After failing to run a complete slate as promised in the 2008 General Election, the Green Party appears to be getting a head start this time out ... at least in one eastern Ontario riding:

• Northumberland – Quinte West, ON - Retired business-owner and Brighton resident Stan Grizzle was acclaimed last night as the Green Party's candidate, after former candidate Ralph Torrie stepped aside to pursue new career prospects. Torrie achieved 8.2% of the vote in 2008, placing 4th, as two-term Conservative M.P. Rick Norlock was handily reelected over former Liberal M.P. Paul Macklin.

By the way, Northumberland – Quinte West, ON is a great example of why pundits who think that just because a margin was close last time, it will be close again this time (not naming any names, cough-CTV-cough-Strategic Counsel-cough) can get it quite wrong. Liberal Paul Macklin held the riding comfortably from 2000 until the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance merged to form the Conservative Party, but in 2004 he won by just 313 votes (0.5% margin) over the Conservative candidate. Aha! A close-contest = a swing riding, right? Well, in 2006 Macklin held his raw vote, but the Conservative candidate Rick Norlock was able to better consolidate the old PC and CA vote, overtaking Macklin by 3,267 votes (5.2% margin). Proving this is a "swing riding"? Not so fast, because fast-forward to 2008 and Norlock, now with the advantage of incumbency, was able to retain the seat by a margin of 11,406 votes (20.1% margin), winning some 48.7% of the vote (albeit with a declining turnout).

So, ridings where the incumbent barely hung on last time could very well be swing ridings next time. But while ridings where the incumbent was narrowly defeated last time could possibly be swing ridings next time, more likely they probably won't be (especially when they were previously won under a different competitive configuration).

Rather, I would classify Northumberland – Quinte West, ON as the kind of riding it took the Conservatives two tries to consolidate their pre-merger vote in, and where the Liberals were only able to win when the NDP vote was depressed to below-historic levels. Prior to 1988 the seat was the preserve of long-time Progressive Conservative M.P. ("gorgeous") George Hees. Liberal M.P. Christine Stewart narrowly won in 1988 by just 28 votes after Hees stepped down, kept it in 1993 when the NDP vote completely collapsed, and again in 1997 with fewer votes than the combined PC + Reform candidates. After she retired in 2000, Liberal Paul Macklin replaced her but again with fewer votes than the CA+PC combination.

---------------------------------

Meantime, this makes Mr. Grizzle the first candidate to be officially nominated by his party for the 41st General Election, certainly that I'm aware of (there are no nominations reported as yet to Elections Canada, either). So, congratulations to him and to the Green Party for this accomplishment.

This brings up a couple of points about how the Pundits' Guide will start to change for the upcoming election cycle:

• First of all, last time I didn't keep track of details about the nominations process, such as when the candidate was selected, the selection process (contested nomination, acclamation, appointment, other), and whether and why the candidate resigned or stepped down and was replaced. However, given the news last summer about candidate resignations, and difficulties several parties had filling their slates, it became clear that this was a significant dataset to collect, and would permit the calculation of some potentially significant and predictive metrics. So, I'll be building that into my database schema going forward.
  
• Next, I'll have to create a new Electoral Event for the 41st General Election. We don't have a year on it yet, but I'll call it 2009? GE for now. The Nominations Progress Chart and Table for that election will get added to the Index page, and the special Nominations queries for the current election will get added to the "Search the Database" page. Should a by-election get called in the meantime, we'll go into by-election mode instead, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Anyways, all of that will be done, but not until after fiscal year end, as I have a bunch of work to get off my plate first. Meantime, here's a tease of another development that's coming soon to a Pundits' Guide near you ...

Northumberland – Quinte West, ON, 2008 General Election

Ridings of the National Capital Region (NCR), ON & QC, 2008 General Election

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Greens, Swing Ridings

A reader wrote to draw our attention to this blogpost from Ottawa Citizen Ed-board writer Ken Gray about nomination developments with Ottawa-area Liberals, and I've been hearing some of the same news through other channels myself. According to Ken Gray's source:

• Ottawa West – Nepean, ON - Former three-term M.P. and 2008 Liberal candidate David Pratt is being encouraged (and I hear that it's working) to return for another rumble with two-term Conservative M.P. John Baird. Pratt previously represented Nepean – Carleton, ON, but was defeated by two-term Conservative M.P. Pierre Poilievre in 2006. Ottawa West – Nepean is often considered the area's bellwether riding, as it tends to swing with the government, and is often a hotly contested two-way race. Indeed, the candidates' preliminary financial returns from 2008 show that both Baird and Pratt spent around 95% of the limit.

