Image of the Day: Canada-U.S. Trade

The Globe and Mail offers some interesting graphs of where Canadian business leaders think their export market heading in the near-future.

Check out all the results and related articles here, but this graph was the most surprising--showing that most  participants believing America's share of Canada's export market will stay the same or even increase:

"With the Green Party’s intervention, it’s a good bet he’ll been looking at his second decade as PM soon."

By Keith Edmund White, Editor-in-Chief

Yes, Canada's Left is under-cutting itself.  But personality-politics should settle this question before Canada's next round of parliamentary election.  So, stop complaining about the Liberal-NDP divide, let alone the Greens delivering Harper another term as Prime Minister. Though, as The Real Story blog shows, is can make for entertaining reading.

The Real Story, a Canadian political blog, mocks a defense of having three centre-left political parties on Canada's national political scene.  With the NDP-Liberals-Greens all competing for seats in Canada's ridings, a divided Left is going to deliver Canada another two terms of Conservative Prime Minister Harper:

Because for all the Green Party’s disclaimers about vote splitting [(1) you owe it to your supporters to run & (2) non-voters will only come out if you show political alternatives] one truth remains.

The truth – and Calgary Centre proves it – is that three parties on the centre left is useful to only one person in Canada. And that’s Stephen Harper. With the Green Party’s intervention, it’s a good bet he’ll been looking at his second decade as PM soon.

TRS isn't alone in this assessment, though it's logic-evisceration of Chris Turner's, the Green's candidate in Calgary by-election last week--op-ed claiming he didn't throw the election to the Conservatives is particularly delicious. 

But, first, it's entirely too early for all this belly-aching.  There are years before the next election..

Second, when you look at recent national polling, Canada' voters--not politicians--need to settle the Left divide.  The Liberals and Greens are painstacking close in popular support, and as long as that holds up, how do you expect an insurgent political party to tell members to lose prestige in the main of winning an election they could still win on their own?  

And, in any case, the Greens won't make the difference nationally.

My advice:  Green and Liberals, show your policy and leadership differences and take a look at the polling in two years.

Last thought:  Personality-politics will settle this.  Thomas Mulcair's tenure as Leader of the Opposition should settle which party is the leader of the Left soon enough, one or the other.

Canada's Political State of Play: NDP-Conservatives Tied, Liberals Down and Out

The most pressing political question of the next two years is just how the Conservatives plan to bounce back.    After a 2011 victory over 9 points over the second-place NDP, the two national parties find themselves.  If the Conservatives don't turn the tide, Canadians may find themselves ushering in the first-ever NDP era.  Fortunately, the Conservatives have until October 19, 2015 to turn things around, not to mention near-total control over the timing of Canada's next parliamentary election (for American readers interested in learning this feature of parliamentary democracy, click and go to Section E of the helpful Library of Parliament publication).

And about the once-ruling Liberal Party?  They're still stuck in the political wilderness.

From The Hill Times:

Last May the Conservatives won a 166 seat majority with 39.6 per cent of the popular vote nationally, while the NDP won 103 seats with 30.6 per cent of the popular vote.

According to the latest averaging of national polls by aggregator ThreeHundredEight.com, the Conservatives and NDP are now statistically tied in public support, with the two parties’ polling at 33.9 and 33.6 per cent, respectively. The Liberals are a distant third, polling at 21.7 per cent.

The NDP owes its persistent support to a breakthrough in Atlantic Canada over the past year. On election day the party received 29 per cent of popular support in the region, trailing both the Conservatives and the Liberals, who received 38 and 30 per cent popular support at the ballot box, respectively.

The Beginning of the NDP Era?

By Keith Edmund White
Editor-in-Chief


A recent poll finds that the NDP would win, albeit only with a minority government, if a federal election were now held in Canada. Is Canada's Liberal Party gone? In any case, the NDP--whose charismatic leader Jack Layton only died last year--is continuing to gain strength and might just be Harper's main worry at the ballot box in 3-4 years.

There might be a reason Harper is pushing for quick economic growth: his approval rating is in the 30s. But, perhaps, even more troubling is this: a recent poll not only gives the NDP leader Tom Mulcair an approval rating in the 40s, but finds if a federal election were held now in Canada the NDP, yes the NDP, would win with a minority government.

So, no idea who Tom Mulcair is? Well, here's an provocatively titled MacCleans piece (Mr. Mulcair is Mr. Angry) and quick rundown from the Huffington Post. Some interesting highlights: Mulcair's short-fuse has cost from $95K, he's voted in French elections, and was a one-time Liberal party member. I think more prescient are these concluding paragraphs from the Macleans piece:

Beyond ephemeral questions about the NDP’s reason for being, Mulcair, as leader, would have to grow into the new role as the face of the party, becoming both a unifying, consensus-building presence within, and a strong, assertive figure on the public stage. Concerns about his aggressive style will have to be assuaged. Former Winnipeg North NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis wouldn’t comment on Mulcair’s temperament. “We had a good working relationship,” said the long-time Manitoba MP, who resigned in 2010. When asked why she is supporting Brian Topp, the former MP said, “Brian Topp can take on Harper in a style similar to Jack, that is not personal, ugly or distasteful.”

But the case for Mulcair is that however controversial his presence, he is also the most obviously ready to fill the chair directly opposite Stephen Harper in the House of Commons. “Leaders have to carve our their own way of doing things,” says Davies. “And I think Tom’s ability to be smart and articulate and direct and to present a clear alternative—and he’s absolutely got steely resolve to take us to government—I think is carrying on Jack’s tradition in a different sort of package.”

Clearly, in only two months on the job, Mulcair--short-fuse or not--is gaining on Prime Minister Harper, whatever murmurings he makes about shifting Canada more towards European welfare model. Then again, when the number one issue in Canada is healthcare and not jobs, perhaps this line doesn't hurt poll numbers as much as it would in the United States.

In any case, the once-dominant Liberal Party has a tough--but perhaps not insurmountable--path to political relevancy.