Liberals gaining ground as NDP lead shrinks in latest polls

New CBC poll-tracker averages show the NDP lead is shrinking, the Liberals are gaining ground, and the Conservatives have sunk to third place.

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The CBC poll-tracker of averages now has three polls in September to add to its averages. The results up to September 2 are: Conservatives, 27.7 percent of the vote down 1.7 percent from last average; Liberals 29.5 percent, up 1.8 percent; the NDP 32.1 percent up 0.9 percent.

Seat projections based upon the above averages are: Conservatives 101; NDP 122; Liberals 114 and Green party one. The NDP are nowhere near the 170 seats needed for a majority. The Conservatives have now dropped to third place in seats as well as popular vote percentage. On social media the Conservatives at first appear to be doing well as shown by graphs here. The Liberals appear to outperform the NDP. However, the data may be misleading as a lot of traffic on Conservative social media is created by critics who lose no opportunity to try to counter Conservative claims. Some of the Conservative media campaign is tried and true. A photo op shows Harper holding a baby.

The NDP appears to be losing considerable support in BC while the Liberals are gaining considerably more support in Ontario. Compared to the last election the Liberals are projected to win 47 more seats.

The most recent poll by Leger in the Globe and Mail this Friday shows: NDP,31 percent; Liberals, 30 percent and Conservatives at 28 percent. On Saturday a Forum poll in the Toronto Star showed: NDP, 36 percent; Liberals, 32 percent and Conservatives at a dismal 24 percent. TheEKOS poll published Friday found: NDP, 30.2 percent; Conservatives, 29.4, and Liberals with 27.7. The NDP appears unable to pull away from the pack while the Liberals are gaining. However, all three main parties are quite close in the polls.

Conservatives at the 40 per cent solution!

This article is from this site.
It is not surprising that the polls are up for the Conservatives. The Liberals are nowhere it seems unless perhaps fighting in backrooms. Meanwhile Harper appears regularly making deals with Nova Scotia, announcing get tough on drugs stuff, even giving funds to VIA. He pretends to be an environmentalist leading the laggards on the environment and getting his buddies Bush and Howard on board a hot air balloon.

Conservatives' popularity rises: poll
Fri Oct 12, 2007 9:44 PM EDT




MONTREAL (Reuters) - Canada's Conservatives, ruling as a minority government, have surged in popularity to the point where they could win a parliamentary majority in the next election, according to a poll published on Friday.

The Ipsos-Reid poll for the CanWest News Service and Global National television network put the Conservatives at 40 percent of popular support, opening a 12-point lead over the opposition Liberals.

"These are the best numbers the Tories have had in years," Darrell Bricker, president of the polling firm, told CanWest.

The Conservatives were up 4 points from the previous Ipsos-Reid poll in August and were right on the "magic number" generally needed to form a majority government, he added.

"The potential is that if an election was held tomorrow, he (Prime Minister Stephen Harper) could form a majority," Bricker told CanWest.

In contrast, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, whose popularity within his own party has been questioned by other Liberals, is "a bit on the ropes and headed in the wrong direction," Bricker said.

At 28 percent, Liberal support fell 4 points from the August survey.

The left-leaning New Democratic Party dropped 1 point to 16 percent.

The Bloc Quebecois, a separatist party that fields candidates only in Quebec, was at 33 percent support in the French-speaking province of 7.5 million. The Conservatives were at 27 percent in Quebec and the Liberals trailed at 18 percent.

The poll results came as Harper turned up the heat on the opposition parties on Friday, saying he might force votes of confidence when lawmakers take up crime and other nonfinancial legislation.

If Harper fails to gain the support or at least the abstention of one of the three opposition parties in any matter of confidence, including an upcoming major policy speech in Parliament, his government could be brought down. That would force an early federal election.

The Conservative were elected in January 2006 and Harper has set October 2009 as the next election date if his government does not fail before then.

The nationwide poll of 1,000 adults was conducted from Tuesday to Thursday, and was considered accurate to within 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.



© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Provincial versus Federal Tories

I noticed to my surprise that Conservative signs in the recent Manitoba election had the initials PC on them. PC stands for Progressive Conservatives. I thought that with the formation of the federal Conservative party that the Progressive Conservative Party had gone the way of the dodo. Apparently not. In the PEI election as well I observed the Tories had PC on their signs. It did not help much in either PEI or Manitoba. The Conservatives by any other name smell just as bad. Well maybe there is an exception in that from what I hear the Conservative Party in Saskatchewan now called the Saskatchewan Party is likely to defeat the NDP if there is an election.
The federal Conservative party adopts the initials CP. These initials already referred to the Communist Party but the communists do not have enough influence to protect their letter brand. They should just issue news releases saying that the CP supports same sex marriage, increased minimum wages, withdrawal from Afghanistan that will teach those Tories to violate copywrite symbols!

