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

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

Time to pass along a few accumulated developments in party apparatus news from here and there:

• Liberal Party - As a result of their posting which ended on January 6, the Liberal Party has hired a new National Director, Ian McKay from B.C., who will be starting in early March, when he's to "continue the modernization of our Party's communication and technological infrastructure and give him the tools to drive our membership engagement process," according to party president Alf Apps' letter to the membership. A financial services consultant, McKay ran in the 2000 general election in West Vancouver – Sunshine Coast, BC. Next on their agenda is the hiring of a new President for the National Liberal Fund: in effect the party's new chief fundraiser.
  
• Conservative Party - A re-organization of the party's Quebec office was first reported by Le Devoir at the end of January, and followed up on by L. Ian MacDonald's weekend column for the Montreal Gazette. The changes appear to have been set in motion when director-general Claude Durand decided late in the year to step down and take care of her son's health concerns. Her resignation took effect at the end of January, by which point she had reportedly identified some 60 candidates in the 75 Quebec ridings (not all of whom have been nominated or announced, apparently). It was revealed this past weekend that in fact the party is now closing its Montreal office, and opening one in Québec City instead, to be run by one of the successful organizers in the recent by-election in Montmagny – L'Islet – Kamouraska – Rivière-du-Loup, Ghislain Maltais, who is also a former provincial Liberal MNA. Maltais will be backed up by Joseph Soares, based out of party headquarters in Ottawa, who was also a part of the by-election campaign team, MacDonald reports.
  
  Meanwhile, new party president John Walsh had the recent task of taking control of the Calgary West, AB Conservative riding association (aka EDA or electoral district association), which had been planning to conduct a referendum requesting an open nomination meeting at its upcoming annual general meeting, even though incumbent M.P. Rob Anders was already renominated last May along with the rest of his caucus. Kevin Libin ran down the inside story in a blogpost for the National Post's online "Full Comment" website, which reports a lot of perspective I had not read before.
  
• Green Party - There have simply not been enough hours in the day to keep on top of every twist and turn in the on-going debate about when and how to elect, re-elect, review or reconstitute the leadership of the Green Party and repair its finances, although party activists have been pouring themselves into debating the issues at great length in the comment sections of a number of different Green blogs, including DaveBagler.ca, Not an Official Green Party Canada Site (NAOGPCS), the democraticSpace.com blog, and of course Report on Greens. I'm unaware whether there has been any final resolution on the leadership convention question. In addition, the party's Revenue Sharing Agreement, whereby the national party distributes a third of its quarterly public subsidy to the EDAs, is also being questioned in light of its current debt situation.
  
  The big news, at least to me, is that there is a third potential leadership candidate on the horizon -- a woman -- who has been meeting people at private dinners, but has not yet announced her campaign. I've made several attempts to find out who it is, but no luck as yet. Apparently a communications plan is in place regarding the timing of the announcement, and the trigger may yet not be pulled. However, she appears to be supported by the BlueGreenBlogger at NAOGPCS, who teased her candidacy at the end of a recent blogpost. The woman, whoever she is, would be joining former federal and Ontario party leader Frank de Jong, and presumably Elizabeth May herself. As the party's constitution is currently written, May's fixed four-year term ends at some point in 2010.
  
• Bloc Québécois - In a reply to a recent blogpost on the partes' quarterly contributions by Chantal Hébert at l'Actualité, the directeur-general of the Bloc Québécois confirmed that their party's approach to fundraising is to favour the constituency associations as well. Gilbert Gardner pointed to 2008 numbers showing that the Bloc raised over $800K through its constituency associations, as compared with some $700K by the party headquarters, and suggested that the 2009 reports from their EDAs which are due this May would show a similar pattern.
  
• New Democrats - The first initiative springing from the NDP's recent Federal Council meeting to plan its strategy leading up to the next election has emerged, and it's focussed on riding fundraising as well. A Facebook group has just popped up for the "Local Victories Challenge", which according to NDP blogger The Jurist at Accidental Deliberations, is designed to make a central investment into riding associations, to help them build their local fundraising infrastructure. We've reported before that party national director Brad Lavigne and leader Jack Layton have been citing statistics about the performance of their candidates who are able to spend close to the spending limit, so it appears this initiative stems from that analysis. After the party's decision in the last election to put in place the financing necessary to spend the national limit (they wound up spending around 84% of the limit in the end), this time according to the promotional material for the Local Victories Challenge they're hoping to finally raise candidate spending up from the 20-25% or so of the limit across the board where it's stayed for the past 5 elections. You'll recall that Professor Bill Stanbury and I studied candidate spending in a two-part series last spring, in which we found that this 20-25% was in fact concentrated into a number of ridings that the party had targetted, and was highly correlated with the percent of the vote NDP candidates obtained.

Tomorrow: some new functionality for the Pundits' Guide database, and the importance of examining candidates' share of the electorate in order to understand vote switching.

Labels: Bloc Québécois, Conservatives, Greens, Liberals, NDP, Party Finance

The NDP nominations in two lakefront Liberal-held Toronto ridings were settled one way or the other over the past few days. Both have been Liberal-NDP contests for sometime: in the first case since 1988 (it switched between NDP-PC and NDP-Liberal before that), and in the second case only since 1997 (it was Liberal-Reform in 1993, and Liberal-PC before that).

• Beaches – East York, ON - The three-term riding president, Matthew Kellway, who works as a staff rep for the Society of Energy Professionals and is a founder and co-chair of the Toronto Energy Coalition, scored a reportedly strong victory this afternoon over street-front lawyer and environmental activist Barbara Warner. Kellway will now join returning Green Party candidate Zoran Markowski, and face six-term Liberal M.P. Maria Minna. Minna has held the riding since 1993, when she defeated three-term NDP M.P. Neil Young, who took over the riding, after a brief period between 1979 and 1980, from NDP M.P. Andrew Brewin (father of mid-1990's Victoria NDP M.P. John Brewin). Although the demographics of the riding have changed, the long NDP history in this riding along with the fact that they hold it provincially as well, have made it a perennial target seat for that party; with such high profile candidates as economist Mel Watkins running in 1997 and 2000, now Ontario MPP and recent provincial leadership candidate Peter Tabuns in 2004, and then former MPP and provincial cabinet minister Marilyn Churley running in both 2006 and 2008. Minna has held them all off, however. A geographer has assembled poll-by-poll maps of this riding across the 2004, 2006 and 2008 federal, and 2007 provincial elections and posted links to them at Babble (see post #25), if you're interested.
  
• Parkdale – High Park, ON - Although the meeting is not actually scheduled until this coming Thursday, the deadline for candidates to announce has past, and no-one else has stepped forward to challenge former one-term NDP M.P. Peggy Nash for her party's nomination. So she will be acclaimed Thursday for a rematch with first-time Liberal M.P. (and former Ontario MPP for the same riding) Gerard Kennedy, alongside new Green Party candidate Sarah Newton. In 2006, Nash defeated three-term Liberal M.P. Sarmite ("Sam") Bulte, who had replaced four-term Liberal M.P. Jesse Flis (although Progressive Conservative M.P. Andrew Witer held the riding for a term from 1984-88). In a 2006 provincial by-election held to replace Kennedy on his resignation to run federally, the riding elected an NDP MPP who was returned again in the 2007 provincial general election. Also, as noted by NDP blogger the Jurist, Nash's raw vote total in 2006 (20,790) is still the highest scored by any recent victor in that riding. Thus, that party believes it has enough incentive to continue to target the riding. Nash was also elected Federal Party President at the NDP's August convention in Halifax. The same geographer has also posted poll-by-poll result maps for this riding at Babble (see post #23), by the way, for both the provincial and federal general elections.