Not mentioned in the Citizen blogpost, but being heard in many corners around Ottawa these days:

• Ottawa Centre, ON - By the time 2008 Liberal candidate Penny Collenette announces her intention to seek the Liberal nomination in this riding again, it will have been the worst kept secret in town. Collenette ran 2nd to two-term NDP M.P. Paul Dewar. Unclear, however, is whether her previous opponent for the nomination, Scott Simpson Bradley (sorry about that, Mr. Bradley), is also interested in trying again. The riding often features strong three-way and even four-way fights (although it only met my mathematical threshold for a 3-way contest once). 2008 was no different in that regard, as the 3 top candidates all spent at least 85% of the limit (2 spent around 95%), and even the Green Party ran one of its higher-spending campaigns here as well (although unfortunately for them, they fell 0.1% of the vote shy of becoming eligible for a candidate rebate).

Meantime, Gray's post also suggests what was previously reported here, namely that City Councillor Rainer Bloess is ready to run for the Liberal nomination in Ottawa – Orléans, ON, currently held by two-term Conservative M.P. Royal Galipeau.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Liberals

I'm just catching up with a Vancouver Sun story from a few days ago, which reported on another possible candidate for the NDP nomination in any by-election called to replace NDP M.P. Dawn Black, who is expected to be nominated this weekend for a provincial seat in May's B.C. election.

• New Westminster – Coquitlam, BC -New Westminster city councillor Lorrie Williams says she may be interested in competing with Coquitlam city councillor Barrie Lynch for the right to carry the NDP flag once the seat opens up. Williams ran for the NDP once before in the pre-redistribution riding of New Westminster – Coquitlam – Burnaby in the 2000 General Election.
  

Labels: NDP, New Westminster – Coquitlam

A reader writes to say that we missed out on an interesting campaign fundraiser tonight, signalling the likely return of a former M.P. to the fray one more time ...

• Ahuntsic, QC - Former M.P. and 2006-2008 Liberal candidate Eleni Bakopanos was raising money in north Montréal tonight for an apparent fourth rematch with Bloc Québécois M.P. Maria Mourani. The race in this riding was settled by increasingly smaller margins over a series of 3 two-way fights between Mourani and Bakopanos in recent elections: 2.5% in 2004, 1.7% in 2006, and 0.9% (just 423 votes, or 1.9 votes per poll) in 2008. Based on the candidates' financial returns, Bakopanos was outspent by Mourani (63% vs 96% of the limit) in 2008, a situation her fundraiser is perhaps designed to avoid repeating this time out.
  

What's going on in your corner of the world, or your part of the political spectrum? Let me know, and I'll pass it on.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Liberals

This morning's Hill Times reports another development in the race to succeed Dawn Black:

• New Westminster – Coquitlam, BC - Former four-term Conservative M.P. Paul Forseth would like to try to regain his seat once again, but must persuade his party to conduct an open nomination meeting. The Hill Times reports that Forseth fears the party may "parachute a 'star' candidate" into the riding for the by-election instead.
  

Labels: New Westminster – Coquitlam

Last month I ran some statistics examining the relationship between riding-level election spending and the associated share of the vote obtained, for the 1997-2006 general elections.

Now the bluegreenblogger has in added a few more variables and run some correlations on the dataset of Green Party federal candidates in Ontario from 2008 (reviewed here by NDP blogger the Jurist at Accidental Deliberations). Bluegreenblogger examined both vote percent and raw vote as dependent variables, and tested election spending vs. riding association (aka EDA or "electoral district association") assets at the end of the previous calendar year vs. campaign contributions vs. transfers into the riding as independent variables. I've summarized the results below:

Correlations between election finance and riding association development, Green Party federal candidates, Ontario only, 2008 election

Correlation (r)	Raw Vote	Vote Pct
EDA assets as at end of 2007	0.575	0.534
Candidate/EDA election spending	0.751	0.766
Transfers to Candidate/EDA campaign	0.698	0.727
Campaign contributions	0.329	0.277

Source: bluegreenblogger, at "Not An Official Green Party Canada Site"

I always like to report on other efforts to quantify election data, so thanks BGB for this contribution.

Labels: Data Analysis, Election Expenses, Election Finance

Two-term Conservative M.P. Gord Brown (a contemporary of mine from Carleton days; Hi Gordie!) will be seeing some familiar faces on the campaign trail next election, a reader writes to advise:

• Leeds – Grenville, ON - Both the 2008 NDP candidate, Steve Armstrong, and Liberal candidate and former PMO staffer, Marjory Loveys, have announced their intention to run again for their party's nominations, we're told. Meantime, the Green Party electoral district association has scheduled an AGM for May 9th, at which their local nomination period will open, although 2008 Green candidate Jeanie Warnock has not yet indicated her intentions for any forthcoming campaign. One candidate who won't be running for his party again however is Progressive Canadian candidate John McCrea, who has since joined the Greens. No word yet on whether he's interested in seeking their nomination. Also unclear is whether Loveys' nomination challenger from last time, Carleton lecturer and Merrickville area resident Paula du Hamel Yellow Horn, will return for a second try.
  

The reader also reports that nationally the Green Party has opened its nomination period, and aims to have all candidates nominated and in place by June 15th.

Do you have information about nominations in your part of the country or political spectrum? Don't be shy, share with Guide readers! I know people out there are interested, because some variation of "41st canadian election candidates" is now one of the Top 5 search strings reaching punditsguide.ca.

