Since public financing of registered political parties is likely to be a story for the next days, in light of stories coming from senior government officials Wednesday evening, it seemed like a good time to start documenting the parties' sources of revenue, starting with the "Annual Allowance" paid quarterly by Elections Canada to parties who meet the criteria set out in amendments to the Elections Act, and which took effect on January 1, 2004.

For anyone who has missed the stories, apparently the government is proposing to eliminate this subsidy (the so-called $1.75 per vote, which is now worth $1.95 per vote as adjusted for inflation): CTV.ca, Canwest, CP, CBC.ca, Ivison column at the Post, Wherry at Macleans.ca.

Below, I've documented the actual amounts paid to each party, to the best of my ability using available public sources: either news releases at the Elections Canada site (see links in the "Paid" column), or inferred from the parties' annual financial statements (found at the following locations for 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007).

Annual Allowances to Registered Parties, by Payment Date

Period	Lib	NDP	Grn	BQ	Cons	Paid
2004 - All	$9,191,054	$1,914,269		$2,411,022	$8,476,872	01-Jan-04
2004 - Q3	($49,646)	$12,958	$261,847	$0	($563,630)	07-Oct-04
2004 - Q4	$0	$956,692	$261,847	$322,846	$0.00	07-Jan-05
2005 - Q1	$2,240,772	$956,692	$261,847	$755,740	$1,807,734	01-Apr-05
2005 - Q2	$2,282,186	$974,374	$266,686	$769,708	$1,841,145	01-Jul-05
2005 - Q3	$2,282,186	$974,374	$266,686	$769,708	$1,841,145	01-Oct-05
2005 - Q4	$2,282,186	$974,374	$266,686	$769,708	$1,841,145	01-Jan-06
2006 - Q1	$2,282,186	$974,374	$266,686	$769,708	$1,841,145	06-Apr-06
2006 - Q2	$2,096,926	$1,212,255	$310,867	$727,092	$2,515,737	07-Jul-06
2006 - Q3	$2,096,926	$1,212,255	$310,867	$727,092	$2,515,737	04-Oct-06
2006 - Q4	$2,096,926	$1,212,255	$310,867	$727,092	$2,515,737	05-Jan-07
2007 - Q1	$2,096,926	$1,212,255	$310,867	$727,092	$2,515,737	04-Apr-07
2007 - Q2	$2,140,040	$1,237,179	$317,258	$742,041	$2,567,462	05-Jul-07
2007 - Q3	$2,140,040	$1,237,179	$317,258	$742,041	$2,567,462	02-Oct-07
2007 - Q4	$2,140,040	$1,237,179	$317,258	$742,041	$2,567,462	03-Jan-08
2008 - Q1	$2,140,040	$1,237,179	$317,258	$742,041	$2,567,462	07-Apr-08
2008 - Q2	$2,187,074	$1,264,370	$324,231	$758,350	$2,623,890	03-Jul-08
2008 - Q3	$2,187,074	$1,264,370	$324,231	$758,350	$2,623,890	02-Oct-08
2008 - Q4	$2,187,074	$1,264,370	$324,231	$758,350	$2,623,890	05-Jan-09

Next I'll be trying to assemble some reliably comparable data on the parties' other sources of income.

Labels: Party Finance

Macleans obtained some interesting data from Angus Reid Strategies about the changing patterns of Catholic voting inside and outside Québec. Angus Reid found that Catholics outside Québec who attended church at least once a week were more likely to have voted Conservative in 2008 than in 2004 (49% in 2008 vs. 38% in 2004). Inside Québec, Liberal support amongst Catholics has fallen from 56% to 22% (frequency of church attendance was not mentioned here).

Statistics Canada did not collect any data on religion in the 2006 census, but did collect data on religion adherence in 2001 (although no data on frequency of attendance was included in the Federal Electoral District profiles).

Below are the Top 30 ridings by percent of Catholic adherants, outside Québec. Thirteen of the 30 ridings are now held by the Liberals, 10 by the NDP, and 7 by the Conservatives. In 2004, the Liberals held 21 of them, followed by the NDP at 5 seats and the Conservatives at 4 seats.

