i actually don't think it's the gta that's going to be key. the conservatives probably have a better shot of winning in brampton than they do in brantford, and that may actually be long term due to demographics. i'm not writing them off in brampton, i just think the numbers will be closer there at the end of the night than elsewhere.

i actually think it's going to be the 519, around the western edges of toronto. these are huge swings that your model can't pick up. mainstreet seems to have picked this up today, putting the conservatives in the 40s but competitive in toronto, suggesting the biggest swings are not in the gta but in southwestern ontario - and i have to presume he means the swath of territory that the wynne liberals managed to win in 2014 (and you can see on a map), rather than windsor or sarnia. this is the growing metropolitan area of guelph-waterloo-kitchener-cambridge-brantford. i dunno. call it west toronto or something. it's not normally considered the gta, but it maybe should start being thought of as a part of some kind of megacity centered on toronto. i hitch-hiked through there a few years ago, and it seemed to be me like i didn't really get out of the gta until i was heading towards london.

all data i can piece together seems like this is where the bulk of the swing actually is, and that it is a dramatic and (seemingly, though not really - it's just mirroring the last provincial election) unpredictable swing that you just can't pick up with what you're doing.

he also seemed to suggest the liberals were ahead in the north and the 613. but, that would be gravy - it would be the majority. it's those small cities west of toronto that win the liberals the election.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-gta-oct18-1.3276166

funstuf
oh you mean where the PC volunteers where illegally tearing down the NDP and Liberal signs?? lol NO chance, anyone with a brain is voting ABC in GTA, cons are good with the all rural areas where there are very few minorities, but GTA has a lot of seats and mostly going red, bye bye con crooks and liars!

jessica murray
i'm not suggesting that the conservatives will win in brampton. i'm just pointing out that they could very well poll close to 40 in a two-way race, and they probably won't get close to that in other places where the models put them comfortably ahead.

i'm a little concerned that there are some areas in toronto that are tuning out the rest of the country, and are maybe less voting against what's happening around them and more legitimately unaware of what is really happening around them. they may be reliant on local media in their own language that has very strong conservative biases, for cultural reasons. what that suggests is a large number of ideological voters that are practically impossible to convince, and simply don't swing.

it remains to be seen how the demographics balance themselves out. we've historically had urban policies that seek to prevent the local concentration of specific minorities at such large levels, and should maybe consider dusting some of those ideas off.

but, for now, it creates the potential of a stronger conservative base than exists elsewhere in urban ontario.

we'll find out on monday night.

in terms of numbers, what i'm getting at could be summed up by suggesting that the conservatives will likely do better in brampton than they do in the province, overall; if they get 31-33 province wide, as is suggested, you should expect higher than that in brampton - mid to high 30s.

these results are only different from the consensus in quebec and bc. in both cases, ekos is polling the conservatives much higher and the liberals much lower. it happens to be that these are also the places that have three or four way races.

passive consumers need to understand that pollsters don’t just collect opinions and send them out. they modify the results to fit the census, and there’s some interpretation in the process. that could be a part of the difference you’re seeing.

i’m also not sure that the blended sample is the best idea, because of the way that undecideds are being measured. and, i’d kind of argue against unlike aggregates for the same reason. aggregate live interview with live interview, and ivr with ivr, but don’t aggregate online samples with ivr and live interviews. if the ivr is truly measuring undecideds in such a way that reduces the sample size and inflates the conservatives, and you take more ivr in the sample, than you would expect inflated conservative numbers in the end result.

it’s not enough to do the “one of these things is not like the others” skit and rule ekos out. but, i think this experiment with ivr and live interviewer is maybe pulling out a bit of a bias, and destroying the ability to adjust for it by mixing the data up. that, i think, is a methodological flaw.

www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2015/10/and-the-winner-is-we-dont-know/#comment-59737

i just want to add that the actual results of the mainstreet poll are

lib 34
con 30
ndp 19
und 10

and, once again, you see the relationship that shows up with this “dithering progressive” effect over ivr, and it’s subsequent inflation of the conservatives due to a decrease in sample space. and, it again absolutely nails the conservatives at a 30% flatline, which has been true for months and months.

--

angus reid is also an online panel.

the shy tory effect is bunk. but, we seem to be seeing a “dithering progressive” effect in the ivrs – it is absolutely consistent.

i can just imagine my physics profs trying to understand deerhoof.

"panda...panda..panda....pan...what is this, a poisson distribution?"

there's some tonal drones back there; there was an opportunity for some weird harmonies.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCinQSeEtF0vSN1XVhQGfwKA

so, i'm launching a vlog...

in fact, i wish i had launched this three or four years ago. it could have caught me hitch-hiking, or maybe caught a few things from occupy.

vlogs are largely trivial. it's what a vlog is. sometimes, you'll have to watch me make spaghetti or something. but, i go for long walks, too - routinely. not just in windsor, but also in detroit. concerts. recording. overall, i'm probably considerably more exciting than you or most people you know are, even if i'm essentially always by myself.

what i'm thinking is that it might act as a reasonable front-end for the music production. i was using the comment system to great effect for a while, but youtube then went and changed the way the system works in such a way that it almost seems designed to explicitly prevent me from doing what i was doing. they sell ads, right? if i'm using the comment system for free advertising, i'm breaking their model. so, they've done several things - i could list 5 or 6 - to make it harder for people like me to do what i was doing. i got a little touch of exposure, anyways - enough to make me think restrategizing is worthwhile. but, it's clear that they've broken what i was doing. they've crashed me from 200 hits/day to 10 hits/day.

this seems to be a better advertising strategy for right now. we'll see how it goes.

i bought a $50 camera from best buy. it should be here in five or six days. expect this to launch saturday; i'll be posting daily updates here, as well.

yeah.

i just ordered this cheap little guy:

i'd normally go and pick it up because shipping is half the price of the object, but this looks like it's last gen - that they're trying to get rid of it, really - and so it's free shipping.

the key point is it's cheap. but, it's also waterproof, which is....i'm not going to go swimming with it, but i don't want to worry about it in the rain, either.

the actual truth is that i'm really not well-versed in the language of megapixels and digital video. i'm going to guess that the differences in video quality past a certain point are largely trivial. and, you know, i don't know how long i'm going to do this for. i'm not expecting pristine quality, but i'm maybe not requiring it just quite yet, either. i'm sure it'll be fine - or better than fine, really.

i've got plenty of rechargeable batteries, although i'll have to experiment with how much power the device uses. i'll have to figure out how much storage i'm going to need for an average ten hour adventure and get the right sized sd card, as well. i suspect my old 2 gb card for pictures is too small.

the actual reality is that this device was probably ten times the price ten years ago. this is how i operate with technology - i wait, i get the last gen when it's falling into obsolescence and then i actually use it to it's potential. i'm lucky enough to be living through the period where technology is plateauing, allowing for what is truly high end technology to sell for basically nothing, in order to drive the market. i actually probably fluked out on that.

should be here by friday.

yeah. decided. if i can find a usable camera for under $100.

i'm thinking about starting a vlog.

all the popular vlogs are families. it's great and everything, from a certain perspective, i guess. i think i have something a bit more unique to offer - single transgender canadian that is a total loner and is right on the us border and that is often on foot, heads to concerts, etc.

i guess a lot of it is going to be kind of trivial, but it's what a vlog is, right? a lot of it it's going to be me walking around by myself and talking into the mic.

i think there's some other upsides to it. i would be comfortable monetizing a vlog channel, for example - i won't monetize the music channel. it could maybe create exposure for the music, and possibly even income.

i'm sort of wishing i'd vlogged some of the more erratic moments of the last three or four years. hitch-hiking from ottawa to windsor, through toronto, would be great to have on tape; i tried to document it through writing, but it only gets you so far. and i'm sure i'll have more than a few more crazy moments.

in fact, i suspect halloween could be a bit of a ride, with deafhaven early and probably hitting a rave later. it's going to depend on the weather, though - i'm not floating around detroit all night if it's snowing.

the error he's making is thinking that harper is going to be replaced by a moderate. harper probably actually *will* step down mid mandate - he's suggested as much.

but, all evidence suggests that jason kenney is the overwhelming favourite to replace him, and he makes harper seem downright liberal, in comparison. voting for the party is going to throw us into a war over abortion and capital punishment.

i know that's not what he wants. he's just lost in a fantasy reality, where some old tory can mount a comeback, get the reformers under control and sail back towards the policies of clark & mulroney.

first, it's clear that the neither the numbers nor the candidates exist. who is his phantom candidate? the harris tories that were brought on are really just as awful. is he going to bring jean charest back? or joe clark, himself? danny williams? there's no obvious candidate.

but, if it somehow happens? then the west starts another party. there's been rumbling for years that harper is too left wing. i'm not making that up.

he's disenfranchised. he's not a liberal, and doesn't want to be. that's fine. i'm not a liberal, and don't want to be either - although i'm on the other side of the spectrum. i get that. i get not wanting to vote for the bloody liberals, yet again, and taking the awful with the mediocre because there's not a better choice. but what he's projecting doesn't exist.

the ndp tried to park themselves in this space, but it didn't get the traction. if they stay there (and i hope they don't...), it might get some traction in the next election.

for now, what it reflects is the disenfranchisement of old tory canada, and it's difficulty coming to terms with what the real options are.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-globe-harper-endorsement-reaction-1.3275224

peppypoo
The PM is not going anyway, he will win a majority government hands down. The National press finally has woken from their dreams and has now seen that Justin & the liberal party are the same old rotten corrupt party they have always been, new face same old bunch of hacks running it.

jessica murray
right.

listen: they're all corrupt.

people need to vote on policies, and expect corruption from all of them.