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

Harvard Kennedy School prof and long-time U.S. community organizer Marshall Ganz is on a short tour of speaking engagements in Canada this week, and I happened to catch him in Ottawa. Ganz played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in designing and building the ground organization for the Obama campaign, and was in town to pass along some of its underlying principles and best practices.

Many people associate the Obama campaign with its contributions to the use of Web 2.0 technologies in running election campaigns. But to Ganz that is not the whole story. The technology itself would not have mattered without, first of all, the story of hope woven by their candidate; and it would have constituted mere tactics that could not necessarily replicate the same result elsewhere without forming part of a larger strategic context.

Finally, he argues, the technologies themselves are insufficient without the teaching of leadership skills. American politics had become an exercise in advertising and marketing (the approach of the status quo), he claimed, and had lost the skills of organizing not utilized since the 1960s.

Ganz outlined 5 Best Practices for building a ground organization:

* Motivation Through Narrative: The sharing of personal stories was used to bring people together around shared values, what Ganz calls "values-based organizing". This approach allows folks to set aside their issue silos, find common issues and common interests and then agree on common strategies. If you conflate your issue with your identity, you risk fragmentation of a bigger potential movement. The Obama organization taught people how to translate their own experience into a story that can engage others around common and shared values.

* Relationship Building: Their campaign also sought to teach skills of relationship-building around shared commitments, so that the organization became more than simply an aggregation of individuals, but recast individual interests as common interests thus allowing resources to be be diverted towards common endeavours. Building relationships was key to creating a commitment to work together on common interests.

* Structure & Team Building: Ganz argues that many advocacy organizations have attempted to function nominally without a structure, but in fact all organizations have a structure whether explicit or not. Where the structure is not explicit, too much energy is wasted trying to figure it out, and a very "passive aggressive" and unhealthy situation ensues, he says. Ganz and a colleague have done a lot of academic work on how to structure groups so that they work, and concluded that the best practice was to form self-governing, interdependent "volunteer leadership" teams, with clear roles, norms and structures. Ganz argued that volunteers will stay volunteering if they learn and grow, which requires that an organization learn to structure the work that way, in order to create a resilient, accountable and motivated voluntary team.

* Strategic Focus: Related to the team building discussed above, Ganz argues that many advocacy groups have suffered from a lack of strategic focus, or simply too many strategic goals. In the Obama campaign, volunteer leadership teams were given responsibility for a goal of X numbers of voters, and given the resources and tools to accomplish their goals, but with a lot of local autonomy. He cited Richard Walton's work on the two kinds of organizations (Command organizations vs. Commitment organizations), and said to build the latter means giving away some responsibility and control at the centre. To him, the measure of the success of this latter approach was finding at the end of the campaign that people were saying "great, what next?", rather than "great, thank goodness that's all over now".

* Translating Outcomes into Measurable Accountable Results: Attention to detail, says Ganz, is the requirement of excellence in anything. It's not enough to say the meeting hall had a great feeling in it, you must know how many people were there, and where they came from. Because of the Internet, the ability to share information is greatly enhanced, and the Obama campaign achieved a level of transparency previously unheard of in Democratic Party politics when it shared the voter file with volunteers, and granted them realtime access to information, in return for accountability for the goals their group was to achieve.

Ganz credits the unique confluence of historical (especially economic) conditions, and Obama's ability to communicate a narrative politics of values, rather than a marketing campaign of policies and issues, with bringing about an election that really was different than any other in U.S. history for moving beyond the politics of race and racism. "Sometimes, hope and history rhyme," he concluded, adding that freedom is something each generation must achieve in turn and rebuild once again.

For more on the importance of narrative in building advocacy organizations, read "Why stories matter" by Marshall Ganz.

For more on a values-based approach to politics, read Frank Luntz on "Words that Work" (from a conservative perspective; the link opens a talk he gave on National Public Radio on his book) and George Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant" and "The Political Mind" (the progressive response to Luntz, which became very influential in Democratic Party circles in the recent election cycle; the link opens a lecture he gave on "How Liberals and Conservatives Think").

Finally, here is an in depth account of the on-the-ground Obama organization in Ohio from the online Oxdown Gazette.

While I'm recommending U.S. sources, I just got my hands on "How Barack Obama Won", a compendium of the NBC exit polls from the 2008 Presidential Election, annotated by NBC Political Director Chuck Todd and Elections Director Sheldon Gawiser in full state-by-state detail. Talk about electoral geek heaven!

Labels: Campaign Techniques

The first candidate to replace Dawn Black has stepped forward:

• New Westminster – Coquitlam, BC - Coquitlam city councillor Barrie Lynch is telling the Tri-City News that he plans to run for the federal NDP nomination when a nomination meeting is held in June. Two-term M.P. Dawn Black is expected to step down by April 14 in order to contest the B.C. election on May 12 in the provincial seat of New Westminster, where NDP MLA Chuck Puchmayr is stepping down to deal with health concerns.
  

