R.I.P. Jack:My thoughts are with his family. Coping with the loss of any family member is difficult. But from recent experience, I can attest that when the decedent is a public figure, there are even more things to arrange and take care of. A sidenote: the CPC is...
My thoughts are with his family. Coping with the loss of any family member is difficult. But from recent experience, I can attest that when the decedent is a public figure, there are even more things to arrange and take care of.
A sidenote: the CPC is now the only party in the Commons with a permanent leader and more than one MP.
Layton suggests that Hull–Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel be interim leader of the NDP.
Good luck, Jack.
A Québec provincial poll suggests that the centre-right party proposed by François Legault has 40% support against 26% for the Liberals, 17% for the PQ and 8% for the ADQ. Just like for the NDP, such a result would give Mr. Legault a commanding majority.
Of course, as Legault gets more scrutiny, his support may wane, though that didn’t happen with the NDP. Still, these results imply that 74% of the Québec electorate is ready to vote for a right-of-centre party. This is consistent with the analysis that Québec’s NDP vote on May 2 was for change rather than for a left-wing agenda.
Even without Legault’s new party, the PQ would lose by 6% to the Liberals (29-35). It goes without saying that the recent crisis has greatly damaged Marois’ party.
Note: Sorry for the lack of posting in the past month – three major life events that normally only occur every few years and lots of traveling have taken their toll. Posting will likely remain limited for the next three months, but hopefully there won’t be any more whole-month gaps.
The election results from every riding have been validated, and the four recounts have been completed. As previously noted, the validation process moved one Québec riding from the Tories to the NDP. None of the recounts produced a further change in the winner.
For any government, the state of the economy is of paramount importance. But it is even more so for the Harper government over the next four years. After all, it is its perceived competence in that matter that drove Torontonians to give it a majority.
The Conservative economic and fiscal platform was basically: we’ll make sure the recovery continues; this will eliminate most of the deficit, and we’ll make some not-too-painful cuts to eliminate the rest.
Whether the recovery continues or not is, alas, largely outside the incoming government’s control. Obviously, Canada has little impact on international factors such as the U.S. recovery. But even on the domestic front, most of the story has already been determined, and we’re just waiting to see how things play out.
Indeed, on macroeconomic issues, a government’s performance often depends more on the previous government’s actions than on its own. For example, Mulroney’s poor showing had much to do with Trudeau’s economic mismanagement, while foundations of the Liberal success in the 90s were laid by the Tories with the GST and FTA. Similarly, the continued success of the Canadian economy under Harper was mostly a product of Chrétien and Martin’s sound policies and Canadians’ sacrifices in the 90s.
In many ways, over the next four years, we will find out how good the Tories’ management of the economy has been over the past five years. We will have a better sense of whether:
- the government’s stimulus plan succeeded in producing a sustainable recovery;
- the Tories spent outside the country’s means prior to the recession;
- there is a housing bubble which the Tories should have tried to prevent.
How these issues play out will have a direct impact on Canadians’ well-being and on the government’s agenda. If there is no housing bubble, the recovery is sustained, and past spending increases were reasonable, then the Conservatives can deliver on their plan to balance the budget with moderate cuts that most Canadians won’t notice. However, if we find out that there is a housing bubble (through it bursting), if the recovery runs out of steam, or if the spending growth of the good times was excessive, then the government will have to introduce unpopular measures, show up to the 2015 election with a deficit, or both.
Barring major events in Québec or a major scandal, the Conservatives’ fate in the 2015 election may have already been largely determined.
The same cannot be said of the Liberals and the NDP. Obviously, if the economy does well, they have little chance of winning power in 2015. But the NDP can durably squeeze out the Grits if they manage to establish economic credibility over the next four years. Conversely, if the NDP fails to do so, then the Grits could regain the position of government-in-waiting if they get their act together. Of course, since the election, both parties’ performances have ranged from disappointing to laughable…
It is well-known that the size of electoral districts (whether measured by population, electorate, or votes) varies wildly, not only across provinces, but also within provinces. When we put everything together, which party benefited from these discrepancies in 2011?