Top 30 Ridings by Catholic Religious Adherence (Percent, 2001 Census)

% Cath	2008 Contest	Riding	2008 Margin	2004
92.9%	NDP-Lib	Acadie – Bathurst, NB	35.6%	NDP
90.1%	Lib-Cons	Madawaska – Restigouche, NB	14.2%	Lib
77.0%	Lib-Cons	Vaughan, ON	14.8%	Lib
76.6%	Cons-Lib	Glengarry – Prescott – Russell, ON	10.4%	Lib
73.1%	NDP-Lib	Nickel Belt, ON	20.2%	Lib
72.9%	Lib-Cons	Beauséjour, NB	17.6%	Lib
69.3%	Cons-Lib	Miramichi, NB	5.1%	Lib
67.0%	Lib-Cons	Cape Breton – Canso, NS	24.6%	Lib
64.3%	Lib-NDP	Sydney – Victoria, NS	25.0%	Lib
61.0%	NDP-Lib	Timmins – James Bay, ON	34.4%	NDP
59.7%	NDP-Lib	Sudbury, ON	4.9%	Lib
58.5%	NDP-Lib	Algoma – Manitoulin – Kapuskasing, ON	13.0%	Lib
57.7%	Cons-Lib	Ottawa – Orléans, ON	6.1%	Lib
57.4%	Lib-Cons	Moncton – Riverview – Dieppe, NB	3.3%	Lib
57.2%	Lib-NDP	Davenport, ON	14.5%	Lib
56.0%	Cons-Lib	Stormont – Dundas – South Glengarry, ON	38.4%	Lib
54.1%	Cons-Lib	Egmont, PE	0.3%	Lib
53.9%	Lib-Cons	Ottawa – Vanier, ON	18.9%	Lib
53.6%	Cons-Lib	Essex, ON	10.9%	Cons
53.1%	NDP-Cons	Windsor – Tecumseh, ON	24.8%	NDP
52.8%	Lib-NDP	St. John's South – Mount Pearl, NL	2.8%	Cons
51.0%	Lib-Cons	Cardigan, PE	23.2%	Lib
49.8%	Lib-Cons	Nipissing – Timiskaming, ON	12.2%	Lib
47.7%	Lib-Cons	Charlottetown, PE	18.0%	Lib
47.1%	NDP-Lib	St. John's East, NL	62.0%	Cons
46.3%	Lib-NDP	York South – Weston, ON	18.6%	Lib
46.3%	NDP-Cons	Windsor West, ON	29.9%	NDP
45.4%	NDP-Cons	Welland, ON	0.6%	Lib
45.3%	Cons-Lib	Renfrew – Nipissing – Pembroke, ON	40.5%	Cons
45.2%	NDP-Cons	Winnipeg North, MB	40.3%	NDP

Readers who are interested in politics and religion might enjoy visiting the Canadian Blog Awards-nominated website by former M.P. and radio host, Dennis Gruending, entitled "Pulpit and Politics".

UPDATE: Paul Wells added some observations to this subject at Inkless Wells. His interesting sidebar:

An odd thing: I made a concerted attempt to find out how the Conservatives measured the Catholic vote, how specifically they had sought to appeal to Catholics, and how much they thought they had managed to move it from 2004 to 2006. And, although the Conservatives were very cooperative in other ways for my book, they wouldn’t respond to these requests. I got the impression I was asking too much about a trade secret.

Meantime, Joanne at Blue Like You dug up a short item penned by Michael Coren just before the election in the National Post, which suggests the Liberals believe they are still the party of choice for Catholics.

Dennis Gruending wrote a post on evangelical voters and the 2008 Canadian election, citing a post-2006-election study by Ipsos-Reid which found that Catholics' voting behaviour more closely mirrored that of mainline Protestants, and claiming that evangelical church-going christians were four times more likely to vote Conservative than either of the other two groups. If Angus Reid's post-2008 data is correct, then voting intentions have moved amongst church-going Catholics over the past two years.

In another post, Gruending reviews exit poll data from the recent U.S. presidential election, and noted that Barrack Obama was able to swing Catholics back to the Democrats in 2008, after supporting George Bush in 2000 and 2004.

Labels: 40th General Election, Religion

The summary data from the 1997 Candidate Financial Reports is now uploaded alongside the 2000 Candidate Financial data.

However, while reviewing and testing that all the pages worked, I discovered that there are omissions in the summary data on the Elections Canada website. For example, the summary for Ted McWhinney, Liberal candidate and M.P. for Vancouver Quadra, BC in 1997 lists him as having no contributions. On the other hand, his detail data does show contributions.

