Under the weather

Posted April 30, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Irrelevant and Irreverent

The federal Liberals are going to have their convention in Vancouver this weekend which may take some of the limelight from the media. They will be having it at the new downtown convention centre.

I had originally intended to post an analysis of First Nations and polling stations in the 2005 elections (for the purposes of later comparing it with the 2009 election results) but I seem to have caught food poisoning (not the swine flu!). I don’t want to explain the symptoms on this post in case if you are eating, but suffice to say, it has immobilized me and I hope it will last no longer than a day. It has been nasty since 3am this morning and I haven’t been able to sleep for more than half an hour without having to return to the bathroom. As I write this it is ever-so-slightly better, probably because there’s nothing left in my digestive system at all.

Feel free to use this post to comment on anything in the BC Election – I won’t moderate anything except outright spam. I did notice that two of you (Glass and Quimby) were throwing insults at each other, and I have removed them. Thanks.

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Angus Reid poll – details

Posted April 29, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Polls

Linked are the details to the latest Angus Reid Strategies BC Poll, ended April 26, 2009.

Link to the Angus Reid Strategies Press release

Data tables: (Angus Reid, Local Copy)

Angus Reid provides excellent analysis of their data, so I have skipped over it before I write the following paragraphs (in other words – forgive me for duplication).

The voting intention of people vs. the voting intention of people that are “sure to vote” in the election are quite close. Interestingly, the BC Conservative and “independent candidates” had 25 people each indicating they would support them. The problem with the sample sizes is that it is difficult to determine whether this extrapolates provincially or not – i.e. if the Conservatives ran candidates in all 85 ridings, would they receive roughly 9% of the provincial vote?

The NDP is slightly stronger in the “North” (45/41), which would imply that the Cariboo region would lean toward the NDP. The survey does not delineate where the “North” is vs. the “Interior”, however. This is in the range of a statistical tie. More interesting is the 10% reporting “other” for the candidate they support.

According to this survey, university-educated people lean toward the NDP (41/39), which is a statistical tie.

Carole James’ approval rating is sharply lower this survey, and Jane Sterk is still an unknown. Premier Gordon Campbell’s approvals have not changed too much since the last survey.

It looks like that Jane Sterk will have the most to lose or gain in the upcoming television debate.

Who would you have dinner with, Campbell or James – 51/49. I would have loved to see a “neither” option there. It would have likely been embarrassing to both of them.

The carbon tax questions were interesting, about 70% indicated that it had a slight or no effect on household finances, while 37% indicated that it would make them more likely to vote for the BC Liberal party.

The economy continues to be the number one issue.

All I can say is that if the polling results from this survey are correct, the BC Liberals would squeak by with a slim majority. I will be giving this some analysis when it comes time for my election projection (i.e. a “worst case, best case” scenario).

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Canucks schedule not on May 12th

Posted April 29, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Irrelevant and Irreverent

The Vancouver Canucks’ schedule is out, and the game days are the following:

Game 1: April 30
Game 2: May 2
Game 3: May 5
Game 4: May 7
Game 5: May 9 (if necessary)
Game 6: May 11 (if necessary)
Game 7: May 14 (if necessary)

In terms of media headline stealing, the Canucks may be a relevant factor if the series goes on for longer. Most notably, there is no scheduled game on May 12.

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Angus Reid Strategies Poll – BCL 42, NDP 39, Green 13

Posted April 28, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Polls

Data tables are available at this post.

A new Angus Reid Strategies Poll, according to CTV, was conducted between April 24 to 26. 822 people were surveyed. The party leaning (and the previous poll, conducted March 20 to 22 are in brackets) is:

BC Liberal – 42% [43%]
NDP – 39% [37%]
Green – 13% [13%]

This has not changed too much from their previous months’ poll.

Angus Reid Strategies’ poll results are at complete odds with those of Ipsos-Reid and Mustel Group, which have indicated much stronger BC Liberal support. Mustel had their last survey ending April 7 with the BC Liberals up 52% and the NDP at 35%.

The rest of the information (party leaders and such) were not too inconsistent with Angus Reid’s previous poll, but without the raw data to work with, I will reserve my comments until I can view the source information.

All I know is that after election day, somebody is going to be red-faced with their polling.

Once again, thanks to BJ who spotted this one quicker than anybody else on the planet.

You will see on the chart the jagged lines of polling – I might create another polling graph to separate the information from the various pollsters.

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BC Election is far down the attention list

Posted April 28, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: News

Today, it’s all about the swine flu and the Canucks’ next opponent (Chicago). I am still waiting for a schedule to see if a potential game in their series would correspond with the BC Election – I believe it would be around game 6 of their series, if it goes that long.

Premier Gordon Campbell is in the Kootenays today, but nothing is getting to the media other than the parties throwing fact sheets at each other.