One measure of this would be to compare a party’s actual voting share to what I’ll call its effective voting share, defined as the average of that party’s share of votes in each riding.
For example, suppose that a country has two electoral districts, with 40 votes in district A, and 60 votes in the district B. A party gets 50% of the vote in A, and 30% in B. Clearly, that party is favoured because it’s doing well in a less populated district. Its actual national vote share is 38% (38 votes out of 100), but because the districts have equal weight, the party’s effective voting share is 40% (average of 50% and 30%).
For each of the major parties, below is its effective voting share, with its actual voting share in parentheses:
CON: 39.7% (39.6%)
LIB: 19.3% (18.9%)
NDP: 30.8% (30.6%)
BQ: 5.6% (6.0%)
GRN: 3.7% (3.9%)
CON: 39.9% (39.8%) in 307 ridings with candidates
BQ: 23.2% (23.4%) in Québec
GRN: 3.8% (4.0%) in 304 ridings with candidates
We immediately notice that all three main parties modestly benefit from some votes being more important than others. This may be slightly surprising in the case of the Tories, whose support is concentrated in underrepresented BC, Ontario and Alberta. However, this is more than countered by Conservative support being concentrated in rural ridings, which tend to be less populated, and by Albertans voting less than other Canadians.
The Bloc and the Greens, on the other hand, are hurt. The Bloc is disadvantaged mainly because Québec votes are worth less than the average vote elsewhere due to a larger number of electors per district, while the Greens’ support is concentrated in underrepresented BC.
The lesson I take from this exercise is that this distortion is rather minimal: no party’s effective voice is changed by more than 0.4% (1 seat if we had a proportional system). So while the variation of district sizes may be unfair to certain constituencies, it does not significantly affect party representation in the Commons.
Safest Seat in Each Province
NL – St. John’s East (NDP by 50.3%)
PE – Egmont (CON by 23.3%)
NS – Central Nova (CON by 32%)
NB – Acadie–Bathurst (NDP by 53.5%)
QC – Gatineau (NDP by 46.7%)
ON – Wellington–Halton Hills (CON by 47.3%)
MB – Portage–Lisgar (CON by 66.2%)
SK – Souris–Moose Mountain (CON by 55.3%)
AB – Crowfoot (CON by 74.8%)
BC – Abbotsford (CON by 44.8%)
North – Nunavut (CON by 21.2%)
It’s quite striking that the safest seat in Québec is a turnover. Also, the safest seat in Nova Scotia was projected incorrectly (though I’m in good company): MacKay was far from safe in 2006, and of course it was hard to say what to make of 2008 with May as a candidate.
Seats Won by over 50%
Outside Alberta
66.2% – Portage–Lisgar, MB (CON)
55.3% – Souris–Moose Mountain, SK (CON)
53.5% – Acadie–Bathurst, NB (NDP)
52.7% – Provencher, MB (CON)
50.3% – St. John’s East, NL (NDP)
In Alberta (obviously all Conservative)
74.8% – Crowfoot
70.0% – Wetaskiwin
68.5% – Vegreville–Wainwright
67.1% – Macleod
66.0% – Calgary Southeast
65.7% – Westlock–St. Paul
64.0% – Yellowhead
63.5% – Wild Rose
63.2% – Calgary Southwest
60.8% – Red Deer
59.6% – Peace River
58.6% – Fort McMurray–Athabasca
58.5% – Medicine Hat
57.7% – Calgary–Nose Hill
55.3% – Edmonton–Spruce Grove
53.3% – Calgary East
The only riding outside of Edmonton or Calgary that was decided by less than 58.4% was Lethbridge, where Conservative Jim Hillyer won by 29.3% (he still carried 56.5% of the vote). This is the mystery candidate known for going to the bathroom when cornered by a reporter.
The median margin of victory in Alberta was 56.5%…
Despite a larger swing away from the Liberals in the Toronto area, the region remains much friendlier to the Grits than the rest of Ontario, which is a complete Liberal wasteland. Below are some telling stats comparing the 39 ridings entirely within the Toronto CMA to the 67 other Ontario districts.