So I'll have to review the summary data and make any necessary updates. Thus, for now, please consider the 1997 financials as interesting, but not final numbers.

Will finalize as soon as possible, and update this post when complete.

[UPDATE: Not a very satisfactory answer, but according to this page at the Elections Canada site, they were only supplying the "as submitted" data for download, not the "as reviewed" data. To quote them directly: "Please note the data found in these files reflects only the information initially received and recorded by Elections Canada." I must have missed this before. So, I'll have to see if I can get my hands on the the "as reviewed" data ... surely they've had a chance to finish that election by now.]

[FURTHER UPDATE: Elections Canada officials confirmed that the data available for download is "as submitted" only. In order to obtain the "as reviewed" data, they tell me I have to file an Access request. Thus, I've adjusted my classification of the data, and it now appears in italics, as does all the other "as submitted" data in this database. I should double-check with them to see whether the 2000 data is "as submitted" as well.]

Meantime, I haven't been able to figure out how to link to the 1997 candidate returns at the Elections Canada website reliably, so I'll have to play with that a bit to see whether it's going to be possible. Also, note that no candidate rebate information has been entered for the 2004 and 2006 elections as yet, since not all the returns have been reviewed by Elections Canada. Oh, and there are a few by-elections missing as well, but they'll be added over the coming week as time permits.

Nevertheless once the 1997 data is complete, and as soon as Elections Canada completes its work reviewing the outstanding Candidate Returns from 2004 and 2006, we'll have a dataset spanning four general elections of candidate fund-raising and election spending.

Here's how that history looks for each of the political parties (which you can locate by selecting a party from the Quick Search drop-down in the left-hand column, or via the "Browse Parties" menu item to your left).

• Liberal Party
• NDP
• Green Party
• Bloc Québécois
• Conservative Party

Labels: 36th (1997) General Election, Election Expenses, Election Finance

The candidate financial reports for the 2000 General Election have now been imported. Since all the 2000 reports have been reviewed by Elections Canada (and therefore none remain "As submitted by the candidate"), you'll notice that none appear in italics. And in addition, since the entire reports could be downloaded in a single flat file from Elections Canada, I was able to obtain the necessary details in order to link to the exact webpage for each candidate's return at the Elections Canada website (see the small Elections Canada icon next to the candidate's name).

For example, in the older version of LaSalle – Émard, QC, click on the "Financial Metrics" tab (or click here), and notice the small icon to the left of each candidate, like this ( ) . Clicking on the one to the left of Paul Martin's name brings us to the candidate details section of his 2000 Election Return.

Note that the rules and reporting categories changed substantially between 2000 and 2004. In most cases in 2000, direct transfers from registered parties were recorded as contributions from Corporations without share capital (group 'E'), and were lumped together with any individual, corporate or trade union contributions collected by the party office on behalf of the local candidate and transferred over to the candidate's campaign. Similarly direct transfers from "electoral district associations" (riding associations) were recorded as contributions from Unincorporated organizations and associations (group 'F'), and were also lumped together with any individual, corporate and trade union contributions collected by the riding or provincial section or other party trust fund on the candidate's behalf, before being transferred to the candidate. However, group 'F' contributions also included those made by non-political associations in 2000. I also noticed some individual contributions that were perhaps misclassified between groups 'E' and 'F'.

Since I had already been following the practice here of summing transfers from riding associations with contributions collected during the campaign period and calling it "Raised Locally", the caveats above should not have too much impact on the comparability of 2000 and 2004 metrics. But due to an occasional misclassification, something that looks like a central party transfer could wind up being counted as something "raised locally". Plus, due to the inclusion of contribution amounts in group 'E', the group 'E' total will sometimes overstate the extent of central campaign support of the local campaign. I just left the data the way Elections Canada reports it, but may try to break things down further sometime in the future.

This addition of data leaves just 1997 returns plus those from a few by-elections waiting to be entered. Candidate return data for the 2008 election will likely not be ready for some time, however.

As time permits, I'll be reviewing and updating any candidate returns from 2004 and 2006 which have moved from the "As submitted" stage to the "As reviewed" state, and adding the connecting details to allow for a direct link to candidate returns for those elections as well. Once all the candidate financial data is in, some new analyses will become possible as well.