Labels: New Westminster – Coquitlam

As previously reported here, candidates in the 2008 General had to submit their election campaign returns by midnight on Friday, February 13. It's taken me about a month to get around to getting that data into the Pundits' Guide database, and during that time Elections Canada has entered nearly 1,200 candidate returns ("as submitted") into their database.

Still outstanding are 440 / 1601 candidate returns, as described in the table below.

Some interesting trivia (although, remember, this is based only on preliminary data and is subject to change after the Elections Canada review):

• Of the top 30 "big spenders" (measured by who spent the greatest percent of the candidate spending limit in their riding), 25 were Conservatives, 2 were Liberals, 2 were Bloquistes, and 1 was NDP. Fewer than half of the big-spenders (14/30) were elected.
• Based on their returns entered so far, it appears that on average the Green Party's candidates more than doubled their riding spending from 2006 (7.0% vs. 2.6% of the spending limit, on average), while the Liberal Party's candidates spent on average a bit less (55.3% vs. 61% in 2006, down from 73% in 2004) as did Bloc candidates. Average spending by Conservative candidates was also up a bit (from 69.7% to 74.6%), while the average riding spending of New Democrat candidates stayed almost exactly the same (26.8% vs. 26.0%).
  
• If a candidate was duly nominated with Elections Canada, but then withdrew before the deadline and in sufficient time for another candidate from the same party to be nominated, it turns out that they BOTH have to file candidate campaign returns. For example in Toronto Centre, ON, former Conservative candidate Chris Reid and eventual Conservative candidate David Peter Gentili have BOTH filed candidate returns showing election expenses and transfers from party headquarters. Weird, huh!

Now, neither one spent the limit, and indeed their expenditures totalled together do not exceed the limit either. But what if they did? I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm guessing that since the limit applies to a candidate and not to a party's campaign in a certain riding, so long as both remained under the limit no provision of the Elections Act would be violated. Anyways I have a question in to Elections Canada on that one, and will report back on their response.

For a refresher on how to find that candidate financial data in the Pundits' Guide, see here.

I'll be writing and programming about financial data a bit more in coming weeks, so stay tuned.

# of Candidate Returns either Nil, or Not Submitted to, or Not Yet Reviewed by, Elections Canada; by Party, 2008 General Election

Party	Party Name	2008 GE
Oth	Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party	0 / 4
Oth	Canadian Action Party	9 / 20
Oth	Christian Heritage Party	8 / 59
Oth	Communist Party of Canada	0 / 24
Oth	First Peoples National Party	5 / 6
Oth	Libertarian Party of Canada	4 / 26
Oth	Marijuana Party	2 / 8
Oth	Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada	5 / 59
Oth	neorhino.ca	3 / 7
Oth	Newfoundland and Labrador First Party	2 / 3
Oth	People's Political Power Party	0 / 2
Oth	Progressive Canadian Party	1 / 10
Oth	Western Block Party	1 / 1
Oth	Work Less Party	0 / 1
Ind	Indep/No Affil	23 / 71
BQ	Bloc Québécois	13 / 75
Lib	Liberal Party of Canada	104 / 307
NDP	New Democratic Party	120 / 308
Cons	Conservative Party of Canada	70 / 307
Grn	Green Party of Canada	70 / 303

Labels: 40th General Election, Election Expenses, Election Finance

The Hill Times continues to have the best coverage of the state of play in determining nomination rules for the current election cycle. This morning's paper breaks two stories worth noting:

• The Conservative Party has come up with a compromise insofar as protecting the nominations of their incumbents, party president Don Plett told Hill Times correspondent Abbas Rana this week. The Conservative caucus was informed this past Wednesday that a referendum of party members would be conducted, and only if two-thirds called for a nomination meeting (in that riding?; the article is not clear on that point, but it's the only way it makes sense) would one be held. Based on reaction quotes in the article, the proposal appears more popular with the caucus than with past or hopeful nomination challengers.
• Meantime, while the Liberal Party previously announced its own set of criteria for protecting an incumbent's nomination, it may be quietly setting aside previous leader Stéphane Dion's commitment to running one-third women candidates, in favour of finding "the best candidate to win the riding", report Harris Macleod and Abbas Rana. The actual issue may be one of encouraging nomination races rather than making heavy use of their leader's prerogative to appoint candidates. However, no-one quoted in the story is advocating the latter power be completely forsaken either. Senator Michael David Smith (sorry Senator, I was writing too quickly I guess) says the expectation is still that they will run at least one-third women, but that it should be done through proactive encouragement to run in a nomination race that represents a level playing field.
  

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Conservatives, Liberals

Candidate election campaign return data has now been entered and/or updated for the 2006 By-elections, the 2007 By-elections, and the 2008 By-elections.

Moreover I also found the time to add in the information required to link to every candidate's original return details at the Elections Canada website (except for 1997 General Election candidates, since that election's data is nearly impossible to link to directly; sorry).

