Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- David Green nicely explains the basic choice to be made in determining what type of economy we want to pursue:(T)he basic tenet of the new policy regime – that any increase in wage costs kills jobs a…
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Accidental Deliberations: Just so we’re clear…
New rules for Canadian political reporting:If a federal government department is proposing to raise user fees, that has nothing to do with Tony Clement or any other Harper Con, particular when it comes to evaluating Clement’s promises that user fees we…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Ian Welsh serves up some tough commentary as to whether Canadian voters saddled with unrepresentative and downright destructive governments are merely getting what we deserve:(W)e have selected, to rule our soci…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On unwanted assistance
Shorter Harper PCO response to anybody requesting information it would prefer to pre-emptively classify as unavailable:Are you sure you want us to comply with the law on access to information? Really? Nah, you’re just kidding. REALLY? How about now?
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On privileged access
It’s somewhat surprising to see one of the architects of a PMO noted for an obsessive aversion to transparency pushing for a lobbying registry in Saskatchewan. But I have to wonder whether the pitch has something to do with the flaws in the Harper Cons…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.- Janice Kennedy highlights the consequences of turning back the clock 80 years when it comes to collective bargaining rights:In the world of Stephen Harper and Co., big business rules. Period. The concep…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Juxtaposition
Stephen Harper describes his party’s view of the type of environment needed for any industry to plan for the future and create jobs:“Protecting and creating jobs and ensuring economic growth in all regions remains our Government’s number one priority…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Canada Day reading.- Oh, how nice it would be to be able to take pride in Dan Gardner’s message about Canada’s true identity:The level of civility seen every day at fourway stops across Canada is unheard of in countries around…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On foreseeable futures
In posting about the DND’s “First Look” at where Canada is headed, Mike DeSouza focuses on a seemingly throwaway sentence mentioning the Green Party. But the more striking part of DeSouza’s post looks to be this:The life expectancy for men would be 80+…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Andrew Jackson points out and sums up a Statistics Canada study showing how much possible revenue is lost to the underground economy:Statscan have produced interesting and important new estimates of the upper b…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On needless aggression
While I wrote today’s column before word came out about the Harper Cons’ meddling in the negotiations between Canada Post and CUPW, it looks like the Cons’ desire to provoke a war with workers extended even further than I’d thought – including through …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, expanding on the hostile labour environment that’s developing as federal and provincial governments alike use back-to-work legislation as a pre-emptive attack on workers. For further reading (which should be familiar to those who read the blog re…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On selloffs
Sure, it takes some effort to pull a sweetheart deal out of the wreckage of AECL. But we probably shouldn’t be surprised that the Cons seem to have pulled off the feat:Versant Partners analyst Neil Linsdell told CBC News there’s still a market for the …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Fund-Raising Review By Province – NDP
Following up on my previous post, let’s take a look at the NDP’s partial fund-raising numbers from 2007 to 2010. (I’ve kept the 2010 data in the chart as an FYI, but a keen-eye reader notes that we shouldn’t compare to previous years’ data since it reflects quarterly returns rather than annual ones.)
Prov/Reg | 2007 $ | 2007 % | 2008 $ | 2008 % | 2009 $ | 2009 % | 2010 $ | 2010 % |
AB | $307,001.80 | 10.31% | $406,575.72 | 9.23% | $307,350.79 | 10.01% | $143741.94.50 | 9.44% |
BC | $805,217.20 | 27.04% | $1,109,104.94 | 25.18% | $680,108.02 | 30.22% | $504,443.60 | 33.13% |
MB | $148,937.94 | 5.00% | $251,361.54 | 5.71% | $174,442.71 | 5.68% | $64,005.27 | 4.20% |
NB | $34,410.77 | 1.16% | $42,393.92 | 0.96% | $38,635.19 | 1.26% | $13,144.86 | 0.86% |
NL | $13,894.00 | 0.47% | $22,273.00 | 0.51% | $22,290.00 | 0.73% | $11,340.00 | 0.75% |
NS | $105,734.34 | 3.55% | $155,442.45 | 3.53% | $110,203.00 | 3.59% | $37,112.50 | 2.44% |
NT | $7,146.00 | 0.24% | $21,542.00 | 0.49% | $9,433.00 | 0.31% | $2,150.00 | 0.14% |
NU | $2,830.00 | 0.10% | $2,420.00 | 0.05% | $4,018.00 | 0.13% | $2,040.00 | 0.13% |
ON | $1,199,357.72 | 40.28% | $1,841,233.15 | 41.81% | $1,364,679.90 | 44.46% | $583,063.67 | 38.29% |
PE | $7,145.00 | 0.24% | $8,300.82 | 0.19% | $5,952.00 | 0.19% | $2,470.00 | 0.16% |
QC | $94,120.42 | 3.16% | $120,570.19 | 2.74% | $65,811.41 | 2.14% | $30,502.58 | 2.00% | SK | $243,518.12 | 8.18% | $411,029.18 | 9.33% | $278,655.30 | 9.08% | $124,664.37 | 8.19% | YT | $8,300.92 | 0.28% | $11,703.92 | 0.27% | $8,174.92 | 0.27% | $3,887.34 | 0.27% | Total | $2,977,614.23 | n/a | $4,403,950.83 | n/a | $3,069,754.24 | n/a | $1,522,571.13 | n/a |
The NDP received $23,019.67 in other donations included in La Presse’s dataset; as with the Cons, that extra amount looks to consist generally of donations from Canadians living outside the country. And another $1,237,818.50 was linked to a province but not classified by year.