Newfoundland Labrador needs 11 billion more in equalisation

The number of federal seats in Newfoundland Labrador are miniscule compared to Quebec. In Quebec the Conservatives look to be doing well after addressing the fiscal imbalance.


$11-billion rift found on equalization: economist
Tougher interpretation could see Atlantic Accord benefits end in 2012
Last Updated: Friday, April 13, 2007 | 8:30 AM NT
CBC News
A stricter interpretation of new equalization rules could widen the rift between Newfoundland and Labrador and the federal government over equalization, with billions of dollars in oil royalties at stake, according to a new independent review.


Economist Wade Locke says a revised analysis of the new equalization formula shows less revenue for Newfoundland and Labrador.
(CBC)
Memorial University economist Wade Locke — who last week revealed that Newfoundland and Labrador stands to gain an additional $5.6 billion through the federal Conservatives' new equalization formula — has recrunched his numbers.

Locke revisited his analysis after learning that the assumptions he originally used may not be applied in Ottawa in the coming years.

"I've gone back to check into it and it required me to do some new calculations, which I've done some preliminary estimates on," Locke told CBC News Thursday.



Locke issued a statement early Friday outlining his revised findings, and said he will not comment on the political implications of his analysis. A draft of Locke's findings was circulated in political circles earlier this week.

In his new analysis, Locke found that a stricter interpretation of equalization rules — as laid out in the federal budget in March — could make it difficult for Newfoundland and Labrador to qualify for the Atlantic Accord after 2012.

Last week, Locke — who spoke to a packed auditorium at Memorial University — said that the province would receive $24.1 billion under equalization between now and 2020.

That's substantially more than the status quo of $18.5 billion, but substantially less than the $28.6 billion that Premier Danny Williams says the province would receive had Prime Minister Stephen Harper lived up to a written 2006 campaign promise to leave non-renewable resources out of the equalization formula.


Federal minister Loyola Hearn now describes Locke's analysis as hypothetical.
(CBC)
Locke's new analysis, however, dramatically changes the equalization math, and exposes a much wider rift between the two levels of government. Locke said he received the clarification directly from the federal government.

If the new interpretation, which involves a complicated formula that determines fiscal capacity, is applied, then the new equalization formula will deliver about $17.5 billion — or $1 billion less than the status quo — to Newfoundland and Labrador between now and 2020.

That puts a gap of about $11 billion between what Williams said the province ought to receive and what the federal government may actually deliver.

'Strictly hypothetical,' Hearn says
Loyola Hearn, Newfoundland and Labrador's federal cabinet representative, said Locke's numbers are premature.

Hearn, who just last week issued a statement boasting that Locke's analysis last week proved that the federal Conservatives were not attempting to hurt Newfoundland and Labrador, told CBC News Thursday that the numbers are not definitive.

"What we're talking now is strictly hypothetical stuff, that isn't doing any of us any good, because we have no idea what figures we are talking about," Hearn said Thursday.

"If there is a problem, all I can assure you is, No. 1, we have made commitments [and] these commitments will be adhered too," he said.

"And if there is something that happens which is negative towards our province, that's where I get involved."

Williams is travelling outside the province this week and has not issued any comment on Locke's new analysis.

Williams and Harper have been locked in a rhetorical war over equalization since March, with Williams launching a national advertising campaign that cast Harper as a promise-breaker.

Harper responded in kind with a campaign — launched only in Newfoundland and Labrador — that criticizes Williams for not respecting facts and tells the province that it has been "blessed" by the new equalization formula

Tories open election headquarters

I just wonder if the Tories aren't hoping that they will be defeated in the near future as their ratings approach majority status. It remains to be seen what the Tories will do with the revised Clean Air Act that they oppose.

The rest of the article is at the Globe and Mail.Tories open door to battle-ready headquarters
Liberals decry '17,000-square-foot fear factory' and launch of attack ads
GLORIA GALLOWAY

OTTAWA -- The expansive and battle-ready Conservative campaign headquarters was opened to journalists for a one-time-only viewing yesterday even as two cabinet ministers denied the party has any desire to go to the polls.