Thanks to several readers for getting in touch almost immediately with Sunday's news from the Beaches. If you have nomination news to share, please do get in touch by email. And then follow along on Twitter.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, NDP

[Welcome NationalNewswatch.com readers!]

Party president and former NDP M.P. Peggy Nash announced this morning that she will run again in the next election and try to reclaim her Toronto seat of Parkdale – High Park from Liberal M.P. and former leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy, the Pundits' Guide can exclusively report.

The NDP riding association had recently announced its nomination for Thursday, January 28, but no candidate names were included with that announcement.

Other party members have until Thursday, January 21 to announce their candidacy. Should no-one do so, Nash is expected to be acclaimed on the 28th.

The riding has been a Liberal-NDP contest for the last three elections, being settled by margins of less than 10%. To date, only the Green Party's Sarah Newton has been formally nominated, although Kennedy's nomination is protected as a Liberal incumbent.

Nash has been working for the Canadian Auto Workers' union since her defeat, and was elected Federal NDP Party President at the August convention in Halifax.

Thanks to a reader for sending along this tip. If you have nomination news to share, why not drop us a line, and then follow along on Twitter.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, NDP

The NDP launched a campaign last Friday with a radio buy, website, web ads, a joint federal-provincial leaders news conference in Ottawa and probably mailings and/or print ads, all focused on the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) votes being held this week in Parliament.

What was unusual about this announcement, at least compared with past practice, is that they named the ridings they're targetting (opens video; fast-forward to 1:05): 10 Conservative-held ridings, 5 each in Ontario and British Columbia (see below).

The move appears designed to meet multiple simultaneous objectives:

1. first, obviously is to raise the party's concerns about the shift in the tax base from business to consumers being accelerated by the HST, and to urge public action to block its implementation
   
2. second, they are trying to recast their own positioning on taxation, and raise questions about the Conservatives' positioning as tax-cutters, amongst the group of voters who swing between their two parties: primary resource and secondary manufacturing workers and retirees who are being squeezed in the current economic climate
3. also they may want to demonstrate, after the Conservatives targetted opposition-held rural and remote ridings with mailings and radio ads about the long-gun registry vote, that two can play the same game; and also to
   
4. build support and local organization for their early-nominated candidates in those ridings (and perhaps give a bit of support to neighbouring first-time incumbents)
5. take the opportunity to mute the future usefulness of strategic voting strategies against them by demonstrating that their vote and potential support doesn't only switch between the NDP and Liberals, and
   
6. subtly try to recast the public debate on this issue, and no doubt others in the future, as being between the NDP and Conservatives
   

At first blush it's a bold approach, particularly when most insta-pundits use narrow margins as a proxy for the winnability of ridings, and assume that an issue being raised potentially months or years away from an election will have no impact later on. [Not raising any issues until the eve of the election is another strategy, I suppose, but I'd wager it's even less effective.] Yet the NDP has apparently picked ridings where it placed third last time (4 of the 10 seats) or has large margins to make up in order to win.

Once it was decided to target Conservative seats, the choice of ridings could be reasonably guessed by looking at the list of the NDP's best Conservative-won seats in 2008, by vote-share, for both Ontario and British Columbia. The party has held all but 3 of the 10 at some point in the last 20 years federally. And Leader Jack Layton personally attended the nomination meetings of 5 of the 8 currently nominated candidates, according to my notes, and many of these communities were also visited during the party's spring task forces on the recession and recovery, so they've evidently had the seats in mind for some time.

Where the 2008 margins were large in BC, they often represented Liberal voters who stayed home or switched to the Conservatives (as suggested in an earlier analysis of BC voting patterns), and short of those Liberals returning home, the NDP needed a new strategy to shrink the Conservative vote in those ridings.

In Ontario, they've picked their only unheld seat in the northwest, and four seats in southwestern Ontario who've been hit by the decline in the manufacturing sector, and where the party had reasonably strong local campaigns in 2008 and has strong local candidates in place. While the party's vote dropped somewhat across southwestern Ontario in the last election, I did notice a lot of movement back and forth between the NDP and Conservatives in the southwest during the daily tracking polls of a number of pollsters over the course of the campaign.

So, by an incrementalist narrow-margin approach to targetting seats, not all these would be next on their list. But one thing long-time stalwarts of all parties learned in 1993 is that hot-buttons and a desire for change can make large margins melt away. We may not be there yet, but political veterans also know not to wait for opportunities to appear, they work to create them and to be ready to maximize their advantage.

As a sidebar, it's also nice to see that 3 of the 10 ridings being targetted by the NDP have nominated women candidates (and 2 of the 3 are aboriginal women candidates). On the other side of the balance sheet, 3 of the Conservative MPs being targetted are women.

Riding Nominated Cons & NDP	Contest 2008 %Mrg	2008 Cons	2008 NDP	2008 Lib
St. Catharines, ON DYKSTRA, Richard (Rick) (M) WILLIAMS, Mike (M)	Cons-Lib 17.2%	45.9%	18.4%	28.6%
Elgin – Middlesex – London, ON PRESTON, Joseph (Joe) (M) DOLBY, Ryan (M)	Cons-Lib 24.9%	48.4%	19.2%	23.5%
Sarnia – Lambton, ON DAVIDSON, Patricia (Pat) A. (F) SINOPOLE, Crissy (F)	Cons-NDP 28.4%	50.0%	21.6%	20.3%
Essex, ON WATSON, Jeff (M) NATYSHAK, Taras (M)	Cons-Lib 10.9%	40.0%	26.6%	29.1%
Kenora, ON RICKFORD, Greg (M) CAMERON, Tania (F)	Cons-Lib 8.8%	40.5%	23.2%	31.6%
Cariboo – Prince George, BC HARRIS, Richard (Dick) (M) [none as yet; Bev Collins in 2008]	Cons-NDP 29.5%	55.4%	25.9%	10.5%
Kamloops – Thompson – Cariboo, BC MCLEOD, Cathy (F) CRAWFORD, Michael (M)	Cons-NDP 10.3%	46.2%	35.9%	9.8%
Surrey North, BC CADMAN, Dona Marie M. (F) SANDHU, Jasbir (M)	Cons-NDP 3.2%	39.4%	36.2%	15.0%
Pitt Meadows – Maple Ridge – Mission, BC KAMP, Randy (M) [David Murray is announced]	Cons-NDP 18.8%	51.8%	33.0%	6.6%
Vancouver Island North, BC DUNCAN, John M. (M) BELL, Catherine J. (F)	Cons-NDP 4.4%	45.8%	41.4%	4.2%

I'm trying to assemble a comparable list of ridings that were targetted by the Conservatives with their long-gun registry ads and mailings on policy towards Israel, for future posts in this series. If anyone can point me to such lists, please do get in touch.

Labels: 41st General Election, Conservatives, NDP, Target Seats

Let's move on to the part of the country's largest province that's home to both a significant part of the franco-Ontarian fact and the nation's loyalist roots, alongside Algonquin and Mohawk first nations obviously, and many newcomers as well: namely Eastern Ontario, plus the National Capital Region (NCR) which means Ottawa.

NCR (6 seats)

• The Green Party has fielded a full slate of candidates already.
• The Liberals have nominated in all but their two incumbent seats (and as their incumbents are protected from facing contests whenever the time comes, it's only a question now whether either of them would retire).
• The Conservatives have nominated in all but Ottawa South and Ottawa Centre, although we've previously reported that Bruce Kyereh-Addo is interested in the Centre nomination, along with a few other unnamed candidates. The 2008 candidate in South, Elie Salibi, is now working for a cabinet minister on Parliament Hill. My sources tell me that no nomination meeting has been planned there at all for the time being.
• The NDP has nominated in all but Ottawa – Vanier and Nepean – Carleton. I haven't heard any news as to their plans in those seats, but if I had to guess, some Nortel retirees are probably on the candidate search lists.

