to survive.

we're going to have a deficit anyways because of the oil; it's not just because of the spending, this is unpreventable - even if you think it matters. but, the ndp have painted themselves into a corner, where it's going to be very hard for them to support the liberals, even if they want to - or, indeed, feel they need to. the situation may even be reversed - trudeau could see himself want to push for an election to try and get a majority.

there's a twist: mulcair is actually probably going to lose his seat. he's actually running in pierre trudeau's old riding. when liberal support in montreal goes up, outremont goes liberal. it's like gravity. he's just in the wrong riding.

if he loses, the situation changes.

but, if he wins then prepare yourself for this.

the media is pushing this idea that the ndp and liberals are the same, and they'll have a "coalition" and it's all rosy and they'll get along just fine. the reality is almost the exact opposite: the ndp have set this up on purpose, and unless the leadership changes you should not expect the liberals to be able to pass a budget. we will have another election within a year.

the way out is a liberal majority. but, it's hard to see how that might be possible without some kind of a tectonic shift in quebec, or very extreme strategic voting in edmonton and calgary.

so, that's what is with the deficit. oil prices make a surplus impossible. the conservatives will run a deficit next year. the liberals will run a deficit next year. and, if the ndp somehow manages to win, they're going to run a deficit, too. but, if the liberals do not get a majority, and mulcair remains leader of the ndp until that point, you can bet a hefty sum that the budget will be unable to pass, because of that deficit.