Since Stephen Harper became leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, he has led his side through 30 by-elections. His party’s record in those by-elections? Pretty good. Conservatives held 7 seats in which they were the incumbent, stole 4 seats from another incumbent party, and suffered 1 loss. In the rest, they were neither the incumbent nor were able to steal. Continue reading By-election scorecards: How have party leaders fared?
Arriving this afternoon in the digital inboxes of members of the Liberal Party of Canada is this fundraising pitch:
Usually, though not always, it’s helpful for a prospective party leader to have members of the legislative caucus on his or her side, the more usually the merrier.
Alison Redford won the Alberta PC leadership with little or no caucus support (and look what happened). Justin Trudeau won with dominant caucus support (and we’ll see what happens.)
In 2009, Christine Elliott tried to win the Ontario PC leadership. She had decent caucus support but finished third, well behind winner Tim Hudak who had some dominant caucus support. Elliott announced this week she is back for another kick at the can, and this time, she appears to be attempting a pre-emptive strike by locking up as much caucus support as possible.
She is the only announced contestant at this point with seven of her caucus colleagues on board. That means that, in a caucus of 28 PC MPPs, 8 (including Elliott) are going to vote for her to be leader — better than one-quarter.
Sylvia Jones is the only one of those seven who, as an MPP, supported Elliott then and will do so again now. Norm Miller was an MPP in 2009 but back then he endorsed Hudak. Now he’s endorsing Elliott. The other five were not MPPs in 2009.
Who else among her current caucus colleagues supported Hudak against her in 2009? Bob Bailey; Toby Barrett; Garfield Dunlop; Lisa MacLeod; Julia Munro; Jim Wilson; John Yakabuski; Ernie Hardeman. MacLeod is considered a likely rival … [Watch as I interview MacLeod on Battleground on Sun News Network last night]
The rest of the current PC Party caucus at Queen’s Park was either not around as MPPs in 2009 or did not back anyone (or, in the case of Randy Hillier, ran for the leadership, finished 4th, and said he is not running this time.)
In the case of the Ontario PCs, it’s also interesting to see which members of the current federal Conservative caucus jumped into the race. Elliott is the widow of former finance minister Jim Flaherty and many in Stephen Harper’s caucus and cabinet got their start at Queen’s Park.
Moreover, many names from the current Conservative caucus have been bandied about as potential Ontario party leaders. Those include Lisa Raitt, John Baird, Tony Clement, Michael Chong, Rick Dykstra, and Patrick Brown.
Here are are current Conservative MPs supported Elliott in 2009: Peter Braid, Colin Carrie, Chong, Ed Holder, Greg Rickford, Bruce Stanton, Peter Van Kesteren, Mike Wallace, Jeff Watson and Terence Young. Elliott’s husband, Flaherty, was the only member of the federal cabinet to support her bid for leader.
Other notables who supported Elliott in 2009: A Toronto city councillor named Rob Ford. And Richard Ciano, how is the current president of the Ontario PCs.
@davidakin Also worth noting that @KellieLeitch, while not an MP in 2009, worked on @chriselliottpc campaign…
— Ian Adams (@Scoop_68) June 26, 2014
It’s worth reviewing who among current federal Conservatives supported Hudak in 2009: They included cabinet heavyweights Baird, Jason Kenney, Peter Van Loan, Clement, and Rob Nicholson.
Among backbenchers, the following supported Hudak: Gord Brown, Patrick Brown, Paul Calandra, Barry Devolin, Dykstra, Royal Galipeau, Daryl Kramp, Pierre Poilievre, Joe Preston, Gary Schellenberger, and David Sweet.
Last night, Olivia Chow unveiled two new radio ads in her campaign to win the job of Mayor of Toronto. The two ads are “attack ads” and they go after the incumbent, Rob Ford. As far as attack ads go, they’re pretty slick and may make you chuckle. Listen to them here: Continue reading Fair to launch attack ads at an opponent who's in re-hab? Chow thinks so
As an Ontario Progressive Conservative, Steve Clark is about safe as safe can be in his Eastern Ontario riding of Leeds-Grenville, but how does he – and other Ontario Tories — make more ridings more Tory-friendly? For Clark, the first step is going to the riding next door, Kingston and the Islands, and asking voters there why they don’t like his party.
A New Democrat talking about slashing deficits? Balancing budgets? Cutting government waste? That would be New Brunswick NDP Leader Dominic Cardy.
The House of Commons shuts down today for the summer recess and so begins a summer of government MPs handing out cheques at various festivals and events around the country.
For your information, the Parliamentary Summer last year ran from June 20 to Oct 15 and, over that period, Conservative MPs put their names on 510 spending announcements. The combined value of all those spending announcements was $2.4 billion.
My database that tracks all these spending announcements, by the way, is now at about 4,800 separate spending announcements since 2011 federal election. They range from, say, the awarding of a $500 million contract to a firm in Esquimalt, BC to retro-fit our submarines to $2,000 to organize some studio tours on Saltspring Island, B.C.. Continue reading Let the summer of spending begin!
We all know about the soi-disant “high-profile” New Democrats who complained in the middle of the recently concluded Ontario election that NDP leader Andrea Horwath had abandoned core NDP principles and, as a result was risking core NDP votes in a crucial election. They “leaked” a letter on May 23 in which they scolded Horwath, saying “you are abandoning those values and constituencies that the party has always championed.” My Parliamentary Press Gallery colleague Tim Harper pithily described this as “a manifesto that reads like it was written at an Annex dinner party that went one bottle of red over the line.” In other words, this was the whining of your downtown Toronto NDP, a certain species of New Democrat that has, at times, been more trouble than it’s worth to a party that was born of Prairie populism and sober down-home common-sense 50 years ago. Continue reading In Ontario and New Brunswick, the NDP go back to populist roots — with much moaning and whining
Severe thunderstorm, torrential rain, Northern Gateway approved, coincidence? NOT
— Adam Vaughan (@TOAdamVaughan) June 17, 2014
Dan Albas is the Conservative MP for the riding of Okanagan-Coquihalla, a riding in the south, central part of the province that is a long, long way from where Enbridge Inc. proposes to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline that will carry as much as 500,000 barrels of Alberta bitumen across the Rockies to the northern B.C. port of Kitimat. Kitimat, incidentally, is in the riding of New Democrat Nathan Cullen, while the pipeline runs through Cullen’s riding and then the ridings of BC Conservative Bob Zimmer (Prince George-Peace River) and Alberta Conservative MPs Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead) and Brian Storseth (Westlock-St. Paul)
Though Albas and his constituents live a long way from the Northern Gateway’s route or port — as do most who live in B.C. — this is a big issue for them. The federal NDP believe that, so far as votes in B.C. go in the 2015 general election, campaigning against the pipeline is electoral gold. Continue reading A Conservative MP from B.C. opens up on Northern Gateway: A highly conditional approval