Here are the ridings from east to west. (Some have argued that Carleton – Mississippi Mills should be included in the NCR list, but I put it into Eastern Ontario because of the rural nature of the riding, and its voting patterns. Certainly part of that riding is in greater Ottawa, however. UPDATE: A geographer has written and convinced me that it truly is an Ottawa riding. Hey, I grew up in the east-end; what can I say! When I make revisions to the construction of the so-called "local regions", I'll be moving that riding over.):

• Ottawa – Orléans, ON - This east-end riding has the lowest percent of immigrants of the six NCR ridings, the largest percents of married and common-law couples, and the greatest concentration of families with children. It's a bedroom community of newer developments on what was farmland when I grew up, and has the highest proportion of folks whose mother-tongue is french in the area. The riding is currently held by (my former family neighbour) long-time consultant and two-term Conservative M.P. Royal Galipeau. The former Liberal M.P. he defeated in 2004, Marc Godbout, gave up after two attempts to win his seat back, and so after a hotly contested three-way nomination contest this past September, Galipeau has a new Liberal opponent in lawyer David Bertschi. Also running are 2008 Green candidate Paul Maillet, a retired Air Forces Colonel, and new NDP candidate John Courtneidge, a chemist and anti-poverty activist, who was just nominated this past Monday, November 30. The riding has featured two-way Liberal-Conservative contests for most of its history, and in one of its earlier incarnations was represented by John Turner in the 1960s. The two main parties here have both spent nearly the full limit in recent outings, with the other parties spending under 10%.
  
• Ottawa – Vanier, ON - Next door is this traditionally francophone riding which also contains the University of Ottawa, Byward Market, National Defence Headquarters, and the eastern part of downtown Ottawa, along with the extremes of 24 Sussex Drive and Rockliffe Park on the one hand and Lowertown on the other. It has the largest proportion of people who speak french at home of the six ridings, but unlike Ottawa – Orléans which has the highest percent of home-owners and lowest percent of tenants, Ottawa –Vanier has the second-highest percent of tenants (and the second-lowest of homeowners). It has been the closest thing to a Liberal dynasty in the area, although six-term Liberal M.P. Mauril Bélanger's vote-shares have come down somewhat from the stratosphere in more recent years. This past October 14, the Conservatives (who have run as high as 29% here in recent times) nominated a new candidate in Rem Westland, a former military man who was the long-time Director General of Specific Claims at the Department of Indian Affairs. And in late August, the Green Party selected a new candidate, software designer Caroline Rioux, in a contested nomination. The NDP, which itself has run as high as 22% of the vote here lately, has yet to announce plans about its candidate search.
  
• Ottawa Centre, ON - Next door is the riding that contains Parliament Hill, Carleton University, the Experimental Farm, and most downtown government and private offices, and then continues west along the Ottawa River. It's currently held by two-term NDP M.P. Paul Dewar, a regular fixture on TV political panels due at least in part to his proximity to all the downtown TV studios on the weekend. He was elected after the retirement of Ed Broadbent (formerly of Oshawa), who won the riding for a single two-year term from 2004-06, when then-new NDP Leader Jack Layton urged him to come out of retirement. Dewar has been winning with a vote-share in the high 30s, but a divided opposition, and certainly the riding has been an NDP-Liberal contest since the 1980s, but always with a significant Conservative presence. His new Liberal opponent, pharmaceutical executive Scott Bradley, won a contested nomination in a bit of an upset back in September over presumed Ignatieff-favourite, communication executive Janet Yale. The 2008 Green candidate, software executive Jen Hunter, is also returning, and as mentioned above the Conservatives have yet to announce any candidate selection timelines but have several folks apparently interested.
  
• Ottawa South, ON - I just looked it up now, because I wasn't sure which McGuinty brother was older: the Ottawa South M.P. David or the Ottawa South M.P.P./Premier Dalton (it's Premier Dalton, by 5 years; their youngest brother Brendan has held behind the scenes positions municipally in Ottawa as well). David McGuinty won the federal Liberal nomination in 2004, when former Chrétien-era cabinet minister John Manley retired, but that nomination was not without controversy, as two women candidates were hampered by a combination of rules, process, and influence (documented here (PDF) the following year by former Liberal national director Sheila Gervais, as part of a paper for the Queens University Centre for the Study of Democracy). The riding contains the highest proportion of immigrants of the six Ottawa-area seats and the largest number of Muslims, and has to this point been a two-way Liberal-Conservative contest. McGuinty, should he run again as expected, will be facing at least two of his 2008 opponents as well: the NDP's Hijal de Sarkar and Qais Ghanam for the Green Party. No Conservative candidate selection process has been launched to date.
  
  I just noticed that Ghanam's 2008 campaign spending represented a very large hike over Green Party spending in this riding in 2006 (23% of the limit, up from 3%), however it was not enough to bring him over the 10% threshold for a candidate rebate, and garnered him only another 1,020 votes over the party's earlier total of 2,900 or so. Earlier, in 2004, the NDP invested heavily in the riding campaign of Monia Mazigh (best known for her advocacy on behalf of her husband Maher Arar), spending an unusually-high-for-them-here 89% of the limit on Mazigh's campaign. This helped to more than double their vote totals from 2000 (up over 8,000 votes from just under 3,500), and then 2006 candidate Henri Sader was able to hold this new vote in spite of spending significantly less. Other than those two cases, the parties spent pretty much as you'd expect for a two-way race.
  
• Ottawa West – Nepean, ON - Another two-way contest is usually found in this west-end riding, currently represented by two-term M.P. John Baird. It has the local reputation of swinging with the government (although former Liberal M.P. Marlene Catterall broke that spell by winning in 1988), it has the highest proportion of folks who only know English of ridings in Ottawa (over 70%), the lowest proportion of people who know both English and French, and the second-highest concentration of visible minorities. It would have been home to many Nortel and other high tech workers during the high tech boom, given the location of so many of those tech companies in the city's west end. Taking his second try at returning to public office is former Liberal M.P. David Pratt, who was acclaimed their candidate earlier this year (after Janet Yale briefing mused about running against him, but demurred in favour of Ottawa Centre). Pratt came late to the 2008 election in this riding, after sitting out the 2006 campaign. The NDP's Marlene Rivier, a psychological consultant, is returning to fly her party's colours one more time, while the Greens have a new candidate in Mark MacKenzie who runs his own organic lawncare business. Baird was first elected in 2006 after Marlene Catterall retired and he was able to move ahead of her replacement, and he then kept the seat in 2008 with roughly the same margin of victory (9% or so).
  
• Nepean – Carleton, ON - Furthest southwest, we find another growing bedroom community, where over half the homes were built within the last 20 years, there are fewer apartment buildings than any other city riding, residents pay both the highest rental payments and housing costs in the area, and most people drive to work. The riding was Tory for years under Richard Bell, Walter Baker and Bill Tupper, with brief Liberal interregnums from 1963-65, and a term when Trudeau first ran in 1968. But Liberal Beryl Gaffney broke that stranglehold in 1988 when she edged Tupper out, and was succeeded after serving two terms by another Liberal M.P. David Pratt. Pratt served two terms until he was defeated by Conservative Pierre Poilievre in 2004, who has been reelected twice since then with over 55% of the vote and margins of 25% or higher. Poilievre will face a new Liberal challenger this time, laywer Ryan Keon (whose dad is Conservative Senator and heart surgeon Dr. Wilbert Keon), and a new Green candidate, IT security consultant Jean-Luc Cooke. Unlike Ottawa South, a big spending hike in the 2008 Green campaign (from 7% of the limit to 22%) was associated with a doubling in Green support to some 8,000 votes, pushing them slightly ahead of the NDP candidate who had spent the party's usual 15% of the limit. No NDP candidate has been selected for this riding as yet.