Seats won
Toronto CMA: 24 C, 8 N, 7 L
Elsewhere: 49 C, 14 N, 4 L
Came in first of second
Toronto CMA: 36 L, 31 C, 11 N
Elsewhere: 66 C, 45 N, 21 L, 1 G, 1 I
[Aside: Without looking up election results, can you guess the only Ontarian riding outside Toronto CMA where the Conservative candidate failed to make the top two?]
Won, or within 15% of winner
Toronto CMA: 31 C, 29 L, 13 N
Elsewhere: 56 C, 19 N, 10 L
Clearly, even though the Liberals won fewer seats than the New Democrats in the Toronto area, they were still the Tories’ main opponents. In fact, in every single one of those 39 ridings, a Liberal won, was second, or was within 15% of the winner. (The comparable figures were 31 for the Conservatives and 14 for the NDP.)
Indeed, within the Toronto area, the Liberals caught lots of bad breaks. Looking at the number of wins and the number of losses by less than 10%:
CON: 16-4
NDP: 2-3
LIB: 3-18
[Incidentally, yes, 21 of 39 races within the Toronto CMA were decided by less than 10%. The same statistic was 12/32 for the Atlantic, 21/75 for Québec, 9/67 elsewhere in Ontario, and 18/95 in the West and North. Thus, despite having less than 13% of the ridings, Toronto accounted for almost 26% of the close races nationwide.]
Elsewhere in Ontario, however, the Grits were almost completely out of it. The only ten ridings where a Liberal won or came within 15% were:
- Guelph
- Kingston and the Islands
- Kitchener Centre
- Kitchener–Waterloo
- London North Centre
- Nipissing–Timiskaming
- Ottawa–Orléans
- Ottawa South
- Ottawa–Vanier
- Ottawa West–Nepean
All of these are mainly urban, except for Nipissing-Timiskaming.
One judicial recount is complete. In Montmagny–L’Islet–Kamouraska–Rivière-du-Loup, the NDP won by 9 votes, four more than the initially validated results. The preliminary results had the Conservative candidate as the winner by 110 votes on election night, but it was subsequently discovered that a ballot box’s NDP votes were mistakenly given to the Greens.
This confirms that the NDP won 59 seats in Québec, and the Tories, 5. Despite coming fourth in the popular vote, the Grits have the second-most seats (7), and of course the Bloc only got 4 seats.
My guess is that the most significant democratic reform we will see under this Conservative majority is a change in the seat allocation formula for the House. Perhaps the government will prove me wrong by moving forward on Senate reform or other issues, but I doubt it. Beyond the fact that it is now in the Conservatives’ interest to keep the Senate as is and to stick with first-past-the-post, there’s also the fact that reformers don’t agree on what the final product should look like. As often in these situations, the status quo prevails.
Take Senate reform, for example. You’d have to decide on at least the following issues:
1. The form of the Senate:
a) Appointed
b) Elected
c) Abolished
2. If you answered a or b to Q1, the seat allocation principle:
a) None (PM appoints from anywhere, or pure nationwide proportional voting)
b) By province
c) By region, as is
d) By region, some other way
3. If you answered b to Q1, the voting method:
a) Nationwide proportional
b) Proportional by province/region/large constituency
c) First past the post
d) Something else
And of course, your answer on these might depend on what we do with the voting system for the House. I’m pretty sure that no single combination of answers to just these three questions would be picked by a majority of Canadians, and my guess is that none would come even close.
My question to you: if you could change the way in which we choose are MPs and Senators to your liking, what would you do? (My preferred solution involves abolishing the Senate and moving to a sort of MMP system, modified to make majorities easier to achieve.)
Before reading the rest of this post, ask yourself: when we say ‘One person = One vote’, what should we mean by person? Do we mean:
a) resident of a constituency;
b) eligible voter; or
c) actual voter?
In the debate about seat distribution, it has been assumed that the first definition is the one to use. It is indeed the current basis for seat allocation at the federal level. But is it fair that a citizen’s vote counts more just because he lives next to more people that can’t vote (e.g. immigrants, children)?