Alan Cane
My conclusion? Liberal voters are weak.

jessica murray
CONSERVATIVE VOTERS STRONG LIKE BEAR.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-polls-oct16-1.3273313

we've been brainwashed by conservative "Strong Leader" propaganda for so long that we've forgotten that we live in a parliamentary system, where the prime minister is meant to be first amongst equals.

i'm personally very excited about the potential of devolution of power out of the prime minister's office and back where it belongs: in cabinet.

the prime minister is not meant to be an authoritarian leader. the prime minister is meant to be a dignitary - a figurehead. a pretty face to rile up the masses, and allow a party to govern.

it's about time. and i hope to the god i don't believe in that this is the last we ever hear of "Strong Leadership".

www.huffingtonpost.ca/g-elijah-dann/justin-isnt-ready_b_8288558.html

"Right now, there are five Canadians working for every retiree and that's going to fall by almost half to 2.7 by 2030. "

and, if you look at net wealth, you see that the average baby boomer is worth two to three times that of the average gen xer.

the reality is that the boomers have all the wealth. part of understanding the generational shift is understanding the shifts in wealth. the image of the impoverished pensioner that developed in the 80s and 90s was largely a consequence of the boomers taking over their parents' wealth, and then not giving any back; now, when they reach that age themselves, they will hoard it as long as they can, and refuse to pass it down.

the way to care for the boomers is to tax the boomers. tobin taxes are probably the best option. and, they should really remove tax breaks like income splitting, too. when you look at hard numbers with a sober mindset, you'll see that there really isn't a problem at all - except that they're not paying their share, and truly never have.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/13/national-seniors-strategy-canada-election-eldercare_n_8260078.html

well, i'm not going to pretend i'm a fan of this, but at least it's a bit more tasteful than the softcore porn that defines most pop music nowadays. hopefully, it kickstarts a trend for some of these young girls to focus more on their voice and less on their bodies.

if you were to do that to my computer, i would sneak into your house at night, get your password out of your temp files, go home, log into your account, change your password, delete all your videos and upload episodes of fawlty towers on an hourly basis, until i run out - when i would then block all your subscribers.

well, this reeks of desperation.

her riding is generally considered safe. it says a lot about the internal polling she's doing.

there hasn't been much media coverage of this the last few months. and, there's not really a lot of "ins" that the liberals have in rural ontario to work with. i was thinking about internet access - which the liberals should really seriously consider, as a way to open isolated communities up to the outside world. but, i could see how home mail delivery might be considered sort of substantial, if you live in a farm in the middle of nowhere.

i wonder how applicable that is elsewhere....

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-cheryl-gallant-s-claim-she-ll-save-canada-post-raises-ire-of-postal-workers-1.3272916

i would take any predictions in quebec at this point with a grain of salt. we're going to be seeing splits and upsets all over the place in ways the models are not robust enough to pull out.

but, as far as i can tell, there's really not any reason to think the conservative or bloc totals will be significantly different than they were in 2011. a point or two one way or the other.

the only big movement seems to be somewhere between a ten and a fifteen point swing from the ndp to the liberals. this will help the liberals in montreal, and the odd riding outside it. it may also help the conservatives in a seat or two around quebec city. but it's going to help the bloc dramatically, even if they only manage to get what they got last time.

the forum poll released this morning should raise some eyebrows, in it's projection of 19 seats for the bloc. that's way higher than anybody else (except me) has suggested. i'm going to expect between 10-30.

the reason is that the movement from ndp--->liberals is going to open up a lot of seats for the bloc, even with the bloc staying put or even being down a little. something that got lost in the shuffle of the ndp pulling in bloc support was that the ndp also got a hefty ten point swing from the liberals. there were a lot of close ndp-bloc races. you take away that ten point liberal swing, or even increase the reversal to 15, and these ndp seats start melting away into the st. lawerence, mostly in favour of the bloc.

the models will have a hard time with this. but, with that 10-15 point swing from the ndp to the liberals, all the bloc need to do is run somewhere in the low 20s to win a substantial number of seats back. 19 is probably about right, in terms of what to expect.

and, i'll say this again - with the liberals running ahead of the ndp now, apparently, it's hard to see how the ndp win outremont, which is mulcair's seat.

the cbc model has a clause in it that gives party leaders an advantage. it's the kind of thing that's probably true, most of the time. but outremont is one of the most liberal seats in the country. and, mulcair was of course a quebec liberal cabinet minister - which likely is a big part of the reason he was able to win the riding in the first place.

now that the dust has settled, and the liberals are in reach of a strong minority or even a majority, it seems obvious that outremont should swing, party leader or not.

and that's going to have a big effect on how the parliament operates, in the case of a liberal minority.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-quebec-split-michelle-gagnon-1.3272915

Mo
harper surging in quebec? somebody's got their hat on too tight!

jessica murray
there was a blip in the polls about the same time that the niqab thing came up. it didn't sustain itself. it was probably just sampling error.

but, it's a good lesson in two truths:

1) day-to-day polling can be erratic.
2) you can't trust the media to interpret polls.

i would have actually expected advance voters to support the conservatives in much higher numbers, because they have the highest number of decided & dedicated voters. the average conservative voter made up their mind months or years before the writ dropped. the election isn’t a period of contemplation, for the bulk of them. i would have expected something more like 45%. so, those are actually relatively good numbers for the liberals in the advance polls.

in a sense, polling the advance voters does the same thing that removing very high numbers of undecideds does. when you reduce the sample space to dedicated decideds, the conservatives invariably get the highest numbers.

to put it another way: if the liberals were clearly ahead in the advance polls (remember that there’s margins here…it’s a statistical tie), even by a point beyond the margin, you’d expect them to be on their way to a a huge majority. that would demonstrate endemic apathy in the conservative base, which you expect to dominate advance polls because they’re not deliberating anything. these numbers, as they are, suggest some pretty low levels of enthusiasm for the conservatives in their base. you may see the situation reversed (as it was in the 2014 ontario election); it may be the conservatives that end up with some turnout problems.

i mean, that’s just unusually low for a party that continually polls 75+ in terms of dedicated voter support. what are they waiting for? why *didn’t* they vote in greater numbers in advance polls?

www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2015/10/stalemate-continues

so, that means there's a baseball game on election day, right?

*sigh*

can we sue the team for breaking the social contract? hold them liable for gross negligence? there should be some kind of rule against this. they should have to put the game off a day.

if we're lucky, it's just going to siphon out the rob ford voters. but, i hope it's not a turnout issue.

www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/blue-jays-bautista-batflip-meme-1.3273814

Eric Haskins
Right...it's the team's fault. Grow up.

jessica murray
because politics are childish and baseball is grown up. right.

they have the option to forfeit the game - and i'd argue that this is the socially responsible thing to do. it would send a powerful message. but, perhaps more realistically, i think the league has a very strong responsibility to step in and postpone the game for 24 hours. and, i would suggest that they should be viewed in a very poor light if they decide to go ahead with it.

elections are important social events that truly matter to adults; childish and silly things like baseball games, that do not matter, should never be scheduled in a way that interferes with important social events like elections. and, i would argue quite honestly that the league and the team have some responsibility for gross negligence in distracting people from things of importance, and should be held liable for it.

it was certainly tongue in cheek, but i also did certainly mean it.

the tort doesn't actually exist. i would lose the case. i'd love to argue it, though.

i've been over this before. they expect me to show up dressed like a prostitute. and i think a part of it may be trying to get them to understand that i'm 35 years old. i don't look it. i get that. but the truth is that i'm old, and i dress like i'm old, which is to be expected. i don't have any patience with this "35 is the new 25" stuff, and this refusal to grow up. i don't want to be 25. i'm happy to be out of that headspace. i don't want to walk into a doctor's office and be analyzed like a piece of meat.

it's dehumanizing.

these doctors - they're creepy old men. i'd mostly rather they didn't touch me at all, kind of thing. to have them evaluate your gender based on whether they find you attractive is - there's something wrong with this. it's like, "i'm wearing a sweater because i don't want your creepy ass ogling me, you sonofabitch.".

