I confess that my own calculations about whether an election is desirable right now have little to do with those of the political parties (or even my guest blogger), and a lot more to do with the competing pulls of increased traffic and decreased time available to keep up with all the nomination news around here; never mind wanting to get some extra data projects under my belt before the deluge. So let me be the first to thank Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe for granting me the brief reprieve on that score, and without further ado: onto the news, starting with a late-breaking story from the west coast:

• Burnaby – New Westminster, BC - Thanks to a reader for passing along this clipping from the New Westminster News Leader, which is reporting tonight that former Conservative M.P. Paul Forseth is now going to try and win his party's nomination in this neighbouring seat to the one he lost in 2006 to former NDP M.P. Dawn Black, New Westminster – Coquitlam. Readers will recall Forseth's disappointment that the timing of the Conservative nomination in Black's vacated seat prevented him from running in the contested nomination there, which was eventually won by Diana Dilworth. Back from his business trip abroad, Forseth is now set to turn his guns on three-term NDP M.P. Peter Julian, who has increased his raw vote, vote share and margin in each of the last three elections, but has seen his major competition switch from the Liberals to Conservatives over that period as well. Forseth is so far the only Conservative to file nomination papers in advance of the September 24 deadline.
• Victoria, BC - Oak Bay mayor Chris Causton is expected to win the Liberal nomination in this Vancouver Island riding tonight, after being the only candidate to file papers and receiving a "bright green light" from that party's greenlight committee, as BC campaign co-chair Sharon Apsey told the Victoria Times-Colonist late last week. The riding is currently held by two-term NDP M.P. Denise Savoie, who has faced a fairly divided opposition in the last two campaigns, with Causton's predecessor Anne Park Shannon falling to third place last time around on a campaign that spent only 53% of the limit, compared with Savoie and Conservative candidate Jack McClintock's 91% each. McClintock's increased vote seems to have sparked considerable interest in the Conservative nomination here this time, it seems, with Public Eye Online reporting the other week that as many as four candidates are interested in running, including a former Nova Scotia PC MLA, Patrick Hunt, who last ran in Victoria for the Reform Party in 1993 when he finished second behind Liberal David Anderson who took the seat. As one wag commented on the Public Eye post, there seems to be a wave of former Nova Scotia politicians showing up in BC these days! Hunt will join the other (so far unnamed) candidates at an all-candidates brunch on Friday, September 25.
  
• Saanich – Gulf Islands, BC - As we quickly alluded to on Monday, environmental research scientist Renée Hetherington won the Liberal nomination here on Sunday by about 25 votes out of 300 cast, according to the Victoria Times-Colonist. This win is significant, because of Hetherington's endorsement by former Liberal candidate (and former Green Party member) Briony Penn, sealing an electoral rift between Penn and her former ally, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, whose own nomination meeting is scheduled for this coming Saturday, September 19. Island Liberal blogger Woman at Mile 0 posted some video footage of the meeting here.
• Kamloops – Thompson – Cariboo, BC - NDP Leader Jack Layton made a swing through town late last week as part of his fall campus tour, and to offer his encouragement to former two-time NDP candidate Michael Crawford, who is set to be acclaimed once again in this interior BC riding; telling Crawford that he too had run twice unsuccessfully before taking a seat in the Commons, reports Kamloops This Week. No nomination meeting appears to have been set as yet, however. Also said to be nominated is returning Green Party candidate Donovan Cavers (if anyone has a date for this nomination, could they drop me a line, so I can add him to the database?). No Liberal candidate has been named here as yet, which is remarkable given that the Kamloops area has historically been one of the very few areas of traditional Liberal strength outside of the Lower Mainland in B.C., even though they haven't won here since former Liberal M.P. and now Senator Len Marchand (the first status indian to be elected a Member of Parliament) won the seat in 1968 and held it until his defeat in 1979 at the hands of former NDP M.P. Nelson Riis. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff did hold an open house in town back in April, in the hopes of restoring his party's vote to the very high 20s it enjoyed in 2004 from the 9.8% it fell to in 2008, important since Kamloops is usually considered the BC bellwether riding. Of the 8,000 drop in Liberal raw vote here between 2006 and 2008, it broke to first-time Conservative M.P. Cathy McLeod over NDPer Michael Crawford by a ratio of 5:3, after 1,000 Liberals and 2,000 non-voters had already moved to the NDP between 2004 and 2006. A restoration in Liberal strength here would return the riding to the category of 3-way races which it came under in both 2004 and 2006. McLeod won the seat in 2008 after the retirement of three-term Conservative M.P. Betty Hinton, who defeated the NDP's Riis in 2000, when again the Liberal vote dropped substantially, and both Liberal and NDP votes migrated to the then-Canadian Alliance camp.
• Pitt Meadows – Maple Ridge – Mission, BC - A plummeting Liberal vote between 2004 and 2008 in this riding, virtually all of which migrated to the Conservatives, also dashed the hopes of three-time NDP candidate and former Vancouver Sun staffer Mike Bocking, and secured the seat for three-time Conservative M.P. Randy Kamp. Bocking has stepped aside this time, but long-time labour activist David Alan Murray wants to carry on in his place, the Maple Ridge News reports, and is so far the only declared candidate for a nomination meeting tentatively scheduled on Sunday, October 25. No Liberal or Green candidates have emerged here as yet.
• Vancouver Quadra, BC - Courtesy of a thread at the Blogging Tories forum (thanks for the h/t too, you guys), we learn that former 2006 Vancouver Centre Conservative candidate, geologist and lawyer Tony Fogarassy, is making a bid for his party's nomination in this neighbouring riding now, Rachel Greenfeld having apparently grabbed either the nomination or the lead in obtaining it in Fogarassy's old riding (if anyone knows the date on which she was nominated, could they please get in touch, so I can add her to the database). This riding was of course very narrowly won by former BC Liberal cabinet minister Joyce Murray in the March 2008 by-elections (by 151 votes), over UBC Business lecturer Deborath Meredith, with Murray emerging a slightly stronger victor out of their rematch in the fall 2008 general election, once turnout had returned to its more usual levels in the mid-60s from the 34% or so obtained during the by-election.
• Crowfoot, AB - Moving one province east, we learn from our friend daveberta.ca about the NDP nomination meeting scheduled for this coming Thursday, September 17, for which long-time candidate teacher Ellen Parker is at present the only declared candidate. Over her three campaigns to date, Parker has moved from third place into second place. However, her tiny vote share (she recently reached a personal best of 7.9% of the vote) is dwarfed by the 80% or so average share obtained routinely by her Conservative opponent, four-term Conservative M.P. Kevin Sorenson, who holds the distinction of being elected with the highest vote share of any M.P. in the 40th Parliament.

I'm also hearing from a reader that a new batch of Liberal nominations in Alberta is set to roll out soon.

Right, we'll have to stop there for now, but I'll continue on with Ontario, Québec and points east next time. Thank you so much to all the folks who continue to send in nomination news from across the country, and to the many new followers on Twitter @punditsguide.

Also, a big thank you to the CBC Hill bureau blog, Political Bytes, for their very kind shout-out the other day. And for any readers who were lucky enough to snag an invite to the Hill Times' 20th Anniversary bash Wednesday evening at the National Archives in Ottawa, I hope to get the chance to meet some of you there.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Conservatives, Liberals, NDP