I suspect that at least a few of you believe definitions b) and c) make more sense. Even if you don’t, I hope that you agree that they are not crazy.
So let’s take a look at the Conservative redistribution bill (C-12), which will likely be reintroduced and passed in the new House, under the lens of definitions b) and c).
We know that under Bill C-12, Ontario will likely have at least 119 seats, Alberta 34, and BC 41. (These numbers could be as high as 122, 35 and 42, but let’s just take the low numbers, since they work against the argument I’m making here.) Here is the number of electors per riding:
QC: 81,479
BC: 74,739
ON: 74,729
AB: 72,865
National: 72,204
And here’s the number of valid 2011 votes per riding:
QC: 50,646
ON: 46,481
BC: 45,650
National: 44,339
AB: 41,098
As you can see, Bill C-12 is extremely unfair to Québec voters, singling them out for unfavourable treatment. Québec voters would be worth 9% less than voters in any other province.
The reason for this inequity is simple: Bill C-12 reduces Québec’s weight in the House, but Québec votes and voters are already undervalued! Indeed, in the 2011 election, Quebecers accounted for 25.5% of the country’s eligible voters, and 25.8% of actual valid votes. Yet, Québec’s weight in the House is only 24.4%, and would be reduced to 22.3-22.6%. That’s below even its population share of 23.2%.
Now, look at our current system. Here’s the number of valid votes per riding in the 2011 election:
ON: 52,182
BC: 51,991
QC: 50,646
AB: 49,905
National: 47,794
Compare these to the numbers above. Which are more equitable?
The Albertan self-righteousness in this debate would put Duceppe to shame.
… when the featured article of Québec’s main federalist newspaper’s website is titled, “Newspapers in English Canada Demand the Marginalization of Québec“.
Columnists like Lorne Gunter might consider that, in fact, that a majority of Canadians outside Québec voted for what he calls a “hysterical approach to the environment.” Indeed, if he truly wants various groups’ influence on policy to be proportionate to population, well, 60% of Canadians voted for left-of-centre parties.
I’ve blogged about this before (yes, part IV of that post is now obsolete), but at this point it’s relevant to remember that Bill C-12 would make Québec’s seat share in the House of Commons disproportionately low. It’ll be interesting to see if the NDP puts up a fight, now that it is the main custodian of Québec’s interests.
(Here are the facts: taking into account the most recent population estimates and census undercounting, Bill C-12 would likely give Ontario 13-16 extra seats, Alberta 6-7, and BC 5-6. This means a House size of 332-337, implying a Québec weight of 22.3-22.6%. Under current law, Québec’s weight in the House would decrease to around 23.9%, while its population share is 23.2%. Therefore, under Bill C-12, Québec’s weight in the Commons will be as far from its population share as it would be under current law – just in the opposite direction.)
After the 1953 election, when facing a united Right, the Liberals only won more non-Québec seats than the Conservatives twice: 1968 (Trudeaumania) and 2004 (Right still gluing pieces together).
If the Liberals want to become a party of government again, it will have to regain Québec (unless the Right self-destructs again…). That’s not too hard to imagine: if the NDP’s performance as Official Opposition is unsatisfactory – this first week has pretty much been a disaster – and if the separatists decide to disband the Bloc and focus on the PQ, then the Liberals have a chance of getting Québec back in 2015.
Still, it’s equally easy to imagine a scenario where the NDP becomes Québec’s default party for several elections. If the Bloc manages to find a bit of money, it could also win Quebecers back next time. Moreover, if Stephen Harper steps down in, say, 2014, and the Tories find a more moderate leader, they’d have a shot at Québec as well.
At this point, all of the following seem plausible to me:
- Québec stays with the NDP for several elections, and the Liberals become a permanent third party, sometimes wielding the balance of power when the Left and Right are equally matched;
- Québec stays with the NDP for several elections, and the Liberal Party disintegrates, leaving Canada with a two-party system;
- Québec returns to the Liberals, and we are back to the situation of the 60s and 70s, but with the Tories stronger due to the increased weight of the West;
- Québec picks the Tories or Bloc in 2015, and the Liberals and NDP, two severely weakened parties, have no choice but to merge;
- Québec sticks with the NDP, but the Liberals regain the GTA in 2015, and a merger/coalition is considered.