they honestly seem to expect me to walk in in fishnets and heels and laugh provocatively when they speak. it's really disgusting.

it's this base archetype of patriarchally enforced "femininity" that they want reflected back at them.

i had one ask "what are you, some kind of lesbian?".

like as though that might disqualify me, if it were true. (i'm asexual. just no interest in sex.)

i had another frown and clearly write me off when i claimed i was a feminist. as though transwomen being feminists is some kind of contradiction, and disqualifying.

it's 2015, guys. i know you're in your 60s. but, you could try to keep up just a little.

that week just zoomed by...

i've had some running around to do with doctors. again. they're such assholes. and often surprisingly averse to evidence-based reasoning, in favour of rigidity to strict protocol. you'd think you're dealing with the military half the time...

they've got me in this ridiculous loop. the same people that just rediagnosed me with gender dysphoria want me to go through a training program in toronto for people that have yet been diagnosed. this is ridiculous; i could be teaching the program. but, i'd do it if it's a day program and there's an easy end to it. but, it's a months long program with a year long waiting list. and, here's the bizarre part: there's an open letter on their web page requesting that doctors do not send people through this program and just assign hormones themselves.

so, they won't represcribe until they send me through a program that is telling them to go ahead and prescribe already. it's just rigidity to a set of protocols, oblivious of anything resembling independent thought or adherence to logic.

you can imagine a far side cartoon at a school for the gifted with a star on the floor beside a christmas tree and a child frowning - because there's no instruction manual.

so, i'm calling more doctors. and more doctors. until i can find one with some common fucking sense. surely, it's inevitable, right?

i mean, it's not an option to go off hormones. i can't detransition. i'm already done. i'd sooner kill myself than put myself in that kind of state. and, if i do, it will be in their front office.

i've got some things done, though, and am ready to sit down for a few days.

i'm going to take a shower this afternoon and should hopefully get some more troubleshooting in tonight.

sampling frames / area codes

To: nnanos@nanosresearch.com, fgraves@ekos.com, lbozinoff@forumresearch.com

hi.

i don't think it's going to require much of an argument from me to have you acknowledge that provincial wide data isn't very useful to plug into riding modelling the way it's being done; the idea that a swing in vancouver might be felt in kelowna, or that a swing in montreal might be felt in sherbrooke, is not really well thought out. canadian provinces are big and diverse and often have two or three proper sample frames, as opposed to american states, which are mostly small and get away with one, or maybe two if you're being really rigorous. if people doing models are to create systems that are robust enough to handle the massive and unpredictable swings we're seeing in this election, they're going to need more targeted sample frames to begin with.

but, you don't model; you poll. maybe, if a few of you might want to think about modelling, we could get some better sample frames.

for right now, i know you're focused on what you're doing. but, releasing data organized by area code would probably be a five minute job, right? organize by area code. print. done...

in lieu of better sample frames for the models, maybe it might help people understand things a little bit better, so they're not being led astray by models that are operating well beyond the assumptions they were constructed with.

j

lol. you old progressive conservatives, you...lost in the past. you're endorsing mulroney, guys. that was a long time ago. hopefully, the generational change in media follows the generational change in governance. it's long overdue.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/the-tories-deserve-another-mandate-stephen-harper-doesnt/article26842506/

wow. this struck a chord. ahaha.

again: it's easy to understand.

the media establishment in canada is run by upper class old tories that are in their 60s and 70s. old people. old money. old stock, even. they've been living in denial since the merger, just waiting for their old party to come back. and, when they vote for harper, they are not really voting for harper - they are voting for mulroney and clark and stanfield.

but, that party doesn't exist anymore.

maybe, if they go out and try really hard, they can find a way to recreate their old party, which now only exists in their own faded memories. but, this endorsement is putting the cart before the horse. and, it's only through their disconnect from reality, their projected fantasies, that they don't see how obvious that is.

if you want your pcs back, you do this:

1) you vote against the conservatives, however feels best to you. for the liberals. for the ndp. for the greens. or not at all.
2) then you get your candidate into the convention, and you get them to beat kenney. good luck on that, though - because the west of the country completely disagrees with you, and is going to support kenney.

i don't mean to be crass. i really don't. well, i'm known to be crass rather often, but i don't mean to be crass just right now.

this is a matter of an out of touch generation passing away. and, when that happens, things change - because these memories of stanfield and clark pass along with them.

then, we can get back to living in the present.

just one more reason to hope that retirement age gets pushed back to 65.

we need to get the progressive conservatives out of the media. it's really important. they don't exist. they haven't existed for a generation. we need perspectives rooted in the existing spectrum, not the spectrum of the 1980s.

kenney will win the convention on his stellar anti-abortion credentials. then, what are you going to do? keep plugging? keep hoping? keep waiting for it to turn around?

this doesn't happen.

meanwhile, the age required to remember the pcs increases. in 2019, it will be 31 years since 1988. which means, you'd need to be in your 50s to be old enough to remember voting pc.

there are not one but two generations of voters with no understanding of the term "progressive conservative" as anything beyond a bizarre oxymoron.

this past needs to be let go. most of the country has done so. the media is trailing far behind.

even if the fantasy that you can elect the conservatives and ditch harper is somehow plausible, what's in the pipeline, so to speak, is much more divisive - much more socially conservative, much more combative, much more regressive.

it's willful blindness and total delusion to see the future of the conservative party differently.

OgtheDim
Except they do exist all over the country and would be quite willing to vote for somebody unlike Kenny.

deathtokoalas
please. it's very clear that he wins the next convention. remember: the reform party was primarily created as a response to mulroney's non-reaction to morgantaler. that's what the base is all about. it's the number one driver of donations. it's the single greatest issue that drives new tory voters. not the economy. not security. not tough on crime. abortion.

just because old tories refuse to see this, or adjust to it, doesn't mean the facts aren't as they are.

you're not going to see a moderate replacement. harper IS the moderate. or the closest thing to one...

---

well, my golden retriever can catch better than stanfield. i don't know who even gets that anymore, besides the globe staff.

if you're in calgary or edmonton, or red deer, you can get a good guess of where conservative support is by taking their 2011 number and multiplying it by 0.6. i've been over the details elsewhere. this is the short answer.

so, if your candidate got 65% in 2011, you can guess where they're at now by calculating 65*.6 = 39.

there are a lot of seats in play. 75*.6 = 45.

i can't tell you who's leading in any specific riding. but if you're in edmonton or calgary, and you want to vote against the conservatives, you're being given a chance to have your vote count that you may never see again, if you don't wipe them out. and, i think you *can* wipe them out this time. even kenney. even harper.

don't squander it.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/15/calgary-confederation-riding_n_8299638.html

Shana Proulx
you can also check the riding by riding predictions at threehundredeight.com for an idea of who is best positioned to beat Harper in your riding.

jessica amber murray
no!

that model is not going to work well this election, as it bases support on the previous election and distributes it uniformly. that's the long version.

one example is edmonton centre. the liberals performed higher there in 2011, so the models suggest the liberals are ahead. but riding polls suggest it's a two-way race between the conservatives and ndp.

if you follow the models, it will produce vote splitting.

consult riding polls if you can find them. do not rely on models - they are going to be very flawed, this time around, because we're seeing massive, unpredictable swings almost everywhere.

i've sent emails to leadnow to get more riding polls in calgary and edmonton. i hope they do it. it could be the difference between albertans taking advantage of the election of a generation, or them banging their heads against the wall for the next fifty years.

there are riding polls here.

but be careful of dates; don't take anything done before oct 1 seriously, and take the newest ones the most seriously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_in_the_Canadian_federal_election,_2015_by_constituency#Alberta

Steve Furr
And therein lies the problem with strategic voting -- ppl can't even agree on the proper strategy. Heck, they don't even understand the data they are relying on so casually.

The riding model from three hundred and eight does NOT base support on the previous election and distribute it uniformly --- whatever that's supposed to mean.

The model uses a proportional swing to adjust the previous election's results by the difference in each party's regional polling results from their proportion of the vote from the last election. They then further adjust by factors for incumbency, star candidates, etc.

Hard to say that local riding polls are better. In order for strategic voting to work, you have to have a threshold (lead) for the CPC that can be overcome by strategic voters shifting allegiances. In many / most cases, this will be a three-way race.

There's no way a local riding poll with a small sample (<500) is going to give you a reasonable enough margin of error to correctly guess (in a distributed thinking fashion) who to shift from or to. This is compounded by the relative infrequency in which local riding polls are conducted, meaning they won't often track momentum effectively.

If I had to choose, I'd probably go by 308. I hope it's not a sucker's game.

If you are fortunate enough to live in a riding where there's a clear two-way race between the CPC and Libs or NDP (say, when 308, tooclosetocall and riding polls all agree), then by all means make sure you vote for the second place candidate. If not, good luck strategic voting.

