Green's Support Surpasses NDP's in Canada for First Time Ever

[\/\/illy]

Green's Support Surpasses NDP's in Canada for First Time Ever

National support for the Green Party has surged above the NDP's support for the first time ever.

The survey by the Strategic Counsel for The Globe and Mail/CTV shows the Green Party at 13% across Canada ahead of the NDP at 12%.

In the West the Greens are at 18% -- two per cent ahead of the NDP. In Quebec the Greens are at 10% while the NDP is at 7% and in Ontario the Greens and the NDP are tied at 12%. So the Green Party is ahead of the NDP in every region -- except Ontario where it's a tie.

The most important pages of Strategic Counsel's poll are available for download as an attachment below or you can download the full poll from http://www.thestrategiccounsel.com/our_news/polls.asp (Nov 12, 2007).

Greens Set to Elect First MPs

This positions the Green Party to elect the first Green caucus of MPs in the upcoming federal election. It's interesting to note that the NDP in 1993 with 6.88% of the vote elected 9 MPs. The Green Party is now at almost double that national threshold.

It's important to note that in the Ontario provincial election -- the last six polls conducted by six different polling companies just prior to the October 10 election when added together and averaged out, pegged the Green Party of Ontario at 8% -- as noted by Greg Morrow of DemocraticSpace. And the GPO won exactly 8% -- meaning that the Green Party's vote has hardened over the 2006 election. There was no slippage due to strategic voting. Canadians are just getting deeply worried about climate change and realize the old parties have done nothing about it.

Get ready for some real shake ups in Canadian politics in the coming week and months. Canadians are even more disillusioned with all the old-line traditional parties than they have been in past. Recent developments in the past two weeks can shake the Conservatives to the core and create a major realignment.

Harper’s Hypocrisy

The poll shows incredible weakness for Harper and the Conservatives.

After campaigning tirelessly, ceaselessly, incessantly on accountability and wanting to rout out corruption, Harper refused steadfastly to call an inquiry into the controversy that has exploded after recent revelations that former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s did in fact receive $300,000 in three cash payments from German businessman Karlheinz Schreiber.

With poll numbers plummeting, Prime Minister Harper was finally forced to call for a "probe" into the affair.

For excellent backgrounders on the Mulroney-Schreiber Affair see http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/moneytruthandspin/character_schreiber.html and http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/moneytruthandspin/money.html

Harper's stonewalling and excuses are taking a toll on his credibitlity. Was Harper's and the Conservative's commitment to accountability and exposing corruption only limited to the Liberal Party?

Did Mr Harper feel that Canadians' absolute distaste and revulsion at large envelopes stuffed with cash being surreptitiously passed under the table at clandestine meetings was strictly limited to Adscam?

Harper's stonewalling, delaying, excuses and threats of investigating past Liberal leaders' affairs as an excuse for not investigating this affair are glaringly hypocritical. One blogger has put it so well, I'll just quote him:

"Stephen Harper has long been a man who has inveighed against corruption in high places. When he became Canadian PM he arrived in Ottawa with the steely eyed look of the reformer. He was hell bent on cleaning up government and demanded accountability across the board. A new era had dawned in Canadian politics with Captain Clean at the helm.

Reformers can be challenging to be around. Harper proved to be just as controlling as you might expect a zealot to be, especially in his dealings with the press. This definitely wasn't a fun guy. But he was righteous. He gleamed with the sanctimonious sheen of the corruption buster.

He was also the Adscam slayer. Conservative pundits were shrill in their denunciation of shady practices in Quebec ad agencies where invisible people were collecting salaries - possibly even dead people and their long deceased mothers. They also denounced the undercover game best known as the 'brown envelope express', that allowed sketchy players in Quebec to pocket wads of cash just for playing the old Canadian unity game."

From Aidan Maconachy at http://aidanmaconachyblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/mulroney-schreiber-connec...

Here's another great blog on this: http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature7.cfm?REF=571

Important Distinction

Watch the language over the next few days and weeks. A "probe" is toothless PR exercise that's worthless. So is a "third party review." A "full-fledged inquiry" is powerless. The only reason everything surfaced about Adscam was Prime Minster Martin launched a judicial inquiry in which Justice Gomery had legal powers to subpoena witnesses and force them to testify. Harper's calling for an third party probe into the Mulroney-Schreiber Affair has no such powers. Only a judicial inquiry will get to the bottom of the affair.