I’ll note that the above chart doesn’t include one of the ways I played around with the data, which was to compare the parties’ 2008 donations to their votes in each province. Based on the Cons’ numbers alone I wasn’t entirely sure what to look for, but there are some rather interesting comparisons to be drawn between the Cons and the NDP:
– Both parties posted their top fund-raising take per vote in…the Yukon, with the Cons raking in $11.85 per vote and the NDP $9.17. The Northwest Territories also rank near the top of both parties’ lists, but Nunuvut breaks the territorial trend as the Cons’ lowest per-vote source of income.
– The Cons’ most efficient province for fund-raising is predictably the one where they hold a stranglehold on the popular vote, with $4.53 finding its way into party coffers for every vote won in Alberta. Next in line were B.C. ($3.89), Ontario ($3.69), Manitoba ($3.52) and Saskatchewan ($3.36).
– For the NDP, by far the most efficient province for fund-raising compared to votes received (and the lone one where it exceeded the Cons on that measure) was Saskatchewan, with $3.83 raised by the NDP for each vote it won. Surprisingly to me at least, Alberta ranks second at $2.52, followed by B.C. ($2.37), Manitoba ($2.24) and Ontario ($1.96) – making the fund-raising bases substantially the same for the NDP and the Cons, even if they’ve had varying success in cultivating them.
– Meanwhile, the NDP had two provinces far below the rest in dollars raised per vote. In Newfoundland and Labrador ($0.34), the party’s vote was itself based largely on Danny Williams’ ABC campaign, making for an obvious explanation for the disconnect. But even that effect couldn’t win the bottom place on the NDP’s list of dollars raised per vote – which leads us back into the discussion of the NDP generally.
While I noted that the Cons’ returns in Quebec has always been less than impressive, the NDP’s (at least for the years covered by La Presse’s data) have been substantially lower…and declining by the year as a proportion of the NDP’s overall fund-raising. And even in the 2008 election which saw the party make modest gains with a 12% showing at the polls and its first ever general-election seat, the NDP raised only 27 cents for every Quebec vote it won.
Which isn’t to say that the NDP can’t indeed build up its capacity in Quebec now that it has 59 MPs and a majority of popular support to work with. And one can’t say that the model of working toward winning votes based on relatively soft support which doesn’t yet reflect a donor base has been anything but a stunning success.
But there’s an awfully long way to go for the NDP to turn what had previously been its least efficient fund-raising generator into a national power base. And I’ll be highly curious to see whether the party’s fund-raising base shifts substantially based on its Quebec success.
I’ll note one other trend in the NDP’s data, as the close relationship between the NDP and its provincial sections looks to have a significant influence on how the party raises its money. The 2007 and 2009 years offer an ideal basis of comparison since the dollars raised are such a good match, and they show an almost unbroken pattern: where a provincial party faces an election (including Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario in 2007, and B.C. in 2009), the federal party’s fund-raising is lower for the year.
And the exception that proves the rule is Nova Scotia – where despite the euphoria of winning a provincial election for the first time and the added attention from hosting the party’s federal convention in Halifax, the federal NDP improved on its 2007 fund-raising numbers by less than $5,000.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On radioactive deals
Yes, there are plenty of reasons for concern about the sale of AECL to SNC-Lavalin. But let’s add another by raising the other issue that has put SNC-Lavalin in the news recently:Hon. Jack Layton (Leader of the Opposition, NDP): Mr. Speaker, people wou…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Deep thought
Boy, is it ever a good thing we have a stubborn, unaccountable majority government to help restore confidence in Canada’s economy.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On downturns
Sure, it might seem like reason for concern that it’s only the type of government spending which the Cons are determined to slash that allowed Canadians in general to somewhat avoid a significant economic collapse over the past few years:In 2009, avera…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament In Review: June 15, 2011
Yes, the spring session of Parliament has come to an end. But with much less news popping up on the political scene, I’ll take the opportunity to take a look back at the days I didn’t get to through my Parliament in Review posts – starting with Wednesd…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Kept on track
Impolitical rightly points out that the Harper Cons are well on their way to implementing every single odious policy that was rightly labeled as unacceptable overreach when included in Deficit Jim Flaherty’s 2008 fiscal update. Now if only somebody had…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week.- Following up on yesterday’s post, the Hill Times reports that even the first set of cuts from the Harper Cons’ majority looks to have a serious effect on our federal government’s ability to function for itself rath…
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