What the parties are up to

Posted January 29, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Parties

BC Liberals’ newsroom has been relatively quiet since the last legislative session – one can only assume they have their news pipeline ready as the election comes near, and also that they’ve been able to use the government has their main communications platform. They have been using the former Premier Glen Clark’s 1996 playbook (ever since being on the wrong side of a very well run NDP campaign), and have been quite successful with it in 2001, and 2005. Will 2009 be any different, or will people be tired of the usual pre-election parade of promises?

The NDP have had a flurry of “news” (mainly of the type of “Look how bad the government is!”) from their site. Something that caught my attention was that NDP MLA Mike Farnworth is going to propose a private members’ bill that will restrict people from wearing Kevlar. Such pronouncements are so ill-thought of that it will make for ammunition for other parties to use in the future.

Finally, the Green party has been slowly working on their website – they’ve updated their picture of party leader Jane Sterk, and put her up on the front page. They seem to have gotten the idea that this election is going to be about the economy, and this is the first point on their “better plan”. They will have a lot of convincing to do to sway voters.

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Calm before the political storm

Posted January 29, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: News

It’s been a relatively quiet week in provincial politics, minus the obvious election-time press releases (e.g. the need for the government to save its Burnaby MLAs).

The unexpected death of Stan Hagen took the wind out of a lot of people’s sails. The government announced a scholarship fund in his name.

The federal government appears to be on track to getting their budget passed, so you can be sure that the provincial campaign planners of the major parties are breathing a sign of relief that their campaigns won’t be hijacked by a federal election.

The Solicitor General is announcing an audit of Victoria and Esquimalt police departments – an interesting move.

The Ministry of Transportation, Kevin Falcon, initially had a Friday press conference to announce some news relating to the Port Mann Bridge twinning, but this was pulled with short notice. Subsequently, this announcement came with respect to how the project will be funded (one third of it will be taken on by the province). This is obviously part of a structured press release, and there will likely be some more news coming down the pipeline, especially as the election comes closer. The politics vs. the policy will become quite blurry since it’s fairly obvious to anybody that the BC Government will have to more or less guarantee financing for the project in order to keep the cost of capital for the private partner as low as possible. The Vancouver Olympic athlete’s village fiasco is something that is undoubtedly sensitive in the minds of the government, especially with the corresponding result in the municipal election.

The provincial government very recently reshuffled a lot of their deputy ministers. Keith Baldrey has a fairly good editorial on the nature of some of the changes.

Finally, the BC Legislature opens up on February 10, and the budget (which will be interesting to see how they can engineer the numbers to stay out of a deficit “as written in law”) will be on February 17.

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Unions vs. Business and the third party ad war

Posted January 24, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Analysis

A lot of you probably have heard the latest advertising campaigns by the third parties – their window of opportunity closes in mid-February before they are restricted to $150,000 an entity.

The unions most notably have the BC Teacher’s Federation themed “When will they learn?“, featuring the number of schools closed amongst other things. The implication is that this would stop if you voted NDP.

The BC Business Council has an ad campaign of “There’s no place we’d rather be“, about how great a business environment BC is. The implication is that if you don’t vote BC Liberal, this will stop.

We will continue to see more of this over the next couple of weeks, ads implicitly threatening some form of your lifestyle if you don’t support a certain party.

If you are a third party that is advertising for political purposes – please provide a link to your material by putting in a comment to this article.

One big risk for all parties (political or third parties) is that if the federal budget (due on January 27th) fails and is voted down by the Liberals – we will see a federal election in 2009 in mid-March. If this happened, it changes a lot of the timeline for the provincial election, and will make the campaign more compressed than ever since nobody will want to spend a penny on provincial advertising until a couple days after the federal election is over. This is only something that political junkies could enjoy, but if there was another federal election between now and the provincial election, it would likely guarantee that the upcoming election will have low voter turnout.

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Prediction competitions

Posted January 21, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Links

There are two benchmark sites that I will be using that I will consider my primary competition with respect to predicting the outcome of this election.