.. and if you live in the Lower Mainland and you're looking at a poll that's more than a week old? Forget it. The momentum shift in regional polls, exceeds anything local riding results were likely to tell you. Ditto Ontario. At least in AB, you're likely to see something more stable (Lib in Calgary; NDP in Edmonton).

jessica amber murray
"The model uses a proportional swing to adjust the previous election's results by the difference in each party's regional polling results from their proportion of the vote from the last election. They then further adjust by factors for incumbency, star candidates, etc."

it uses a uniform proportional swing as a base, adds it to the last election's results and then makes things up regarding incumbency and "star candidates".

i'm going to ignore the making things up part, because it's just making things up, and focus on the parts that i can argue are poor modelling.

first, i will again point you to edmonton centre. the reason the models have the liberals ahead there is simply because they polled higher than the ndp in 2011. is that a reasonable assumption? it can be sometimes. but a model like this would be unable to predict a situation where the liberals are up province wide, and you have a swing from the liberals to the ndp in a specific riding. i want to be clear: i'm not saying it would have a hard time predicting this. it would be unable to predict this. ever.

he might argue it's unlikely. but in a situation like alberta, it really isn't. the conservatives are dominant. historically, the liberal and ndp votes have swung around all over the place. it is never a good idea to try and guess existing support for the ndp or liberals based on previous support in calgary or edmonton. there is too much volatility. the model requires stability, which does not exist there.

now, we need to be clear on the next point: there is no serious debate over whether modelling is preferable to direct riding polling. direct riding polling is always preferable. there are no exceptions to this. experiments are always preferable to theories. and, when experiments contradict theories, we conclude that the theories are wrong. the polling that puts the ndp ahead in the riding proves that the model is not working. it's not a debate. it's hard evidence v. a guess. this is clear, settled and beyond question.

the second problem is the uniformity of the proportional swing. i know that may be confusing to you. uniform proportional? you thought it was proportional, not uniform. it's not proportional in the sense of how it distributes, it's proportional in the sense of how it measures. it's uniform in how it distributes. so, i'll explain by example.

the conservatives are down 13 points in alberta, roughly, according to a few models. they were at 66 last election. they're at 53 this election. so, if you were naive, you could say they're down 13 points in every riding. but, that would mean they'd be down proportionally more in some ridings, and it's probably not true. when he says he's using proportionality what he means to say is that he wants to calculate what proportion of 66 that 13 is. it's about 20%. so that's the proportional part. i'm in support of this aspect of the model.

but, then he goes and says that they're down 20% in EVERY riding. that's the uniform part, and what i meant when i said it's distributed uniformly. is that a reasonable assumption?

in alberta, i claim it is not. the reason is that rural alberta never changes. if you look over the last hundred years, they always win by huge margins. 70. 80. it doesn't change. there is essentially no variability in rural alberta.

however, there is a reasonable amount of variability in calgary and edmonton. it doesn't always lead to the conservatives losing a seat. but they do from time to time.

so, given that there is no variability in rural alberta, and some variability in urban alberta, i would argue that the proportional swing should not be distributed uniformly, but proportionally to where the variability is - calgary and edmonton.

there's not any algebra required, because calgary and edmonton are, together, half the population of alberta. it's easy to calculate that a 40% swing in calgary and edmonton, combined with a 0% swing in the rural areas, adds up to a 20% swing province wide.

this is how i calculated that you can guess that they're at about 60% of where they were. and, this is verified through consulting multiple recently conducted riding polls in edmonton mills, edmonton centre and elsewhere. we need more in calgary, especially.

but, because there is historically so much volatility between the liberals and ndp, it is not a good idea to assume that the beneficiary will be the same as the second-place finisher in 2011.

we need riding polls to determine that.

in summary, if you want to use a model, you need to make assumptions. and, the outcome of the model is only as good as the assumptions are. in an election with small swings that are predictable, the models being used would be roughly accurate. however, this is an election with very large swings that are very unpredictable. and, by definition, the model will be unable to get much of it right.

the people pushing these models should not be surprised by this, and if they come out next week and offer shock at the poor performance of their models, it will only serve to demonstrate that they do not truly understand them. they should be coming out and explaining that the assumptions required for their models to work are not present, and that they expect their models to perform poorly. that admission, before hand, would save their credibility.

fwiw, i took the bare statistics requirements when i was completing my bachelor of mathematics, and focused mostly on computer mathematics when i was studying at the graduate level. my focus was on what is called pure mathematics - abstract algebra, and what calculus turns into once you get past a certain level.

another way to think of this is that if both parties are starting off under 25%, or even under 20%, it is not reasonable to assume that the one with the higher vote share has a significantly greater chance of taking advantage of a decrease in support for the incumbent. that is, because they both have a long way to go from a point of relative obscurity, it is never going to be clear which one is actually moving until the riding can be measured directly. a more complex model would need to play off these probabilities, and then argue there's a 34% chance the liberals are ahead, a 31% chance the ndp is ahead and a 35% chance the vote is split - or whatever the numbers say. but, then you can see that it's not so useful, is it?

so, i will reiterate: we can conclude the conservatives are likely down substantially in the urban ridings, and ballpark it to about 60%. we cannot use modelling techniques to reasonably suggest who is benefiting. this must be measured directly.

as it is, we have riding polls that suggest that the model is performing poorly - which should be expected in this election, if you really understand how it works.

strategic voters need to consult riding polls, please.

so, as an aside, what's the best way to do this, then? well, i think that the key is how the data is organized. we organize by provinces, which ignores the fact that provincial boundaries really aren't cultural boundaries, and it simply doesn't distribute well.

rather, i might suggest creating new categories.

1) western bc
2) vancouver / lower mainland
3) eastern bc / rural alberta / rural saskatchewan / rural manitoba
4) calgary-edmonton-regina-saskatoon-winnipeg [or maybe even cut that up a little]
5) northern ontario
6) southern & eastern rural ontario
7) southern & eastern urban ontario
8) western quebec [including gatineau & montreal]
9) eastern/southern quebec
10) maritimes

same number of categories, actually. but, it would increase accuracy dramatically.

Rachelle F.
I am staying with the NDP until the very end. Trudeau is basically the same thing as Harper, especially after it came to light that his manager was in bed with big oil.

As for the strategic voting, nobody will tell me how to vote. I am a woman who knows her mind, and there is not a chance that I will compromise my principles and vote for a leader who also supports Bill C-51, oil companies, TPP and Keyston XL Pipeline (Justin Trudeau).

The media is no longer giving Tom any airtime, they are clearly in support of Trudeau.

Vote NDP for real change.

deathtokoalas
i’m not sure this is the right place for this, but if you’re voting against oil you might want to consider voting for the greens. the unions are very invested in the east-west pipeline. and the ndp platform is built around the idea of taxing oil to pay for services.

i wish the liberals were a bit less gung-ho on the tar sands. but, they seem to have their head around the idea of transition a little bit better. the ndp aren’t talking about putting billions down on transition infrastructure.

in the end, we’re going to be talking in theoreticals because only one party can govern. but the reality is that neither party is going to bite the oil industry. and, in that context, i’d rather put my vote towards building infrastructure that can replace the carbon economy, and then worry about shutting down the export market once we have that in place.

but, we’re going to have to fight the pipelines in court. all three parties support one pipeline or the other.

it’s just that you don’t tax oil to pay for services if you’re serious about reducing carbon. that puts you in a fiscal position where you’re reliant on oil revenue. which is the situation we’re in now. it’s just this huge contradiction. and, if you watched the debates, the argument from both the liberals and ndp is that the conservatives weren’t building the pipeline fast enough – and how they would both do more to build the pipelines faster. it’s cynical, but it may be the case that an environmentalist might want to vote conservative, because at least we can count on them mismanaging the whole thing to the point that nothing gets accomplished.

there’s not a good option here. there’s the greens. but, i mean, look at where they’re polling.

and, it’s kind of the same thing with the tpp. at least we all expect the liberals to support the tpp – they support most trade agreements. but, then we had the ndp initially come out in support of it, and then flip on it in ways that allow them to flip back. i mean, they’re arguing about supply management. the supply management part really doesn’t seem that bad. i wouldn’t expect mulcair to reject the deal on a 3% market access to dairy products, and i think he’s asking a lot from people to believe him on that point. there was a time when the ndp would argue against the chapter 11 style clauses – the investor rights agreements. that was the basis of opposition to it for decades. but, you won’t hear mulcair criticize this. and, the sum of it makes me skeptical about whether he’s actually opposed to it. i would expect the ndp to support the tpp. i see every reason to think the greens are legitimately opposed to it. but, again – look at the polls.

it’s something that seems like it should be an issue, but the ndp is not taking the positions you would expect them to take. and it’s maybe not such a good idea to vote for them on phantom projections that they’re not actually articulating.

