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|Monday JUNE 7, 2004 | BACK | NEXT
65 Liberal seats across country in deep trouble
Here's the thing. If the Canadian Alliance
and the former Progressive Conservative Party were actually united in
the 2000 federal election, the Liberals would have lost 34 seats. (See
the list)
At that time, the Liberals won a majority government with 40 per cent
of the popular vote. But this time it's not enough: in order to win the
same majority the Liberals need 43 per cent to 44 per cent. And that's
not in the cards, at least not right now. As of today, Monday, June 7,
there are 22 days left in the campaign.
If you total the combined votes of the Canadian Alliance and the Tories
in all provinces, excluding Québec, the Liberals would have lost
one seat in Alberta (Anne McLellan), two seats in British Columbia
(Stephen Owen and Herb Dhaliwal), one seat in Manitoba (John
Harvard's), three in Nova Scotia (Andy Savoy, Andy Scott and Robert
Thibault), one seat in Prince Edward Island (Lawrence MacAulay) the one
Yukon seat (Larry Bagnell), and 25 in Ontario (see list on page 16). In
all these seats, the Liberals had a negative balance varying from the
-13,389 of John O'Reilly in Haliburton, Ont., to the -59 of Bonnie
Brown in Oakville. Moreover, if you consider all the Liberal candidates
who won with less than 4,000 votes to a Conservative or Alliance
representative, the total goes up to 65 seats (Sue Barnes in London
West won with 3,844 votes more than the PC-Alliance candidates' support
combined).
There are many differences between the political environment in the
2000 federal election and the 2004 election: different leaders, many
incumbents retired and, most of all, new boundaries in the ridings.
Many political observers have concluded that it's impossible to use
those results to make some predictions for the outcome of the June 28,
2004 elections.
Even though I acknowledge the profound differences within each
political organization, I believe that the 2000 elections can give you
a strong indication of what can happen on June 28.
In fact, the most important change between now and four years ago is
the merger between the Canadian Alliance and the Conservative Party.
The Liberals won a third consecutive majority with the support of 40.8
per cent of the popular vote. The Canadian Alliance received 25.5 per
cent of the support, the Conservatives stopped at 12.2 and the NDP won
8.5 per cent.
The Liberals won 172 seats, including 101 only in the most "seat rich"
province of Ontario.
According to last week's Ipsos-Reid poll, the Liberals have the support
of 34 per cent of the electorate, nationally, while the new united
Conservatives are up to 30 per cent. This means that all the Liberal
seats won with a majority of less than 4,000 votes are in real and
present danger. And there are, in total, 65 of them.
The problems for the Liberals are deep, especially in Ontario where
they won almost two-thirds of their national seats. In this province
they got the support of 51.5 per cent of the electorate; now, according
to pollster Ipsos Reid, they are down to 36 per cent. This means they
can lose almost half of them.
There are problems also in Québec, were the Liberals won in the
2000 election the support of 44.2 per cent of the popular support while
the Bloc won 39 per cent. This allowed Jean Chrétien's Liberals
to win 36 seats against the 38 for the Bloc. This means that the
Liberals, if the polls stay the way they are -- and that is a drop of
10 points, will lose in Québec at least 15-20 more seats. After
looking at the numbers of the 2000 election and talking to many
Liberals in Montreal and Québec City, I believe that Liberals
will win 15-17 seats in the Montreal area and three to five seats in
the rest of the province.
These results, combined with the loss in Ontario, might leave Martin
with just a few seats over 120.
Of course, there are many changes, as I said in the beginning, that
might influence the outcome. Nonetheless, there is one thing they
cannot change: the merger between the Canadian Alliance and the
Conservative parties.
This means that Mr. Martin, if he wants to win the same number of seats
his predecessor did in 2000, needs to bring his national percentage to
at least at 44 per cent and regain at least 15 points in Ontario and 10
points in Québec. Not to mention the dramatic situation in
British Columbia.
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