Thoughts ahead of by-elections: All politics are local, this time more than most

When the polls close Monday evening in three by-elections across the country, many in the nation’s capital believe the results will tell us a great deal about the popularity of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives or which party has the early lead to carry the anti-Harper banner in the 2015 general election.

In fact, voters in the Ontario riding of Durham, the Alberta riding of Calgary Centre, and the B.C. riding of Victoria are quite likely to cast a vote with any number of provincial and municipal issues on their mind.

After all, just as there is only one taxpayer, there is only one voter.

So though that one voter is electing a federal politician, that voter may be influenced by issues which that federal politician could have very little to do with.

In Ontario, for example, there is considerable anger that the Liberal premier of that province, the soon-to-be-retired Dalton McGuinty, has prorogued the legislature to avoid scrutiny of a growing scandal. If the federal Conservatives hold this riding – Bev Oda of the $16 orange juice is the retiring MP – it is reasonable to assume some saw this as the first opportunity to cast a ballot against a Liberal, be that Liberal a provincial one or a federal one.

In Calgary Centre, provincial and municipal politics are almost impossible to separate from federal politics.

Progressive Conservative Premier Alison Redford has had plenty of unflattering headlines about some campaign finance oddities, and small-c conservatives, who find voice in the provincial Wildrose opposition, are upset about Redford’s fiscal stewardship.

The federal Conservative candidate in Calgary Centre is Joan Crockatt. During the Alberta election, Crockatt clearly sided with Wildrose and its leader Danielle Smith.

So Crockatt could get sent to Ottawa by some who think in doing so they’ll send a message to Edmonton and Premier Redford.

On the other hand, Crockatt is running from the right in a riding which is more of a Red-Tory riding than most. Indeed, one of the provincial ridings within the federal riding is Calgary Buffalo, currently held by an Alberta Liberal.

But anti-Crockatt progressives are not automatically expected to jump to the federal Liberal candidate, environmentalist Harvey Locke. Many are taking a close look at the Green Party candidate Chris Turner who, it turns out, is getting some help and moral support from political operative Stephen Carter.

Carter is the political backroom boy-wonder who helped the progressive Naheed Nenshi become the mayor of Calgary and then went on to be one of the strategists who helped Redford come from behind to win her party’s leadership and the subsequent election. Though Nenshi is officially neutral in this race, he is a popular force in Calgary, and Turner’s connection to Nenshi could help him.

And in British Columbia’s capital city, the big issue in the byelection in the riding federal riding of Victoria is a decidedly local one: Whether or not to build a new $800-million sewage treatment plant, funded mostly by jacking up local taxes, or continue to simply dump sewage into the Pacific Ocean.

Only the NDP favours raising and spending the money. The other candidates say the science isn’t there – the deep ocean deals with the waste just fine, they say – and as a result it would be a waste of tax dollars to build the plant.

Elections Canada will have the first results after 10 p.m. Eastern time.

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