Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced this morning that a by-election will be held in the federal riding of Labrador on May 13. The riding became vacant after Conservative MP Peter Penashue, then a member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet, admitted that his campaign violated federal election finance laws in the May 2011 general election. Penashue, in that general election, won by a handful of votes and it was quite reasonable to assume that the extra illegal spending his campaign did in that general election could have made the difference.
Elections Canada is still investigating the over-spending and its investigation will be unaffected by the by-election. Moreover, Penashue is not avoiding any sanction he may face from Elections Canada by resigning and running again. That peril will still exist for Penashue regardless of the by-election and its outcome.
This by-election really won’t change a thing in the House of Commons. No matter who wins, the Conservatives will still have a majority; the NDP will still be the Official Opposition; and the Liberals will still be the third party. And yet, for a by-election that means so little in the big scheme of things (though obviously a big deal for the good people of the riding), there is a surprising amount of political capital at stake. For that reason, expect all three of those parties to be campaigning heavily to win. Some notes on what’s at stake …
- The candidates: Running for the Conservatives, incumbent and former Innu Nation leader: Peter Penashue. For the Liberals, member of the provincial legislature and breast cancer survivor Yvonne Jones. For the New Democrats, native Labradorian and analyst at the not-for-profit research outfit C-Core Harry Borlase.
- Electoral co-operation to defeat Conservatives If you believe the recent polls from Forum Research and Ipsos Reid, no electoral co-operation is needed to defeat Conservatives as the Liberals under Justin Trudeau will simply sweep the Harper Tories away all by themselves and the sun will shine once again on this glorious Dominion. Liberal MP Joyce Murray, does not believe it will be that easy, and the hallmark of her campaign to steal an upset win over Trudeau in the Liberal leadership contest was a proposition to explore ways of Liberals co-operating with other parties — Liberals or Greens, primarily — to defeat Conservatives. Murray’s idea got a nice little boost on March 23 when the Green Party of Canada announced it was standing down in the Labrador by-election and would not field a candidate in this by-election and was doing so at Murray’s request . Mind you, this was relatively symbolic (empty?) gesture by the Greens. While it is true that adding up all the votes cast for the Liberal candidate and the Green candidate in the 2011 general election added up to more than the votes received by the victorious Penashue, one needs to take a close look at the numbers from that election: Penashue won with 4,256 votes. The Liberal, incumbent MP Todd Russell, was 79 votes behind Penashue with 4,177. The Green candidate, had just 139 votes. So add the 139 Green votes to the 4,177 Liberal votes and Russell wins. Mind you, that assumes that every Green voter would have gone Liberal. I suspect if Green was not a ballot choice (as it is now), a few of those Green voters would not vote or would vote Conservative or NDP. Still, if the Liberals win this by-election, Murray and other “cooperationists” will have something to talk about.
- Pressure on the Liberals: Since Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation, the MP from the riding of Labrador has been a Liberal always except for the period between 1968 and 1972 when Labradorians resisted the siren call of Trudeaumania then sweeping the land and sent Ambrose Peddle to Ottawa to represent what was then known as Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador. Then, of course, Penashue stole it from the Liberals in 2011. It was a steal absolutely no one saw coming. Rightly or wrongly, there were suggestions in 2011 among Liberals in Ottawa that Russell — who had been popular MP here in Ottawa among the press and MPs of all parties — had let things slide a bit during the campaign and perhaps did not work the riding with the same zeal he ought to have. In any event: Given the party’s history in the riding, they would certainly be the favourite to win here. Not only that, but the Liberals are about to crown a new leader and, fairly or not, many will look at this race as the first chance for a verdict on that leader, likely Justin Trudeau. Winning this riding, will give the new leader some wind in his or her sails. Losing the riding to the Conservatives would be an embarrassment for the new leader but losing to the New Democrats may be even worse as New Democrats will then be crowing that Labradorians know who the real alternative to Stephen Harper is — it’s Thomas Mulcair. That is a narrative the Liberals cannot afford to let grow ahead of the 2015 election.
- Pressure on the NDP: The New Democrats have never had much success in this riding. Since the modern version of the riding was created in time for the election of 1988, the NDP candidate finished 2nd just twice through eight general elections and two by-elections. The best the NDP ever did in popular vote was in the general election of 1997 when the candidate finished 2nd with 38% of the popular vote. In four general elections and one by-election since 2004, the NDP never garnered more than 10 per cent of the popular vote — until 2011 when the Orange Wave that was sweeping Quebec right next door (and the ridings on Labrador’s border with Quebec are all held by the NDP) managed to swell the NDP popular vote in Labrador to 19.8%. And yet: Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair has already been up in the riding campaigning and you can expect a steady stream of sitting NDP MPs to hit the trail there. The NDP wants to win this one mostly to show to the country that Mulcair’s NDP is the one, true alternative to Harper’s Conservatives and not the Liberals and their new leader. Moreover, Mulcair would reverse a key caucus setbacks he suffered since becoming leader in 2012. He had Quebec MP Claude Patry defect to the Bloc Quebecois on his watch. New Democrats would spin a win in Labrador as an endorsement of Mulcair’s leadership.
- Pressure on the Conservatives: Unusually for a by-election, a prime minister has staked some of his personal political capital on the outcome. In the House of Commons, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has repeatedly referred to Penashue as the “best MP” Labrador has ever had when Harper has had to defence Penashue’sending violations. A Penashue win vindicates Harper’s judgement; a Penashue loss puts that judgement in question. Now, ever since Harper became prime minister in 2006, the Conservative spin ahead of each by-election it has been involved with his a variation on “By-elections are always tough on incumbent governments”. Conservatives have always wanted to lower expectations. And yet, the record shows that the governing Conservatives have done best of any party in the 20 by-elections held since 2006. The Conservatives went into three of those by-elections as the incumbent party and held each time (Crockatt in Calgary-Centre, 2012; O’Toole in Durham, 2012; and Sopuck in Dauphin–Swan River–Marquette; 2009) . But the Conservatives has stolen 5 ridings through byelections (Fantino in Vaughan 2010; Armstrong in Cumberland–Colchester–Musquodoboit Valley 2009; Genereux in Montmagny-L’Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup 2009; Clarke in Desnethé–Missinippi–Churchill River 2008; and Lebel in Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean 2007). The last time we had by-elections, in November, there were a trio and the incumbent parties all held their own with the Tories winning two and the NDP winning one. (And I, like many pundits, saw some good things and bad things for different parties in those results. ) So the don’t believe the party spin: The Conservatives do exceedingly well in by-elections and they are the incumbent party with a candidate who, a few weeks ago, was in Stephen Harper’s cabinet. They should hold.