Federal Election Poll

[Urbane]

It's early and you can change your selection anytime between now and May 2nd but what do you think will happen as a result of the election?

[steven lloyd]

I’m actually one of those guys who thinks we were doing pretty good under a Conservative minority. As a few federal political pundits pointed out, this government has been one of the most productive minority governments in our history. The risk of extremist Conservative ideology was being reflected with procedural temperance but things were getting done. And from what I can get out of the proposed budget, there were many things included that would benefit a lot of people. I would personally prefer another minority government, but Iggy and Layton have clearly put it out they are no longer interested in working with moderate Conservative ideals. In my personal view they have completely misread the mood of the electorate at large and are taking a costly, reckless and ill-advised move to try and solidify more power. I don’t want a majority Conservative government, but have voted that as my selection for the likely outcome here. Fairly or not, it is Iggy and Layton who are being seen as completely out of touch with reality (Iggy more than Layton who at least honestly shares where he is coming from).

[Urbane]

That's a great analysis Steven. So good that I may just change my selection from Conservative minority to Conservative majority. There are a lot of people who feel the minority situation, with the BQ in particular having a lot of influence, has run its course and in fact has become an impediment to moving forward. And Jack Layton says that Ottawa is broken so one way of fixing it would be to give the Conservatives a majority.

[grammafreddy]

I also voted Conservative majority - but not because that's what I feel is best. Like Steven, I favour a Conservative minority for the same reasons.

[twobits]

I also voted Conservative majority - but not because that's what I feel is best. Like Steven, I favour a Conservative minority for the same reasons.

GF/Steven- The point of forced temperance with a minority gov't is a valid observation. However the argument can also be made that the protracted back and forth to reach compromise often so waters down the intent as to make it an exercise in futility. Rather than have a purely Conservative policy, or vise versa Liberal policy, we end up with a hybrid that doesn't allow us to see if one policy in it's pure intent is superior. Pure party philosophy should be able to reign for at least an entire mandate for the people to judge. Another interesting point has got to do with the time required to actually enable new legislation. From inception to enactment can take up to a year. Many point to China's version of Capitalism as one of the major reasons for their rapid climb. They are able to react with amazing speed in policy. There, party brass conceive and enact in days not months of labourious debate. I am not saying I want to live under such a gov't, but it certainly gives one pause to wonder why we are being beaten at our own game. It's not all about cheap labour and lax environmental laws.

[NAB]

Were I to vote this poll with my desires, it would have been a Conservative majority. But since the poll asks "which is most likely", the numbers suggest to me another Conservative Minority. That in turn clearly leads to the risk of another attempted opposition coalition, if not as government at least as a continuation of joint tactics designed to delay delay delay and badly water down even desirable legislation. Arrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh!!! We cannot afford more of the same inefficient nonsense, and a clear choice has to be made IMO.

Nab

[JLives]

I suspect once the election is over we will be pretty much where we are right now.

[Urbane]

I suspect once the election is over we will be pretty much where we are right now.

If that is the case, and it may well be, we'll all have to ask ourselves if the money ($300-400 million) was well spent.

[GordonH]

I think its millions not billions.

[CJT84]

:ohmygod: I think its millions not billions.

lol yeah 1/4 of our GDP on an election would be a bit much.

[Urbane]

Yes, thanks. I had been thinking that four elections in the last seven years has put us over $1 billion. Yes, it is only a few hundred million for each election.

[albertabound]

conservative majorioty is the only way to go at this time, libs need someone that has more sense then iggy.

[Urbane]

Remember that in the 1997 federal election the Chretien Liberals won just over 38% of the vote for a "majority" government. Here is the latest poll for this election:

OTTAWA - The defeat of the Harper government and ensuing federal election campaign have not hurt the Tories, a new poll suggests.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll suggests the Conservatives opened up a 38-24 lead over the opposition Liberals in the dying days of the minority government and the first weekend of electioneering.
The NDP was at 19 per cent, the Bloc Quebecois at 10 per cent and the Greens at seven per cent.
Pollster Allan Gregg said the numbers show the Tory base is looking solid and strong, while the NDP is bleeding off traditional Liberal support, especially among women.
"It looks like the electoral tension has helped the Conservatives, and the actual election call looks like it has helped the Conservatives," said Gregg.
In Ontario, the Conservatives were leading the Liberals by a 38-32 margin, with the NDP at 20 per cent and the Greens at eight per cent.
The province is expected to be the decisive battleground in the 36-day campaign that ends at the polls May 2.
The telephone survey of 1,000 people was conducted between Thursday and Sunday and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.
Respondents were asked: "If a federal election were being held tomorrow, who do you think you would be voting for in your area?"
A two-week sampling of voter intention by the same pollster, ending Sunday, had the Tories with a 37-25 lead over the Liberals. The NDP were at 18 per cent, the Bloc at 10 per cent, and the Greens at eight per cent. That survey of 2,000 respondents had a margin of error of 2.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
Gregg said he can't say for sure whether Prime Minister Stephen Harper's mantra that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has secret plans to strike a coalition with the NDP and Bloc has resonated among voters. Ignatieff has strongly denied he's interested in a coalition.
The pollster noted that the last time the Conservatives enjoyed a double digit lead in the polls was in late 2008, when then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion raised the possibility of a coalition with the two other opposition parties — an idea that proved wildly unpopular with the public.
Over the last two weeks, the poll showed that among women, the Conservatives lead the Liberals by a 32-27 margin.
"As long as I've been in the business, Liberals have always enjoyed a solid 10-point lead on the women," said Gregg.
The Conservative gains among women have been aided by NDP inroads that are bleeding off the traditional base of Liberal female supporters, especially in cities, he added.
The Tory attack ads that vilified Ignatieff in the election run-up also appear to be paying dividends.
"Michael Ignatieff is more of a polarizing figure in Canadian politics than Stephen Harper,"Gregg said. "That is, Conservatives dislike Ignatieff more than Liberals dislike Harper. That's highly unusual."
"Their base will become more mobilized by an attack on Ignatieff than Liberals will by an attack on Harper. Guess what they've been doing for the last three weeks?"
For more information about the survey, visit http://www.harrisdecima.ca.