The general apathy of this election leads me to a couple conclusions:

1. Our chief electoral officer, Harry Neufeld, is on the record saying the following:

Mr. Neufeld said he hopes to see turnout hit 62 per cent on May 12.

My question to Mr. Neufeld would be: is he be willing to put some money on this?

I didn’t think so either.

2. Less people to the polls would suggest that the BC Liberals would be comfortable, but given the previous by-elections in Vancouver-Burrard and Vancouver-Fairview having 22 and 27% turnout, respectively, the only thing a lower turnout can guarantee is that each individual voter counts much more. A low voter turnout also creates more volatility in the result, something I am factoring in my election projection.

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Convention Centre springs a leak

Posted April 28, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: BC Liberals, Economy

The biggest costing failure of the government of the past four years has been the downtown Vancouver convention centre – the original budget was $495 million (mysteriously like the projected 2009 BC Budget deficit!), while the actuals have come around $880 million.

The government was probably breathing a sigh of relief when it finally opened to the public in early April – even though the project was massively over budget, it was a done deal, and would be out of the public spotlight during election time.

Unfortunately during a convention of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, a water main leak sprung and the centre had to be evacuated. According to the Province:

Convention-centre general manager Ken Cretney said the damage was limited to water damage and he doesn’t expect costs to be excessive.

“There’s no injuries or permanent damage, just a lot of cleanup,” he said.

Cretney said the leak was not due to shoddy construction. “It can happen anywhere, anytime, new or old buildings.”

Whether “it can happen anywhere, anytime, new or old” could be true. Or it could be not. In terms of public optics, however, the easy inference to make was that there might be something wrong with the construction.

I truly hope this was a one-off incident, but the timing of this has just been very unfortunate for the BC Liberal government, since it was anticipated that the budgetary failure of the Vancouver convention centre would have been a footnote of this campaign.

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Misreporting on John van Dongen

Posted April 28, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Analysis, News

It is said if the media repeats something enough, it becomes the established truth.

Earlier when I was ripping into John van Dongen, I carefully pointed out on his court record that the fifth violation in a search for his name was not his violation ticket. We will bring up the same record here:

David Berner, who has been very critical of the BC Liberals, posted an “exclusive” where he quoted a police officer that claims that van Dongen ran a red light, and that this was the fifth violation ticket. I will quote it below:

Brace yourself. It is unlikely that you will read or hear this anywhere else, because this was sent to me by a friend, who just happens to be a policeman.

I found some more information on Van Dongen’s driving record that you might find interesting…. If you look him up at the “Court Services Online” website you will find his speeding tickets, but there is also an open file of him that is reported as this: “10-Jan-2008 MVA – 127(1)(a)(iii) Failing to yield to vehicle on green light”. It looks to me like he ran a red light in Delta and might have even caused an accident. His next appearance in court is listed as “Richmond Provincial Court 30-Jun-2009 09:30 AM”. If you want to see this for yourself, the website for Court Services Online is located at https://eservice.ag.gov.bc.ca/cso/esearch/criminal/partySearch.do You can just enter his name to find the records, or you can use this file number I got from the site – 28738815 (you also need to select the court location which is Richmond).

Fortunately for van Dongen, this is not true. The reason is because you can see embedded in the court date that the date of birth of the other John van Dongen (violation ticket AH28738815-1) was 1933.

Now if former Solicitor General John van Dongen is 76 years of age, he is the best looking 76 year-old I have ever seen. Maybe he feels like 76 years of age after this incident, but he is not.

van Dongen’s date of birth is 1949, and this is reflected on the first four violation tickets.

It is perfectly clear that Solicitor General John van Dongen did not commit this offense, although a lot of people will likely show up to the case on June 30, 2009, to see who this other “John van Dongen” is.

One reason why media is looking less and less credible is when they don’t do homework. This applies for real-world professional reporters and bloggers. The reader has to be able to critically look at all information and be able to determine the truthfulness, validity or plausibility of what they are reading at all times. This is very difficult and requires quite a bit of effort to perform.

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Life, death and income taxes

Posted April 28, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Economy

April 30 is the deadline for getting your T1 form into the Canada Revenue Agency. If you do not file income taxes you will pay a penalty of taxes that are otherwise outstanding, so even if you can’t pay up, I highly recommend filing a return (which can always be amended later if you do not have accurate numbers).

Income taxes are mostly a federal item, but the pink sheets in the tax guide are for provincial taxes. I am openly wondering this year whether taxes will be a factor this election – unfortunately most people only have a faint impression how much income tax they pay, and easy to use software makes that number even less transparent.

The threshold of income required to pay taxes in British Columbia has been rapidly increasing, however – you can make an income of approximately $17,400 a year and not pay provincial income tax.

I do not think personal income taxation will make a huge impact this election, but the other taxes (carbon, and corporate taxes) have had much more limelight.

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