Labels: 37th (2000) General Election, Election Expenses, Election Finance

124	–	Elected in 2006 Election
-2	–	floor-crossers (Garth TURNER from Halton, ON joined the Liberal caucus after being expelled from the Conservative caucus and spending time as an Independent; Bill CASEY from Cumberland – Colchester – Musquodoboit Valley, NS, was expelled from the Conservative caucus after voting against the Budget)
+3	–	floor-crossers (David EMERSON, Wajid KHAN and Joe COMUZZI from the Liberals)
+2	–	by-election gains (Denis LEBEL in Roberval, QC from the Bloc, and Robert CLARKE in Desnethé – Missinippi – Churchill River, SK from the Liberals)
127	–	Dissolution
-4	–	Retiring incumbent seats lost; 1 to the Liberals, 3 to the NDP (see below)
-4	–	Incumbents lost; 1 each to the Bloc and NDP, and 2 to the Liberals (see below)
+6	–	Gains; 5 in retiring Liberal incumbent seats, and 1 from the NDP (see below)
+18	–	Gains; 1 each from the Greens and NDP, and 16 from the Liberals (see below)
143	–	Elected in 2008 Election

4 Retiring incumbent seats lost (retiring incumbent) - newly elected:

• NL: St. John's South – Mount Pearl (retired incumbent Loyola HEARN) - seat lost to Siobhan COADY
• NL: St. John's East (retired incumbent, Norman DOYLE) - seat lost to Jack HARRIS
• ON: Thunder Bay – Superior North (retired incumbent, Joe COMUZZI, last elected as a Liberal) - seat lost to Bruce HYER
• BC: Vancouver Kingsway (retired incumbent, David EMERSON, last elected as a Liberal) - seat lost to Don DAVIES

4 Incumbent seats lost (defeated incumbent) - newly elected:

• QC: Louis-Hébert (Luc HARVEY) - defeated by Pascal-Pierre PAILLÉ
• AB: Edmonton – Strathcona (Rahim JAFFER) - defeated by Linda DUNCAN
• NL: Avalon (Fabian MANNING) - defeated by Scott ANDREWS
• ON: Mississauga – Streetsville (Wajid KHAN) - defeated by Bonnie CROMBIE

6 Retiring incumbent seats gained (retiring incumbent) - newly elected:

• PE: Egmont (retired incumbent, Joe MCGUIRE) - seat won by Gail SHEA
• NB: Fredericton (retired incumbent, Andy SCOTT) - seat won by Keith ASHFIELD
• ON: Newmarket – Aurora (retired incumbent, Belinda STRONACH) - seat won by Lois BROWN
• ON: Huron – Bruce (retiring incumbent, Paul STECKLE) - seat won by Benjamin LOBB
• NU: Nunavut (retiring incumbent, Nancy KARETAK-LINDELL) - seat won by Leona AGGLUKAQ
• BC: Surrey North (retiring incumbent, Penny PRIDDY) - seat won by Dona Marie CADMAN

18 Incumbent seats gained (defeated incumbent) - newly elected:

• NS: West Nova (Robert THIBAULT) - defeated by Greg KERR
• NB: Miramichi (Charles HUBBARD) - defeated by Tilly O'NEILL-GORDON
• NB: Saint John (Paul ZED) - defeated by Rod WESTON
• ON: Thornhill (Susan KADIS) - defeated by Peter KENT
• ON: Oak Ridges – Markham (Lui TEMELKOVSKI) - defeated by Paul CALANDRA
• ON: Mississauga – Erindale (Omar ALGABHRA) - defeated by Bob DECHERT
• ON: Oakville (Bonnie BROWN) - defeated by Terence YOUNG
• ON: Halton (Garth TURNER, last elected as a Conservative) - defeated by Lisa RAITT
• ON: London West (Sue BARNES) - defeated by Ed HOLDER
• ON: Kitchener – Waterloo (Andrew TELEGDI) - defeated by Peter BRAID
• ON: Kitchener Centre (Karen REDMAN) - defeated by Stephen WOODWORTH
• ON: Brant (Lloyd ST. AMAND) - defeated by Phil MCCOLEMAN
• ON: Kenora (Roger VALLEY) - defeated by Greg RICKFORD
• MB: Saint Boniface (Ray SIMARD) - defeated by Shelly GLOVER
• BC: Richmond (Raymond CHAN) - defeated by Alice WONG
• BC: North Vancouver (Don BELL) - defeated by Andrew SAXTON
• BC: West Vancouver – Sunshine Coast – Sea to Sky Country (Blair WILSON, last elected as a Liberal) - defeated by John WESTON
• BC: Vancouver Island North (Catherine BELL) - defeated by John DUNCAN