If you're new to the Pundits' Guide, here's how to find candidate financial data:

• Find your riding of interest, either by
• drilling down through the "Browse Regions" page, or
  
• doing a Quick Search from the left-hand column on any part of the riding name, or by
  
• doing a Quick Search for a candidate of interest on any part of the candidate's name, and then clicking on the relevant riding from the candidate index page.


• From the riding profile page (e.g., let's look at Vancouver Quadra, BC), click on the "Financial Metrics" tab

• If you want to bookmark the page with that tab's data showing, click on the link called "Permalink" at the top-right hand corner of the page (in our example, you'd wind up here)
• Don't forget that candidate financial data displayed in italics at the Pundits' Guide is still in the "as submitted" stage (in our example below, Green Party candidate Dan Grice's return still has not been reviewed by Elections Canada, and so appears in italics)
  
• Now, notice the small Elections Canada icon next to each candidate's name. If you hover your mouse pointer over the icon, it says "Link to Candidate Financial Return at Elections Canada"

• If you click on that icon, it opens the candidate's return details from the Elections Canada website in a new window.
• Unfortunately Elections Canada does not label that page with the candidate's name, but TRUST ME. Select a part of the return you're interested in (e.g., "Part 2a - Statement of Contributions Received"), and click on it. Now, you're away to the races. You can even select a different part of the return from the drop-down list they provide.

Nearly all of the by-election returns are in "as reviewed" state for the 2006 and 2007 by-elections, but there are quite a few still in the "as submitted" stage for the 2008 by-elections candidates, as you can see from the table below.

# of Candidate Returns either Nil, or Not Submitted to, or Not Yet Reviewed by, Elections Canada; by Party and Electoral Event

Party	Party Name	2006 By	2007 By	2008 By
Oth	Canadian Action Party			1
Oth	neorhino.ca			1
Ind	Indep/No Affil	1
Lib	Liberal Party of Canada	1		2
NDP	New Democratic Party		1	2
Cons	Conservative Party of Canada			1
Grn	Green Party of Canada		1	3

Labels: 2_How to Search the Database, Election Expenses, Election Finance, March 17 2008 By-elections, Nov 27 2006 By-elections, Sept 17 2007 By-elections

Today's nomination news comes from Ontario and British Columbia:

• Oshawa, ON - Mayor John Gray has apparently resorted to Facebook to try and squash the rumours he's planning on running in the next federal election and to confirm his intention to seek another term as Mayor, reports newsdurhamregion.com. The riding is currently represented by three-term Conservative M.P. Colin Carrie.
• Dufferin – Caledon, ON - 2008 Liberal candidate, web publisher Rebecca Finch, is resigning from partisan politics she tells the Caledon Enterprise, after making the move to Shelburne during the last election to run. Finch may run as an Independent candidate in the same riding down the road, however. Three-term Conservative M.P. David Tilson was re-elected there last fall.
• New Westminster – Coquitlam, BC - Reports from the New Westminster Leader suggest Elizabeth May is still considering a by-election run in that riding, should NDP M.P. Dawn Black win the provincial NDP nomination scheduled for March 29, and step down from her federal seat. May's comments to Steve Maher of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald of earlier this week, have been making the rounds in B.C. political circles. (h/t ReportOnGreens)
  

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Greens, Liberals

As indicated earlier this morning, I've been updating the candidate election finance and expense data for 2004 and 2006. Here is a count of the remaining returns still either missing, not yet reviewed, or possibly Nil returns but I can't tell because there's nothing in them and will have to wait until Elections Canada posts the complete set.

[UPDATE: I've just reviewed and updated the 2006 By-election returns now, and so the counts below have been adjusted accordingly.]

Please note that these updates will affect the accuracy of means, standard deviations and correlations earlier published here. I'll be updating that post soon. Also a reminder that any financial data appearing in italics (for example, the data shown here for Bloc Québécois M.P. Diane Bourgeois in Terrebonne – Blainville, QC) is still in the "as submitted" stage, meaning that the return has not yet been reviewed by Elections Canada (or that I haven't entered the reviewed data yet).

As a helpful bonus, I also finally got around to entering short abbreviations for the political party of all the "other" candidates in the riding profile pages and candidate index pages. Thus, Ron Gray now shows up as a Christian Heritage Party candidate (CHP), Marc-Boris St-Maurice shows up as a Marijuana Party (Marj) candidate, Miguel Figueroa shows up as a Communist Party of Canada candidate (CPC), and so on. (Conservatives are designated here by 'Cons'; not to be confused with the CPC, which after all had the acronym first!)

Don't forget that as a result of legislative changes to the Elections Act, there was a period of time during which some of the smaller parties fell below a specified threshold and were deregistered. You can see that some of their mainstay candidates ran as either "Independent" or "Not Affiliated" candidates during that period.