One is Milton Chan’s ElectionPrediction.org – he predicted 68 of 79 seats in the last provincial election.

The other site is the UBC Election Stock Market, which will open up on March 12, 2009.

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Stan Hagen, 68

Posted January 20, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: News

The long-time MLA for Comox Valley, Stan Hagen, has passed away.

My condolences to the family.

The Premier’s statement:

STATEMENT

For Immediate Release
2009OTP0009-000074
Jan. 20, 2009
Office of the Premier

PREMIER’S STATEMENT ON THE PASSING OF STAN HAGEN

VICTORIA – Premier Gordon Campbell released the following statement today after learning of the sudden passing of Agriculture and Lands Minister and Comox Valley MLA Stan Hagen:

“The province has suffered a great loss with the passing of my friend and colleague, Stan Hagen. He was a man who gave of himself to public life from 1986 until today. He loved British Columbia and the people who live here. Our thoughts and prayers are with Judy and all his children as they mourn the passing of their father.

“Stan served as minister of 10 different ministries in governments from 1986 to 2009. No one in Canadian public life can match that. Whether as Minister of Advanced Education or Agriculture and Lands, Stan’s record was one of exemplary service. He worked with people in a way that encouraged them to do their best as he worked on their behalf.

“His passing reminds us all of the suddenness of life and of the time we take away from our families to serve. It reminds us of the importance of friendship and inner strength, two characteristics that defined the man.

“All British Columbians have suffered a loss today. Our gratitude goes to Stan’s family for sharing him with all of us. He embodied the spirit of ‘the Honourable Member of the Legislature’. He will be sorely missed.”

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History doesn’t repeat, it rhymes

Posted January 20, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Polls

I have updated the polling charts.

One interesting chart to keep track of is the 2005 vs. 2009 polling comparison – in 2005, the BC Liberals took a lead over the NDP at 89 days left until the election; this time around it was day 117.

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Mustel has BC Liberals way ahead

Posted January 19, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Polls

Mustel released a poll today (link to their copy, local copy) indicating that the BC Liberals are significantly ahead of the NDP.

750 people were polled from January 8 to 15, 14% undecided.

BC Liberals: 47%
NDP: 33%
Green: 16%

Notable is Premier Gordon Campbell’s approval/disapproval rating better this poll than any Mustel poll in the last two years; Carole James is still at a mid-range level relative to the last two years.

The economy continues to be the #1 issue, overshadowing nearly everything.

I am not quite sure what happened between last November’s Mustel Poll vs. this one to cause such a swing.

If this polling is reflective of public sentiment, however, then the BC Liberals are in for an easy victory come May 12, 2009.

I will update the poll charts later tonight.

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Comment policy

Posted January 19, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: News

I have been noticing more traffic coming to this site, which brings its own set of challenges.

Please note that while a broad range of comments are allowed, including those advocating their partisan positions, but I will not allow people to pollute each and every article with repeated comments without regard to the content of the post.

Once people reach the threshold, their comments will be removed. I will only resort to this when it is obvious, but I will do so without warning.

If I could “codify” the policy on commenting on this site, here it is:

1. I reserve the right to delete anything and/or invoke closure on any discussion here.
2. Spam will be deleted, although I will allow candidates (or their reps) one or two ‘vanity’ posts if the topic applies to them.
3. Comments with two or more links in them will be explicitly approved for moderation and will not appear instantly on the site. They will appear if the links in question are not spam.
4. Your IP (internet protocol) address is public domain. Although I have chosen not to have them displayed, I will have them displayed if I suspect abuse.
5. “Astroturfing” (i.e. posting assuming two or more identities when you are really one person) is highly frowned upon. For example, these two comments were from the same person in question. If you are caught doing this I will display your internet protocol address in your comment, such as here.
6. Keep it clean (attack the issue or party, but not the person), and keep the debate on-topic to the post.
7. “Borderline” posts are more likely to be kept if you use your full and real name.

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