and, this is the problem they’ve created with so many people on the left. i’m to the left of both the liberals and the ndp. i’m to the left of the greens, even. but, in an attempt to park themselves in the centre, they’ve negated all the reasons i may have seen them as preferable to the liberals. nor have the liberals really steered that far away from where they normally are; there’s nothing in their platform that i wouldn’t have expected from a dion or even a martin government. but, in comparison, it just seems a lot more progressive in comparison – without really being particularly progressive.

people are going to look back at what mulcair has done here as a textbook case of what not to do. but, it’s ironic. because he’s following what people would claim is conventional wisdom – position yourself in the centre.

what we’re learning is that the centre isn’t where the pundits have placed it. it’s somewhere well to the left.

i do hope the ndp right themselves. but, they’re going to need a change of leadership that is willing to abide by their own conventions before i’m willing to again take them seriously as a more progressive alternative to the liberals.

the truth is trudeau’s got a gift here. and i hope he doesn’t blow the opportunity.

www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2015/10/marginally-significant-narrowing-of-liberal-lead/

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Cre47
EKOS has to be the most inconsistent pollster so far this campaign (or maybe tied with Mainstreet). Everybody follows the same trend meaning the gap increases, but EKOS goes with those wild fluctuations. I’m starting to wonder if the IVR method is garbage. All the IVR pollsters have those wild fluctuations throughout the campaign, while the online and telephone pollsters have been more consistent especially Ipsos, Nanos and Leger.

deathtokoalas
what i’ve noticed is that the only thing that seriously correlates with the conservatives is the undecideds. when undecideds go up, the sample size decreases and the conservatives go up. when the undecideds go down, the sample size increases and the conservatives go down. what that means is that a lot of the fluctuations you’re seeing in a lot of the results is misleading – the conservatives have been pretty much flat at 30 (+/- a reasonable error) for months, whereas undecideds have been wavering all over the place between the ndp and the liberals, and increasingly choosing the liberals the last few weeks. when you see that conservatives at 35 over ivr, what that almost always really means is they’re around 30 amongst decideds, but the undecideds are at like 15 or something.

i do think that the ivr has something to do with that, in the sense that i think it’s more accurate at determining undecideds (because you don’t have agents pushing for an answer), but less clear about soft votes. so, you get this different kind of measurement.

you’re not really seeing much of a difference here with nanos, outside the margins. and, a 33-33 national tie really isn’t a close race, if the liberals are at 45% in ontario. but, i think it’s the answer to the volatility.

the correction i would suggest would be for ivr pollsters to be explicit about undecideds. mainstreet does this, and it’s usually pretty illuminating. translating, ekos would have:

liberals: 30.8
conservatives: 30.0
ndp: 21.0
undecideds: 8.1

and, while that may seem to be even less consistent, what it’s suggesting is simply something we already know: the conservatives are basically flat at 30, and the swing on the left is pretty weak in terms of party loyalty. of course, keeping in mind caveats about small sample sizes, large regional margins and the volatility of daily polling due to it.

it may seem weird that i’m not doing that with the phones, but what i’m saying is that what this method seems to do is really understand real undecideds as a distinct category, rather than as something to distribute proportional to the decideds, the way that phones tend to. it’s the difference between an agent prodding and not. although, ekos doesn’t have the high undecideds the way mainstreet does (although i still don’t know what “invalid response” means, and the two sum roughly to what mainstreet gets in the undecideds.). maybe it’s the blended sample, i don’t know. i just know it’s the only thing that really seems correlated with conservative numbers.

Dr. Grand
Anyone know if those regions up for possible liberal win are actually Harper's own seat? 

jessica murray
the riding trackers are using a very poor model. direct polling would be useful.

they use uniform proportional swing. that is foolish, in alberta - and why they got the last few elections so wrong. they should use proportional proportional swing.

i would estimate that harper is running around 45, which means he is vulnerable to a strong strategic campaign, but will probably win.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-alberta-calgary-petty-1.3269499

again: we need some polling.

i suspect that even harper & kenney are only running the mid to high 40s right now.

there was a mainstreet poll released last night that put the conservative vote in edmonton centre down 40%, as i have been proposing. but, i would have suggested the liberals were leading. it turns out the ndp were the biggest beneficiary.

the conservative vote is stable, so you can do the math i'm doing with a non-uniform proportional swing. but, the liberal & ndp votes are all over the place, so we need direct riding polls to figure out where they are. don't trust the models on this.

i would guess that there are at least ten ridings in alberta in play right now.

sorry, that was edmonton mill woods.

well, it was...

it was both.

gah. no coffee.

if you look up the mainstreet polls released last night, you'll see what i mean about the 40% cut v. the 20% cut.

just get some riding polls out. all of calgary. all of edmonton.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-alberta-calgary-petty-1.3269499

hahaiquit
millwoods is mostly Muslim, Stepehn Harper don't stand a chance, even here in mostly conservative St, Albert have yet to see any support for Harper, it liberal orange wave

jessica murray
that's a nice excuse, but the numbers in edmonton centre better fit my model, as well. & i believe st. albert is the one where rathberger is splitting the vote so it's outside of the argument.

harper won milllwoods last time with over 60%. the models had them down 20% at 45%. they are actually down 40% at 36%.

that's a big drop. and the models completely missed it. it's hardly due solely to muslim immigration over the last four years. but keep digging your grave on that, if you must.

there is no way to make sense of the numbers other than to conclude that virtually the entire cities of edmonton and calgary are in play. there's only so much time left to organize and make sure the vote doesn't get split.

it would be an amazing victory to throw out kenney or harper, or both.

taliban jason!

i kid. but, he must think people have short memories. or can't figure out which hand is doing what.

ipolitics.ca/2015/10/14/away-from-spotlight-of-national-campaign-jason-kenney-runs-another/

this is a distraction from important issues, and ought be a part of the vetting process for serious parties. the anti-gmo movement is intellectually equivalent to the anti-vaxxers, or people that think the moon landing was faked, or people opposed to teaching sex ed or evolution in public schools. it's worse than fringe. it's moronic. when i did my initial research in my riding, and saw the ndp candidate was openly anti-gmo, i immediately ruled out voting for her.

and, i'm very left-wing. it's just that it indicates a level of scientific illiteracy and general dumbassery that we should really be staunchly aware of in analyzing how we put people into positions of power. we can't be electing people that get their information from sketchy internet tabloids and don't have the academic background and/or intellectual abilities to do proper research to debunk it.

"i read it on the internet. it was even in a meme. how could it be wrong?"

if you're concerned about pesticides, that's a more valid concern. but, understand that the point of this was to minimize pesticide use. neither conventional nor "organic" agriculture are solutions - they're both worse. there is an answer, though - although brad wall won't like it.

if we were to grow indoors, we would not need pesticides because we could control the temperature and keep pests out with physical barriers. we could also layer growing, so as to increase production by multiple factors over the same piece of land.

i would really suggest people stop wasting their time arguing against gmos, and start spending it more productively in building infrastructure for indoor growing techniques.

http://ipolitics.ca/2015/10/13/brad-wall-to-party-leaders-whats-your-stance-on-gmos/

Mp
Quite right!

Please read my comment below. The NDP and Liberals used to be pro-GMO, and proudly so!

deathtokoalas
the liberals are the only pro-science party, and will not do anything stupid on this file.

ang
What the hell is a pro science party, oh you mean pro gmo paid for scientists, party, or paid for GSK scientists party, or paid for ie corrupt science party...........

Again what does science have to do with corruption of big corportations, tell me again?

deathtokoalas
a pro-science party is a party that bases it's decisions on empirical evidence, rather than ideological leanings. the liberals are famous for it. detractors claim they stand for nothing, they hold no convictions. i think the lack of an ideology is an attractive quality.

mp
But, doesn't Justin Trudeau claim that we need to follow the precautionary principle on GMOs? And isn't it a little late for that? And wouldn't the precautionary principle actually result in a complete slow-down in all forms of innovation?

Take the Keystone pipeline for instance. It's being held up with the precautionary principle, and this has cost Hilary Clinton the blue-collar vote.

deathtokoalas
i think you've misunderstood what he's said.

i'm not interested in stumping. i would not identify as a liberal. this is just a longstanding problem i've had with the ndp, and what passes for the left nowadays, in general.

and, what's stopping the keystone has nothing to do with a "precautionary principle". it's straight geo-politics. the americans don't want us exporting oil.

but, as a climate activist, i would argue that this is beyond precautions - it is settled science. we don't need more reviews. we don't need more studies. it is perfectly clear that we need to stop oil sands production altogether, and we should have stopped it yesterday.

if there was an option in this election that opposes any of the pipelines, i would support it.

--

4imps
A ton of science without an ounce of humanity is just dangerous science. Lots of science is done in the same way that the law is implemented. No humanity, no conscience. no story, no justice. Since when did man think he could do a better job of providing sustainable food on planet earth? When was it our job to "fix" nature rather than never break it? I find the arrogance of science and the greed of humanity in this regard to be the worst of who we are as a species. I'm convinced that the more science understands nature the more they will realize how wrong we have been in the way we have used and abused it rather than worked with it as our teacher and our most intelligent provider.

deathtokoalas
because 90% of species don't die out.

this is creationism in disguise.