# of Candidate Returns either Nil, or Not Submitted to, or Not Yet Reviewed by, Elections Canada; by Party and Electoral Event

Party	Party Name	2004 GE	2006 By	2006 GE
Oth	Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada			1
Oth	Canadian Action Party	11		5
Oth	Christian Heritage Party of Canada	7		2
Oth	Communist Party of Canada	1
Oth	Libertarian Party of Canada	1		4
Oth	Marijuana Party	69		18
Oth	Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada	41		59
Oth	Western Block Party			1
Ind	Indep/No Affil	10	1	26
BQ	Bloc Québécois	3		1
Lib	Liberal Party of Canada	21	1	9
NDP	New Democratic Party	29		7
PC	Progressive Canadian Party	1		3
Cons	Conservative Party of Canada	11		39
Grn	Green Party of Canada	48		34

I still have a bit of tidy-up to do on the by-election expenses, and then I'll start in on entering the 2008 Candidate returns ("as submitted").

Labels: 38th (2004) General Election, 39th (2006) General Election, Election Expenses, Election Finance

A review of candidate election returns for the 2006 General Election has so far found four candidates - 2 Liberals and 2 Conservatives - who overspent their riding election expense limit, in apparent violation of s.443(1) of the Elections Act.

Instant update: At least one of the candidates entered into a compliance agreement with Elections Canada in the matter, for example here is Mr. Shipley's.

Contravention of this section by a candidate or official agent constitutes a summary offence [s.497(1)(s)], punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or a prison term of up to 3 months or both [s.500(1)]. Moreover, "wilfully" exceeding the limit is an "illegal practice" [s.502(1)(c)], which if found to have been committed, means the candidate is not entitled to sit as a Member of the House of Commons for five years [s.502(3)(a)] or hold any office in the nomination of the Crown or the Governor in Council [s.502(3)(b)].

One assumes candidates and official agents do not set out to wilfully exceed the spending limits, but when examining the numbers, it does appear that four candidates have at least accidentally contravened s.443(1).

Riding	Candidate	Pct Spent
Lambton – Kent – Middlesex, ON	SHIPLEY, Bev	105.63%
Simcoe – Grey, ON	KIRLEY, Elizabeth	103.96%
Haldimand – Norfolk, ON	FINLEY, Diane	103.47%
Sudbury, ON	MARLEAU, Diane	102.86%

By way of background, just over a year ago I entered the most complete data available at that time (either "as reviewed" by Elections Canada, or if still unreviewed then "as submitted" by the candidate) for candidates in the 2004 and 2006 General Elections.

Over the past week or so, I've just made another pass through to update that data, moving another 133 candidates from "as submitted" to "as reviewed" in 2004 and another 203 candidates from "as submitted" to "as reviewed" in 2006. The process of reviewing candidate election returns by Elections Canada usually results in ensuring consistent reporting of financial data between candidates, making sure the numbers add up, and switching some items from one line item to another as required. Occasionally items reported as candidate expenses become election expenses, and vice versa as well. Overall, it does not significantly materially change the totals reported.

However, as I say, so far I have discovered the above four cases where candidates have, according to the Elections Canada review of their submitted returns, overspent the spending limit for their riding. In a subsequent post, I will summarize the current state of the "as submitted" vs. "as reviewed" status of the 2004 and 2006 candidate returns.

Remember, when reading candidate financial data from the "Financial Metrics" tab of any Riding Profile, if the data is in italics, it is still "as submitted" by the candidate, and has not yet been reviewed by Elections Canada.

Labels: 39th (2006) General Election, Election Expenses

From the Northern News Service comes the latest tidbit of nomination news:

• Western Arctic, NT - Former NWT territorial Premier, Joe Handley, is considering a run for the Liberal nomination in this northern riding. 2008 Liberal candidate Gabrielle Mackenzie-Scott has not indicated her intentions as yet, and Handley says he will decide by fall whether to launch a nomination campaign. The riding, which is 50.6% aboriginal according to the 2006 census (ranked 4th in "Aboriginal identity population" nationally) is currently held by two-term NDP M.P. Dennis Bevington.
  

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Liberals

Continuing our catch-up on nomination news, from Abbas Rana in this week's Hill Times we learn that a couple of Conservative-held ridings in Ontario are attracting the interest of multiple potential Liberal candidates:

• London West - The outgoing and a former Liberal Party president, lawyers Doug Ferguson and Mike Eizenga, are both said to be preparing nomination campaigns in an effort to reclaim the riding from first-time Conservative M.P. Ed Holder, who narrowly defeated five-term Liberal M.P. Sue Barnes last fall. According to the Hill Times, Barnes is not expected to run again.
• Ottawa – Orléans - Two Ottawa city councillors, Rainer Bloess and Michel Bellemare (the son of former Ottawa – Orléans Liberal M.P. Eugène Bellemare) are said to be testing the waters, along with two women, software engineer Rachel Décoste and the 2008 Liberal candidate in Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC Hélène Leone. The riding is currently held by two-term Conservative M.P. Royal Galipeau.

Do you know of nomination news in your part of the country? Don't be shy: share it.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Liberals

Courtesy of daveberta.ca, the online oracle of all Alberta political news, word of a few potential challengers to incumbent Conservative M.P.s from his province:

• Calgary West - Five-term Conservative M.P. Rob Anders will be challenged for his nomination by Calgary lawyer Donna Kennedy-Glans. Anders was first elected in 1997 in the seat previously held by now-Prime Minister (and Calgary Southwest M.P.), Stephen Harper. It promises to be a vigourous race [UPDATE: ... with its own website; thanks again daveberta].
  