[Urbane]

Chantal Hebert doesn't have a prediction on the outcome but in the column published in today's Kelowna Daily Courier she does lay out one plausible scenario:

By Chantal Hébert National Columnist

With great risks often come great opportunities. But not necessarily in this nascent election campaign. As the federal parties hit the trail for the fourth time in seven years, Michael Ignatieff is playing double or nothing with a pair of dice loaded in favour of Stephen Harper.

Consider the following: if the public opinion trends observed over the past few months are consolidated in the five-week lead-up to the May 2 vote, the next Parliament could feature a Conservative majority government sitting across from a sovereignist official Opposition.

Polls show that Harper and Gilles Duceppe are both starting the campaign with some wind in their backs and a solid, committed, core vote. Given the right Conservative campaign, a Harper majority — crafted outside Quebec and mostly at the expense of the Liberals — could be at hand.

And, while on Day One of the campaign, a future House of Commons dominated by the Conservatives and the Bloc is not the most likely outcome of the vote, it is no longer strictly a figment of political science fiction.

Almost two decades have elapsed since the Bloc last vaulted to second place in a federal election and over the time since Jean Chrétien’s 1993 victory, the dynamics between Canada’s two main parties have changed dramatically, to the point that as the 2011 campaign gets underway, their roles are basically reversed.

While most Liberals would scoff at the notion of a 20-plus seat loss on May 2, Kim Campbell’s Tories went into the 1993 campaign in much better shape in the polls and with a more popular leader than Ignatieff’s Liberals . . . and finished with two seats.

On Brian Mulroney’s watch, the Conservative coalition had imploded. That implosion paved the way for the devastating Tory result. On election day, Campbell bled votes to the Bloc, the Reform Party and the Liberals. The party never recovered from that hemorrhage.

In this campaign, Ignatieff is fighting the NDP, the BQ and the Greens for the anti-Conservative vote, on top of having to guard his right flank against the most concerted Conservative bid for centre-right Liberal votes in decades. In contrast with Campbell, Ignatieff is the only rookie leader in the race. His opponents all have one or more elections under their belts.

With Tory Quebec and Conservative Alberta strongly leaning to the Bloc and the Reform Party, respectively, at the outset of the 1993 campaign, Campbell desperately needed to hold Ontario to have a shot at a decent election showing.

Similarly, to avoid flaming out over the course of his electoral baptism of fire, Ignatieff simply cannot afford to lose an inch of ground in Ontario. His party is starting from nowhere across much of Western Canada and the Liberals are as close to extinction in Quebec as they have ever been.

Polls commissioned in the lead-up to the election show the Liberals entering the campaign at a historic low in Quebec, in fourth place behind the Bloc, the Conservatives and the NDP among crucial francophone voters.

That being said, for all of its wear-and-tear the Liberal brand Ignatieff will be championing in this campaign is in better shape than the battered Tory brand Campbell inherited from Mulroney in 1993. The Duceppe/Harper/ Layton/May quartet is also less formidable than the Jean Chrétien/Preston Manning/Lucien Bouchard trio.

When Campbell went into her first campaign, she inspired such high expectations that she would have had to be able to walk on water to live up to them.

Given his lacklustre ratings going in the campaign, surpassing expectations should be the least of Ignatieff’s problems.

After the dust settled on the 1993 Tory collapse, autopsies of the disaster revealed that even with a brilliant campaign under leadership runner-up Jean Charest — who had become more popular than Campbell over their battle for the top job — the party would have been lucky to finish with three dozen seats. Under any scenario, the decks were stacked against a Tory victory.

Eighteen years later, there are also systemic hurdles that would be hard for any Liberal leader to overcome between now and May 2.

Among them is a Liberal foundation that has been crumbling for so long in the Prairies and in francophone Quebec that its remnants are barely visible, and a highly competitive NDP and a Bloc Québécois that has taken over the niche the Liberals use to own in Quebec under Pierre Trudeau and become the default federal choice of one in two francophone voters.

By all indications, the Liberals are entering the highest-risk campaign of their modern history. It will be worth watching.

[Tacklewasher]

I suspect once the election is over we will be pretty much where we are right now.

If that is the case, and it may well be, we'll all have to ask ourselves if the money ($300-400 million) was well spent.

Agreed on the likely outcome and no it is not money well spent.