We'll finish off Eastern Ontario next time with the rural ridings.

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

Before we move onto the first in a series of Ontario catchups, there are a few follow-ups to note from our earlier catchups in Québec and the Atlantic.

• Charlottetown, PE - Educator Donna Profit won the contested nomination over retired RCMP officer Robert Campbell last Friday, November 27, and will now carry the Conservative banner against four-term Liberal M.P. Shawn Murphy. Already nominated for the Green Party is arts administrator Corin McFadden. No NDP candidates have been nominated anywhere on the Island as yet, although this was the riding where they obtained their only second place finish in recent Island history in 1997 under former candidate, lawyer Dolores (Dodi) Crane. Since 2000 when he was first elected to replace former Liberal M.P. George Proud with 42% of the vote, Murphy has polled 50% or better on election day.
  
• West Nova, NS - The next day, New Democrats met in Digby to formalize the nomination of their new candidate, Andrew Baxter, who will now join first-time Conservative M.P. Greg Kerr, former Liberal M.P. Robert Thibault who was renominated at the beginning of October, and a Green to be named later. After coming within 512 votes of defeating Thibault in 2006 (2.3 votes per poll or 1.1% of the vote), Kerr returned in 2008, holding more of his vote than Thibault could, and defeating him in the process. The riding has always been a Liberal-Conservative two-way contest, with a reasonably constant third-place vote-share for the NDP, and typically fairly evenly matched campaign spending between the two lead candidates. Even in the recent provincial election that elected an NDP government province-wide, 4/6 of the provincial ridings within this riding's borders returned Liberals and 2/6 returned Conservatives. So, it will likely see direct combat between the two main challengers, now entering their third match against one another.
  
• Halifax, NS - First-time NDP M.P. Megan Leslie was renominated in her riding the next night (Sunday, November 29), where she'll be facing Liberal candidate Stan Kutcher who won a nomination contest last fall, along with first-time Green candidate Anthony Rosborough, and a Conservative to be named later. Leslie maintained most of former NDP M.P. Alexa McDonough's raw vote in the last election, but saw her opponents' strength equalize somewhat as the Liberal vote fell and turnout dropped. Neither major opponent matched Leslie's campaign spending either (she spent 91% of the limit, to the Liberals' 54% and the Conservatives' 71%).
• Joliette, QC - Bloc Québécois House Leader Pierre Paquette was also to have been renominated on Sunday, for the fifth time in his case, in this north-shore riding which he has always won with 50-60% of the vote. He will face returning 2008 candidates Suzie St-Onge for the Liberals, and Francine Raynault for the NDP. No Conservative candidate has or Green candidates have surfaced as yet. MORNING POST-COFFEE UPDATE: 2008 Green candidate Annie Durette has been renominated. Sorry, Ms. Durette.
  
• Laval – Les Îles, QC - A sixth NDP candidate has now been officially nominated in Québec, as Laval municipal workers' union vice-president François Pilon was acclaimed on Saturday, November 28. This is Pilon's fourth run for the NDP, although his first in a Laval riding (he previously ran in Honoré-Mercier from 2004-08).
  
  With the arrival of Jack Layton as NDP leader, the decision of a number of FTQ activists to run for the NDP in 2004, while others were running for the Bloc Québécois, put the FTQ (Fédération des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Québec) into a difficult situation, such that it took pains to clarify that it endorsed neither party, but supported its members who were running for office, and recognized that as a labour central, some of its member unions were supporting each of the parties directly. It was interesting to read, as part of NDP backroomer Brian Topp's series this week on last year's coalition negotiations, that it was the FTQ which had facilitated discussions between Layton and the Bloc early in the Fall of 2008 about replacing the Conservative government (Topp himself has a grounding in the party's Québec strategy, being fluently bilingual and a former organizer and aide for one-time NDP M.P. Phil Edmonston).
  
  Many of the NDP's candidates in the last campaign originated from the house of labour, including candidates from the CEP (e.g., recent Hochelaga by-election candidate Jean-Claude Rocheleau), CUPE, the Postal Workers and Steelworkers. Meanwhile, the Québec wing of the Autoworkers strongly supports the Bloc Québécois (something the Liberal Party may not have realized when it played footsie with former CAW President Buzz Hargrove in 2006), and it has provided them with a number of candidates, as has the CSN labour central, the electrical workers, and the fraternity of forestry and manufacturing workers among others. In the wake of the Hochelaga by-election, where the NDP challenged the Bloc candidate for being anti-union and too conservative, I'm going to be following this trend, and taking a look at how the Québec labour movement is represented in the two parties' slates (and other parties' too of course if they show up there as well).
  
  Back to the choice of riding: it includes the west half of Thomas Mulcair's former provincial riding of Chomeday, and is currently represented by five-term Liberal M.P. Raymonde Folco. She found herself facing her former political aide, Agop Evereklian, as a Conservative candidate in the last campaign (he placed 3rd). Then last summer she appeared on Denis Coderre's list of M.P.'s he wanted to have retire to make way for new candidates. After a personal entreaty to new Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, Folco received his commitment of support for another run, and indeed it was in her riding where Ignatieff attended his first Québec fundraiser after Mr. Coderre's resignation (probably a welcome event, since the Liberal riding association there had run a deficit in both 2006 and 2007, and still has not filed its 2008 annual return some six months after the May 2009 deadline).
  
  Both the Bloc Québécois (which placed 2nd last time) and the Green Party (which placed 5th) have renominated their 2008 candidates, while I have no record of any Conservative candidate being installed as yet. Folco's vote-share has moved down from the 50-odd% she obtained in 1997 and 2000 (with campaign spending of 82% and 93% of the limit respectively) to 40-some% in the three elections since then (with declining spending of 60%, then 56% and recently as little as 52% of the limit), but the Bloc vote-share has been falling along with its spending as well. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that the other parties would try to find the kind of candidates they believe might be able to take advantage of any further weakening in Liberal organization there.
• Outremont, QC - On Tuesday, December 1, 2009, Coderre's nemesis Martin Cauchon was finally formalized by acclamation as the Liberal candidate in his former riding, his last remaining opponent Comlan Amouzou having withdrawn from the race weeks before. It's hard not to conclude that this riding will be the battle-royale to watch on the Island of Montréal in the next election, given the stakes for both Cauchon and the lone NDP Québec M.P. Thomas Mulcair who now holds the seat, as most commentators are assuming each man would be a contestant for his party's leadership whenever it next opens up. Seated next to Cauchon at his nomination meeting, meanwhile, was one of his likely competitors for that leadership: Papineau Liberal M.P. Justin Trudeau.

With those updates out of the way, we'll move on, as planned, to Eastern Ontario in the next nomination news roundup.

Meantime, as this blog approaches its second anniversary, it was kind of nice to be picked as one of the "Sites of the Week" on the Bloggerheads panel of CBC "Power and Politics" this evening, especially when the nod came from as experienced a blogger as @JeffJedras of BCer in TO (thanks, man).