• Edmonton East - Five-term Conservative M.P. Peter Goldring also appears to be facing a nomination challenge by former riding vice-president Matt Altheim. Altheim has launched a website that nowhere explicitly states such a challenge is its purpose.

Dave has maintained a list of Alberta candidates and nominations for previous federal and provincial elections. We'll know we're getting close when he launches his list for the next one!

Instant update: Don Martin has a few thoughts on this as well.

Somewhat later update: John Ivison chimes in on the same topic.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Conservatives

Continuing today's catch-up on election-related news, there is another development on the nomination rules front for different parties getting ready for the next general election.

Today's news comes courtesy of the Hill Times, whose Abbas Rana is reporting that Conservative incumbents are asking that their nominations be guaranteed, in recognition of the amount of House duty required of government backbenchers during a minority parliament. As Rana reports:

Conservatives last week had not made any decision on whether to protect their incumbent MPs from nomination contests or not.

"As far as I know, there has been no decision made on that," said Ryan Sparrow, a spokesman for the Conservative Party.

The New Democrats, however, told The Hill Times that their party will not protect their 37 MPs from nomination challenges and all Members will have to win their nominations.

Meanwhile, in not-for-attribution based interviews, Conservative sources told The Hill Times that Tory MPs want their nominations protected and that there's been some discussion in caucus, but the party had to yet to make a decision.

Prior to the last federal election, incumbent Conservative MPs were required to go through the nomination process. In the 2006 federal election, then-Tory MPs were protected from nomination challenges.

Nomination battles are usually divisive and sometimes make national headlines because they can create negative publicity for the national political parties. If losing candidates feel they have been treated unfairly in the nomination process, they sometimes decide to run independently and can split the vote.

As previously noted, the Liberals are implementing a new set of regulations for incumbents wanting to be exempted from a contested nomination, involving a membership threshold for their ridings, and a minimum number of monthly pre-authorized contribution plans. The Green Party is also moving to exert some central coordination of their candidate search process.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Conservatives, NDP

A few weeks ago, the first of the Third Party Election Advertising Returns became available and were reviewed by David Akin and myself.

At the time, I compared the list of available returns against the list of registered third parties and noticed a large number of returns not as yet posted. Well, since then, Elections Canada has posted the full list of registered third parties at the third party returns page, indicating which of them are available online and which are not yet.

Most of the missing returns I was interested in are now available, such as (reprising the list from my earlier blogpost):

• the group Avaaz.org which conducted significant election advertising around environmental issues
• other notable absences are the DeSmogBlog and Kevin Grandia, who registered and were responsible for the VoteForEnvironment.ca website, along with
• numerous labour councils, and
  
• the 5 third parties registered to advertise in Saanich-Gulf Islands who shared a Victoria lawyer as their registered agent

I haven't been through every return in detail (there are 63 listed third parties, 12 of which do not appear to have returns available online as yet), to see if the Tourism Industry Association is still the big spender of the group, for example, or if Gwyn Morgan is still the largest individual contributor.

But I can say that, based on eyeballing the full list, my earlier observation that B.C. was the hotbed of third party registration and activity holds up even more than before, inasmuch as just about half of all registered third parties were from British Columbia, whether as:

• individuals advertising in the Chinese-language media and targetting ridings such as Richmond or Vancouver Kingsway, or as
  
• labour councils, trade unions or labour centrals, or as
  
• citizens' groups targetting Saanich – Gulf Islands on issues of taxation, or
• social advocacy groups highlighting seniors' issues, childcare or the environment

I wonder what it was about B.C. ... whether it was a few individuals getting things going, or whether there is an equivalent system provincially that folks are used to participating in? If you have any ideas about this, do take a second to comment and share your perspective.

Labels: 40th General Election, Third Party Advertising

Three-term New Westminster – Coquitlam, BC MP, Dawn Black announced over the weekend that she will step down from her seat and run in the forthcoming British Columbia provincial general election (two of her terms are shown in this database, in addition to her earlier one from 1988-1993).

No indication yet as to who would replace Ms. Black to try and retain the seat for the NDP. The Conservative runner-up in this riding, Yonah Martin, was recently appointed to the Senate.

But, given Elizabeth May's qualified commitment to run in a by-election, some Green Party activists are wondering whether she will decamp from Central Nova to try her hand in this working-class, suburban Vancouver seat (as are some New Democrats). [UPDATE: I missed this on Saturday, but in fact it seems a Liberal blogger led this particular charge. Sorry, Jeff. Also, another Green blogger thinks she should sit tight instead.]

As we learned from the confusion over when the Don Valley West, ON by-election could be called, the Chief Electoral Officer must issue a writ (on instructions from the Prime Minister) between 11 and 180 days after notice of the vacancy is received from the Speaker of the House. The minimum length of the writ is 35 days, but there is no maximum for by-elections.