All of the above assume that Québec does not hold a separation referendum where Yes support exceeds 50%. However, it is a real possibility that the PQ wins the next provincial election during a period of widespread discontent with an ideologically incompatible federal government. If the PQ can stoke the sentiment that Québec is being oppressed by a majority imposed by Ontario and the West, it may yet get a majority of the votes in a referendum. If that happens:
- in case of a “clear” majority, game over, Québec secedes – this is very unlikely;
- otherwise, all hell breaks loose: separatists will want to hold yet another referendum, or worse, unilaterally declare independence; Tories will be seriously questioned about potentially “losing the country”; the NDP will face large internal dissent; the Bloc might be back stronger than ever, totally withdraw from Ottawa, or both (win 50+ seats in 2015 and have its MPs not show up). For the Liberals, the implication would be very murky: it might be the party Canada turns to in order to sort out this mess, or might be pushed into complete oblivion as all of the attention is focused on the others.
All this to say that at this point, virtually anything could happen to the Liberal Party. Its best chance of averting oblivion is Québec, but whether it’ll even get a chance depends more on how the other parties – NDP, Tories, PQ – perform than on what it does. For this reason, what appears to be the Liberal strategy of lying low for now seems like a good one.
- Ignoring intervening by-elections, the Tories only gained a net four seats outside the Greater Toronto Area. Inside the GTA, they gained 19 and now hold a majority.
- This is just the fourth time in Canadian history that a party wins a majority with such a small vote share. The others? 1867, 1874 and 1997.
- West of Guelph, the Liberals have only four seats, and in each case, the margin of victory was below 5%. In fact, outside of Newfoundland, no Liberal candidate reached 50%.
- The Liberals also only have four seats outside the Atlantic and metropolitan areas with over 1 million people: Kingston and the Islands, Guelph, Winnipeg North and Wascana. The former two are university towns, while the latter two had very personally popular Liberal candidates.
- Of the four ridings won by the Bloc, three were due to the presence of a strong (> 25%) non-NDP federalist candidate that divided the vote. Only in Bas-Richelieu–Nicolet–Bécancour did the Bloc win a two-way race.
- Outside Québec and the City of Toronto, the NDP won just four seats carried by the Liberals in 2008: St. John’s South–Mount Pearl, Dartmouth–Cole Harbour, Newton–North Delta and Esquimalt–Juan de Fuca. In fact, relative to 2008, the NDP gained no net seats outside Québec, the City of Toronto and Greater Vancouver.
- With just under four per cent of the vote, the Greens not only carried a smaller share of the popular vote than in 2008, but they are also down compared to 2006.
- This was Stephen Harper and Jack Layton’s fourth election as party leaders.
This post will compare the accuracy of my final projection with that of others that were freely available during the campaign. For a region-by-region analysis of how my projection fared, click here. Once again, the websites mentioned here are linked through the left bar.
Here are the eight final projections that were based on an average of polls (C-N-L-B-G-I):
148-100-44-14-1-1 (The Mace)
152- 94-46-15-0-1 (Canadian Election Watch)
142-114-39-12-0-1 (Riding by Riding)
151- 91-47-18-0-1 (Calgary Grit)
144- 98-51-15-0-0 (LISPOP)
155- 86-47-20-0-0 (democraticSPACE)
143- 93-58-14-0-0 (Too Close to Call)
143- 78-60-27-0-0 (ThreeHundredEight.com)
First, I would like to congratulate democraticSPACE for being the only model projecting a Conservative majority. On that front, I fared honourably by having the second highest Conservative seat count. Four websites estimated the probability of a Conservative majority. Obviously, democraticSPACE had the highest, right around 50%. Canadian Election Watch said it would occur with a 45% chance, while Calgary Grit had 28%, and The Mace, 13%.
Although the Conservative seat count was the most politically relevant figure to project, to get a sense of the overall quality of a projection, one needs to look at the other numbers as well. Below is half of the total deviation of each of the above eight projections. (This is the sum of the absolute value of the difference between the projected and the actual result for each of the parties and independents. It is divided by 2 because, by definition, it is always even.)
