Comments on: Could Saanich—Gulf Islands send May to Parliament?

By: Camille Labchuk

Camille Labchuk — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:28:22 +0000

A reader: yes — it would be more accurate to say SGI contains part of the territory once covered by Nanaimo–Cowichan–The Islands, and I’ve edited accordingly. No “deliberate effort” to do anything, in particular. Like Elizabeth, I have a great deal of respect for Tommy Douglas, and simply happen to think it’s a cool factoid.

By: A reader

A reader — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:43:37 +0000

I’ve just noticed that you claimed the Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands from an earlier representation order was the same riding as Saanich-Gulf Islands now, but I would strongly dispute that.

North Saanich and Sidney are nothing like Nanaimo, Ladysmith and Cowichan. All the two ridings would have had in common were some of the Gulf Islands.

The 1974 riding that shared more in common with Saanich-Gulf Islands was Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca (described as “consist[ing] of the southern part of Vancouver Island and off-shore islands”), which was held by a Conservative during that time.

I don’t know if this is confusion or a deliberate effort to try and gain some advantage through a tenuous connection to Mr. Douglas’ legacy, although I have my suspicions. Certainly John Fryer would know the difference between the two ridings, or ought to have.

Elizabeth May is no Tommy Douglas, not even close, and it was more than a little nauseating to hear her intone his name in that recent interview with Barbara Yaffe trying to claim some of his legacy.

Glad to see that Greg Morrow knows the difference.

By: Ken Summers

Ken Summers — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:00:07 +0000

Well, we have now a long running differenec over, each with considerable experience to draw on, what is easily [enough] achieved. We have even differed on what is feasible for the Liberals to achieve, let alone something about Greens where you have a stake.

By: Bluegreenblogger

Bluegreenblogger — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:20:21 +0000

Ken, you are right and wrong (does that surprise you coming from me?)I have managed Marketing and Sales since the late 1980’s. It has always surprised me that what would be a commonplace Campaign in the private sector 20 years ago, is considered cutting edge, and over the top in Canadian Politics in 2009. There is absolutely nothing conceptually wrong with conceiving, and implementing a communications plan as I thumbnailed above. It’s a question of resources, both human, and fiscal, plus moderate skill, and as you said, time.
Many years ago I was told by the GPO Finance Chair that an idea I proposed couldn’t possibly work, because it was so effective that if there wasn’t a problem with it, then the ‘other Party’s’ would be doing it. I’ve build some pretty nifty, and sizeable businesses looking for things that the other guys don’t do, and then doing it, and refining it. Politics is the same, except the things that could be done are really old potato’s. The much vaunted Conservative ‘expertise’ at direct voter contact, is really very conventional, and 20 years old out there in the ‘real world’.

By: Ken Summers

Ken Summers — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:27:58 +0000

I don’t know that there is ANY Canadian political party that does narrow casting on that scale in a single riding.

As far as I know, the Conservatives are far ahead in doing it. But even they have never assembled the resources to do it on the scale required.

If everything goes right, this campaign COULD achieve a lot of things it appears unlikley to be able to pull off. But I think this particular possibility is outside even that super-optimistic realm.

On the other hand… if the SGI campaign snaps immediately into discipline and focus and seamless operation, and we don’t have a general election for 2 years…. that could develop the kind of depth of voter IDing required for this much narrowcasting, and the sophistication at tight messaging, and…

By: Bluegreenblogger

Bluegreenblogger — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:56:57 +0000

In all fairness, if the Campaign can target an effective message on seniors, and if they have a strong enough ground war to deliver the message, one-on-one, then that’s the mechanism whereby the win may be possible. Problem is that it’ll take a lot of work to narrowcast the message, and it must be narrowcast because broadcasting a Conservative priendly message will turn off more Liberal and Dipper voters than could be poached from the CPC.

By: Greg Morrow

Greg Morrow — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:49:36 +0000

Internal polls, while useful, should not be the deciding factor. First, they measure only latent support, not the ability to actual deliver results. But more importantly, the margins of error are too high in a single riding poll — for example, if they used a 500-person poll, it would have a 9-1/2 point range — so riding polls give only the roughest of idea of relative strength. And if the results overlapped within the margins, then it doesn’t really say much. Moreover, they are flawed this far ahead of the election because we cannot prompt for other party candidates other than the incumbent (since they haven’t been nominated yet). Ironically, they aren’t as reliable as my methodology of using aggregated regional polling data, adjusting for historical trends and candidates (which carries a MOE of +/- 1.5%). Here’s what I had for May’s two previous attempts, which as you can see aren’t too far off what happened.