Also, you can vote for Jeff's blog, or mine, or any of a number of excellent Canadian political blogs from right across the spectrum, during the first round of voting for the Canadian Blog Awards, which ends next Saturday, December 12 (that's a week from today, by the time you read this post). Pundits' Guide was also nominated in the "best blog post" category for the summer post "May-Day in Saanich-Gulf Islands" where I broke the news that Elizabeth May was being challenged for her nomination.

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

Leading the non-Bloc nomination news in Québec in the last few days was the announcement by the Green Party of its new Québec Deputy Leader: not Stéphane Dion or Janine Krieber, per Wells' First Rule of Politics, but rather retired Radio-Canada environment reporter Jacques Rivard.

The only question I have is where Rivard will run, given that he's Montréal-based and the Green Party has already filled virtually every Montréal-area riding. I've just updated all the GPC nominations for Québec, and the only vacancies I see are: Saint-Léonard – Saint-Michel, Hochelaga (assuming Christine Lebel isn't hoping to run again), Alfred-Pellan in the Laval area, Saint-Lambert and Saint-Bruno – Saint-Hubert on the south-shore, or maybe Beauharnois – Salaberry if he doesn't mind going that far. Unfortunately none of Rivard's former colleagues in the media thought to ask, so we'll just have to wait for the answer from the party.

The Green party has now nominated candidates in 50/75 Québec ridings, more than even the Bloc Québécois, with only about a third of them return candidates from 2008 (18/50). Former deputy leader Claude William Genest does not seem to be running again so far, given that the three ridings in which he's previously run are all now filled by other Green nominees. There's also a candidate again in Stéphane Dion's west Island riding of Saint-Laurent – Cartierville.

Meanwhile, thanks to a forgetful Hill denizen and the ever-alert Steve Maher of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, we know from Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's schedule (PDF) that he was to meet Eastern Québec Liberal candidates and their organizers Wednesday night in Québec city. I count about 12 nominated candidates who would fit the bill, if you include everything from Manicouagan to Joliette on the north shore, and from Haute-Gaspésie – La Mitis – Matane – Matapédia to Brome – Missisquoi on the south shore (roughly 33 ridings all told).

Summer Liberal nomination news in Québec was all about Outremont, and extensively covered by all the traditional sources, but for those who missed the dénouement, Martin Cauchon's only remaining competition for the nomination, Liberal riding executive member and president of "Médecins d'ailleurs" Comlan Amouzou, withdrew from the nomination race in late October, according to Le Devoir. Resigning his post as riding vice-president at the same time, Amouzou charged that forces within the party had been urging him to pull out of the race; saying

«Je me pose de très sérieuses questions sur la place des communautés ethniques au sein du Parti libéral du Canada au Québec, dit-il. Ce parti est devenu une chasse gardée pour quelques privilégiés qui agissent en fonction de leurs intérêts et de leurs ambitions au détriment des aspirations des militants de la base. Je ne reconnais plus les véritables valeurs libérales.»

Meanwhile, the departure of Denis Coderre as Québec lieutenant has left a few more nominations up in the air (we reported on some others earlier here):

• Trois-Rivières, QC - Former radio host Robert Pilotte confirmed to Le Nouvelliste in late September that he was the candidate Denis Coderre had been holding the riding for. Readers will recall that Coderre ran afoul of local Liberals in the Trois-Rivières in his late August bid to court former ADQ House Leader Sébastien Proulx, deemed a bit on the conservative side by some members of the local riding. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had just visited riding activists there a few days before the September story on Pilotte appeared. In it, the regional president of the federal Liberal association in Québec argued strongly for an open nomination so that "the best candidate can win", noting that other names had also been circulating. Riding president Jean Boulet, meanwhile, was being a lot more circumspect about the nature and timing of the nomination meeting, and we learned why in early November: he had been considering a run himself, although he eventually ruled it out, as did another prospective candidate: Serge Lafrenière of Investors Group. This has left Patrice Mangin, director-general of the "Centre intégré des pâtes et papiers", as the only candidate in the race so far with no meeting date established in the foreseeable future. The riding is currently held by three-term Bloc Québécois M.P. Paule Brunelle.
• Beauport – Limoilou, QC - Another former radio host courted by Coderre ruled himself out of the running for the Liberals in mid-October, reported the Journal de Québec. Martin Pouliot said the fact that there would not be an election made his decision easier, but also cited the resignation of Mr. Coderre and the ensuing "collapse" of the federal Liberals in Québec. The riding is currently held by two-term Conservative M.P. Sylvie Boucher.
• Québec, QC - Also unknown, according to Le Soleil last month, is the current status, or even interest, of former provincial Liberal cabinet minister Jean Leclerc, who was reportedly interested in Coderre's approaches about running in this other Québec City riding earlier in the summer. The riding is currently held by long-time Bloc Québécois M.P. Christiane Gagnon who, although she is not yet nominated, told me at the Equal Voice reception on Tuesday night that she was indeed planning to run again, but keeps her nomination meeting to the last minute, since the Bloc campaign has often launched in her riding, which presumably makes for a quick and easy opening day event for them.
  
• Louis-Hébert, QC - However for every door that closes another potentially opens, since former M.P. Hélène Chalifour Scherrer, who had wanted to run but was being apparently being blocked in that ambition by Coderre, may now be willing to run, the same Le Soleil story suggested. I'm also told by a reader that the Conservatives have a candidate in this riding, Pierre Paul-Hus, who publishes a french-language military magazine. I've been trying to confirm his status as a candidate, so if you can help with details such as when he was nominated, and was it a contest, please do get in touch and pass it along so I can enter him into the database. The seat is now held by first-time Bloc Québécois M.P. Pascal-Pierre Paillé, whose family name may sound familiar to you, as he is the nephew of recently-elected Hochelaga Bloc M.P. Daniel Paillé.

As for the NDP, it has not approved too many ridings to hold nomination meetings in Québec as yet, although for some reason it has a pocket of three nominees in the Mauricie-Lanaudière ridings, including an elected municipal councillor, Manon Perrault in Montcalm, returning labour candidate Réjean Bellemare in Repentigny, and returning candidate Francine Raynault in Joliette.

Also renominated are party Québec section treasurer and pharmacist Hoang Mai in Brossard – La Prairie, QC (the 5th closest four-way race of the last election), and community activist Christelle Bogosta in Brome – Missisquoi, QC (the 5th closest two-way race in Quebec last time, and also mathematically very close to the criteria for three-way and four-way races).

Finally, both the NDP's by-election candidates, Jean-Claude Rocheleau in Hochelaga and François Lapointe in Montmagny – L'Islet – Kamouraska – Rivière-du-Loup, have told their local papers that they could run again in the next election.

We'll pick up next time in Ontario, which has seen a lot of new Conservative and NDP candidates since we last checked in.

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

With the by-elections out of the way, it's high time we got back to a cross-country review of nominations. And with this much of a catch-up to do, I'm going to be asking readers for a hand. Thanks to those of you who have been patiently sending in nomination news when you came across it. I'm going through it all now, but if I miss something you sent, please don't be offended ... just write me back and let me know.

Newfoundland and Labrador (7 seats)

All I'm aware of at present are:

• 2 New Democrats (incumbent St. John's East M.P. Jack Harris and 2008 St. John's South – Mount Pearl candidate Ryan Cleary), and
• 1 Liberal (incumbent Humber – St. Barbe – Baie Verte M.P. Gerry Byrne)
• A news story awhile back speculated that Conservative Senator and former M.P. Fabian Manning might be interested in running again in Avalon, but I haven't heard anything further there.

