On resource imbalances

There's some sad news coming out of New Brunswick, as Roger Duguay has resigned as leader of that province's NDP even after an election that saw the party post its second-best share of the vote ever. And the NDP will surely appreciate Duguay's contribution as leader - even if it has to be disappointed to see him leave after accomplishing nearly everything imaginable short of winning a seat.

But without knowing exactly why Duguay chose to step down, it's also worth noting how New Brunswick's political financing system may have influenced his decision - and considering how the same effect might play out elsewhere in Canadian politics.

New Brunswick actually does have some public financing for political parties, with the following amounts paid out based on the previous election's results:

The Grits won 47.3 per cent of votes in the 2006 election and receive $312,180 from the province each year, based on the allocation formula.

The Tories won 47.6 per cent of votes in the last election and receive $314,160 a year, slightly more than the Liberals.

The NDP won 5.1 per cent of votes and receives $33,660 a year.

The Green Party did not win enough votes to receive a proportion of the annual allowance payments, which total $660,000 for the province, plus audit fees.

Presumably the NDP's funding would have roughly doubled like its share of the popular vote. But that still seems to have left some question as to whether it can afford to pay its leader a salary, particularly when one considers how the annual funding compares to the amount of money flowing into parties' hands through other means:

The Liberal dinner held Saturday in Moncton raked in about $400,000 after expenses, about double the $200,000 that was raised by the Conservatives on Friday night in Fredericton.

The cash will be added to the parties' war chests and spent during the 30 days of election campaigning on expenses such as advertising, office space, travel, wages, meetings and rallies, up to the $925,000 limit set by Elections New Brunswick.
...
As of last June, the New Brunswick Liberal Association had $1.845 million in the bank and no debt.

The Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick had $288,915 in cash but also a debt of $409,000, mostly related to the purchase of a building in Fredericton, which houses the party's headquarters.

Meanwhile, the New Democratic Party had $19,531 and the Green Party had $253.

So all indications are that for the Cons and Libs, a single dinner can bring in as much money as a year's worth of annual allowance. And indeed the Graham Libs - despite being unpopular enough to lose the election - were nonetheless able to have enough retained cash on hand to run two elections if they needed to. And that's in addition to the salaries, pensions, research funding, and other resources available to the two parties represented in the Legislature.

On the other hand, the NDP's funding over four years amounted to...an eighth of the amount needed to run a full election campaign, assuming no expenses in the meantime. And even after approaching its highest share of the vote ever, the NDP still looks to have limited resources for next time out barring some significant change in the meantime.

And it's worth asking whether such a change might well be needed.

So far, led by the Cons' attack on per-vote financing, most discussion of public funding for the political process nationally has attacked exactly the amounts that serve to reflect actual voter preferences, while leaving untouched the larger payouts allocated based on the vagaries of single-seat results.

But New Brunswick seems to offer an ideal example of how the gap between funding based on winning seats and funding based on winning votes can serve to severely limit the choices available to voters. And if we can't expect to change the voting system in the near future, the next best thing may be to highlight the comparison between direct party funding and the funding that goes to political offices through other means, and demand a system that better supports the operations of parties with enough public support to justify it.

New Brunswick Goes to the Polls

We've finally reached election day in New Brunswick, with plenty of potential for some highly interesting results as little seems to have been decided so far. Most of the projections have the NDP at 1 or 2 seats, with the main question being whether the party is able to build on its momentum from this year's campaign or whether a past trend of losing support late in the campaign continues. But nbpolitico has a full list of ridings which are particularly worth watching from the NDP's perspective:

The NDP is in play in somewhere between 2 and 4 ridings (Tracadie-Sheila, Nepisiguit, Bathurst and Tantramar) according to my analysis. They may also be in play in Saint John Harbour, Saint John East and Fredericton-Silverwood, though my analysis says no.

Note that nbpolitico has also modeled a series of "surge scenarios", leading to a fascinating set of possible outcomes.

Of course, there's still a day's worth of GOTV efforts to determine who will win out in the end. And we'll look forward to finding out whether voters are frustrated enough with a campaign of wilful self-delusion from the Graham Libs and Alward Cons to give the NDP an unprecedented presence in New Brunswick's legislature.