The Conservative Party obtained 143 seats + 95 second-place finishes in the 307 seats it contested (down slightly from 241 in 2006, but still up from 189 in 2004). Its candidates obtained the 10% or better vote share required to become eligible for election expense rebates in 300/307 ridings, again down slightly from 303/308 in 2006 but still up from 252/308 in 2004. Nationally their percentage of the vote increased by 1.4%, and their share of the vote increased in 200/307 ridings.

The Conservatives gained most of their seats in Ontario, in addition to making a few key gains in the Maritimes, Western Canada and the North. They picked up 6 seats from retiring incumbents of other parties, but ironically did not hold the 4 seats being vacated by their own retiring incumbents.

Moreover, floor-crossers did not fare well: both Garth Turner who crossed from the Conservatives and Wajid Khan who crossed to them were defeated, and the seats of retiring Liberal-to-Conservative floor-crossers David Emerson and Joe Comuzzi both fell to a third party, the NDP.

Conservative advances in urban and suburban Ontario and in seats having high rates of identified visible minorities were offset somewhat by dashed hopes in Quebec, where the party's number of second place finishes dropped by 40 to 24 and their vote share slid by 3 percentage points.

Labels: 40th General Election, Conservatives

[UPDATE: Note addition under the heading of new Liberals replacing retiring Liberals. After all the waiting, I forgot to actually add Andrew Kania in Brampton West!]

103	–	Elected in 2006 Election
-4	–	floor-crossers (David EMERSON, Wajid KHAN and Joe COMUZZI to the Conservatives; Blair WILSON to the Greens)
-9	–	retired (Joe FONTANA, Jean LAPIERRE, Bill GRAHAM, Jim PETERSON, Stephen OWEN, Gary MERASTY, Lucienne ROBILLARD, Brenda CHAMBERLAIN, John GODFREY)
+1	–	floor-crosser (Garth TURNER from Halton, ON joined the Liberal caucus after being expelled from the Conservative caucus and spending time as an Independent)
+4	–	holds (Glen PEARSON, Martha HALL FINDLAY, Bob RAE and Joyce MURRAY elected in by-elections)
95	–	Dissolution
-6	–	Retiring incumbent seats lost; 1 to the NDP, 5 to the Conservatives (see below)
-5	–	Incumbents lost to the NDP (see below)
-16	–	Incumbents lost to the Conservatives (see below)
+6	–	Gains; 1 from the NDP, 2 from the Bloc, 3 from the Conservatives (see below)
+3	–	Retained seats (vacant at Dissolution) from retiring incumbents (see below)
77	–	Elected in 2008 Election

Retiring incumbent seats lost (retiring incumbent) - newly elected:

• ON: Nickel Belt (retired incumbent, Raymond BONIN) - seat lost to Claude GRAVELLE
• PE: Egmont (retired incumbent, Joe MCGUIRE) - seat lost to Gail SHEA
• NB: Fredericton (retired incumbent, Andy SCOTT) - seat lost to Keith ASHFIELD
• ON: Newmarket – Aurora (retired incumbent, Belinda STRONACH) - seat lost to Lois BROWN
• ON: Huron – Bruce (retiring incumbent, Paul STECKLE) - seat lost to Benjamin LOBB
• NU: Nunavut (retiring incumbent, Nancy KARETAK-LINDELL) - seat lost to Leona AGGLUKAQ

Incumbents lost to the NDP (defeated incumbent) - newly elected:

• ON: Welland (John MALONEY ... came 3rd behind Cons, too) - lost to Malcolm ALLEN
• ON: Sudbury (Diane MARLEAU ... seat had been Liberal for 70 years!) - lost to Glenn THIBEAULT
• ON: Algoma – Manitoulin – Kapuskasing (Brent ST. DENIS) - lost to Carol HUGHES
• ON: Thunder Bay – Rainy River (Ken BOSHCOFF) - lost to John RAFFERTY
• MB: Churchill (Tina KEEPER) - lost to Nikki ASHTON

Incumbents lost to the Conservatives (defeated incumbent) - newly elected:

