Behind the loss

Before this week's by-elections fade from view entirely, let's highlight a couple of little-noticed points surrounding the results in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River.

First, as the Globe and Mail notes, the Libs' candidate appointment may not have been the only time when the party shot itself in the foot, as Lib-supported voter suppression legislation may have been another factor in the Cons' win:

(Liberal campaign officials) blamed their poor numbers partly on complacency among supporters who thought their candidate, former NDP cabinet minister Joan Beatty, had the riding sewn up, and on new election regulations that complicated the voting process for people on reserves. They say hundreds of people may have been prevented from voting because they didn't have photo ID and couldn't present proof of a civic address.

Of course, the Libs presumably made a calculated trade-off when they voted for the new voting rules in the first place, likely to the effect that they'd gain more ground by making voting difficult in urban areas than they'd lose in ridings like Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River. Which makes it disingenuous at best for the Libs to now be complaining about the obvious results of a bill which they supported.

That said, it does seem noteworthy that even in the face of the same rules, the NDP still managed to increase its share of the vote. Which might well reflect a real increase in NDP support in the riding - even if the Libs have gone out of their way to prevent it from registering at the polls.

Second, I'd mentioned when Beatty was first appointed, the respective vote totals required to win a federal riding as opposed to a provincial one made it doubtful that her provincial connections would get her much of the way to a victory. The flip side, of course, was that the federal riding would include far more voters with the ability to show their support - meaning that Beatty's seeming base level of support would include her provincial supporters plus the Libs' usual voters in the other half of the riding.

But interestingly enough, Beatty's vote total of 3,287 in the by-election lines up almost perfectly with her provincial totals (3,124 in 2007 and 3,268 in 2003) in a riding covering only half the area of Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River. Which offers just another indication of how far the Libs fell short of expectations - and raises the question of whether Beatty, Orchard or anybody else can make up for the ground the Libs gave away.