Shifting Polls

The Liberals and Conservatives are now both tied at 32% across Canada, the Greens at 13% and the NDP at 12%. It is the first time ever the Green Party has exceeded the NDP.

In many polls over the last year the support for the Green Party has exceeded the Bloc's but this is the first time it’s exceeded the NDP’s.

In Ontario, which has 106 of the 308 federal seats, the Liberals are at 47% while the Conservatives have plummeted to 29%. The Green Party is at 12% tied with the NDP.

In the West the Green Party is at 18% -- two per cent ahead of the NDP while the Conservatives are at 43% (largely influenced by overwhelming support n Alberta); the Liberals 24%.

The poll of 1,000 Canadians was conducted Nov. 8-11 and is accurate to within 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

The poll is bad news for the NDP as its support has fallen as voters have moved to supporting the Greens and Liberals.

I will add more detail to this in the coming hours and day.

NDP Reaction

One NDP blogger reacting to this news has written:

. . . [this] "shouldn’t go unacknowledged on an NDPers blog. To that I offer this, I greatly doubt the Green’s could sustain these numbers in a national election.

Well this has simply pissed me off. So I'll throw down the gauntlet and say:

1) It’s important to note that in the 2007 Ontario provincial election — the last poll conducted by each of six major polling companies just prior to October 10 when added together and averaged pegged the Green Party of Ontario at 8% — as calculated by Greg Morrow of DemocraticSpace. And the GPO won exactly 8% — meaning that the Green Party’s vote did not decline at all on Election Day. The Green Party's vote has hardened. There was no slippage due to strategic voting. Canadians are just deeply worried about climate change and realize the old parties have done nothing about it.

2) In the London North Centre by-election the NDP said that the Green Party wouldn’t be a serious player — but it was the NDP’s vote that collapsed from 24% to 14%. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_North_Centre

And similarly in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound in the 2007 Ontario Provincial election, the NDP vote collapsed from 14% in a poll in the last two weeks of the campaign to 3.8% on Eday. For the actual election results see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce%E2%80%94Grey%E2%80%94Owen_Sound_%28pr...

If any party should be concerned about their vote collapsing it should be the NDP.

The Green Party has now surpassed the NDP in PEI — where it is the Green Party of PEI is the third provincial party.

In Calgary in the last Alberta provincial election the Greens won more votes in the city’s 22 ridings than the NDP. In national polls the GPC regularly has higher support in Alberta than the NDP.

In the 2006 federal election the Greens won roughly as many votes in Quebec as the NDP did in 2004. In Quebec the Green Party has polled higher than the NDP in numerous polls from different polling companies in different times (including this one).

And finally here today the Green Party is ahead of the NDP all across Canada.

Well, once Canadians realize that the NDP is struggling in provinces throughout the country, and that the Greens are a growing, exciting, vibrant, principle-based progressive party — look out — the NDP can and will collapse across the country.

With Buzz Hargrove arguing that union members should vote for the Liberals and the Greens rapid rise, the NDP should be worried.

Greens are Neither Right nor Left -- but out in Front

One of the things that some commentators don't understand is that the Green Party isn't right or left. One of my favourite blogs that I've written is entitled Greens: More Fiscally Responsible than Conservatives, more progressive than NDP you can see it at http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/1150

[Davey Boy 2.0]

please

[\/\/illy]

Meh; can't be bothered. This is too big for some other forum. It's a general forum not a "not politics" forum. ;-)

[phishtaper]

agreed, it's just one thread, not 15 separate Slip or Ween threads. besides, the politics forum is a ghetto. its nice to discuss things out in the open.

wooohooo Greens!!

[Esau.]

please

I imagine this thread will be there before this time tomorrow anyhow.

[Schwa.]

please

I imagine this thread will be there before this time tomorrow anyhow.

Welcome to the Jambands Dictatorship Anyway, who says my vote didn't count!?!

[Velvet]

Perhaps I missed something, but I see is no mention of voters opinions in eastern Canada where the NDP have traditionally been pretty strong. They mention the west, Ontario nad Quebec and conclude that the Greens are ahead in every region. Over 25% of our provinces seem to be ignored.

That said, it's nice that people actually seem to be concerned about the planet a wee bit.

[ollie]

please

I imagine this thread will be there before this time tomorrow anyhow.

Welcome to the Jambands Dictatorship Anyway' date=' who says my vote didn't count!?![/quote']

And listen to you bitches whine about it for a couple of days? Meh; can't be bothered.