4imps
I'd like you to clarify your comment about "because 90% of species don't die out" please.

deathtokoalas
most new species fail very quickly, because they're unable to adapt to or modify the environment around them. evolution is primarily composed of dead ends. the successes are rare and far between each other.

4imps
Like most comments on scientific research or heresay or wherever you got this information from it too is evolutionary and will most inevitably become as you say, a dead end.

deathtokoalas
i have no idea what you just said.

4imps
I'll try again. Scientific research is also evolutionary and as you said "evolution is primarily composed of dead ends".

deathtokoalas
i still don't really understand your point.

what i was pointing out is that humans have evolved to learn how to change our environment. that's what we do. it's kind of the basis of the entire field of anthropology. and, i'll cede the point that we need to be careful about how we change the environment, because it could lead us to a dead end, for example through climate change. but we also need to realize that our ability to change the environment is intrinsically intertwined with our survival, and that being cautious must not rule out changing it at all.

science isn't really "evolutionary", so much as it's based on trial and error. certainly, what we learn is subject to constant modification. but, i don't really see how you're tying that in to the discussion.

i don't really think that modifying corn to be resistant to pesticides is the best use of genetics. but, there's a lot of other possible uses - like the vitamin A in rice thing - that don't suggest to me the likelihood of this particular field being a dead end.

ang
That was a failure, the vitamin A in the rice thing, the rice didnt produce anywhere near the amount quoted, was cheaper to plant real ordinary rice, and buy a carrot for the vitamin A. The GMO company invested so much in all that publicity, a major marketing loss. Also they marketed (too aggressively) GMO cotton to illiterate farmers in India, the cotton failed, as they "forgot"to tell the Indian peasant farmers, that unlike their traditional cotton seed, this GMO seed needed irrigation. Crops failed, put animals on crops, animals died. The only way to get rid of their sudden debts, was for the husbands, to suicide, so they drank the u beaut glyphosate, that was part of the deal. Yes glyphosate does kill, when you drink it straight....... 40,000 peasant farmers, that survived using their own cotton seed, after using failed GMO seed, suicided........... GMO corn, with bt toxins in it, after 10 years, no longer kills the caterpillars, and nematodes it was designed to kill, but they cant get the toxins out of the corn in USA now, so the rest of the world are burning it before it can cross pollinate.

deathtokoalas
the vitamin A content in the rice has increased, and is now at very high levels. you're operating on very old information. and it's not easy to import carrots to poor people in asia. that's the point.

4imps
Well if a creationist is someone that trusts nature to be more intelligent than you for instance, sure.

deathtokoalas
so long as we're anthropomorphizing nature, tell me: what is it's gender?

yes: it's creationism. you're separating "humans" and "nature" out as two different things, which is the enforced garden of eden narrative. you're then pushing the biblical narrative that we were given the earth to take care of it.

it's a lot of nonsense.

nature is not separate from us; it *is* us. we are animals. we interact with what is around us. we change it. we have every right to - as a bird has a right to build a nest. there's no magic in it, no secret force that keeps things in "balance". that's fairy tale thinking. magic. disney films. religion...

i don't mind getting these arguments from the right. you expect it. but, it make me very angry to hear them coming from the left, which is supposed to be about secular, rational, empirical thinking.

4imps
I do not think we are separate from nature. I understand our connection which is exactly why I would not approve of someone genetically modifying me and expecting others to reproduce with me weather they liked it or not. I think man is so tiny in terms of our understanding of the whole and you can say that's biblical, spiritual or whatever makes you feel like you have the narrative you need to comfort you, that's assuming you ever need comfort. What do you know about the right and the left? Aren't we all one?

deathtokoalas
no, i think we're all individuals with individual thought processes and that attempts to have us conform to irrational, conforming, right-wing narratives should be fought with every possible tool we can fight them with.

are you aware that most domesticated agricultural crops are hybrids?

4imps
Yes, I am, and I also understand that every time we hybridize things we weaken its natural resistance to evolve in a way that would strengthen its survival. We have gone out on a very flimsy limb regarding our food production and medicine.

deathtokoalas
no. hybridization does not "weaken natural resistance to evolve", whatever that means. rather, there is a broadly observed effect called hybrid vigour that leads to greater fitness in hybrids. the theory that we've developed to fit this observation is that greater variation produces a higher likelihood of dominance through gene flow.

plants, particularly, hybridize very regularly in the wild. they don't need us to hybridize them. they can do that on their own.

again, there is a lingering creationism underlying your perspective that species are distinct, and any interbreeding is somehow unnatural. but, we have learned that the opposite is true: that hybridization occurs regularly in nature (especially in plants) and that it leads to greater fitness. it is one of the primary mechanisms of plant evolution.

ang
You are leading to the yes its OK to put pig genetics in plants, arent you, another Monsanto player, with a different stroke. hahaha, you all talking to yourselves again........ hilarious......... well deathtokoalas, you are earning your Monsanto money............ hahaha!

deathtokoalas
i don't see any particular reason why splicing pig genes with plant genes should be ruled out, in principle, if there's an understood benefit and no understood harm. i'm not exactly jumping to do it. but, if somebody has a good idea with it, i'm not going to rule it out on ideological reasons or unfounded fears.

4imps
Yes plants can hybridize/evolve on their own so let them. You're suggesting that we should take our right to force them into marriages they otherwise would not select.

Species are distinct in the way that I am a very small piece of the whole but because I am included in it I have a function. Holy shit, more Jesus talk I guess?

deathtokoalas
well, they don't have anything resembling free will. it's mostly randomness. you can't really talk about a plant making a choice. and, this idea of function is somewhat of a very careful point in evolutionary biology that it's probably better to step away from, right now.

are you equally opposed to selective breeding - specifically in plants?

4imps
Aha. You can only ever assume plants can't make choices. Otherwise you are taking on the role of the very deity you cannot accept in a spiritual way. I'm completely opposed to f#$@ing with nature. I feel like we have gone full circle with this conversation in that science is only ever good when it has some humanity attracted to it. Otherwise you're just dangerous, cold hearted scientists. Good day.

deathtokoalas
well, i think we can study plants and conclude that they don't have nervous systems. that's pretty convincing, i think.

what i'm pointing out is that if you really want to take this approach, then you need to reanalyze a lot of things you take for granted. gmos aren't such a dramatic shift from the things we've done in the past to control and shape the environment around us - it's just another type of artificial selection, and we've been doing that for millennia.

--

Sallyh
Note the Conservatives don't really answer the question but instead attack the other parties on their stance.
As larger corporate agri-businesses buy out smaller players the world will find itself relying on a monopolized industry for growing food . Smaller family operated farms subjected to cross contamination from GMO plots are being sued for infringement on corporate property rights today and as their power increases there will be a marked decrease in the number of independent farms world wide.

.As with every new technology that supposedly increases production and quality improvements all plants and animals will adapt and create new resistance strains. More and more chemicals and newer modifications will need to be developed with little to no research being done on the possible harmful effects on mammals fish ,plants or the environment.

Science needs to be very careful about implementing wide scale use of GMOs until we understand the all the ramifications of this technology.

Mp
So, thirty years of science isn't enough?

sallyh
What exactly have they been researching? Ways to increase yield, bug resistance, profit margins , market share? How much money is being spent on the affects on health and environment? Please give some figures that show where the research money is being spent and whether the research is being done by public scientist or corporate scientists. Are the result published or kept hidden?

deathtokoalas
this is equivalent to arguing that we don't know that apples aren't a risk factor for bubonic plague, because we haven't done any direct research.

but, we know what happens to the atoms that were once apples when we eat an apple, and we know what causes bubonic plague, and so we can say "while there has been no testing on a relation between apples and plague, we have no reason to think there is any connection."

the anti-gmo crowd does not have any kind of mechanism to present. they have no proposition as to how long term gmo consumption may have some effect. nor is there any reason to think we're going to digest chains of sugars differently because a chain of protein (which we also digest) is off by a few nucleotides.

it's not even science fiction. it's a very right-wing, ideologically conservative fear of the unknown.

sallyh
In others words let's modify the genetic make up of plants and animals and hope we aren't unleashing some new exotic disease around the globe. I have yet to receive an answer as to what research if any is being done to see if there is or isn't an impact on plants, animals or the environment. You have far more faith in the scientist working for these corporations then I. Their research is suppressed if it shows there may be negative consequences that will impact their bottom line as a result of using some of their products. Take a look at children born with deformities from Thalidomide if you want to see what can happen when companies ignore their responsibility to insure their products are safe.
By the way I am not now nor have I ever been a right-wing ideologically driven Conservative. I'm not foolish enough to trust that corporations care about anything other than their profits. Unfortunately there are plenty of people like you willing to take that risk.

jason
Seems like there would need to be a plausible way that you COULD unleash some exotic new disease around the globe by altering the genetic make up of plants before it would be worth while to worry about whether it will happen or not... right?

sallyh
How would you know if it is or isn't plausible if you don't do any research on the possibility? I'm no geneticist nor I suspect are you. There's new discoveries being made all the time that would never have occurred had no one gone looking. We wouldn't have the health and safety regulations we have today if no one did the research to find out what is or isn't dangerous to humans. Take asbestos as an example. Who knew the fibers would lodge in your lungs and could kill you yet we have stopped mining it and now remediate houses that have asbestos in them because of these findings. I suspect when asbestos was first mined and used in many industrial applications no one dreamt there was anything to be concerned about. Why would anyone object to having as much information as possible on new products.

jason
But what are you looking for? Shouldn't there be some mechanism that you're going to test? If there's no known mechanism that an effect would happen, how do you test for that? Take you asbestos example. At one time we did not know it was possible for fibers to lodge in lungs. So how could we specifically have tested for that? It would have taken somebody with exceptional foresight to come up with a plausible mechanism for harm, design a test for this theory and carry this out. Without that plausible mechanism, what are you testing?

