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BC Pre May 14, 2013 Election Call
February 12, 2013 - 11:04pm
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Clark's Chances: What Would It Take to Win?
As NDP's lead shrinks in some polls, how realistic is a Liberal comeback victory
Closing the gap
To get there the Liberals would have to significantly narrow the gap with the NDP, something observers say is unlikely to happen.
"It would be historic to see them overcome the deficit they're facing at this point," said Barb Justason, the principal researcher with Justason Market Intelligence. "I don't see the BC Liberals recovering, but a few stranger things have happened."
The company released a poll last week showing the NDP with 48 per cent of support from decided voters and the Liberals at 26 per cent. The survey included 600 B.C. adults, giving it a margin of error of plus or minus four percent, with 95 per cent confidence.
Justason said she had expected to see the race getting closer, as other polling firms have recently reported, but that's not what the poll found. "They might have numbers similar to ours at this point," she said. "I'm putting it down to timing."
Aside from the Liberals' low numbers, polling companies have consistently found Clark personally has negative momentum scores, meaning for most people their opinion of her is worsening each month. One recent poll found the words most associated with her were "out of touch," "arrogant," "secretive," and "inefficient."
Clark has also trailed NDP leader Adrian Dix on the question of who would make the best premier, as well as on who would be best to deal with most issues, including the economy.
While Clark's efforts have failed to lift her own or the Liberals' numbers, attempts to dampen NDP support have to date also been unsuccessful. The Liberals "Risky Dix" and "Searching for Dix's Hidden Plan" campaigns seem to have had little effect.
But the group Concerned Citizens for B.C., headed by former BC Rail board member Jim Shepard, is claiming success for its $1 million ad campaign that makes negative allegations about Dix's time working for NDP Premier Glen Clark during the 1990s.
The campaign is unlikely to make a big enough difference to return the Liberals to power, but should the NDP numbers drop without the Liberals gaining, the door will be open a crack for a third possibility, an unexpected result that could radically change the nature of the legislature.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/02/12/Christy-Clark-Election-Chances/
http://www.justasonmi.com/?p=3217
BC Gov't 'Domino' Ad Falls down on Facts
Three self-congratulatory claims fail to stand up to scrutiny
1. Provincial spending under the B.C. Liberals has gone up astonishingly -- it has not been "controlled."
2. The ads boast about low taxes -- but B.C. is the only province in Canada where individuals have to pay Medical Services Premiums.
3. The province claims it is "investing in skills training" -- but our six major universities warn that 20,000 jobs could go unfilled by 2020 because the government isn't doing enough training.
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2013/02/12/BC-Government-Domino-Ad/
Speaking here from Quebec, thousands of kilometers away from BC, it does seem to me to be the case that BC'ers are just fed up with Christy Clark - and Liberals.
We BCers welcome comments from everywhere.
Christy Clark, as a pundit recently said, is a lousy leader but a competent campaigner.
It is not going to be easy for Adrian Dix to win a majority - the BC NDP is going to have to fight like hell to defeat the BC Liberals. Whatever happens, there is a pack of potential BC Liberal leaders, such as ex-BC Liberal Cabinet Minister Kevin Falcon, current Surrey Mayor Diane Watts, and others watching events unfold with interest. And even if the BC Liberals lose the election, they will be back with their right-wing drivel the very next day following the election with all their collective asses covered by all the BC mainstream press. With the odds so heavily stacked against them in just about every election, it's a minor miracle that the NDP ever get elected anywhere.
Dix's Big Gamble: No Dirt
As Libs sling mud, NDP leader refuses to go negative. Will out of the box strategy box him in?
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/02/14/No-Negative-NDP-Ads/
Here's a list of 100 reasons the BC Liberals must go. It's from October 2010, but with the exception of the items on the minumum wage and the hst, nothing has been done about any of these items. (I know the hst's not gone yet, but the BC Liberals have today brought forwards the legislation to transition back to the pst).
And actually the BC Liberals who only have a 5 seat majority presently, may yet be defeated on their budget bill triggering an election sooner than we think.
Here's hoping!