Prince Edward Island (4 seats)

Again, not too many names to report here yet:

• 3 Green candidates (previous candidate Peter Bevan-Maker in Malpeque, arts administrator Corin McFadden in Charlottetown, and Karl Hengst in Egmont), and
• 1 Conservative (incumbent M.P. Gail Shea in Egmont was automatically renominated with the rest of her caucus on May 4)

Nova Scotia (11 seats)

A bit better coverage here:

• 6 Liberals (2 of the 5 incumbents, Geoff Regan in Halifax West and Mike Savage in Dartmouth – Cole Harbour, along with former M.P.s Robert Thibault in West Nova and Derek Wells in South Shore – St. Margaret's, Stan L. Kutcher who won a contested nomination in Halifax in late August, and 2008 candidate Carolyn Scott who was renominated by acclamation in late September in Sackville – Eastern Shore)
• 6 Greens (Michael Dewar in Sackville – Eastern Shore, Anthony Rosborough in Halifax, Thomas Trappenberg in Halifax West, and Paul Shreenan in Dartmouth – Cole Harbour, who are in the database, along with Celine Papillon in Central Nova and Sheila Richardson in Kings – Hants, who aren't there yet, pending me obtaining their details as to nomination date and method)
• 4 Conservatives (the 3 incumbents, Peter MacKay in Central Nova, Gerald Keddy in South Shore – St. Margaret's, and Greg Kerr in West Nova; along with Clarence Derrick Kennedy in Cape Breton – Canso)
• 2 New Democrats (Peter Stoffer is the first of 2 incumbents to be renominated in Sackville – Eastern Shore, while former M.P. Gordon Earle received the nod in South Shore – St. Margaret's this past summer). Halifax West has scheduled a nomination meeting for Thursday November 26 at which Atlantic Film Festival executive director Gregor Ash is expected to be acclaimed, and Halifax follows on Sunday November 29, when M.P. Megan Leslie hopes to receive her party's nod once again as well

New Brunswick (10 seats)

The site of a lot of contested Liberal nominations earlier this year:

• all 6 incumbent Conservatives were automatically renominated on May 4, 2009 (Keith Ashfield in Fredericton, Rob Moore in Fundy Royal, Tilly O'Neill-Gordon in Miramichi, Greg Thompson in New Brunswick Southwest, Rodney Weston in Saint John, and Mike Allen in Tobique – Mactaquac)
  
• 5 Liberals (all in Conservative-held ridings: Pam Campbell in Fredericton, Dave Delaney in Fundy Royal, Keith Vickers in Miramichi, Kelly Wilson in New Brunswick Southwest, and Charles Chiasson in Tobique – Mactaquac). This leaves the 3 incumbent Liberal MPs, who are all able to run uncontested, Saint John which is assumed to be left open for former M.P. Paul Zed, and NDP-held Acadie – Bathurst)
• 2 Greens (Ron Mazerolle in Miramichi and Steven Steeves in Moncton – Riverview – Dieppe). According to ElectionPrediction.org, their very popular candidate last time in Fredericton, Mary Lou Babineau, is not running again, however.
  
• 1 New Democrat (incumbent Yvon Godin was renominated in Acadie – Bathurst a week ago, Sunday, November 8, with NDP Leader Jack Layton in attendance)

So, in summary, across 32 seats with 128 or more candidates expected to run, 36 have been confirmed as nominated so far, with two more just pending me obtaining their dates, another two with scheduled nomination meetings, and most of the candidates in the recent Cumberland – Colchester – Musquodoboit Valley by-election also indicating their interest in running again. Five of the 36 are women, as are both of the two pending dates, and one of the scheduled nominees, so 8/40.

That brings us up-to-date in the Atlantic provinces. Next stop: Québec. If you have nomination news to share with other readers, I'm back in full gear on that front, so please drop me a line. Then follow along on Twitter.

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

[UPDATE: See below for story from La Presse Canadienne on Hochelaga Bloc nomination.]

Switching back from by-election coverage to the non-byelection nomination news, we have a last spurt of nominations to cover, after which it appears that things are slowing down for the fall. Many fewer meetings are scheduled for the coming weeks, and I'm hearing unconfirmed reports that other meetings and announcements are being delayed. Blogger tcnorris is arguing tonight that the announcement of the royal visit and the calling of the byelections signals that the Prime Minister is unlikely to try and engineer his own defeat this fall, and I think that's probably about right.

Indeed, if the election window drags out longer than that, we may start to see the opposition phenomenon .... candidates dropping out because the timing turns bad for them, and MPs with long service deciding to sit out the next campaign after all.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the break so we can return to some other analyses around here that got crowded out by the onslaught of nomination news. So, let's get down to it now, starting with candidates who have been selected recently:

• Leeds – Grenville, ON - The NDP has renominated its 2008 candidate in this riding, Brockville and District Labour Council president Steve Armstrong this past week. Meantime, the Green Party now has a three-way nomination race on the go, with a meeting set for Thursday, October 15 as we've already reported here. Armstrong and the winner of the Green contest will be joining recently nominated Liberal candidate Marjory Loveys, and three-term Conservative M.P. Gord Brown on the campaign trail.
  
• Oak Ridges – Markham, ON - NDP - Three-time NDP candidate in neighbouring Markham – Unionville, Janice Hagen, was nominated last Friday, October 2 in her new riding. She will now face first-time Conservative M.P. Paul Calandra, and former Liberal M.P. Lui Temelkovski.
  
• Miramichi, NB - As we quickly reported last weekend, Keith Vickers, and former aide to the former Liberal M.P. for this riding, Charlie Hubbard, won the 3-way contested nomination in this riding last Saturday, October 3. According to the Miramichi Leader, which ran down the details of the ballotting, Vickers won on the second ballot, with some 650 members voting in a room of 800, telling the crowd afterwards that the seat is "ours and we're going to take it back". If they do, it will be from first-time Conservative M.P. Tilly O'Neill-Gordon.
  
• Essex, ON - The NDP renominated three-time candidate Taras Natyshak this past Saturday, reported the Amherstburg Echo. Natyshak be will facing two-time Conservative M.P. Jeff Watson for the third straight contest, with a new Liberal face, Kingsville Mayor Nelson Santos, joining the race alongside first-time Green Party candidate Cora Carriveau. The riding has been held by all 3 major parties since 1984. The NDP's Steven Langdon won the former riding of Essex-Windsor in 1984, on the retirement of long-time (and colourful) former Liberal M.P. Eugene Whelan. Langdon held the seat for two terms, losing alongside many NDP incumbents in 1993 to first-time Liberal M.P.s, in this case Whelan's daughter Susan. She then held the seat for 3 terms, but lost to Watson in 2004, and after trying twice more to regain it, ruled herself out of the Liberal nomination this time. The riding has been a 3-way race in two of the last three elections, but historically has seen everything from crushing Liberal victories under Whelan Sr., to a third-place finish for his successor. And unlike many ridings in which the NDP did much worse in the elections of 1993 and 2000, that party never dropped below 14%, and have scored as high as 44%. Conservatives posted a record low of 14% in the Free Trade election of 1988, but scored as high as 40% 20 years later. The riding has a combination of agriculture and folks dependent on the auto sector, and surrounds the city of Windsor. I think it's going to make for an interesting window into how Ontario goes in the next election.
  
• Haldimand – Norfolk, ON - Also on Saturday, the NDP renominated 2008 candidate Ian Nichols by acclamation in this rural southwestern Ontario riding, currently held by three-term Conservative M.P. Diane Finley, and also being contested by former Liberal M.P. Bob Speller and first-time Green candidate Anne Faulkner. Local NDP members are noting that this marks the first time they've had the same candidate run more than once for them in this riding. Meanwhile, Speller recently picked up the endorsement of a former prime minister, as Paul Martin recently visited Brantford in support of his campaign.
  
