Ontario Provincial Politics

[Marc]

Does she live on Manitoulin Island by any chance? Boundary wise, you'd think it would count as Southern Ontario, but it's actually in Northern Ontario

about 30mins from the eastern entrance to Algonquin Park so definiately gets counted as south Ontario.

 

[Marc]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...nservatives-pcs-new-leader-election-1.4571014

Suddenly the election seems a lot more high-stakes than it did before...

sounds like the tories have made a complete and utter balls up off it.

 

[ALF]

How exciting... Orville Redenbacher versus Rob Ford's angry clone ensures this will be a political spectacle the likes of which Ontario hasn't seen in years.

 

[Owain Taggart]

about 30mins from the eastern entrance to Algonquin Park so definiately gets counted as south Ontario.

Ahh, Algonquin Park is a beautiful place. Most popular park in the province, I believe. Funny thing is, there's a joke that we like to say, that it's Toronto's Park seeing as lots of people from Toronto go there for their getaways. I've only ever been there once since it's a hard park to book as it fills up very quickly. For me, it's far enough to feel more like it resides in southern ontario compared to northern ontario. But it's beautiful, and there's a very good museum as part of the park office.

 

[Marc]

Ahh, Algonquin Park is a beautiful place. Most popular park in the province, I believe. Funny thing is, there's a joke that we like to say, that it's Toronto's Park seeing as lots of people from Toronto go there for their getaways. I've only ever been there once since it's a hard park to book as it fills up very quickly. For me, it's far enough to feel more like it resides in southern ontario compared to northern ontario. But it's beautiful, and there's a very good museum as part of the park office.

Never had to book to stay so don't know about that. Do know the place is like a mad house on the Thanksgiving weekend.

As to the subject o the thread be interesting to see how things go now the tories have doug the thug as leader (and there are a lot of unhappy conservatives after that announcement).

 

[Kelthaz]

Christine Elliott won’t concede Ontario PC leadership race

Alright, so let's break this down. The OPC leadership race uses a system similar to the US electoral college to determine the victor. Each provincial riding is allocated 100 points and candidates win points equal to their vote share in that riding. The candidate with the most points wins.

Example:
Candidate A wins 600 votes and Candidate B wins 400 votes in Riding 1. Candidate A receives 60 points and Candidate B receives 40 points.

Candidate A wins 20 votes and Candidate B wins 80 votes in Riding 2. Candidate A receives 20 points and candidate B receives 80 points.

Candidate B wins the leadership race with 120 points (44% of the vote) while Candidate A loses with 80 points (56% of the vote).

It's a crappy system that prioritizes small ridings with few conservative members (so basically NDP and Liberal strongholds where Conservatives will never win hold the most power), but that's not the point. The candidates did agree to those rules. The point is that the geographic location of each ballot is extremely important. Elliot's argument is that around 1,300 ballots (2-3% of the total vote) were allocated to the wrong riding, and since the result was extremely close (It's believed that Elliot won the popular vote and the majority of ridings), she's not conceding. If some of those ballots were incorrectly assigned to Riding 1 in my example instead of Riding 2 that would make a huge difference. She has a solid argument.

 

[Marc]

Christine Elliott won’t concede Ontario PC leadership race

Alright, so let's break this down. The OPC leadership race uses a system similar to the US electoral college to determine the victor. Each provincial riding is allocated 100 points and candidates win points equal to their vote share in that riding. The candidate with the most points wins.

Example:
Candidate A wins 600 votes and Candidate B wins 400 votes in Riding 1. Candidate A receives 60 points and Candidate B receives 40 points.

Candidate A wins 20 votes and Candidate B wins 80 votes in Riding 2. Candidate A receives 20 points and candidate B receives 80 points.

Candidate B wins the leadership race with 120 points (44% of the vote) while Candidate A loses with 80 points (56% of the vote).

It's a crappy system that prioritizes small ridings with few conservative members (so basically NDP and Liberal strongholds where Conservatives will never win hold the most power), but that's not the point. The candidates did agree to those rules. The point is that the geographic location of each ballot is extremely important. Elliot's argument is that around 1,300 ballots (2-3% of the total vote) were allocated to the wrong riding, and since the result was extremely close (It's believed that Elliot won the popular vote and the majority of ridings), she's not conceding. If some of those ballots were incorrectly assigned to Riding 1 in my example instead of Riding 2 that would make a huge difference. She has a solid argument.

I also expect that most ot the riding that ford won were in the GTA and outside of that his support was a lot lower.

 

[Avro Arrow]

She has a solid argument.

I agree she has a very solid argument. I'm also not really sure how much she can do about it at this point. The article says their next step is going to court. The election is less than three months away, so she doesn't really have a lot of time to get her case through the legal system.

Plus... can you imagine the furor from the Ford camp if she *does* somehow manage to get the results overturned?

It's an interesting situation. The vast majority of the caucus supports Elliott over Ford. Elliott won the popular vote, too, so presumably she has the support of the (admittedly slight) majority of the party membership. But how much support would she lose if she only got the leadership through a legal challenge?

I still don't know if this whole mess is good for the other parties or not. I think Elliott is way more palatable to middle-of-the-road/undecided voters than Ford. So I would think having Ford as leader would severely hamper their election chances, again. But as I mentioned upthread, I've been wrong about this kind of thing before. The thought of Premier Doug Ford is a lot more troubling than the thought of Premier Christine Elliott.