With Christy's throne speech, in which she envisions $130 to 260 billion in government revenue and $1 trillion in total revenue for BC during the next 30 years from liquified natural gas sales to Asia, she has destroyed what little credibility she and the Liberals have left. This proposal, based on nothing more than a wish, will be seen as a desperate and totally unrealistic attempt to create a fantastyland future for BC.
As Vaughn Palmer said in the Vancouver Sun "And you thought they’d put Fantasy Gardens into mothballs after Bill Vander Zalm left office."
http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/Vaughn+Palmer+When+gruel+...
When this is combined with the Ekos and Justason polls showing the Liberals in decline to the mid 20s in the lates polls from ealier polls showing them in the 30s, while the NDP has leads of 12 to 22%, and with the NDP scoring around 43 to 48% the chances of the Liberals pulling are about the same as the chances of throwing a perfect game during the baseball World Series (there has been exactly one since the World Series began in 1903).
Christy Clark in BC, Tim Hudak in Ontario seeking gullible voters
Dix’s bid to rise above loudmouth partisanship is a worthwhile gamble
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/dixs-bid-to-rise-ab...
Christy’s miracle Prosperity Fund should wipe out deficit as quickly as it ushers in world peace
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Christy+miracle+Prosperity+Fund+should+w...
I suppose the BC government will not be falling before May 14th after all.
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2013/02/15/Now_not_the_time/
Wait a minute. A thoughtful commenter had this say:
Motivations
More food for thought!
Will Dix Get Gassed by Clark?
Premier is betting the election on LNG. Where's the opposition?
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2013/02/18/Christy-Clark-LNG/
NDP's Path to Big Win
Polls point to a majority, but how large?
More assumptions
The Tyee, starting from recent polls and the 2009 results, arrived at a similar result to the ones found by Grenier and von Schulmann.
First, we assumed that with an NDP lead in the polls, the party will keep nearly all of the 35 seats it won in 2009.
The only one the party looks like it might lose is Cariboo North, where Bob Simpson won for the NDP last election and has sat as an independent since 2010. He's running again, and has said in the past he won there despite the NDP not because of it. The NDP, however, are likely to put significant resources into trying to win the constituency as well.
Erring on the conservative side, we assumed the NDP wins 34 seats they won last time. They'll also likely keep at least one of the constituencies they won from the Liberals in the 2012 by-elections. Port Moody Mayor Joe Trasolini seems likely to hold Port Moody-Coquitlam, while a repeat in Chilliwack-Hope by Gwen O'Mahony seems a riskier bet. That brings our count back up to 35.
In the 2009 election, the Liberals won the popular vote by 3.67 per cent. Assuming a shift of just five per cent, far short of what polls are showing but allowing for a tightening race, a whole bunch of seats that were narrow Liberal victories last time become likely wins for the NDP this time.
They are Boundary-Similkameen, Burnaby-Lougheed, Burnaby-North, Cariboo-Chilcotin, Comox Valley, Kamloops North, Maple Ridge-Mission, Oak Bay-Gordon Head, Saanich North and the Islands, Vancouver-Fairview and Vancouver-Fraserview.
That includes at least two where the Green Party may play a significant role. In Oak Bay-Gordon Head in particular, Andrew Weaver's entry to the race for the Greens makes for a possible three-way race, giving incumbent Liberal cabinet minister Ida Chong a chance to hold on.
That still adds at least 10 seats for the NDP, bringing the total to 45, enough for a majority with room to spare.
Close races
But if Mustel is right and the NDP is 10 per cent ahead, anywhere the Liberals won by less than 13.67 per cent in 2009 is vulnerable.
That adds premier Clark's constituency of Vancouver-Point Grey to the list, along with Vernon-Monashee, Surrey-Tynehead, Chilliwack, North Vancouver-Lonsdale, Parksville-Qualicum, Penticton and Prince George-Valemount. The NDP's seat count would then be 53.
And if Angus Reid's numbers are closer, the NDP would add Shuswap and Surrey-Panorama as well, taking it to 55.
The Liberals may also lose Peace River North, but the most likely competitor right now appears to be independent Arthur Hadland. We also assume that independent Vicki Huntington will hold Delta South, and that if she doesn't it's won by a party other than the NDP.