Reporters were permitted to stroll through the 17,000-square-foot war room before being ushered into the adjoining television studio to view the latest attack ad against Stéphane Dion, which will begin airing today.

"We've taken the big and costly step of opening this facility because [Liberal Leader] Stéphane Dion has put the country on notice," Environment Minister John Baird said at a heavily scripted news conference. "He's told Canadians he wants to go back to power as soon as possible."

Mr. Baird would not discuss the cost of renting the roomy space on the second floor of a non-descript building in a southeast Ottawa industrial park. But he said the Conservatives will keep it fully equipped and ready for action until voting day, even if that means paying the bills until 2009.


"We are trying to demonstrate that we will be ready if Mr. Dion tries to call an election again like he did last week [when Liberals voted against the budget]," Mr. Baird said.

It has been known for several months that the Conservatives had been tapping into their overflowing bank account to prepare the headquarters for the campaign. But, until yesterday, even the exact address was kept under wraps.

Now the public has been given a long look at the Conservative campaign's central command -- from the multiple, identical posters of Stephen Harper that are plastered on most walls to the overhead signs that mark the seating plan for teams that will be put into action when the vote is called.

Desks and chairs that seem freshly removed from their bubble wrap are arranged in groups of four. Each station has a new computer. Although it has been described in previous media reports as a bunker, a wide rim of windows circles the room and a new swath of carpet covers the floor.

The television studio is equipped with lights, cameras, a Teleprompter and a backdrop of screens that say Leadership -- a slogan that the party will use to define Mr. Harper during the campaign -- and to distinguish him from Mr. Dion.

When Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, who also took part in the press conference, said that he sincerely hopes "we won't have to use this facility until 2009," the press gallery erupted in hoots of laughter. Rumours have been floating for months that the Conservatives hope to engineer their own defeat to take advantage of support that is nudging majority territory.

In addition to attack ads against the Liberal Leader, Canadian Press reported yesterday that the Conservatives will launch radio and newspaper ads today hitting back at Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams for accusing the government of breaking an equalization promise to his province. The Liberals were critical of the Tories yesterday over the show of force.

"It's a very interesting thing when you see a government opening up a 17,000-square-foot fear factory -- campaign office, war room -- followed by a reannouncement of yet another million dollars or more in television ads, millions of dollars being spent now to attack the Leader of the Official Opposition," Ottawa Liberal MP David McGuinty said.

"It's very rich for the government to start speaking about the Leader of the Official Opposition apparently trying to provoke an election campaign when, by conduct, most Canadians are seeing now that this government wants to defeat itself."

Mr. McGuinty refused to speculate about what types of issues would force his party to vote against the Conservatives on a motion that would bring the government down. But he suggested that the Liberals have little appetite for a spring election.

"Not a single Canadian that I have met in the last 14 months has said it is time for an election campaign," Mr. McGuinty said.

And it is difficult to see why the Conservatives would be eager. The polls may be leaning in their favour but a majority, which would be the only good reason to go back to the electorate, is far from certain.

Which is why some pundits suggest yesterday's tour may be little more than sabre-rattling on the part of the government.

"What I've been thinking is that this has been a bluff all along, which is 'Hey, we're willing to go any minute,' " said Nelson Wiseman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto.

"That's why they're running the negative ads," Prof. Wiseman said. "They are trying to cow the opposition."

*****

Canadian Federal Election Coming?

What nauseous rhetoric! Imagine the Conservative party of the sweating toiling masses. Really none of the parties can escape the rigors of competing for the favor of corporate capitalism. Well I don't know about the Communist Party, or its M-L variety if it still exists and perhaps the Christian Heritage party has not been bought out! But then how many seats will they get. Democracy(capitalist) is the opiate of the people!

Election call could come at any time, Harper tells Tory party
Last Updated: Saturday, March 17, 2007 | 8:27 PM ET
CBC News
Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Conservative members on Saturday that an election call could come without warning, and he urged the party to see itself as representing the interests of everyday Canadians.

"Never forget why we are here and who we serve — Canadian families and Canadian taxpayers," Harper said in Mississauga, Ont.

"We cannot worry about what they say about us around the boardroom tables, but but we must care what they talk about at the kitchen tables."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, speaking at a Tory campaign training meeting in Mississauga, Ont., on Saturday, said in an election-style speech that there's still much work to be done by his party.
(Nathan Denette/Canadian Press) Harper, whose minority government was elected on Jan. 23, 2006, spoke at a campaign training weekend for more than 2,000 party nominees, MPs and volunteers. His election-style speech came before the federal government's budget on Monday.