Besides.., to say there has been no testing is an exaggeration. There has been testing and it has shown no evidence that there are any "unknown" issues that warrant further study.

No one is objecting to more information, but who wants to pay for blindly running tests in hopes of finding something that you don't even suspect exists? Where would that approach end?

sallyh
Isn't blind testing what drug companies are mandated to do when developing new medications? They spend millions in research and more often than not the new product never makes it to market because of the adverse reactions

jason
Drug companies have to go through safety testing, yes. New gmo introductions go through the exact same safety testing. But blind testing doesn't meant hey are "blindly" looking for any effect.

sallyh
I think drug companies have much more stringent regulations in place that require they do extensive testing in all areas before they will get approval. Most drugs never make it through the testing process because they cast such a broad net when doing their research.

jason
Nope... Same tests, regarding safety. Drugs also have to go through efficacy tests to insure they have the effect in humans that they're intended to have. But they only go onto efficacy once they've passed the safety tests. GMOs are not intended to treat any symptoms so are not required to test for that effect.

Many drugs fail in the efficacy tests because they don't show the intended effects.

sallyh
I'll take your word on that as my experience in dealing with drug companies was for animal use only.

deathtokoalas
i might even go so far as to suggest that, because we understand digestion, we can state with a high degree of certainty that there cannot be a difference between digesting corn that is or is not gmo. your stomach is unable to determine where the nucleotides are, or care. digestion works the same way, regardless.

the only mechanism i've seen is this idea of possible gene transfer to gut bacteria. but, there's no reason to think there's a greater chance of gene transfer in gmos than there is in non-gmos.

the kind of uncertainty that existed with asbestos, or with smoking, isn't really present. your body gets a bunch of molecules that are strung together with bonds, and breaks the bonds the same way it would with any other corn, or wheat, or whatever.

jackson
The only things that I can think of are things that are already known and tested for during the development process

1) Protein created in a GMO could have some domain that people are allergic to.
2) The new protein could catalyze a reaction that produces some compound that is toxic.
3) An siRNA construct designed to penetrate mammalian cells could target some mRNA strand necessary for cellular function.

deathtokoalas
yes. you want to make sure you check for these things, of course, before you put something on the market. and everybody at every step of the process realizes it.

it's the "unknown unknowns" they want to throw at you. and, it's hard to argue against besides pointing out that it's impossible. but, they take that as a concession! you get that argument with people challenging climate science, too. i had it the other day. i got him to admit that the ipcc report ruled out all known natural causes, but he wouldn't crack on the possibility of there being unknown natural causes. on some level he's right, but when you get to that point it's just an end to possible discourse.

it's just that if you want people to take you seriously, you need to provide some concept of cause and effect. the reason there hasn't been a lot of studies done, is that nobody can effectively articulate anything that needs to be studied. as mentioned, there aren't studies on links between apples and plague. there aren't studies on the links between oranges and tuberculosis.

the idea that there's some danger simply doesn't make any sense. it's right-wing fear mongering. and it's all a consequence of the fact that this is something that you don't understand.

sallyh
Thank God drug companies are forced to do research on possible cause and effect when developing new drugs rather then adopt your approach. The cost of identifying these possible complications is why new drugs are so expensive. I don't think that's fear mongering or an unreasonable means of developing new technology. Look at the stink being raised about fracking and how much misinformation is out there. Is it or isn't it responsible for contamination of drinking water? Who knows because nobody did the research to find out before they started drilling. Did the possibility even occur to these companies that that was a possibility? Are the concerns of people who live near these drilling sites just fear mongering?

All I'm saying is we need to proceed with caution when introducing new technologies and try to anticipate any possible adverse effects that may not become apparent for years and the best way to mitigate those possibilities is by thinking outside the box and looking at different theories.

deathtokoalas
no - i agree that when or where there are defined concerns, testing should be done. but it has been, and i'd defer to one of jackson's posts (things about allergies, or toxins). when a drug company does testing, it comes up with concrete concerns that it has developed through an understanding of the chemistry of the drug and our bodies. i'm in full support of that kind of testing with gmos. but, it's broadly been done already. and, if you have specific suggestions for further testing, i'm sure the applicable people would be eager to look into it, if your argument is compelling.

but, your position is "gmos might affect us in some way that we don't understand", and it's just not a reasonable position to take, relative to our rather deep understanding of the chemical processes involved in digestion. we can state with a great degree of certainty that there's absolutely no reason why it should. and, the limited concerns that have come up have been addressed.

do you have a specific concern that you'd like to see greater testing regarding?

sallyh
I do have concerns with what genes are being alter that change how the plants cells interact with the cells of naturally occurring spores, bugs and weeds they encounter in nature. Will it cause the cells or immunity systems in these living organisms to mutate in order to survive. Is this going to start a chain reaction of adaptation in nature? Do these modified genes react differently with human cells when the products are consumed? Will they effect our own immune system ? What testing has been done? Have GMOs been around long enough for some of these issues to occur? I probably have others but since this is far from being a subject I have spent much time thinking about I would be interested to read your comments .

deathtokoalas
gene transfer is a very rare phenomenon, especially across distances as far as plants and bugs. that can be ruled out a priori. insofar as the modifications we're doing are concerned, i'm not sure the effects of cross-pollination with weeds would be all that much of a concern, either. wheat would be more likely than corn, because it's a grass. but, you have to understand that not just any two plants can cross-pollinate. there's maybe some room for curiosity here, but i don't see any possible negative consequences.

i don't see any reason to suggest issues about plant immune systems.

i'm not sure which "human cells" you're thinking about. when you eat something, it goes into a pit of acid and is broken down into constituent parts. i don't know where interaction with "human cells" may occur. but, this is the area where testing has been done, and negative effects have been ruled out to the best of our current abilities - regarding possible toxins, allergins and other reactions we can think of and measure. your stomach really doesn't know the difference between one strand of protein and another - it breaks it all down the same way.

again, i don't know what kind of mechanism you would propose for an effect on the immune system, and think it can be ruled out fairly safely, a priori.

see, it's healthy that you're asking questions. but these questions do have answers.

i think maybe you were undersampling them. that ndp bump in saskatchewan, especially, makes sense, in terms of strategic voting. and, the fact that you’re broadly in line with nanos is nice in terms of developing a little consistency.

www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2015/10/liberals-maintain-lead-over-conservatives/

Johnsmith
Have to laugh at those wildly optemistic Lieberal share of the vote in Ontario. I see the NDP is building momentum again taking vote share from the Liberals.

graham
Well, it’s actually in line with the other companies.

deathtokoalas
yeah, and the liberals are up over the last ekos poll.

the last provincial election was

liberals – 38.65
conservatives – 31.25
ndp – 23.75

…and the polls consistently got the liberals and ndp about right, but overestimated conservative support.

that was enough for a liberal majority in ontario.

the ridings are not identical, but they’re close enough to ballpark it. that would convert to 64 federal seats at 38.65%. with the conservatives and ndp both running lower, and the liberals up almost ten points on it, i don’t think 75-80 seats is an unreasonable projection.

that said, that brick wall of rural ridings is a real thing and there may be a kind of ceiling, where it no longer matters much if they get 43% or 48% or 52% even in terms of seat totals. they’d have to really push higher to start thinking about winning those seats. they may be nearing that ceiling, or may be past it.

these uniform swing models are going to be brutal at correctly distributing a 30+% swing. you’re going to see 50% swings in some ridings, and 5% swings in others. it matters less with a 6% swing or something. but, this is huge and they will get a lot of it wrong.

i saw some polling in larry miller’s riding that suggests the liberals are in striking distance, but there’s some extra circumstances there that are probably not transferable to other rural ridings.

but, if they’re running that high, and the ndp are down, then you need to look at them maybe winning a few long time ndp seats. maybe. don’t anybody get their hopes up. maybe even in the north. and, if the conservatives are running under 30 then the entire ring around toronto swings or is at lest very close – brantford, kitchener, newmarket, barrie, peterborough…i think that’s where you start seeing those 40-50% swings….

it would be useful for grenier or whoever else is doing this to come out and say this, so strategic voters understand to be extra careful with the model this time around.

with a 30% swing in ontario? you can’t use a uniform swing. it’s just too big.

and, a uniform swing in alberta makes little sense in the smallest of changes.

and quebec? and bc? yeah. good luck modelling that…

graham
Actually, the Conservative vote federally tends to be underestimated by the pollsters.

