Author
|
Topic: Is the BC Green Party dead?
|
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138
|
posted 30 October 2008 06:16 AM
The results are in from the two provincial byelections and while it was great for the NDP to win boht - it seems to me that if there was one big loser - it has to be the so-called BC Green Party.Let's keep in mind that Burrard and Fairview essentially make up the federal riding of Vancouver Centre - where the federal greens ran Adriane Carr just two weeks ago and while she came in fourth - she got a credible 17% of the vote. One would think that these byelections would be a perfect storm for the BC Greens - two byelections in seats with PERFECT demographics for them - relatively high income urban ridings where you might think that there would be some NDP leaning voters who might not like their party's attacks on the carbon tax etc..., plus the greens ran their leader Jane Sterk, plus its a byelection where eople are free to cast a protest vote knowing that the stakes are low etc... and yet they got a pathetic FIVE PERCENT in Burrard and the leader got just SEVEN PERCENT in Fairview - in each case barely ahead of fringe candidates from the moribund BC Conservative party and even the Marijuana Party. This has to be considered a very, very, very bad sign for them and suggests that any province-wide poll that gives them anything in double digits has to be taken with a grain of salt.
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
1948
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15673
|
posted 30 October 2008 06:55 AM
I still think the Green Party is a place where people park their vote when they can't stomach voting for their party of choice.Thus the Greens surged in BC when Ujjal Dosanjh was leading the NDP to defeat. Dippers voted Green. When Carole James was leading the NDP back from the wilderness four years later all of those voters came back and the Green vote collapsed. A few weeks ago Greens semi-surged on the strength of Liberal voters who couldn't quite stomach voting Liberal. However, the same voters - two weeks later - were happy voting for their first choices again. In Ontario's most recent election the Greens biggest gains were in rural Ontario where Conservative voters - disgusted with Tory's inept campaigning and having a predictably bigoted reaction to his plan to fund Jewish and Muslim schools - fled to the Greens who were campaigning to not only against Jewish and Muslim schools but against Catholic schools to boot.
From: Ontario | Registered: Oct 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
janfromthebruce
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14090
|
posted 30 October 2008 08:22 AM
What folks heard at the doorstep - quote: "I spent most of my time on Denman and Davie," Thorne said. "Housing was huge. Rental housing, homelessness, and affordable housing in general: a huge, huge issue."Thorne said she didn't hear much criticism of the NDP's controversial "Axe the Tax" campaign, which was blamed for hampering Michael Byers in his Vancouver-Centre federal run. "I didn't have anybody say to me, 'I'm not going to vote for Spencer because of your [Axe the Tax] campaign,'" Thorne said. "I must have talked to thousands of people in the past eight days. I had two people ask me about it."
Meanwhile in the loser Gordo Liberal camp there appears to be a disconnect: quote: Vance Campbell, President of the Vancouver-Burrard Liberal riding association, said a Liberal defeat could mean the premier needs to make his carbon tax clearer to voters.He said the tax has been misunderstood by many British Columbians as a cash grab instead of a revenue neutral climate change plan.
Premier Campbell shrugs off by-election defeat
From: cow country | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
George Victor
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14683
|
posted 30 October 2008 01:11 PM
quote: With any luck, the BC Conservative Party will get its act together and run a candidate in every single riding - even if they only win 5% on average that can flip a lot of seats to the NDP by taking away BC Liberal votes.
Has there not been an understanding between Libs and Cons since the early 1950s in B.C. that such contests for power will not take place? (Or is my memory seriously letting me down, here...don't make that an adamant "yes", please).
From: Cambridge, ON | Registered: Oct 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Malcolm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5168
|
posted 30 October 2008 10:44 PM
quote: Originally posted by brookmere:
Excuse me, there is nothing "bigoted" about not wanting one's tax dollars to fund a religiously segregated - and de facto racially segregated - school system.
I don't think 1948 was saying that it is inherently bigotted to oppose funding for separate religious schools. But there is some portion of those who oppose this policy whose opposition is based, not in progressive ideas of a single, secular, multi-cultural school system, but rather in prejudice against Jews, Muslims and Roman Catholics.
I don't know how big that proportion is, but it does exist. I've seen it. It is worth noting that the biggest push to end Roman Catholic school funding on the Prairies came from that rigidly non-progressive gang the Ku Klux Klan. Sometimes people do support the right policy for the wrong reasons.
From: Regina, SK | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
janfromthebruce
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14090
|
posted 03 November 2008 04:51 AM
quote: Originally posted by brookmere:
That makes no sense to me at all. If people were prejudiced against people of other religious backgrounds, they would want their children to be educated apart from them, not with them.I will also point out that the existing denominational school system in Ontario constitutes de facto racial segregation, as very few Catholics in Ontario are of non-European ancestry. Do you think the PQ government in Quebec was motivated by religious prejudice when they abolished denominational schools? How about Newfoundland?
One can never be sure here why someone votes in a certain way - thus voting for a policy for the wrong reasons. However, I believe there is some truth to that if one looks at where the Ontario Green Party received the most votes in the last provincial election. It would be interesting to compare where PC Bill Davies lost the majority of votes and candidates after the election in [?], after he introduced Catholic school funding in Ontario. Sometimes, like in any type of coalition, for example, strange bedfellows are made - where two different types of groups end of having a common goal for very different reasons.
From: cow country | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|