The NDP's Wasylycia-Leis Leaving the Commons
Five-term NDP M.P. Judy Wasylycia-Leis today confirmed the "worst-kept secret" in Winnipeg and Ottawa, by announcing her intention to step down from federal politics on Saturday May 1, 2010.
On paper, the very earliest a by-election could be held to replace her would be Monday, June 7, but given that the paperwork would have to be sent from the Speaker to the Chief Electoral Officer and with her resignation date falling on a Saturday, I believe a more likely date would be Monday June 14.
First elected federally in 1997 in the iconic NDP riding of Winnipeg North Centre, MB (the former riding of party legend Stanley Knowles), Wasylycia-Leis was one of three pairs of incumbent MPs who had to battle other incumbents to keep a Commons seat after the 2003 redistribution, defeating former Winnipeg North – St. Paul, MB Liberal M.P. Rey Pagtakhan by nearly 12 percentage points, in the newly-created seat of Winnipeg North whose new boundaries more clearly favoured the NDP.
Long known as "Judy W-L" by friends and opponents alike (her other nicknames included "Judy Wash-a-lotta-sheets" and "Judy Alphabet"), Wasylycia-Leis was no stranger to either politics or Parliament Hill when she arrived as a newly-elected M.P., however. As the party's women's organizer and later Executive Assistant to Ed Broadbent in the 1980's, she first ran provincially for the NDP three times west of Ottawa, and later moved to Manitoba to work for the provincial NDP government. She ran to replace Don Malinowski in the north-end Winnipeg riding of St. John's in 1986, and was reelected in 1988 and 1990, before stepping down to run federally in 1993, where she lost to Pagtakhan.
The riding of Winnipeg North has been held by the CCF or NDP for all but four terms since 1935: Liberal Charles Stephen Booth won the seat from 1940-45, Progressive Conservative Murray Smith won the seat during the Diefenbaker sweep of 1958, and Pagtakhan won it in the Free Trade election of 1988, defeating nine-term NDP M.P. David Orlikow, and winning reelection over Wasylycia-Leis in 1993.
In its current incarnation, the seat has typically appeared amongst the 10 lowest turnout ridings, and has scored amongst the lowest 10% of ridings nationally by various census measures of income. It had the highest concentration of residents of Filipino background of any riding in the country in the 2006 census, and had the 15th highest aboriginal identity population.
Wasylycia-Leis won the vast majority of the polling stations in 2004, and won every single poll in 2006 and 2008, with the Liberals winning only the ballots cast according to the Special Voting Rules Group 1 (inmates and members of the Armed Forces serving away from home; for some reason the SVR Groups 1 and 2 are not considered polling stations by Elections Canada in their Official Voting Results).
Winnipeg North, MB, 2004 GE, Poll-by-Poll Winners:
Winnipeg North, MB, 2006 GE, Poll-by-Poll Winners:
Winnipeg North, MB, 2008 GE, Poll-by-Poll Winners:
Vote Share, Percent of the Electorate, and Number of Polls Won+Tied, by Party, 2000 Tr - 2008 GE, Winnipeg North, MB
Now, the Liberals have been making some early moves in anticipation of Wasylycia-Leis' resignation, with nominated candidate Roldan Sevillano Jr. stepping down in favour of running provincially in Tyndall Park, in order to make way for current Liberal MLA Kevin Lamoureux (The Maples) who has announced his intention to try a federal run. But while the Liberals have historically been the second-place party in this riding, and have been the only other party in recent memory to hold the seat or provincial ridings within its boundaries, they did not place second in 2008, but placed third well behind the Conservatives, garnering just 9.2% of the vote -- less than the threshold required to earn a rebate of candidate expenses.
According to columnist Dan Lett of the Winnipeg Free Press (a former Carleton U colleague of mine; hi Dan!), area New Democrats are talking to Kevin Chief of the University of Winnipeg's Innovative Learning Centre. No Conservative candidate is on the horizon, and the Green Party has apparently nominated John Harvie. If you have more information on what's going on on the ground, please share with us in the comments section, or drop me a line by email.
Stay tuned for more news, and more changes at the Pundits' Guide. I'll get the nominations updated in the next few days, and make it possible for users to call up older maps shortly.
On paper, the very earliest a by-election could be held to replace her would be Monday, June 7, but given that the paperwork would have to be sent from the Speaker to the Chief Electoral Officer and with her resignation date falling on a Saturday, I believe a more likely date would be Monday June 14.
First elected federally in 1997 in the iconic NDP riding of Winnipeg North Centre, MB (the former riding of party legend Stanley Knowles), Wasylycia-Leis was one of three pairs of incumbent MPs who had to battle other incumbents to keep a Commons seat after the 2003 redistribution, defeating former Winnipeg North – St. Paul, MB Liberal M.P. Rey Pagtakhan by nearly 12 percentage points, in the newly-created seat of Winnipeg North whose new boundaries more clearly favoured the NDP.
Long known as "Judy W-L" by friends and opponents alike (her other nicknames included "Judy Wash-a-lotta-sheets" and "Judy Alphabet"), Wasylycia-Leis was no stranger to either politics or Parliament Hill when she arrived as a newly-elected M.P., however. As the party's women's organizer and later Executive Assistant to Ed Broadbent in the 1980's, she first ran provincially for the NDP three times west of Ottawa, and later moved to Manitoba to work for the provincial NDP government. She ran to replace Don Malinowski in the north-end Winnipeg riding of St. John's in 1986, and was reelected in 1988 and 1990, before stepping down to run federally in 1993, where she lost to Pagtakhan.