All in, making conservative assumptions, that puts the NDP's likely seat count at between 53 and 58, based on current trends and depending on the outcome in a few hard-to predict ridings.
Such a result would give the NDP the largest majority for a government in the legislature since the BC Liberals came to power in 2001 and would be similar to the portion of the seats the NDP held when it formed the government in 1991 under Mike Harcourt.
And the win could be even bigger than that. A poll Justason Market Intelligence released last week showed an NDP lead of 22 per cent, which would be a shift of 25 per cent from the 2009 election. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus four per cent, with 95 per cent confidence.
That result is similar to what other companies have found at times and would put at least a dozen more seats, previously considered safe for the Liberals, in play. Places like Nechako Lakes, Langley, West Kelowna and Pat Bell's Prince George-Mackenzie could all go NDP.
Add in questions about which party's supporters will be most motivated to actually turn out and vote, and the province could be looking at a landslide on a scale close to 2001 when the Liberals won 77 of the then available 79 seats.
While such a lopsided result is possible, right now it doesn't look as likely as an NDP victory that is merely solid. To get there, Dix and the NDP just need to stay on the path they've been on for months.
"We're seeing numbers very similar to the numbers we had back in October," said Barb Justason, the principal researcher at Justason Market Intelligence. "We're seeing variances in how people intend to vote, but we're not seeing any difference in the party that comes out on top."
As things are now, there's no reason to expect a dramatic reversal, she said.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/02/11/BC-Election-NDP-Win/
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Good on Jim Sinclair and the BC Fed.
Coleman's quite the hypocrite, his party is in deep do-do politically and shortly facing an election, and they been involved with running quasi third party ads for weeks and he knows it.
Liberal MLA questions true target of attack ad
The 30-second ad also claims “politicians should be on the side of B.C. jobs for B.C. workers.”
The BC Federation of Labour is behind the ad and spokesman Jim Sinclair said it is aimed at the federal government and meant to increase pressure for a review of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
B.C. labour unions have heavily criticized HD Mining for planning to bring in 200 miners from China after turning down 300 Canadian applicants claiming they didn’t have the expertise to work at its B.C. coal mine.
But at least one provincial MLA charged the ad is purposely vague and sounds more like the province is being blamed for the controversial decision to allow the company to use the Chinese workers.
Liberal campaign co-chair Rich Coleman, the Minister of Energy and Mines, doesn’t think the new radio ads are truthful and paint an unfair picture of the government.
“I just thought the ad wasn’t true, that’s the sad part,” said Coleman Monday. “The ad didn’t say this was a federal jobs program with regards to finding temporary foreign workers. If you listen to the ad they make it sound like it was a decision of the province of British Columbia, which it wasn’t.”
He added the public should expect more of the ads that contribute to “muddying people’s minds by different organizations.”
A Liberal-friendly third party, the Concerned Citizens for BC, have been running attack ads against NDP Leader Adrian Dix for weeks.
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2013/02/18/liberal-mla-questions-true-target-o...
BC Election 2013: How the Liberals plan to stomp the NDP
About 2 p.m. in Victoria next Tuesday, Finance Minister Mike de Jong is expected to rise in the Legislature and tell British Columbians that life, and the provincial economy, is supernaturally great. But is this really the case?
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The unspun truth about Liberal's economic record not outstanding
Even the Business Council of British Columbia, about as friendly towards the NDP as a hungry python eyeing a trembling rabbit with a fractured spine, had to reluctantly admit in November that, for the most part, the economic record generated by NDP governments in the 1990s was similar to those put forward by both the Socreds they replaced and the Liberals who followed them.
Among the highlights: GDP increased by an average of 2.72% under the NDP in the 1990s, higher than under both the Socreds and Liberals. In terms of average annual employment growth in the province, the business council report found that in the 1990s it was 2.17%, again higher than under both the Socreds and the Liberals.
Bill Tieleman, a left-wing commentator, said B.C.’s political history has in recent decades been defined by the needs of the Liberals, and the Socreds before them, to represent a free enterprise coalition that has been much more dominant than the NDP.
