Mulroney-Schreiber and the Polls

As we head into Christmas week we have now heard from both Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber on the Airbus/Bear Head affairs. The key political impact TC thinks is likely a neutralizing effect on the next campaign: it takes scandal off the table as a tool the Conservatives could use against the Liberals. TC did not actually believe that running on sponsorship again was viable but the Conservatives have continued to brag about the Accountability Act and may have entertained thoughts of using the issue again. Effectively sponsorship is neutralized because if the issue arises many will start thinking of Mulroney-Schreiber. The winners then would be the NDP and the Bloc so the two major parties look like they will try to stage an electoral battle on other issues.

Where are we at in the polls? On November 20 Harris Decima declared:

A new Canadian Press Harris/Decima survey shows that the Conservatives have opened up an eight point lead over the Liberals, and are so far escaping harm from the fallout of the Mulroney-Schreiber dispute.

Then on December 8 Ipsos weighed in with a released headlined “Tory Brand Splashed As Schreiber Mud Flies” that said:

it would appear that the Harper Conservative brand has taken a hit with support dropping to 35%, mainly as a result of sagging Tory fortunes in Ontario and Quebec.

When I averaged those two polls along with the Globe and Mail Strategic Counsel poll published on December 10, I find that the national numbers for the parties are all within 2 points of their performance in January 2006 with the exception of the Greens who are up around five points. TC thinks the polls (especially Strategic Counsel) overstate Green support so it seems likely the parties are closer to the last election result than even the polls suggest.

The two issues to watch for in an election that seems certain for March or April (and which is even more likely if the Mulroney inquiry proceeds because it would occur prior to any public phase of the investigation) are climate change and the economy (the pending U.S. recession may start to loom larger and larger).

But is there more to the Mulroney story? His former Chief of Staff Norman Spector seems to think so. Here is what he said about the Bear Head project today on CTV’s Question Period (see it here:

..the reason that ministers and in particular the prime minister have staff around them is to keep dubious people and to keep dubious projects well away from them yet here you had the prime minister's first chief of staff championing this project, even after leaving government. Mr. Doucette formed a lobby firm and was championing Karlheinz Schreiber's project… I dealt with this project when I was in the prime minister's office and steered it into a deep ditch. I thought it had been killed, Mr. Mulroney said it was dead, but here's a project that kept coming back time after time after time, rising like the phoenix from the ashes… I think it's one of the reasons, along with the cash, that many Canadians believe that there's got to be more here than meets the eye.

There appears to be much more to this story and I suspect we haven't heard the last of it.

While the issue seems unlikely to touch Harper directly, it means he can’t be seen conferring or consulting Mulroney on Quebec. Harper has invested so much political capital (TC thinks this is a futile effort) to replicate Mulroney’s 1984 and 1988 results in Quebec that not being able to consult closely with Mulroney is a real handicap. Mulroney may not be the politician in Canada with the greatest integrity but he does know Quebec politics.

Australian Election and Climate Change

Australia has a single member electoral system like Canada but it uses a preferential ballot. That means that if the leading candidate has less than 50% of the vote, second (and third choices) are counted until one candidate reaches 50%.

The Australian Labour Party has won a majority but there are still some undecided seats. One is La Trobe in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. The Liberal Party (in Australia a small 'c' conservative party) was ahead on the first count but, according to Australian Broadcasting, is likely to lose it on the second choices of Australian Green voters going to Labour. Labour's commitments and the impact of the electoral system (Labour isn't likely forget the role of Green second choices in this election and the potential in the future) likely mean that Australia will go from being a climate change laggard to a leader - one Labour commitment is to immediately ratify Kyoto.

This comes on a weekend when Stephen Harper has demonstrated yet again just how little priority he gives to climate change (indeed one is left with the impression that he simply wouldn't do anything if politics did not matter). Read this analysis of Harper's behaviour by Accidental Deliberations. I think he nails it.

