2008 Federal Election: - Predictions for Toronto Area Constituencies

lordmandeep said:

Bloc and NDP are very worried about Justin Trudeau getting elected. I heard them talk on tv, they are very concerned that if they do not stop him now, he never will be stooped. They may have let a sleeping giant awake.

Its because if the situation stays around the same for another 8-10 years, he could easily get elected based on his name. Really any leader with any sort of Charisma can get elected now. I can even reckon Jean Chretien could get re-elected, because really he is still way more popular and liked then Harper or Dion.


Sure there is resentment to the Trudeau name but trust me, the immigrant vote/Youth vote would go 100% behind him. He also would enjoy a lot of support in the Southern Ontario area where the Trudeau name is seen in a very bright light. Problem is kiss any seat west of Thunder Bay good bye. He could still get a few in BC though.

What I am saying the Liberals would attract back a lot of former liberals and a lot of NDP/Green supporters and they can easily track ahead of the Tories.


What I am saying he an build up around 15-20 seats in Quebec, 20 or so in Atlantic Canada, 15 in the rest and easily close to 85-95 seats in Ontario.



Anyways, I am certain Igantieff could of won this election easily.

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afransen said:

Trudeau is a bit of a lightweight. He'll have to prove himself. Charisma isn't enough...

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kEiThZ said:

I agree Bob Rae would stack up well against Harper. But there is no way he would win Ontario. Iggy might have a better shot in a decade or two.

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I'm not interested in Ignatieff at all.

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lordmandeep said:

Biggest surprise is how the Liberals won Mississauga South but lost Mississauga Erindale and just barley won IN Brampton-West and Brampton Springdale.

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Moonmoth said:

People hold those (quite ingenious) Rae Days against him, after all these years and after it benefitted them and their families!!!

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Biggest surprise is how the Liberals won Mississauga South but lost Mississauga Erindale and just barley won IN Brampton-West and Brampton Springdale.
Damn those were close races. When people say every vote counts, they mean it.

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kEiThZ said:

I don't have anything against him. But the Ontario public does. And that's just life. He lead during a time of economic turmoil and was perceived as doing very little. The Rae days are symbolic to many of his limited action on the economic front. And while the Rae Days lightened the paycheques of civil servants, they were quite expensive for many families who all of a sudden had to spring for a week's worth of child care.

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Moonmoth said:

FYI this was a long time ago and if you recall the Rae days weren't all in a row! It was one day off here or there!

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Devastated Dion set to quit

Oct 16, 2008 04:30 AM

Les Whittington
Joanna Smith
Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA–Devastated by the disappointing showing of his party in the election, Stéphane Dion is expected to announce today that he will step aside as Liberal leader.

Unlike the other party leaders, he made no public appearances yesterday, instead huddling with his family and advisers. Party insiders said he would remain as leader until the Liberals choose a successor.

Dion had been expected to announce in his remarks after the polls closed late Tuesday that he would set in motion a process to allow his party to choose a new leader. But he avoided the subject.

The 26 per cent of the popular vote that the Liberals received on Tuesday is among the worst results the party has ever had. Liberal seats in the House of Commons plummeted to 76 from 95 while the Conservatives strengthened their minority position to 143 seats from 127 at dissolution.

With that record, there was little expectation that Dion would try to hold on to the leadership. "He just can't stay" was a typical assessment from a senior Liberal close to the Dion campaign yesterday.

The party has a biennial convention scheduled in Vancouver in May, where Dion's leadership would face a vote of confidence. Should he step down before then, the Vancouver meeting could be turned into a send-off for Dion and a leadership convention.

Veteran Liberals said Dion, who has never had a strong political organization or powerful backing in the caucus, would be unlikely to survive a leadership review.

It's no secret that Dion – a reserved, unexciting former professor – was a liability for Liberal candidates on voters' doorsteps, and that his Green Shift plan to fight climate change with a carbon tax turned off voters.

"Sometimes in political life ... you make the best efforts and it doesn't show results," said re-elected Vancouver Liberal Ujjal Dosanjh.

"Mr. Dion attempted over the last couple of years to connect with Canadians on the Green Shift or otherwise and ... we came up short," Dosanjh told CBC-TV. But he added that he wasn't taking any position on the current leader's future.

Liberal Jim Karygiannis implied he would like Dion to step down but said the future of his leadership would be up to the Liberal caucus.

"As a caucus we have to see where we went and where we're going and how we go," he said. "The leader also has to decide in his own mind what he wants to do. Is he staying or is he going?

"You don't go from 95 to 76 – you know," he said, trailing off. "It was the worst performance we did in years. ... We're going to have to think about that one."

Karygiannis said the national campaign did nothing to help him get re-elected in the Scarborough-Agincourt riding he has held for 20 years. "There was no message from the national campaign. There was no theme that we've seen and certainly the message from the leader's office was not getting through."

Defeated Nova Scotia Liberal Robert Thibault said the weak national campaign likely had an effect on the traditionally tight race in West Nova, where he lost to Conservative Greg Kerr.

"I was fortunate to win it three times, but the Green Shift was a very, very difficult sell," he said.

Thibault believes Canada will eventually adopt a policy similar to the Green Shift, but, politically, Dion went about it the wrong way.

"He was trying to put it through without proper debate in my mind," Thibault said. "It would have been better to put a green paper forward, tell Canadians: `This is what I'm considering, this is the direction I'd like to go. How do we make this work for you? What are the problems with it?'"

Liberal strategists said Canadians' fears over the economy may have driven voters away from the relatively unknown Dion to Harper, who scores well as an economic manager in opinion surveys.

Insiders said problems with the Green Shift were compounded by Dion's inability to fight effectively the negative attacks that the Conservatives' Stephen Harper launched against the proposal.

One organizer for a Liberal candidate said Dion was a tough sell as a leader because he appeared weak when he repeatedly passed up chances to defeat the Harper government and force an election. The Liberals held back because, under Dion's leadership, polls showed the party was not in a winning position. Senator David Smith, a Liberal campaign co-chair, said it would be wrong for anyone in the party to pressure Dion to step down immediately. He said Dion was in "a period of soul-searching" yesterday.

But supporters of Toronto MPs and leadership aspirants Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae are unlikely to wait very long to press the issue.

http://www.thestar.com/federalelection/article/518354

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