Your Friday morning coast-to-coast link roundup:
Atlantic Canada: CRA’s quarterly poll numbers have been released, showing the PCs up by 12 in New Brunswick and the NDP up by just 2 in Nova Scotia. The PEI headlines scream about “plunging” satisfaction with the Ghiz government, but the Liberals still lead 20 points – I think most Premiers would be happy if their numbers plunged to those depths. In Newfoundland, the PCs still lead by 16 points, but that’s a far cry from the old days when Danny Williams routinely polled over 100%.
Quebec: Expect protests on the streets of Montreal to continue through the summer, as negotiations between embittered students and the Quebec government have broken off. Far be it from me to tell Jean Charest what to do, since the man has repeatedly proven himself to be a modern day Lazarus, but if I were him I’d roll the dice and call an election on this issue. Even if the public is mixed on his handling of the protests, it’s a chance for him to look strong and make the election about an issue he could potentially win on.
Saskatchewan: Nothing to see here – everyone still loves Brad .
British Columbia: At the other end of the “most popular Premiers” poll is Christy Clark, who has taken to explictly criticizing Angus Reid. Perhaps the situation isn’t as dire as the polls suggest, but it’s been over a year since any pollster showed Clark ahead and four different companies confirm double-digit leads for the NDP. We’re still a year away from the BC election, but that incumbent winning streak we’ve heard so much about is going to be seriously put to the test (if not before then in Nova Scotia or Quebec).
10 responses to “Provincial Matters”
Nothing about Alberta?
Alberta will get blogged about the next time it has a meaningful election. So, like, 2029.
Haha.
I was expecting a Quebec election this spring, but I didn’t foresee the student strikes lasting this long. I don’t think anyone did either…
My revised prediction for an election calls for it to be launched in either August or September. If the strikes aren’t over yet (which looks possible at this point), it’ll be over that issue. If the situation is resolved, then Charest can hope to claim that he fixed it all and is now looking ahead. In both cases, it slips by before the Charbonneau inquiry gains too much steam.
I’m really surprised to see the NDP doing so well on PEI. With these numbers they could win up to 4 seats.
There’s a reason everyone (67%) here loves Brad.
He’s pulling a Walker on _Canadian_ conservative values.
– Balanced bugets,
– Loves the Riders and coaches football,
– Reduction of civil service through attrition,
– Believes in small business
– Doesn’t trust big business (incl. Crown Corps),
– The quid-pro-quo he demanded from Potash Corp while keeping the potash industry healthy.
– The changes to the Sask. HRC’s to move through courts.
Course, that’s just from a supporter, all are welcome to disagree…but that’s kind of the point, no?
Hard to know what to make about the NDP numbers on PEI. Could just be vote-parking (especially since, based on the percentages, a lot of it must be coming from the conservative end of the spectrum), but could be more substantial. The NDP has never really had a real provincial foundation on the Island, so there’s not much to compare it with.
We’re talking about a 300 sample size survey for PEI, so there’s obviously a huge margin of error.
That said, the NDP’s strong federal showing may give them a bit more legitimacy in some provinces. So someone disgruntled with Ghiz, could see them as a credible alternative (even if it’s just vote parking).
That’s 300 out of 140,000 people though, a higher percentage of the population surveyed then most polls.
True, but we’re still talking about a 5-6% margin of error.
Of course, the NDP are up 7 points, so maybe there is something to it. It’s just a little risky to read too much into the poll numbers of leaderless parties.