It was underestimated 2% to 6% in 2011

deathtokoalas
i agree that this was an anomaly. but, the last provincial election in ontario consistently had the conservatives at or above 35. grenier had them at 35.8, with a minimum of 32.8. that led to a prediction of a liberal minority.

my best guess on that is low turnout. see, here’s a twist pollsters haven’t yet considered: they claim the over 65 is more likely to vote. i don’t disagree. but is the over 75 more likely to vote? can they get to a polling station?

my guess is that what happened in ontario was they oversampled the really, really old voters, and they just couldn’t get there to do it. and i might suggest that’s something to be aware of.

now, does that mean i’m suggesting 28 is exaggerated? probably not. but i wouldn’t expect harper to outperform hudak, either.

it’s a valid question, though. the demographics are 65+. but, your average 65 year old is mobile. your average 80 year old is not. how much of the sample is 65-80, and how much is 80-100?

there’s a whole host of issues with the oldest voters, which are a substantial and increasing percentage of the population.

can someone drive them?
will they remember what day voting day is?
will they be too sick or sore that day?
might their kids decide to not let them vote, due to disagreements?

this is a provincial map, with the liberals at 39% and the conservatives at 31%. you can see what i’m saying.

http://cnews.canoe.com/CNEWS/Canada/2014/06/13/ElxnResultMapTAB.jpg

grenier’s map (with a uniform swing with the liberals at 42 and conservatives at 42) has the conservatives winning a lot of those ridings, and the liberals overperfoming in places like haldimand.

that’s because he’s applying the swing evenly, which is probably underestimating liberal support in the places they won provincially and overestimating it in the places they didn’t.

http://stephenmcmurtry.org/election_map

i would be more likely to bet on the provincial map being closer, which is going to bet liberals seats in brantford, cambridge, kitchener, thornhill, milton, flamborough (maybe; the riding splits), burlington, newmarket, barrie, durham, peterborough, northumberland – it’s a nearly clean sweep all the way around toronto.

and, you add it up, and it gets close to 80.

sorry, the projection map is with the liberals at 42 and the conservatives at 32, clearly. but i’m really checking to see if everything is getting moderated, or just the posts with links.

i guess transcanada was upset at being told how to lobby.

they're used to telling the government how to operate.

this is how government works, kids. not much of a story.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/14/liberal-campaign-co-chair-advised-transcanada-on-lobbying-next-government_n_8295514.html

Barbara Mitchell
yeah I guess. But it would have been nice if he'd waited till they actually WERE the government first! LOL

jessica amber murray
well, he can always pull the project and award it to somebody else, right? bwahahahaha. keep me away from power, i've got a nasty streak. but, i truly wouldn't be expecting many favours after this if i were transcanada. but, hey - if anybody wasn't sure about who the oil industry's guy was, it should be clear now.

i'd say that if you're smart, you might want to unload some soon to be worthless stocks.

Pierre Cyr
It actually is a story of basic prepping for influence peddling. And the liberal campaign co chair Gagne was an associate of Bruce Carson. Who happens to be in court for, you guessed it, influence peddling...

jessica amber murray
i'm sorry - what did you expect? should they fill out a form, and have it approved by a central committee, first?

surely, you don't think they shouldn't talk at all?

it's a big company. there'd be something wrong if they *weren't* talking. i'm sure they're talking to executives in a wide array of industry, as well. i would hope they are, anyways. it would be a little offsetting if they weren't.

i just don't understand how you're conceptualizing what capitalism is. the whole point is the confluence between business and government: the revolving door, the lobbying. it's what a capitalist government is. if you take that away, you negate the purpose of the state in the capitalist model. we'd be left with what right-wingers call "anarchism".

it's not different than what harper does, and it wouldn't be different from what mulcair would be.

so, how do you imagine that government and industry communicate with each other in existing capitalism if not in the way suggested in the article?

in all seriousness, legalized marijuana shops with safe distribution chains would likely reduce petty crime in the riding. i mean, if you think there's no pot in oakville, you're certainly smoking something - even if cocaine is no doubt preferable to the upper class, white folks (many, who no doubt vote conservative) that make it their home. the reality is that it comes in through shady vectors, and brings shady people in with it. if you're concerned about property value and criminal activity, you should interpret legalization as a net positive in keeping organized crime out of the riding. and, hey - maybe you might even want to think about relaxing on your no doubt substantial deck, putting on a tune and smoking one up with a nice glass of wine and some friends. who knows: you might even smile. no laws broken, no harm done.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/13/terence-young-brothels-oakville-video_n_8288538.html

my issue with alberta is that you're distributing the numbers uniformly. i'm going to throw some data at you, regarding a mainstreet poll that was released yesterday in edmonton mills that had the conservatives at 36%. they got 61% in that riding last election.

now - i know - the polls could be wrong. the respondents could be lying. but let's take them at their word for a moment.

the conservatives got 66% in alberta last election, and grenier's model had them at 53 last i checked. that's a 20% drop. but what all of the models do is then distribute that 20% across the whole province. that would suggest they should be polling around 45% or so - which is what the models do say. so, how do you explain the discrepancy, while taking the poll at face value?

i would argue that the uniform swing is the error. and that this is something that we have more than enough data to come to good conclusions regarding.

if you look at the data in rural alberta going back many years, it doesn't really change much. they win seats by huge numbers. 70. 80. it's big wins. and there's not a lot of variability.

but, if you look at the numbers in the cities, you see a lot more variability. they even elect the odd liberal or new democrat from time to time.

that suggests to me that when you see a 20% drop, province wide, you should not distribute it equally across the whole province but proportionally in the areas most likely to swing. this is an observation that is...not exactly unique to alberta, but certainly not applicable country wide.

now, we don't have to do any algebra here because, by chance, the combined populations of calgary and edmonton are close to half of the province. so, i might suggest that rather than say the conservatives are down 20% across the whole province, they're probably down 0% in their rural strongholds and 40% in the cities of calgary and edmonton. that balances out to 20% province wide.

as it turns out, that would predict a result of around 36% in edmonton mills - which is consistent with the polling. and, this relation also holds in the other recently polled alberta ridings.

i would consequently challenge the idea that the conservatives running at 50% suggests they'll perform well province wide. i might rather suggest that that would imply they're running at the same 65+ they always run at in the rural regions, but probably an average of around 35 in the cities. and that could open up around ten seats.

50 v 49 might not make much of a difference. but 66 v 53 could be pretty substantial.

something similar would be true in ontario, but perhaps less drastic. but this particular election is seeing a 30% swing in ontario. a uniform model would suggest 30% everywhere. do we really think the liberals are up 30% in haldimand-norfolk, or simcoe grey? that's maybe a little hard to believe. maybe it's more believable that they're up 40-50% in cambridge and brantford and barrie, and maybe 5% in simcoe grey, if that.

if it was a smaller swing - 7-8% - the differences in projections from a uniform swing model and a more targetted one would be minimal. but, at 30%? anything using a uniform swing is going to be broadly inaccurate in ontario in this specific election. that applies to all models that i am aware of.

rather, if you want to know what ontario is going to look like, i would suggest consulting a map of the last provincial election, which had the liberals at 39% and the conservatives at 31%. that gave the liberals an almost clean sweep all the way around toronto - including brant, cambridge, kitchener, newmarket, barrie, durham, peterborough and northumberland. these are the likely candidates for the very large local swings that a 30% province-wide boost is likely to produce and, it seems likely that the liberals will poll higher than 39%, while 31% for the conservatives looks about right. that might mean an extra seat or two around kitchener.

i'm not even going to try and guess how you deal with quebec and bc, other than to point out that the most substantial movement in quebec appears to be from the ndp to the liberals, and that will both help the liberals where they are competitive and help the bloc where they are not.

i am suggesting extreme caution regarding all models in this election, due to their use of uniform swing. it can be useful in an election with small swings. but, big swings break this kind of model.

i believe that calgary and edmonton are in play, and that the liberals above 40% will sweep not just the gta but into the furthest reaches of communities around toronto, from brantford to kitchener, newmarket and barrie, and peterborough south to the lake - with the perhaps sole exception being around whitby and oshawa.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/14/canada-election-polls-ontario-liberals-conservatives_n_8294430.html