But I'm honestly hard-pressed to understand how anyone could even think this party is in any shape to run the province anyway... the last few months have been one dumpster fire after another.

On another topic from the leadership convention... some news sites are reporting Granic Allen came fourth and was eliminated on the first ballot, but other sites are reporting it was Mulroney who came fourth on the first ballot. What's with the disagreement there? Is this based on conflicting information coming from the party itself? It seems unreasonable that half the news organizations could get such a basic fact wrong.

 

[Marc]

It's an interesting situation. The vast majority of the caucus supports Elliott over Ford. Elliott won the popular vote, too, so presumably she has the support of the (admittedly slight) majority of the party membership. But how much support would she lose if she only got the leadership through a legal challenge?

I still don't know if this whole mess is good for the other parties or not. I think Elliott is way more palatable to middle-of-the-road/undecided voters than Ford. So I would think having Ford as leader would severely hamper their election chances, again. But as I mentioned upthread, I've been wrong about this kind of thing before. The thought of Premier Doug Ford is a lot more troubling than the thought of Premier Christine Elliott.

Think Elliot's issue is she's seen as thrice a loser and then jumping ship after she lost the leadership ballot to brown then taking the job as the patient obudsmen didn't help (even if she simply applied for the position like any other application and was interviewed by a 3rd party with no tie to the government) and this was reflected in the comments from the article linked above (and some of them were pretty nasty).

One of the article notes that ford was also complaining the system chosen was unfair (like trump with the electoral college) but now he's won, it's the best thing since sliced bread.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Think Elliot's issue is she's seen as thrice a loser and then jumping ship after she lost the leadership ballot to brown then taking the job as the patient obudsmen didn't help (even if she simply applied for the position like any other application and was interviewed by a 3rd party with no tie to the government)

I've also seen people make reference to the fact that she was the only one of the four candidates who opposed extending the vote by an extra week, which lead to the attempt to an injunction, which was denied. Most people seem to think she opposed it because a delay helped the other candidates more than her. So now they're saying this is her comeuppance.

and this was reflected in the comments from the article linked above (and some of them were pretty nasty).

Oh, yes, there has been a lot of nastiness online. They really are a divided party right now, despite Ford's claims that he is going to unite them... somehow.

One of the article notes that ford was also complaining the system chosen was unfair (like trump with the electoral college) but now he's won, it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Yes, I saw that, Ford claiming the system was "rigged" for Elliott's victory. He even uses Trumpian language!

Actually, it's funny how close this mirrors the whole Trump/Clinton election, right down to all the vitriol online.

With Doug Ford's victory, a populist wave sweeps into Ontario

Doug will be Doug, and that's not good

I am really worried about the outcome this June...

 

[Marc]

I am really worried about the outcome this June...

the Liberals really don't deserve another term, the ndp are too far to the left for me and I didn't trust brown (the invisible man in an empty suit for the most part). Could have held my nose and voted conservative (first time ever) under Elliot but with ford in the leader's seat I'm voting Liberal.

The tories are still likely to win but hopefully as people get whiff of doug the thug it will be a minority govt,

 

[Kelthaz]

I agree she has a very solid argument. I'm also not really sure how much she can do about it at this point. The article says their next step is going to court. The election is less than three months away, so she doesn't really have a lot of time to get her case through the legal system.

Plus... can you imagine the furor from the Ford camp if she *does* somehow manage to get the results overturned?

Agreed. Even if she does somehow manage to overturn the results and become leader of the OPC, she will be burning bridges with half the party. Ford supporters will believe she stole the election and stay home (or maybe even vote against her) rather than fall in line. She would doom the party by winning with a legal challenge and she's smart enough to know that. Of course, this is her third time running for leadership of the party and at 62 years old I doubt she's going to run a fourth time. She probably sees this as her last, best chance to gain power. I guess we'll have to see if she drops her opposition and falls in line or she takes it to court.

 

[Marc]

Christine Elliot has conceded and won't challenge the result any further.

 

[Avro Arrow]

^ And is also apparently still going to run for a seat in the election.

As CBC News reported first, Elliott initiated a meeting with Ford on Sunday afternoon. The pair met for "several hours," according to a senior official on the Elliott campaign.

Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall for that one?

So ends this particular drama, I guess. I'm sure there will be plenty more before June 7.

ETA: Here's a breakdown of the results, showing how Ford won, when Elliott had a higher popular vote and won more of the ridings:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-pc-leadership-results-1.4571699

 

[Leviathan]

 

[Marc]

Except we have a 3 party system

 

[Leviathan]

Except we have a 3 party system

I'll correct our records.

Does your electoral system still involve a battle to the death in The Final Challenge.

 

[Marc]

comment (paraphrased) from a letter in The Toronto Star. Under Ford the progressive conservatives should change their name to the regressive conservatives.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Does your electoral system still involve a battle to the death in The Final Challenge.

All the party leaders stand in a ring, and pummel each other with TimBits™. Hardly anyone actually dies anymore.

 

[Marc]

ford is saying he wants a hands off, free market approach to the sale of marijana which is probably gonna put him on a collision course with some tories. They're busy bashing for trudeau for legalising it when along comes the tory leader in largest province all for the legalisation and sale.