21 (The Mace)
24 (Canadian Election Watch)
26 (Riding by Riding)
28 (Calgary Grit)
28 (LISPOP)
29 (democraticSPACE)
34 (Too Close to Call)
49 (ThreeHundredEight.com)
Once again, Canadian Election Watch comes in a strong second, this time behind The Mace. democraticSPACE actually did not do too well, placing sixth. Interestingly, the two prognosticators with newspaper columns fared worst… (Of course, Éric and Bryan still have great websites with interesting content.)
If you average the above two measures of success (Conservative seat count and half total deviation), Canadian Election Watch comes in first! I’m not going to use this to declare victory, but I think there’s a strong case for saying that I gave at least as accurate a portrayal of the overall situation as any other projection.
I also note that EKOS, which projected 138-113-41-15-1, has a half total deviation of 29, slightly worse than most of the projections above based on multiple polls.
Now, it is true that seat projections based on polls did not do too well due to poll inaccuracy. Would relying on intuition and other information have been better? To look at that, I compiled the following relatively better publicized projections that were obtained via other methods:
151-86-45-24-1-1 (Andrew Coyne)
156-76-46-30-0-0 (Steven Britton)
146-83-55-22-1-1 (Dan Arnold, aka Calgary Grit)
152-71-52-31-0-2 (Bernard von Schulmann, aka BC Iconoclast, April 25)
146-65-63-33-0-1 (Election Prediction Project)
156-46-60-46-0-1 (Glen McGregor, April 29)
Two of these called for a bare Conservative majority, but in both cases, the NDP was very low, and the Bloc was absurdly high. The half deviations were as follows:
32 (Andrew Coyne)
38 (Steven Britton)
40 (Dan Arnold, aka Calgary Grit)
47 (Bernard von Schulmann, aka BC Iconoclast, April 25)
59 (Election Prediction Project)
69 (Glen McGregor)
The striking thing here is that everyone did worse than most projections based on polling averages. Thus, while relying on polls is far from perfect, it still gives us a better idea of what’s going on than letting “gut” and “instinct” cloud one’s judgment. Obviously, some prognosticators probably did predict 167 Tory seats (one of the commenters here was close, with 170). However, the above numbers suggest that in most cases, taking poll numbers seriously, even when they’re significantly off, is still helpful.
What about riding-by-riding predictions? As far as I know, 7 of the above projectors bothered making a call for each of the 308 races (democraticSPACE also did so for most of them, but did not call some close races). Here is the number correct for each:
260 (Canadian Election Watch)
256 (Riding by Riding)
250 (Steven Britton)
243 (Too Close to Call)
235 (ThreeHundredEight.com)
235 (Election Prediction Project)
217 (Glen McGregor)
Once again, Canadian Election Watch performs strongly, this time coming out on top. I’m particularly proud of my projections for BC, where I registered 34/36. The two predictions that relied the least on polls were the worst. In fact, the four most widely known ones came out at the bottom. So while everyone, myself included, did pretty poorly, we still did better than the media will give us credit for.
So where does this leave us? As I’ve emphasized above, while these results are far from satisfying for election projectors, they still point to the value of relying on the hard data provided by imperfect polls. None of the 7 “soft” (i.e. not based on a numerical model) projections had the Bloc below 22 seats, while 5 of the 8 projections using models had it at 15 or fewer.
As for myself, I’m obviously not thrilled about the absolute result, but very satisfied about how I fared compared to others. Moreover, I’m glad that some of the major issues emphasized on this blog and little discussed elsewhere, such as massive Conservative gains the GTA area, the efficiency of the NDP surge in Québec and the ballot box penalty for the Bloc, all came to pass.
It was my goal to provide you with the most accurate and up-to-date coverage of voter intentions and seat implications for the 41st General Election, and I believe that in many ways, I have succeeded. I hope that you agree, and that you will check back sporadically over the next few years for more political coverage and insights. In fact, please check back over the next few days: I will be analyzing the possible implications of these results as I digest them.