• Davenport, ON - Calling it "just like a gig, but with a tie", musician and member of the band "The Skydiggers" Andrew Cash accepted the NDP nomination in the Toronto riding of Davenport on Monday, October 5 before a room of several hundred who were treated to live music alongside the usual speeches, including leader Jack Layton, M.P. Charlie Angus, and most of the band Blue Rodeo, according to one tweeter in attendance. Cash will be facing three-term Liberal M.P. Mario Silva, who has won the riding with 46%-52% of the vote each time. The NDP has been able to post a 30-32% vote share since the forced retirement of long-time Liberal M.P. Charles Caccia in 2004, before which they earned 14-18%. Conservative candidates typically score around 10-12% in the riding, and a strong Green candidate in 2008, bike courier activist Wayne Scott, came in just behind them. Traditionally considered the home of the Portuguese community, the MediaStyle.ca blog reports that Davenport has been changing demographically in recent years to include "a growing core 'creative class'", and indeed the riding ranked 14th in the country in the 2006 census for employment in art, culture, recreation and sport, even if that does represent just 7.15% of its population.
  
• Burlington, ON - As well on Monday night, child protection worker and NDPer David Laird was renominated his party's candidate for the 4th time in this riding just outside Hamilton. He will join two-term Conservative M.P. Mike Wallace and Liberal candidate Bruce Bowser, who ran in Wellington – Halton Hills in 2008. Here's a riding where the NDP and Green vote did not change much between 2004 and 2008, but the seat changed hands strictly on the exchange of Liberal and Conservative votes. It was close in 2004 when Wallace nearly overtook former Liberal M.P. Paddy Torsney, and again in 2006 when he finally did, but by 2008 Wallace was able retain his raw vote, while the Liberal vote apparently stayed home as turnout fell.
  
• Barrie, ON - Another return NDP candidate, Myrna Clark, was renominated by acclamation in this riding northwest of Toronto on Wednesday, October 7, according to the Barrie Examiner. Clark will rejoin three-time Conservative M.P. Patrick Brown, and three-time Green Party candidate Erich Jacoby-Hawkins, and a Liberal to be named later. Again, the NDP vote has stayed within a range of 10-12% here since 2004, with the Greens growing somewhat, but unlike Burlington, the Liberal vote here plummetted by around 10,000 votes between 2006 and 2008, with the Conservatives picking up about 4,000 of them, the Greens another 2,000 and the rest staying home as turnout fell. Thanks to a reader for supplying the clipping.
  
• Simcoe – Grey, ON - Thanks to a reader for sending along this clipping from the Wasaga Sun, reporting the nomination by acclamation of Green Party candidate Stuart Starbuck, also on Wednesday. Realtor Phil Baldwin had earlier been planning to contest the nomination, but withdrew citing work conditions. Starbuck, a former municipal councillor, will now join three-time Conservative M.P. Helena Guergis, returning Liberal candidate Andrea Matrosovs, and two-time NDP candidate Katy Austin, who was also recently acclaimed on September 28.
  
• Saskatoon – Wanuskewin, SK - Another reader wrote in to say that the expected contested NDP nomination in this riding between Barb Henderson and John Parry, also slated for Wednesday night, in fact saw Parry acclaimed with Henderson stepping down to take care of some family concerns. An accountant by training and christian by faith, Parry represented the former riding of Kenora-Rainy River from 1984-1988, subsequently ran for the party several times in Manitoba between 2000 and 2002 and has since relocated to Saskatchewan for work, unsuccessfully running for the nomination in this riding last time around, after having been nominated here for the 2005 election scare (which Belinda Stronach and Chuck Strahl Cadman [D'oh: sorry about that, Mr. Strahl] spared the country) but then stepping down for work reasons. I'm betting he is also the only University of Western Ontario MBA to have joined the Facebook group "Let George Gallaway speak". Parry will be running against long-time Conservative M.P. Maurice Vellacott, with Liberal and Green candidates yet to be chosen.
• Hochelaga, QC - There's a new blog covering by-election news (welcome, and thanks for the link yesterday), and it's reporting tonight that Gilles Duceppe's chosen candidate, former PQ Industry Minister, Daniel Paillé, did indeed win the Bloc Québécois nomination in this by-election riding Thursday, October 8. He'll be joining NDP candidate Jean-Claude Rocheleau, whose campaign office will be opened by leader Jack Layton tomorrow night, Conservative candidate Stéphanie Cloutier, whose campaign kick-off the other day was aided by Conservative Senator Claude Carignan, and recently-named Liberal candidate Robert David, who made quite a memorable entry into the campaign, according to Le Devoir (via Deux Maudits Anglais at Macleans.ca). Here's a question readers could perhaps help us out with: is this Mr. Paillé in any way related to first-term Louis-Hébert Bloc M.P. Pascal-Pierre Paillé? If you know, please drop us a line. UPDATE: La Presse Canadienne writes that Paillé "easily" won the meeting, and has Duceppe's office denying Jean Baribeau's claims that they phoned and asked him to withdraw. FURTHER UPDATE: Daniel Paillé is Pascal-Pierre Paillé's uncle, a reader writes to let us know. Cool. Thanks.
  

If it's starting to sound like a lot of NDP nomination news lately, and less from the other parties, it seems to be because the party made a big push to get key nominations completed once their convention was concluded. One of the analyses I'll be preparing (hopefully over the weekend), now that I've just about got the nominations database up-to-date, is the number of nominations by week, by party. I think that chart will show more clearly the different time-frames in which different parties have been active on that score, over what many believed would be a pre-election period.

Anyway there is other nomination news from across the country, but as it's well past my bedtime here, it will have to wait until tomorrow night. As you may have noticed, it's not just the nomination news that's starting to slow down these days ;-). Bring on the long weekend, I say.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Bloc Québécois, Greens, Hochelaga, Liberals, NDP, Nov 9 2009 By-elections

[Welcome National Newswatch readers!]

A candidate for the Bloc Québécois nomination is accusing leader Gilles Duceppe's office of trying to pressure him to drop out of the race, in advance of tomorrow night's contested nomination meeting to pick the party's candidate for next month's by-election in this east-end Montréal riding, reports Kathleen Levesque of Le Devoir this afternoon. The report has sparked the NDP's candidate to ask why the Bloc would "borrow the strategies of the Liberal Party" and whether this represents the "Coderrisation du Bloc québécois".

25-year Hochelaga resident and "confirmed sovereignist and social democrat", Jean Baribeau, has been running for the Bloc nomination since June. He told Le Devoir that he received a telephone call from a staff member in Duceppe's office Tuesday morning asking him to step aside, saying they wanted the Thursday meeting to be a big media event introducing Duceppe's endorsed candidate and recently-appointed economic advisor, former PQ Industry Minister Daniel Paillé.

Citing Duceppe's commitment of last month to hold an open nomination, Baribeau is refusing to stand down, and now refusing to return the calls of Duceppe himself, complaining that the Bloc has already been introducing Paillé as their candidate, and that they've sent in an experienced Bloc organizer to run his nomination campaign. Another nomination candidate, Benoît Dumuy, who was an aide to the former Bloc M.P. in the riding, Réal Ménard, and who had also been selling memberships since June, was already persuaded by Duceppe in early September to withdraw from the race, and a fourth reported candidate Thérèse Ste-Marie also appears to be out of the race now. SMALL UPDATE: Indeed, she has withdrawn and endorsed M. Paillé, according to Les Nouvelles Hochelaga Maisonneuve, which unfortunately however got the nomination date wrong at the end of its story.

