Wednesday Afternoon Links

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- David Coletto of Abacus Data offers his theory for the NDP's surge in Quebec which has since spread to the rest of the country:

Has all the talk about coalitions at the start of the campaign actually laid a foundation for NDP growth in Quebec?

The BQ has clearly stated it won’t join in a formal coalition with any other parties. And no party has said it would want BQ members in cabinet. Perhaps Quebec voters have decided that although the BQ has done a good job at representing Quebec in the past, it really can’t prevent a Stephen Harper majority. In fact, voters may have figured out that by electing NDP MPs they can actually prevent a Harper minority – by giving the NDP enough seats in Quebec to form a working arrangement with the Liberals elected outside of Quebec.

Fewer BQ seats in Parliament means that the math becomes more palatable for Canadians because the real problem with coalitions was not the principle of a coalition but the idea of separatists holding a government hostage.
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We found that in Quebec, when given the choice between a Conservative minority government and a coalition or agreement between the Liberals and NDP, 57% of Quebec respondents preferred a coalition while 29% preferred a Conservative minority. 14% were unsure.

An Angus Reid poll released today found that 61% of Quebec respondents believed that “The Conservative government has performed poorly, and does not deserve to form a government after the next election” – the highest percentage in Canada.

So what we may be seeing in Quebec, and the data backs up this argument, is that Quebecers have realized that they can prevent another Conservative government not by voting BQ, but by voting NDP. If this is true, what we could be witnessing is a collective decision to vote strategically from a large part of a provincial electorate.

- Toby Sanger notes that fair taxation of Canada'a financial sector could generate upwards of $10 billion per year in extra revenue - which would seem to make for a rather compelling contrast against the service cuts on offer from the Harper Cons.

- It shouldn't come as much surprise. But since I haven't yet seen anybody put the factors together, let's note how the regular polling as to which party is most trusted on health care may largely miss the point as to what position will actually sway votes:

Twenty-seven per cent of voters ranked the economy and job creation as the most important election issue, compared to 18 per cent who placed health care as the most important issue and 18 per cent who put government ethics and accountability at the top of the list, the survey suggests.
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Of the voters who ranked health care as the most important issue, 87 per cent of the survey respondents said they were in favour of supporting medicare rather than having more privatization of medical care and services. Although Ottawa transfers billions of dollars annually to provincial governments for health care, the provinces have jurisdiction over delivery of health services.

Preference for supporting medicare over having more privatization was highest in the Atlantic provinces and British Columbia. Fully 98 per cent of respondents in both regions said they want to support medicare over more privatization. In Ontario, of the medicare supporters who said the issue is the most important in the campaign, 90 per cent favoured medicare support over more privatization.

Given that the Cons are actively affirming their support for private health service delivery, that finding would seem to confirm that there's virtually no overlap between the relatively high number of voters listing the Cons as their first choice on health care (about 30 per cent in the polls linked above) and the voters who are actually motivated by the issue - while the NDP's position as the strongest advocate for public delivery has the potential to deliver a large number of votes.

- Dan Gardner points out that there's no reason why a minority government can't function under reasonable leadership - making the Cons' desperate plea for a majority into more of an admission of their own failings than a reasonable argument:

In the last Conservative budget, the gap between what the NDP asked for its support and what the Conservatives offered was tiny and so a new Conservative minority could make modest concessions to the NDP, pass the budget, and get on with governing. But Harper has already said his government will re-introduce the budget without changes, which suggests this simple bit of negotiation and compromise won’t happen. And we will get the instability the prime minister predicted.

Why? It’s not a defect inherent in minority government. Nor is it that the big three parties have irreconcilable visions and policies. In fact, the substantive disagreements between the parties are as small or smaller than they’ve ever been in modern times.

No, the problem is the leader.

Stephen Harper gambled everything on winning a majority. Now, after swearing that anything less would cause earth to shudder and sky to weep, it would be personally calamitous if a Conservative minority government functioned smoothly. Harper said there would be instability, damn it. And he will make sure of it.

- Finally, there's a new leader in race for the dubious honour of "most bizarre campaign coverage from a major media outlet": Tamsin McMahon's article which not only wastes readers' time with the question, "does the federal NDP actually want to be in power?", but manages to answer with something close to a "no".