(Edit: updated link.)

New Brunswick election reading

As the New Brunswick provincial election campaign enters its home stretch, here's a quick survey of a few sources worth reading to get a handle on the campaign.

Let's start with Alice's customary detailed look at the state of party nominations at the the Pundits' Guide's New Brunswick page - with links to all candidates' websites serving as a particularly useful resource for those looking to track down information in a hurry.

For those looking for a quantitative analysis of the state of the campaign, the place to go is once again Three Hundred Eight, whose multi-poll projections figure to be particularly useful in a tight campaign where single polls can be found to support almost any possible outcome. (ThreeHundredEight's NDP projection has slipped from two seats to one based on a campaign-period drop from the teens to lower double digits.)

Meanwhile, if you're looking more for a subjective riding-level analysis and projection, NBPolitico makes up for relatively infrequent posts by serving up plenty of material at every turn. NBPolitico now projects two seats as "lean NDP" (leader Roger Duguay's riding of Tracadie-Sheila as well as another northern riding in Nepisiguit) - but based on my own limited contribution to the race, I'm particularly interested to note that Saint John East has been downgraded from "safe Liberal" to "lean Liberal", signalling that it's looking to be more in play as the campaign progresses.

As for media outlets, newspapers to check out include the Telegraph-Journal, Daily Gleaner and Times & Transcript, while CBC New Brunswick also has regular updates and analysis.

If I've missed any sources worth including, please feel free to point them out in comments - as the campaign looks to be well worth following closely from here on in.

Beyond the echo chamber

It remains to be seen how the rest of New Brunswick's election campaign will play out - and particularly whether either the Libs or the Cons will try (however implausibly) to adopt a theme of responsible management for themselves. But for now, it's hard to imagine the NDP's chosen message fitting more perfectly into the broader campaign.

So far, even the national media is dumbstruck at the Graham/Alward bidding war for votes in a province whose fiscal mismanagement already looks to raise some serious long-term issues. But rather than following suit with its own package of baubles, the NDP is not only promising to hold the line on taxes but even highlighting practical ways to save hundreds of millions of dollars without affecting program delivery.

Which means that New Brunswick's citizens have an obvious choice other than to keep voting for the same old empty promises and irresponsible government. And if enough voters learn that they do have that option, then what already looks to be a potentially historical breakthrough for the NDP may get even bigger.

Update: The Chronicle Herald seems to agree.

More and Better New Democrats: Sandy Harding for Saint John East

Next month's provincial election in New Brunswick promises to be a watershed moment for that province's NDP. While the party has generally been able to get its leader elected (with a few exceptions including the 2006 election), it has yet to win a second seat in a general election. But that stands to change very soon: Eric at Three Hundred Eight is already projecting a second seat for the NDP, and that's using an extremely conservative popular vote projection that leaves the NDP with a lower share of the vote than it's taken in any of the province's polls since 2008.

What's more, the NDP's influence may go far beyond merely electing additional members, as a razor-thin margin between the Libs and Cons raises the possibility that the NDP could hold the balance of power by this time next month.

With that in mind, this month's More and Better New Democrats feature focuses on one of the candidates with a great chance to join leader Roger Duguay in the Legislature.

The Candidate

The New Brunswick NDP is understandably putting an emphasis on fiscal responsibility in a province which has given the business lobby everything it can think to ask for - and seen that result in massive deficits for the foreseeable future. But it's worth ensuring there are some MLAs pointing out why it matters for the government to get itself back on track.

And Sandy Harding stands out among the party's top candidates in that respect. In addition to extensive involvement in CUPE (both through her local and provincially), her resume features work on child care, pay equity and wage fairness. That in turn meshes nicely with her professional experience in the education sector, giving her ample knowledge as to how to work within public systems to get results. Which means that Harding should make for an ideal choice as the leading voice for the social issues that have far too often been neglected under Libs and Cons alike.

In addition, it only helps matters that in a province where women have been grossly underrepresented in the Legislature, Harding is sending a strong message that she intends to change that.

The Riding

But why target Saint John East? At first glance based on the party's 2006 results it wouldn't seem like an obvious choice, as Maureen Michaud's 7% of the vote wasn't much higher than the party's baseline level of support. But there are a few reasons to be particularly optimistic about the riding.