LONDON NORTH CENTRE
Party / Candidate / Predicted / Actual
LIB / Glen Pearson / 33-35% (34% avg) / 34.9%
GPC / Elizabeth May / 22-24% (23% avg) / 25.8%
CPC / Dianne Haskett / 23-25% (24% avg) / 24.5%
NDP / Megan Walker / 17-19% (18% avg) / 14.1%

CENTRAL NOVA
Party / Candidate / Predicted / Actual
CPC / Peter Mackay / 41-44% (43% avg) / 46.6%
GPC / Elizabeth May / 33-36% (34% avg) / 32.2%
NDP / Louise Lorifice / 20-23% (21% avg) / 19.6%

Second point re: demographics, seniors in particular. The polling is crystal clear about this: Green support is inversely proportional to age: 26.9% in the < 25 demographic (highest of any party), 5.8% in the 65+ demographic (lowest of any party). That Saanich has the 3rd highest senior population in the country should be very concerning to the GPC.

By: Greg Morrow

Greg Morrow — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:47:54 +0000

A few points:
(1) Ontario, not BC, is the GPC’s base (which I would’ve thought as the GPC’s ON representative you would know!). There are 3 times as many members within less half the distance of Guelph vs Saanich. Look no further than LNC to see what this means.
(2) A party looking to win its first seat must run its best candidate in THE greenest riding, not just “one of the greenest ridings”. Anything less is bad campaign strategy, since, as you noted, “the Greens have made electing Elizabeth May our top priority in the next election.” I’ve shown quantitatively and qualitatively why Guelph is the better choice.
(3) Tommy Douglas represented what is now simply Nanaimo-Cowichan, not Saanich-Gulf Islands. The Gulf Islands, sparsely population back in 1968, were included with Nanaimo and later paired with Saanich, but make no mistake, Douglas’s riding was Nanaimo, which differs quite a bit from Saanich (the former being strongly working class, thus NDP-friendly).
(4) Claiming that any riding the Liberals managed to hold onto while Dion was leader is a bad riding for May is simply non-sensical. Valeriote’s vote total dropped 6 points, the same as the Liberals across Ontario, so it was dragged down along with everyone else. Dion was a “green” Liberal; Ignatieff abandoning the green agenda actually only helps Greens in Guelph. Plus, my assessment factored in current polling.
(5) You’ve got it backwards: Valeriote is a weak, not strong, Liberal and Lunn is a strong, not weak, Conservative — electorally speaking. Valeriote barely won with just 32%, one of the lowest thresholds in the country. It takes pretty contorted logic to claim that a 1st term opposition MP is a weaker opponent than a government Cabinet Minister who has held his riding for over 12 years.
(6) You’re also kidding yourself to think that the 4th fastest-growing riding the country, on the edge of the largest metropolitan area (GTA) in the country with many more newer (and younger) residents is going to be less receptive to a candidate from outside the riding than the 3rd oldest riding with many long-established residents in an area with a far more self-identified island culture. Culturally and demographically, Guelph is a better option.
(7) May is a vote magnet, no question. But she has that advantage in Saanich or Guelph. Either way, she still has a gap to close. But the gap is smaller in Guelph (about 1/3 as much) and you’re starting with more in Guelph (several thousand in IDed supporters and a sizable portion of the riding canvassed vs essentially from scratch in Saanich). Moreover, the threshold to win is lower in Guelph (about as low as it gets), and there is greater potential to steal votes from the incumbent (Greens pull more from ON Liberals than from BC Conservatives), which means the gap is closed twice as much by doing so.
(8) It’s ironic that you claim that Nagy had everything going for him (best Green campaign, endorsements etc) — things that they earned — and didn’t win, yet fail to see that Briony Penn had a far, far greater advantage (the lack of NDP candidate, by virtue of chance) and still lost. You also overlook that Penn had the advantage of getting Liberal party votes (recognizing that the majority of people vote by party), an advantage that May doesn’t have, and the NDP will have a candidate this time.
(9) 56.57% voted against the Conservatives in Saanich vs 67.78% against the Liberals in Guelph — 20% more. There’s greater potential to rally non-Liberals around May in Guelph than non-Conservatives around May in Saanich.

I appreciate that you feel the need to justify choosing Saanich over Guelph, but unfortunately, by any quantitative or qualitative measure, Guelph is a better choice.

By: Camille

Camille — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:32:47 +0000

Greg, as we both know, the two comments you posted yesterday disclosed confidential Green Party information, forcing me to remove them. As per the confidentiality agreement you signed with the Green Party of Canada, it is improper to disclose information that is not public. You’re welcome to resubmit any comments you like, but be advised that I will not publish comments that disclose confidential information.

By: Greg Morrow

Greg Morrow — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:44:49 +0000

Camille – it’s disturbing that you’ve removed my comments.