Australian Election, Harper & Climate Change

The Australian election takes place this Saturday, November 24 and Stephen Harper's best international friend, John Howard, is about to lose to the Australian Labour Party (ALP).

The most important aspect of this is that Australia is going to join Kyoto post-election when Labour's leader Kevin Rudd becomes Prime Minister, further isolating Canada on the climate change issue. Take a look at these ads from the ALP:





They could apply to longtime global warming denier Stephen Harper.

Saskatchewan Election Polls

There have been three polls released in the Saskatchewan election, all completed one week or more prior to the actual vote, so there is still some room for movement. One is by Insightrix Research, another by Sigma Analytics, and a third from Winnipeg-based Probe Research.

Averaged together the poll numbers are:

Saskatchewan Party - 51.7%
NDP - 34%
Liberal - 9.1%
Green and Others - 5.1%

The yields the following seat distribution:

Saskatchewan Party - 37
NDP - 21

After 16 years in office the longest-serving administration in Canada (apart from that one party state in Alberta) is going out of office.

Saskatchewan election poll confirms SK Party to win

A poll on the Saskatchewan election out today gives the Saskatchewan Party a commanding lead in public opinion. It gives the Saskatchewan Party a lead of 50% to 35% for the NDP and 10% for the Liberal Party.

My forecast model suggests this would produce a majority SK Party government of 35 seats to 23 for the NDP and none for the Liberals.

The television debate is on now and can be seen on the net on CBC, but it is unlikely to make any difference, especially as the format seems to encourage a free for all.

Seat projections in Hill Times

This week's Hill Times has a story on seat projections made by political scientist Barry Kay.

Here is an excerpt:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority governing Conservatives would have won another minority government in early October, says a leading public opinion expert.

Barry Kay, an associate professor of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., said according to the seat projections he came up with by combining Ipsos Reid and Strategic Counsel polls conducted between Oct. 9 and Oct. 14, the Conservatives would have won 138 seats, the Liberals 101, the NDP 27 and the Bloc 41 and one independent MP would have been elected.

This is consistent with TC's views. Another Conservative minority still seems to be in prospect based on the latest polling by Ipsos.

All Hope of Harper Majority Lost!!

This slightly tongue in cheek header should startle most readers at least slightly. That's because the lines the conventional media have been peddling: the Harper can do no wrong/ Dion can do no right/ pay no attention to the other parties/ an election is just around the corner/ might make it seem a tad confusing. This conventional wisdom has been reinforced by the Ipsos polls, which keeping preaching the notion that the Harper majority is at hand (See the release here titled helpfully, "Canadians Prefer Harper Majority").

The first and most important point about this is that the Ipsos record, while not terrible, is weaker than other pollsters (see this evaluation of how pollsters did in 2006). And so far none of the others are producing polls these days as favourable to the Harper Tories as Ipsos, which just happens to conduct its polls for the blatantly pro-Conservative Canwest press.

However, what I find interesting is that the last two Ipsos polls (I wrote about the earlier one here), as favourable to the Conservatives as they are, still don't produce a majority in my seat estimation model although the most recent one gets close. Another poll out last weekend, done for La Presse by Unimarketing, also showed Liberal decline (to 24.6%) but found much weaker support for the Conservatives (36.3%) with the NDP at 18.9%. This produces a much weaker Conservative minority - 139 C, 81 L, 35 NDP & 53 Bloc. What continues to amaze TC is that even with a 13 point lead, the Ipsos poll doesn't actually produce a Tory majority, hence the header. The Conservatives do have a real uphill struggle to win that elusive majority and it is abundantly clear, poll after poll, that they are not going to find it in Quebec.

There is no doubt the Liberals have had a bad period but as the default choice of so many, especially in Ontario, it would be unwise to simply write them off. I would also like to see the Ottawa media begin to recognize the complexities of a system with extremely strong regional differences, four parties represented in the House, and another on the outside (the Greens) starting to win significant numbers of votes. It is time to move beyond the Harper/Dion soap opera and begin to recognize that Canada is a diverse country with diverse political trends and experiences.