The riding of Winnipeg North has been held by the CCF or NDP for all but four terms since 1935: Liberal Charles Stephen Booth won the seat from 1940-45, Progressive Conservative Murray Smith won the seat during the Diefenbaker sweep of 1958, and Pagtakhan won it in the Free Trade election of 1988, defeating nine-term NDP M.P. David Orlikow, and winning reelection over Wasylycia-Leis in 1993.
In its current incarnation, the seat has typically appeared amongst the 10 lowest turnout ridings, and has scored amongst the lowest 10% of ridings nationally by various census measures of income. It had the highest concentration of residents of Filipino background of any riding in the country in the 2006 census, and had the 15th highest aboriginal identity population.
Wasylycia-Leis won the vast majority of the polling stations in 2004, and won every single poll in 2006 and 2008, with the Liberals winning only the ballots cast according to the Special Voting Rules Group 1 (inmates and members of the Armed Forces serving away from home; for some reason the SVR Groups 1 and 2 are not considered polling stations by Elections Canada in their Official Voting Results).
Winnipeg North, MB, 2004 GE, Poll-by-Poll Winners:
Winnipeg North, MB, 2006 GE, Poll-by-Poll Winners:
Winnipeg North, MB, 2008 GE, Poll-by-Poll Winners:
Vote Share, Percent of the Electorate, and Number of Polls Won+Tied, by Party, 2000 Tr - 2008 GE, Winnipeg North, MB
| Elec | Lib | NDP | Grn | Cons | CA | Rest | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 GE | % Vote % Elec Won+Tied | 9.2% 3.9% 1+0 | 62.6% 26.7% 152+0 | 4.8% 2.0% 0 | 22.4% 9.5% 0 | 1.1% 0.5% 0 |
| 2006 GE | % Vote % Elec Won+Tied | 21.1% 10.6% 1+0 | 57.2% 28.8% 151+0 | 2.9% 1.4% 0 | 17.6% 8.9% 0 | 1.3% 0.6% 0 |
| 2004 GE | % Vote % Elec Won+Tied | 36.6% 17.1% 40+1 | 48.2% 22.6% 117+1 | 2.0% 1.0% 0 | 12.3% 5.8% 0 | 0.9% 0.5% 0 |
| 2000 Tr | % Vote % Elec Won+Tied | 36.5% 18.5% 42+1 | 46.6% 23.6% 110+1 | -- -- -- | 9.2% | 5.7% 4.6% | 2.9% 0 | 0 | 2.0% 1.0% 0 |
Now, the Liberals have been making some early moves in anticipation of Wasylycia-Leis' resignation, with nominated candidate Roldan Sevillano Jr. stepping down in favour of running provincially in Tyndall Park, in order to make way for current Liberal MLA Kevin Lamoureux (The Maples) who has announced his intention to try a federal run. But while the Liberals have historically been the second-place party in this riding, and have been the only other party in recent memory to hold the seat or provincial ridings within its boundaries, they did not place second in 2008, but placed third well behind the Conservatives, garnering just 9.2% of the vote -- less than the threshold required to earn a rebate of candidate expenses.
According to columnist Dan Lett of the Winnipeg Free Press (a former Carleton U colleague of mine; hi Dan!), area New Democrats are talking to Kevin Chief of the University of Winnipeg's Innovative Learning Centre. No Conservative candidate is on the horizon, and the Green Party has apparently nominated John Harvie. If you have more information on what's going on on the ground, please share with us in the comments section, or drop me a line by email.
Stay tuned for more news, and more changes at the Pundits' Guide. I'll get the nominations updated in the next few days, and make it possible for users to call up older maps shortly.
Labels: NDP, Vacant Seats, Winnipeg North
posted by The Pundits' Guide at
11:12 AM
7 Comments:
Thank you again for this wonderful site and post.
Detail and numbers without spin.
You're welcome. More to come ...
Given the utterly crushing margin of victory here last time around (although not quite at a Jack Harris level), I'm going to say this will be a safe-ish Dipper hold. That is, unless the NDP candidate does something completely ridiculous, and the Tories somehow manage to close a 40+%(!) gap, both events which strain credulity.
As CS says, thanks again.
@ Edmund
What makes you believe it's the Conservatives who are in play here?
The 2008 election was an outlier for the Libs. The Liberals ran a candidate who did not live in the riding and who did not have the support of the constituency association.
Now, a Liberal who has been elected (provincially) in the constituency for much of 20 years is now running. He's the one to watch.
True.
It could be the Liberals beating the Conservatives in the race for the distant second place.
Maurizio Bevilacqua is expected to announce soon that he is leaving federal politics to run for mayor of Vaughan, the Ontario city he has represented as a Liberal MP for 22 years.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/
Thanks, CS. I saw that one late last night.
This makes you probably the last ever commenter on the Blogger version of this website, as we're about to move it over to a WordPress version sometime very soon.
This change was required because Google decided to de-support FTP publishing using the Blogger content-management system, effective May 1.
There are going to be a few hiccups, but I hope everyone will bear with me, and thanks for all your support to this point.
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