"We are here to plan, plan for a future that could include an election … an election that the opposition could impose on Canadians at any time," Harper said.

The prime minister said the budget will include a "tax-back guarantee" for Canadians in which the federal government, as it pays down its national debt, will be required to use its interest savings to cut personal income taxes.

Harper said he is prepared to run on the party's track record, saying it has accomplished much in its short time in office, including on such issues as crime, law enforcement, foreign policy and the Armed Forces.

He said the party should be proud but must not rest on its laurels because there is still much work to be done.

Continue Article

"We took action to introduce mandatory prison sentences for gun crimes, a crackdown on violent, dangerous offenders, and reverse onus on bail applications involving firearms offences," he said.

"Our opponents continue to obstruct these bills. They do so at their own political peril."

Harper encouraged party members to remember that they represent the "unspoken interests" of the majority of Canadians, not the interests of lobby groups or big business.

Calls Liberals 'political exiles'
He described the Liberals as "political exiles" who defend the interests of corporations and who are filled with "empty rhetoric." He said the New Democrats, with their protest politics, are the defenders of fringe groups.

"Let the NDP defend the vocal interests. Let the Liberals defend the vested interests. Let the socialists promise tax increases. Let the Grits protect tax loopholes."

Harper said the Conservatives represent the interests of "hard-working people who didn't have the time to stage protests or the money to hire lobbyists."

He said everyday Canadians are "the quiet people you don't see on the nightly news … Canadians in the broad middle, Canadians who for far too long were ignored by the political process.

"Canadians see them, Conservatives see them, Conservatives hear them, Conservatives are them."

The speech, punctuated by applause and cheers, made reference to St. Patrick's Day on Saturday.

"Legend says that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. And last year, you, the grassroots members of the Conservative party, drove the Grits out of Ottawa. Now that's something worth saying cheers to," Harper said.



With files from the Canadian Press

Ottawa Tory claims there are extremist elements in Liberal Party

No doubt from some Conservatives point of view there are extremists in the Liberal party and also in the NDP! The Conservatives are trying to portray the Liberals as soft on terrorism or something of that nature. The recently repealed provisions were passed in the aftermath and over-reaction to 9/11. They have never even been used and were hardly necessary anyway. Harper and some of his party are probably not helping their cause with the type of character assassination and ad hominem rhetoric that they are engaging in these days.


MP's 'extremist' comment draws Liberal fire
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 | 6:06 PM ET
CBC News
Liberals are demanding that a Conservative member of Parliament apologize for saying that there are "extremist elements" within the Liberal party.

"We know there is an extremist element in the Liberal party generally that has been very vocal in opposing measures that are designed to combat terrorism," Ottawa Tory MP Pierre Poilievre told a radio interviewer last week.

"And it would seem that Mr. Dion has collapsed under the pressure from those groups."

Poilievre remarks come in the wake of Tuesday's vote over extending anti-terrorism measures that provide authorities with special arrest and investigative powers. The measures, which are set to expire Thursday, were introduced by the Liberals following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion opposes extending some of the provisions.

"All of us are looking to understand why the Liberals have had this sudden flip-flop. We're looking for an explanation of their motives," Poilievre said. "Now we know that a lot of extremist groups and people with some very hard left-wing views have advocated for a long time that these provisions should be scrapped."

Poilievre alleged that many of those people supported Dion's leadership bid.

Continue Article

He also said that some with the Liberal caucus want to legalize Hezbollah, and shut down the investigation into the 1985 Air India bombing.

Liberal MP Omar Alghabra called Poilievre's comments "outrageous, slanderous" and demanded an apology.

"This is the pattern that this government, this Conservative party, is following in choosing to go to the lowest level of politics that they can find to smear people just to make a political point," he said.

"Instead of focusing on the substance of the debate, they're trying to distract Canadians and smear honourable members of the House."

Liberal MP Navdeep Bains said the Liberal party is seeking legal advice about possibly suing Poilievre.

In the radio interview, Poilievre was asked whether he thought Bains was an extremist. Poilievre would only say that he doesn't comment on individuals.

Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper caused an uproar in the House of Commons when he appeared to suggest that the Liberals were opposed to renewing the anti-terrorism measures because they're trying to protect Bains's father-in-law from having to testify in the continuing Air India investigation.

With files from the Canadian Press