For one, Saint John East (in its form a couple of distributions ago) is actually the lone constituency that the New Brunswick NDP has won in the past with a non-leader candidate. That took place when Peter Trites won a 1984 by-election only to jump to the Libs in time for Frank McKenna's 1987 sweep. So the NDP has obviously been able to mobilize a winning effort in the area before.

Meanwhile, Saint John East is also adjacent to the riding occupied by what may be the NDP's highest-profile candidate aside from Duguay: Saint John Harbour's Wayne Dryer, who seems to be putting on a strong push himself to take back the seat held by former leader Elizabeth Weir. So rather than simply aiming for a lone beachhead in a community where the NDP lacks a strong presence, Harding should enjoy a highly favourable local climate.

The Opponents

What's more, the lack of an incumbent means that the riding is very much up for grabs. Longtime Lib MLA Roly MacIntyre stepped down from the seat in April, meaning that the competition to win the seat will come from two other rookie candidates in Lib Kevin McCarville and PC Glen Tait. And with Saint John East having been held by all three parties in the past 25 years, there's plenty of reason to think that vote splits could work out in Harding's favour.

The Plan

So what can you do to help? Harding looks to be running a fairly traditional campaign, focusing on lawn signs and volunteers to go with what looks to have been an effective fund-raising effort and Facebook organization. With that in mind, I'll recommend joining her Facebook page and looking for opportunities to help from there - while donating to the provincial party in the absence of a direct donation system.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

On reinforcement

The latest reporting on New Brunswick's election this fall includes an interesting parallel between Roger Duguay's message and that of some disaffected federal Cons - as both are rightly pointing out the problems with funnelling public money toward corporate interests. Here's Duguay:

NDP Leader Roger Duguay said his priority would be to stabilize deficits and stop "wasteful government spending," adding that he would eliminate grants and forgivable loans to companies for the next five years.

"Most of the time it's not the best place to put our money," he said.

Needless to say, the proposal to shut off the taps to the corporate sector makes for a rather useful explanation as to what the NDP would do differently than its competitors to ensure that New Brunswick's provincial budget is managed responsibly.

And it only helps that Duguay's message is nicely paralleled by someone who's not normally an NDP ally, as Tasha Kheiridden has picked an opportune time to level criticism at federal Libs and Cons alike for wasting federal money to subsidize the likes of J.D. Irving:

(The Harper) government is all too happy to dole out regional cash, whether through Canada’s Economic Action Plan or outright make-work projects (witness last week’s announcement of a payroll centre in Miramichi, N.B., to replace jobs lost there if the gun registry goes belly-up).

So where does this leave Canadian taxpayers? Playing angel investor to businesses that don’t pay back money, while...the government turns a blind eye.

Of course, it remains to be seen how well the theme will resonate at both levels of government. But the reinforcement of Duguay's message in the national press has to help matters as the New Brunswick NDP looks to win over voters who may not have considered the party as an option before. And the more citizens ask the question of whether governments should be looking out for corporate interests at their expense, the easier it will be to persuade them that it's worth voting for a party who won't.

On strong openings

Kevin Bissett's CP overview of this fall's New Brunswick election seems to confirm what I'd suspected: the NDP has managed to generate the most enduring message of the summer with its pension pitch, earning top billing over anything the province's two historical governing parties have had to say.

But Bissett is right to note that the other parties seem to have followed up the NDP's cheeky presentation without linking their attacks to anything of substance, raising the question of whether voters will hear much about what can be done in the face of the province's budget crunch:

(Donald) Wright said he hopes the parties will focus on the important issues, but doesn't expect that to happen until the final weeks of the campaign.

"No party seems to be able to come to terms with the fiscal crisis coming down the pipe," he said. "As a result they're trying to deflect, they're scrounging, they're desperate, trying to find a target on their opponent without much success."

Of course, the NDP has already started laying the groundwork to talk about the party's history of responsible management as a contrast to how the province has historically been governed. But the question now is whether the NDP can grab just as much attention in sending that message as it's been in criticizing the other parties' supersized benefits - and the answer will likely determine whether the NDP can turn its strong initial position into enduring change on New Brunswick's political scene.