Tieleman said the Liberals tend to try and drive political debate to economic and leadership issues. “They believe if an electorate is polarized, free enterprise has an edge.”
He also said the Liberals referring to the NDP as being Socialist is a curious claim. “It beggars the imagination to think Mike Harcourt or Glen Clark has retired to Havana or North Korea,” Tieleman said. “The reality is whatever party forms government in the next election, there will be a mixed economy.”
Will McMartin, a right-wing commentator, said it is fair to compare the fiscal record under the NDP in the 1990s and the Liberals in the 2000s as being remarkably similar. “The numbers are what the numbers are,” McMartin said.
But members of the Barrett government, he said, paid more attention to legislative reforms and social changes than developing their reputation as efficient economic managers, a situation that Socred and later Liberals governments exploited.
The Harcourt-Clark-Miller-Dosanjh governments eventually came to understand the importance of sound fiscal policy, McMartin added, and the NDP team under Dix has made the province’s economic health an essential foundation of its platform.
“They can’t allow allegations to be made about their fiscal and economic stewardship,” he said, adding the Liberals will always claim the NDP can’t be trusted looking after B.C.’s treasury.
“Let’s face it, in an election campaign in B.C., big business has always outspent labour and their message is ‘B.C. can’t afford an NDP government.’”
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/bc-election-2013-gutter-politi...
The BC Budget Speech We Won't Hear
What if Finance Minister de Jong loosened his tie, then his lips?
"Honesty: the best of all the lost arts." -- Mark Twain
Perhaps if BC Liberal Finance Minister Mike de Jong were secretly injected with truth serum before presenting today's government's budget speech in the legislature, it would come out like this:
"Honourable Speaker, I rise to deliver not just the budget but also an honest apology -- because our BC Liberal government has truly put British Columbia in a financial mess.
"House rules prohibit the word 'lie,' so I'll just say our government has been 'economical with the truth' on B.C.'s finances.
"Look at then-premier Gordon Campbell's pre-election statement in April 2009: 'I can tell you this -- the deficit for 2009-2010 will be $495 million maximum.'
"It ended up at $1.8 billion, the worst fudge-it budget in B.C. history. Whoops!
"Of course, by Sept. 2009 then-finance minister Colin Hansen expected the deficit would be $2.8 billion! Whoops!
"And it eventually ended up at $1.8 billion, the worst fudge-it budget in B.C. history. Whoops again!
"That's why we panicked and introduced the Harmonized Sales Tax -- a third whoops! -- with more disastrous consequences that made Campbell a 'tax exile' in England!
"So I don't dare say this budget is balanced. Because it is not. And other than with blatant trickery, how could it be?
"Just look at BC Hydro alone.
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2013/02/19/BC-Budget-Speech/
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Another bad day in a series of bad days, weeks, and months for BC's alienated and out-of-touch un-elected by the people Premier Christy Clark
New B.C. Liberal candidate has ties to shuttered pulp mill
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/new-bc-liberal-cand...
It appears Akin needs to do a bit more in depth thinking
B.C. premier Christy Clark draws criticism for using her son in ‘Family Day’ ad
The Sun News' David Akin suggests the ad is an attempt to improve Clark's public image — ahead of a May election — especially among women.
Political analyst Alex Tsakumis, however, believes there's a little something more sinister here.
"Explain how it's at all fair — or appropriate — for the BC Liberals to be using advertising that suggests [Clark] is somehow extra qualified to be elected premier, because she's a mother," he wrote on hisFacebook page.
"Setting aside the disgrace of using one's own child as a political pawn, I ask: Is [NDP leader] Adrian Dix less qualified to be premier because he and Rene chose not to have children or simply didn't? An absolutely despicable advertising undercurrent. The BC Liberals have reached rock bottom in the shamelessness and unkindness. The election cannot come soon enough. As a British Columbian I am ASHAMED of my government. Politics is an ugly business, but this kind of evil is beyond the pale."
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/b-c-premier-christy-clark...
WebRepcurrentVotenoRatingnoWeightEditorial: Dix makes a canny move
Adrian Dix modestly insists the outcome of the May 14 provincial election is not guaranteed to go his way, and he is not taking for granted that the New Democrats will form the next government.