[UPDATE: With the news that U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden is now endorsing Peter MacKay's candidacy for NATO Secretary-General over the Danish Prime Minister, Central Nova, NS itself could turn in to a by-election as well!]

Labels: Conservatives, Greens, NDP, Vacant Seats

The Ottawa Citizen's Glen McGregor has been reviewing the candidates' campaign returns for 2008, and has published an article looking at the Advertising expenses of the returns currently available, which readers will be interested in.

As yet, I have not been able to free up enough time to methodically enter the returns into the Pundits' Guide database myself, but I'll get there.

Labels: 40th General Election, Election Expenses

A few weeks ago, I posted some details of the candidate returns of the major party leaders ... well all except Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, whose return had not yet been posted by Elections Canada.

Well, Harper's return is available now, and so here is the full table for comparison (or to view the original returns yourself, click here):

Selected Details from the 2008 General Election Candidate Financial Returns from the 5 Major Party Leaders

	Stéphane DION	Jack LAYTON	Elizabeth MAY	Gilles DUCEPPE	Stephen HARPER
Party	Lib	NDP	Grn	BQ	Cons
Riding	St-Laurent – Cartierville, QC	Toronto – Danforth, ON	Central Nova, NS	Laurier – Ste-Marie, QC	Calgary SW, AB
$ Limit	$ 83858	$ 82497	$ 80462	$ 84641	$ 92156
$ Spent (% Spent)	$ 46549 (55.5%)	$ 79281 (96.1%)	$ 55482 (69.0%)	$ 71127 (84.0%)	$ 61102 (66.3%)
Electors $ Spent / Voter	76777 $0.60	74826 $1.06	58863 $0.94	79182 $0.90	90756 $0.67
Num Votes (Pct Vote) $ Spent / Vote	25095 (61.7%) $1.85	20323 (44.8%) $3.90	12620 (32.2%) $4.40	24103 (50.2%) $2.95	38548 (73.0%) $1.59
$ Riding 2007 Net Assets	$ 63271	$ 45173	$ 16734	$ 54705	$ 249070
$ Contribs (A) Num Contribs	$ 6125 24	$ 14656 89	$ 25411 84	$ 11500 51	$ 20840 62
$ From Riding (B)	$ 44000	$ 42164	$ 5348	$ 30000	$ 45000
$ Raised Locally (A + B)	$ 50125	$ 56820	$ 30759	$ 41500	$ 65840
$ From Party	$ 0	$ 21506	$ 80000	$ 41260	$ 0
$ Surplus	$ 7493	$ 0	$ 56540	$ 0	$ 14702

As expected (see my analysis in the earlier blogpost), Harper's campaign return was not significantly different from Dion's, since both hold very safe seats: their riding associations were able to raise most of the money ahead of time, they spent a smaller percent of limit than Layton and Duceppe (Harper spent 66.3% vs. Dion's 55.5%), and neither one received a transfer of funds from the national party. Harper's local campaign raised about three times as much as Dion's during the election, however ($20,840 vs. $6125). Only Elizabeth May's local campaign raised more, in fact.

Labels: 40th General Election, Bloc Québécois, Conservatives, Election Expenses, Election Finance, Greens, Liberals, NDP

In case you missed your weekly issue of the Whistler/Pemberton Question, I can pass along their report of another nomination candidate:

• West Vancouver – Sunshine Coast – Sea to Sky Country, BC: Squamish Mayor and 2008 Liberal candidate Ian Sutherland is hoping to carry his party's colours once again. The nomination process is expected to be complete by June of 2009, he says. The riding is currently held by first-term Conservative M.P. John Weston.

More generally, there's a bit more news on the Liberal Party front:

• Apparently the deadline to declare one's candidacy for the leadership to be decided at the party's May convention in Vancouver passed at midnight this past Friday, and so Interim Leader Michael Ignatieff is set to be acclaimed.
• Also, the Liberal Party has now established some rules regarding the renomination of incumbents. Liberal blogger George Young runs them down here, and gives some historical background. [UPDATE: More in this morning's Globe & Mail.]
  
• And lastly, this past weekend in Halifax, Michael Ignatieff announced that the Liberal party would be running a candidate against the Green Party Leader in the next election.

Meanwhile in Green Party news:

• The party is proposing some new nomination rules, which are provoking a lot of discussion amongst party members as to their constitutionality (also see here and here).
• And Leader Elizabeth May was indicating at her party's National Convention in Pictou, NS this past weekend that she will most likely run again in Central Nova, NS, although if persuaded by other advice from her new Campaign Committee, she could be talked in to running somewhere else.
• One of the ridings being suggested for her is Guelph, ON where three-time candidate Mike Nagy has apparently said he is not running again.

Still no nominations recorded in the Elections Canada nominations database on their website. Those aren't election drums I hear beating, are they? Nah. I still have a bit of work to do around here with party and election finance first, before we get started on all that again.

Send any nomination news along here.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Greens, Liberals