• NS: West Nova (Robert THIBAULT) - lost to Greg KERR
• NB: Miramichi (Charles HUBBARD) - lost to Tilly O'NEILL-GORDON
• NB: Saint John (Paul ZED) - lost to Rod WESTON
• ON: Thornhill (Susan KADIS) - lost to Peter KENT
• ON: Oak Ridges – Markham (Lui TEMELKOVSKI) - lost to Paul CALANDRA
• ON: Mississauga – Erindale (Omar ALGABHRA) - lost to Bob DECHERT
• ON: Oakville (Bonnie BROWN) - lost to Terence YOUNG
• ON: Halton (Garth TURNER) - lost to Lisa RAITT
• ON: London West (Sue BARNES) - lost to Ed HOLDER
• ON: Kitchener – Waterloo (Andrew TELEGDI) - lost to Peter BRAID
• ON: Kitchener Centre (Karen REDMAN) - lost to Stephen WOODWORTH
• ON: Brant (Lloyd ST. AMAND) - lost to Phil MCCOLEMAN
• ON: Kenora (Roger VALLEY) - lost to Greg RICKFORD
• MB: Saint Boniface (Ray SIMARD) - lost to Shelly GLOVER
• BC: Richmond (Raymond CHAN) - lost to Alice WONG
• BC: North Vancouver (Don BELL) - lost to Andrew SAXTON

Gains (defeated incumbent) - newly elected:

• NL: Avalon (Fabian MANNING) - defeated by Scott ANDREWS
• NL: St. John's South – Mount Pearl (retired incumbent Loyola HEARN) - seat picked up by Siobhan COADY
• QC: Brossard – La Prairie (Marcel LUSSIER) - defeated by Alexandra MENDÈS, after a judicial recount
• QC: Papineau (Vivian BARBOT) - defeated by Justin TRUDEAU
• ON: Parkdale – High Park (Peggy NASH) - defeated by Gerard KENNEDY
• ON: Mississauga – Streetsville (Wajid KHAN) - defeated by Bonnie CROMBIE

3 holds, replacing retiring Liberal incumbents whose seats were vacant at dissolution:

• QC: Westmount – Ville-Marie (retiring incumbent Lucienne ROBILLARD) - seat won by Marc GARNEAU
• ON: Don Valley West (retiring incumbent John GODFREY) - seat won by Rob OLIPHANT
• ON: Guelph (retiring incumbent Brenda CHAMBERLAIN) - seat won by Frank VALERIOTE

In addition, 4 new 5 new members are joining the Liberal caucus, replacing 4 of 5 of their members who chose not to run in 2008:

• NL: Random – Burin – St. George's (retiring incumbent Bill MATTHEWS) - won by Judy FOOTE
• QC: LaSalle – Émard (retiring incumbent Paul MARTIN) - won by Lise ZARAC
• ON: Scarborough Southwest (retiring incumbent Tom WAPPEL) - won by Michelle SIMSON
• ON: Etobicoke North (retiring incumbent Roy CULLEN) - won by Kirsty DUNCAN
• ON: Brampton West (retiring incumbent Colleen BEAUMIER) - won by Andrew KANIA

The Liberal Party obtained 77 seats + 123 second-place finishes in the 307 seats it contested (its smallest share of seats-plus-seconds in this database). Its candidates obtained the 10% or better vote share required to become eligible for election expense rebates in 271/307 ridings, down from 307/308 in 2004 and 283/308 in 2006. Nationally their percentage of the vote declined by 4.0%, and their share of the vote declined in 225/307 ridings.

19 of the 103 Liberal MPs elected in 2006 retired during or at the end of the 39th Parliament. Of those, the Liberals retained 7/9 by-election seats and 4/10 of the remaining seats in the 2008 general election.

A further 4 Liberal MPs from the class of 2006 crossed the floor (3 to the Conservatives and 1 to the Green Party). The Liberals regained just 1 of those 4 seats in 2008.

The metric of "seats-plus-seconds" is not, on its own, a perfect indicator of a party's universe or performance, since not all second place finishes are created equal. However the party in second place in a riding still has a certain standing under the Elections Act and gets to propose names for polling station officials and revising agents and so forth in the next general election. The metric should be read together with other indicators, and tracked over time for upward or downward trends. The Liberals' seats-plus-seconds was 261 in 1997, 279 in 2000, 280 in 2004, 219 in 2006 and 200 in 2008. Read together with the number of seats in which they have been eligible for a rebate (i.e., over 15% of the vote in 1997 and 2000, and over 10% since then), which numbered 292 in 1997, 288 in 2000, 307 in 2004, 283 in 2006, and 271 in 2008, a definite trend can be observed.