But Dix’s appointment of Don Wright as deputy minister to the premier, should the NDP form the next provincial government, shows that the NDP leader considers victory a strong possibility.
But it’s more than presumptuousness — it’s a brilliant move. Rather than rewarding a party loyalist with the high-level appointment, Dix has chosen a well-educated, broadly experienced professional to head the province’s public service. In doing so, he has taken some wind out of the sails of the B.C. Liberals, who are fond of portraying the NDP as a horde of socialists.
Wright is no partisan patsy. He has worked at the deputy-minister level for provincial governments across the political spectrum, from Grant Devine’s Progressive Conservatives in Saskatchewan to Liberal and NDP administrations in B.C. He has worked in provincial ministries of finance, trade and investment, forests and education. In doing so, he has earned a reputation for professionalism, civility and thoughtfulness.
http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-dix-makes-a-ca...
And now the revised budget is going to borrow some NDP tax ideas... while also selling off assets (more of an Ernie Eves borrowing).
Sullivan will get trounced tonite
In False Creek, a Window into How Candidates Are Chosen
Sullivan vs. Mayencourt: Two old political hands battle for Liberal nod tonight.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/02/20/False-Creek-Liberals/
Liberal insider tears strip off B.C. budget
Martyn Brown says budget will have NDP 'jumping for joy'
CBC News Posted: Feb 19, 2013 7:35 PM PT Last Updated: Feb 19, 2013 9:20 PM PT Read 88 comments88 Video Content
Liberal Insider knocks B.C. budget2:39
The B.C. Liberal government likely has the provincial NDP “jumping for joy,” says Martyn Brown, chief of staff to former premier Gordon Campbell, in a scathing critique of the budget during an interview with CBC News anchor Gloria Macarenko Tuesday.
Brown, a longtime Liberal insider in B.C., said the budget had done the NDP’s tax-raising “dirty work” for them.
“The budget basically conceded the tax turf to the NDP,” Brown said.
“I think the only ones jumping for joy today, really, will be the NDP because, effectively, this government has done the dirty work of saying it needs to increase corporate taxes, it needs to increase personal taxes on higher income earners, it’s increasing MSP premiums.”
He said the Liberals basically came up with the very tax agenda that the New Democrats had been suggesting.
“And most of that won’t take effect until next January, a year from now, so you won’t feel it in this election year but you sure will feel it in the years to come,” said Brown.
'A lot to do about nothing'
Brown also predicted the budget will be dead before it has much chance to be enacted.
“It’s not going to matter. This budget won’t see the light of day no matter who gets elected. They’re going to have to introduce a new budget. All the assumptions will be re-evaluated in May and all of the spending will be re-evaluated in May. So really, this is a lot to do about nothing.”
Brown, author of the e-book, Towards a New Government in British Columbia, has been highly critical of the two-year-old Christy Clark administration, and for months has been predicting an NDP victory in the May 14 election.
He says he still is pulling for the Liberals to win, but isn’t holding out much hope.
“Miracles do happen in politics, but it’s a long shot, to put it mildly,” Brown said.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/02/19/bc-marty...
This, I think, is the key. The segment of BC Liberals that support Vision over NPA are not going to take kindly to Sullivan, similar to what happened to Anton.
Nonetheless, it says something sad about the party when the best you can come up with is Lorne Mayencourt.
Adrian Dix just scored a winning goal against the BC Liberal budget during Oral Questions today, by asking them to withdraw their advertising campaign instead of taking away money from disadvantaged BCers.
Sam Sullivan won the nomination for Vancouver-False Creek. I think Matt Toner is not going to have an easy job winning this one. Constance Barnes would have had it in the bag.
Anyway - here's my not-so-farfetched speculation. Sullivan wins in False Creek. Clark loses her seat and the NDP takes government. The Liberals have a leadership convention by the end of the year. Sullivan runs for leader of the official opposition.
This goes to show that Christy Clark can't even control her own party nominations. She is obviously in a lot worse shape than I expected.
Sam Sullivan, the guy who once collected welfare, and who now hates people on welfare, wants to represent you in the Ledge.
These BC Liberals are such a classy group.