Meanwhile the NDP's Jean-Claude Rocheleau, who was renominated in August, issued a news release this afternoon "extending a hand to Bloquistes who are upset" about the "less than democratic practices" of their party, and also chiding the Liberals for "le parachutage dans Hochelaga d’un économiste de Harvard".

The seat became vacant on the resignation of Ménard this past September 16, 2009 in order to run as borough mayor in Hochelaga during the Québec municipal elections that are now underway. The Prime Minister called the by-election this past Sunday for Monday, November 9. The Bloc's candidate will be the last one selected by the major parties in this riding.

We earlier reported on another case of a Bloc nomination candidate, Christian Gionet, who felt the party maneuvred him out of its nomination race in Haute-Gaspésie – La Mitis – Matane – Matapédia, QC, in favour of the leader's preferred candidate Jean-François Fortin last June.

While most media commentators have assumed the Bloc to be the likely winners in Hochelaga, it will be interesting to see whether this nomination race is little more than a distraction, such as the challenge Green Party leader Elizabeth May fought off last month, or whether (as the NDP appears to hope) it represents the opening of schism in the Bloc Québécois riding association.

One way to follow the race there that I've discovered is the Politics news page of Les Nouvelles Hochelaga Maissonneuve.

Labels: Bloc Québécois, Hochelaga, NDP, Nov 9 2009 By-elections

In other non-byelection nomination news, a number of new candidates were nominated over the last week, starting this past Wednesday. Owing to the large number of them and shortness of time, I'm doing a pretty cursury treatment for now, but will try and remember to do a more expansive write-up of these ridings next time they surface.

• Wed 30 Sep - NDP - Ottawa West – Nepean, ON - Three-time candidate Marlene Rivier, thanks to a reader for the clipping
  
• Wed 30 Sep - Lib - Edmonton – Leduc, AB - Donna Lynn Smith (h/t Liberal Scarf who got it from Facebook)
  
• Wed 30 Sep - NDP - Vancouver Island North - Former M.P. Catherine Bell acclaimed to run again in 4th contest against Conservative M.P. John Duncan; thanks to a reader for the clipping
  
• Fri 2 Oct - Lib - Dartmouth – Cole Harbour, NS - Liberal M.P. Mike Savage renominated by acclamation I'm assuming
  
• Fri 2 Oct - NDP - Oak Ridges – Markham, ON - Janice Hagan, who previously ran 3 times in Markham – Unionville
  
• Sat 3 Oct - Lib - South Shore – St. Margaret's, NS - Former Liberal M.P. Derek Wells wins contested nomination 158 to 20; will be 3 current or former MPs running in this riding now: Conservative incumbent Gerald Keddy, former NDP M.P. Gordon Earle, plus Wells
  
• Sat 3 Oct - Lib - West Nova, NS - Robert Thibault acclaimed; thanks to a contact for confirming this
  
• Sat 3 Oct - Lib - Miramichi, NB - Keith Vickers; again thank you to a contact for letting us know
  
• Sat 3 Oct - NDP - Shefford, QC - Simon Gnocchini Messier will run again
  
• Sat 3 Oct - Lib - Burlington, ON - Businessman and 2008 candidate in Wellington – Halton Hills Bruce Bowser acclaimed with about 100 in attendance, after former M.P. Paddy Torsney decided to sit it out. Thanks to a reader for keeping us in the loop.
  
• Sat 3 Oct - NDP - Burnaby – Douglas, BC - M.P. Bill Siksay renominated by acclamation, he told Twitter
  
• Sat 3 Oct - NDP - Essex, ON - Two-time candidate Taras Natyshak renominated by acclamation, he told Facebook
  
• Sat 3 Oct - NDP - Kamloops – Thompson – Cariboo, BC - Two-time candidate Michael Crawford renominated by acclamation, in the second-biggest story from out of Kamloops this past weekend
  
• Sun 4 Oct - Lib - Toronto – Danforth, ON - 2008 candidate Andrew Lang to run again; thanks to a reader for letting us know
  
• Sun 4 Oct - BQ - Charlesbourg – Haute-Saint-Charles, QC - First-time candidate Félix Grenier acclaimed this afternoon, to take on Conservative M.P. Daniel Petit
  

Also:

• Sackville – Eastern Shore, NS - Lib - I'm still trying to find out who won the Liberal nomination here the other weekend. If you know, please get in touch.
  
• Jeanne-Le Ber, QC - Lib - Nathalie Le Prohon is still going to run for the nomination here, but will perhaps be challenged by Sebastien Dhavernas, who was going to test the waters at the weekend Liberal congress in Québec city, according to La Presse.
  
• Lac-Saint-Louis, QC - Grn - Ryan Young was introduced as Green candidate by Elizabeth May in this West Island of Montréal riding late last week, reported the Gazette.
  
• Ottawa Centre, ON - Cons - Four candidates are seriously considering running for the Conservatives here, reports the Centretown News, but the riding association says they're not in a rush to pick a candidate. The Liberal Scarf has more background.
  
• Leeds – Grenville, ON - Grn - A contested nomination is in the cards, now that 2008 candidate Jeannie Warnock has stepped aside, reported the Whig-Standard. And thanks to a reader for writing in with the details: a former Liberal riding president, property manager Jeff Poole, three-time Green candidate in Ottawa-Vanier and speech and language coach Raphaël Thierrin, and retired teacher and farmer Mary Slade of Athens, will all face off on Thursday, October 15.
  
• Beaches – East York, ON - NDP - With two-time federal candidate Marilyn Churley bowing out, a new NDP nomination candidate has emerged on Facebook: lawyer Barbara Warner who volunteers with the Canadian Environmental Law Association, Legal Education Action Fund, and Ontario Environment Network is running, and says that a meeting date will be set soon in this east Toronto riding.
  
• Davenport, ON - NDP - Musician Andrew Cash is now apparently set to be acclaimed at the nomination meeting scheduled for Monday evening in this west Toronto riding.
  
• Guelph, ON - Cons - An Air Canada pilot and retired member of the air force, Marty Burke, appears to have been acclaimed the Conservative candidate in this riding, according to the Guelph Mercury. I'll be trying to find out when exactly he was nominated, and whether the nomination was contested in order to add this name into the database.
• North Vancouver, BC - Lib - An apparently contested nomination race between two candidates, who are both interested but neither green-lighted as yet, is the focus of this clipping from the North Shore News. Former Liberal M.P. Don Bell may or may not be running against former Green Party candidate James "Green Jim" Stephenson, at a nomination meeting that hasn't been scheduled yet.
  
• South Surrey – White Rock – Cloverdale, BC - CHP - A former local Conservative activist Michael Schouten is getting a Christian Heritage Party riding association organized in this riding, and hopes to be approved as its candidate here, after volunteering for Conservative M.P. Russ Hiebert in the past, reported the Peace Arch News last month. Apparently the CHP has never run a candidate in this riding before, but is now said to have identified up to 7 candidates across B.C., including Kevin Pielak in Surrey North. I'll have to do some more research into this, but if you know who they might be, please get in touch.
  

While the by-elections are on, you can always find the 41st general election Nominations Progress chart on the page for that electoral event, while the Nominations Progress table is always found on the "Search the Database" page in the section titled "Queries for Most Recent Election(s)", under "Nomination Counts".

I'm about to insert a large number of Green Party nominations, as I've had the details confirmed by GPC officials, whom I thank for their efforts. In the next day or so I'll be doing an analysis of nominations by week by party, which I had planned to do this weekend until the by-election calls occurred. Stay tuned.

If you have news to pass along, please write to use here, and then follow along on Twitter for all the latest.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Bloc Québécois, Conservatives, Greens, Liberals, NDP