Pundits' Guide

Meet the new hub of by-election information: http://byelxn.punditsguide.ca.

Over the coming days, we'll be rolling out more pages and features there, but the site has an all-new design (and much less purple!), and assembles all manner of resources — both from Pundits' Guide and the internet — to help you follow all the by-election races from now untilNovember 29.

A few things to take note of this Monday morning:

• Nominations close at 2:00 PM local time today with Elections Canada.  This is a firm deadline.  Candidates also have until 5:00 PM today to drop off the ballot.
• The Liberal candidate in Dauphin — Swan River — Marquette, MB (DSRM), who's running as Christopher Scott Sarna, is now nominated with Elections Canada, as is a candidate for the Christian Heritage Party in Winnipeg North, MB, 2006 candidate Eric Truijen, and a Vaughan Libertarian candidate Paolo Fabrizio.
• According to a commenter on an earlier post here, it seems the Prime Minister may be stopping by Winnipeg North today to campaign with Conservative candidate Julie Javier, on his way to the G-20 meeting in Seoul, South Korea, which he leaves for on Tuesday.
• I mistakenly wrote last time that DSRM Conservative candidate Robert Sopuck lived nearly Sandy Bay, Manitoba.  In fact, he lives near Sandy Lake; which is close to the former, in the sense that they're both in the same riding, but not that close, given how big this particular riding actually is. Sorry for any confusion.
• Also, while we're correcting the record, the people who gave Jeffrey Simpson the figure of 40% as the proportion of the federal riding of Winnipeg North accounted for by Liberal candidate Kevin Lamoureux's former provincial constituency of Inkster, must have been referring to 40% by area or something.  By number of electors (which is what counts if you're trying to make the point the spinners were trying to make to Mr. Simpson), it's 24%, as our friendly geographer/demographer "krago" informed me, having converted and summed the number of electors in each provincial poll he used to create the maps he sent us last time.
• According to "krago" here's how Winnipeg North actually breaks down according to percent of provincial electors by provincial constituency inside the federal riding boundaries:  Inkster-24%, Burrows-25%, The Maples-22%, Point Douglas-3%, St. John's-13%, Wellington-3%.  And here were the 2007 provincial vote-shares within the federal riding boundaries of Winnipeg North: NDP-56%, Lib-25%, PC-17%, Oth-1%.
• What the heck, let's do DSRM while we're at it.  Dauphin-Roblin-26%, Russell-24%, Ste. Rose-23%, Swan River-21%, Minnedosa-6% by count of provincial electors.  In the 2007 provincial election, that translated to the following results within the federal riding boundaries:  PC-51%, NDP-43%, Lib-6%, Oth-0%.
• Also, commenter Prairie Topiary sent us a link from the Winnipeg Free Press regarding the translatability of the municipal results to the federal boundaries.  The two wards won overwhelming by Judy Wasylycia-Leis were those in her old federal riding: Point Douglas and Mynarski.  So, you really can't beat Pundits' Guide readers for a thorough fact-checking!
• Of course Vaughan federal riding boundaries are for all intents and purposes the same as the Vaughan provincial ones, so the math is not as interesting.  It's been a strongly held provincial Liberal seat since 2003, when Greg Sorbara defeated Progressive Conservative MPP Al Palladini, who previously defeated none other than current federal Liberal candidate, Tony Genco, in 1999 (and, bonus question: who of significance for the NDP?  See below for the answer.*)
• There are some interesting campaign techniques being employed in several of the riding campaigns.  For example, Kevin Chief's NDP campaign has started to celebrate their volunteers of the day with special posters on their website.  Vaughan Green Party candidate Claudia Rodriguez-Larrain is holding an evening briefing on her campaign and feedback session on Skype nightly at 7:00 PM ("voteclaudia" on Skype).  I added her as one of my Skype contacts, but always seem to be away from my computer at 7:00 PM so I haven't seen how many people they get.  Meanwhile, for traditional campaigning you can't beat canvassing with a visiting MP, as Tony Genco did with Ken Dryden in Vaughan this weekend, and Kevin Lamoureux did with Hedy Fry in Winnipeg.  Jason Kenney did his usual whirlwind schedule of events in Winnipeg North with Julie Javier on Saturday.
• There's starting to be a bit of coverage of the races in the ethnic press: for example this story on Winnipeg North in the Filipino Journal,  Also, you can always pick up the past week's headlines in Dauphin from the 730CKDM website (the "Parkland's best", and actually they have a very original and well-assembled playlist, if you want to listen in live).
• And for those of you young-at-heart, but middle-aged folks like me, you may have thought that veteran columnist Claire Hoy had long-since retired from journalism. In fact, he's still opining professionally for the Orangeville Citizen as I just discovered, and this past week's column on the by-elections holds nothing back, as we've come to expect.

So, here are the latest Facebook Counts.  Still a few fan pages apparently not started yet.

Vaughan – Facebook Count

Tally at 6:20 AM — Fantino – 351, Genco – 323, Bordian – 166, Rodriguez-Larrain – 104
Nov 6 at 3:40 AM — Fantino – 343, Genco – 309, Bordian – 164, Rodriguez-Larrain – 100
Nov 4 at 1:40 AM — Fantino – 305, Genco – 260, Bordian – 85

Winnipeg North – Facebook Count

Tally at 6:20 AM — Chief – 1,167, Lamoureux – 528, Javier – 106
Nov 6 at 3:40 AM — Chief – 1,141, Lamoureux – 504, Javier – 96
Nov 4 at 1:40 AM — Chief – 1,118, Lamoureux – 434, Javier – 66

Dauphin – SW-M – Facebook Count

Tally at 6:20 AM — Sopuck – 91, Storey – 52
Nov 6 at 3:40 AM — Sopuck – 90, Storey – 50
Nov 4 at 1:40 AM — Sopuck – 55

Tags: Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette, Nov 29 2010 By-elections, Retiring Incumbents, Vacant Seats, Vaughan, Winnipeg North