One thing is sure, however, and that is the fact that a party would prefer a 2nd place finish to a 3rd place one. Of the 219 ridings in which the Liberal candidate came 1st or 2nd in 2006, they fell into 3rd place in 36 of them (35/36 moved from 2nd to 3rd, 1/36 moved from 1st to 3rd), and in a further 6 ridings fell into 4th place. They had held 10 of these seats in 2004.

Meantime, of the 83 ridings in which the Liberals' increased their vote share over 2006, 58 of them were in Quebec, indicating a rebound in that province after a difficult election for them last time around. 2 of their 6 pickups were in that province as well. 19/77 current caucus members are women (24.7%). This compares with their 21/103 (20.4%) showing in 2006, and with the NDP's 12/37 (32.4%) in 2008 (the highest in this Parliament).

Labels: 40th General Election, Liberals

Elections Canada has just announced the results of the last outstanding judicial recount, Brampton West, ON where Liberal Andrew Kania in fact increased his lead slightly from 223 to 231 votes over Conservative Kyle Seeback. Kania thus takes over the most populous seat in the country from retiring Liberal M.P. Colleen Beaumier. Voter turnout was barely over 50%.

This means I'll be resuming my series of "Gains and Losses" posts. Next up, the Liberals ...

Labels: 40th General Election, Recounts

[UPDATE: The agony is officially over in Vancouver South, BC. Incument Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh held on by 20 votes. Only Brampton West, ON is outstanding now, and is expected to be completed by week's end. FINAL UPDATE: Brampton West is wrapped up now as well.]

I once saw a wonderful video from the private collection of a real political junkie, in which Stephen Lewis gives the "Election Day pitch" to a training meeting for volunteers who would be getting out the vote for his cousin in the 1984 federal election. He recounted every humourous Lewis family anecdote about pulling the vote, and told stories about legendary close contests, including his own as Ontario provincial leader when, as he said jokingly, he "had to sit through a blessed recount, one of the most humiliating, degrading experiences in the world, where you sit captive ... while they count out those ballots one by one, and your adversaries gloat in your face". Lewis' speech had his audience in stitches, and raring to go.

But he probably also captured the agony that some candidates are going through right now, given that the Vancouver South, BC judicial recount is *still* not finished, although they are 80% done, and expect to be wrapped by Tuesday at noon BC-time. Incumbent Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh's lead stood at 21 votes (down 1) at the end of today's sitting.

[UPDATE: Kady's sources have the final result before anyone else. News reports found here and here. Mr. Dosanjh won by a final margin of just 20 votes.]

And, although it hasn't been followed as closely, the Brampton West, ON recount was scheduled to start today (Monday) and run 3-4 days, according to the Brampton Guardian.

This means that we'll probably be waiting until after the US Election to have the final results of the 40th General Election in Canada. Let's hope they're a bit faster wrapping things up south of the border this time.

Labels: 40th General Election, Recounts

On Thursday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled his new 37-member cabinet, including 10 women.

Several caucuses also had their first meetings since the election. New caucus officers have not been announced as yet, but the existing ones who were reelected will continue to carry out their duties pending further announcements, in preparation for the return of Parliament on Monday, November 18.

This seemed like a good time to add a couple of new queries on the "Search the Database" page:

• Current Cabinet members and their ridings, for the 40th Parliament, and
• Current Caucus officers and their ridings, for the 40th Parliament

The query tables show the positions, members, ridings and recent election stats, along with hyperlinks to related information pages at the Pundits' Guide. Although the Green Party does not have a Caucus, I've shown their Leader and two Deputy Leaders as well.

Of the Cabinet Ministers, Gail Shea from Egmont, PE has the narrowest margin (0.3%), while the Prime Minister himself (Calgary Southwest, AB) is tied with Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, AB) for the widest margin (63.7% each).

I've moved the Nominations Progress queries for the recent general election a bit further down that page, and put these new queries for the Current Parliament at the top. Hope you find them to be a helpful reference.

Labels: 2_How to Search the Database