Thursday Morning Links

- If there's anything surprising about the latest federal fund-raising numbers, it's how little has changed over the past few years. While the Cons are hopefully seeing a drop in their receipts over the past couple of months, there seems to be little indication that any party's fund-raising capacity has changed meaningfully since the Cons took power - which is particularly telling for a Lib party which perpetually seems to be almost ready to adapt to a grassroots-based fund-raising model.

- The New Brunswick NDP looks to be doing an excellent job focusing public attention on both the Libs and Cons in that province for a stunningly slimy move to pass an increase to MLA salaries and pensions (among a pile of other legislation) at a time when a flood prevented any recording of the goings-on in the legislature.

But if I have any criticism of the NDP's strategy, it's that the party's sights are set so low in what may be its most visible issue campaign. After all, while it's true that it would only have taken one NDP MLA to keep bills from being forced through, surely it's for the best to elect many more MLAs who won't be inclined to play along with such abuse of democratic procedure - and with the NDP's polling numbers in the mid to high teens, there would seem to be a strong chance of doing just that.

- David Eaves' takedown of Stephen Taylor and other Con spokesflacks is well worth a read:

(F)or Conservatives the whole reason for getting rid of the census was that it was supposed to curtail big government. Stephen Taylor - Conservative blogger and cheerleader - says as much in his National Post Column. The beginning of the end of the Canadian welfare state. What was his line? "If it can’t be measured, future governments can’t pander." It took about 9 days to disprove that thesis. A $5.1-billion dollar a year increase to create prison capacity for a falling crime rate is the case in point. Turns out even if you can't measure it you can still do something about it. Just badly.

This isn't the end of big government. It isn't even the end of pandering governments. It's just the beginning of blind government.

- Meanwhile, QMI is predictably carrying the Cons' water on the census issue like to many others, push polling about how respondents would treat "questions that you considered to be very personal and embarrassing" without pointing to any evidence that such questions exist. So let's make it clear: if there were any questions on the long form whose embarrassment factor could possibly jeopardize the results, the Cons wouldn't have had to fabricate them.

- Finally, PostMedia reports that while the Cons' vandalism in government isn't the kind that can be prosecuted, their electoral book-cooking may yet result in charges.

On responsible government

With New Brunswick headed to the polls this fall, it's bound to be interesting to see what effect the election of the first NDP government in Nova Scotia might have on the party's fortunes elsewhere in Atlantic Canada. And the Telegraph-Journal notes that the New Brunswick NDP is making a strong push for popular support as the party of fiscal responsibility:

Roger Duguay is knocking on doors in his hometown of Tracadie-Sheila with a message: The New Democratic Party of New Brunswick will rein in the runaway spending of successive Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments.
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Observers say the new focus could pay off as taxpayers look for a party to slay the province's growing deficits and debt load.

"I'm going door to door, talking with people about our position, and I'm finding more and more supporters," said Duguay, who has been credited with bringing new supporters under the NDP banner, including francophones and northern New Brunswickers.
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Although the NDP's focus on balancing the books might seem out of character, Rob Moir said it's a return to the party's roots.

The UNB Saint John economics professor and a two-time federal NDP candidate said the focus on fiscal responsibility is true to the tradition of Tommy Douglas, former Baptist minister, premier of Saskatchewan, federal NDP leader, and father of universal public health care in Canada.

"Tommy Douglas (was) the first premier to stop deficit financing," Moir said. "From an economics point of view he knew that in order to bring in good jobs you need an educated workforce. If you want people to be at work and productive then they have to be healthy.

"These are investments we make as a society in part because they are the right thing to do, the moral thing to do, but also because it's just darn good economics," he said. "Taxpayers want a party that spends wisely and that's what the NDP represents."

Of course, it's worth adding in a reminder that the NDP's track record of fiscal responsibility has also been better than that of any other party in recent years - so the shift in New Brunswick is merely toward emphasizing that aspect of the party's hard-earned brand.

But in a province that's far too often served as a petri dish for corporatist policies that have never lived up to their billing, a strong emphasis on living within the province's means would seem to be a needed contrast. And with any luck, enough voters will agree to radically change the look of the province's politics this fall.

Update: And lest I forget, stop by the party's site to lend a hand.