to move up and down
Gary Clement’s Week in Review for May 1 to May 7
Posting before it is entirely too late…
Analyzing turnout: The ballot box balance
After hitting historic lows in 2008, voter turnout rose to 61.4% in Monday’s election as voters in northern Canada and suburban Ontario flocked to the polls in higher numbers than before. The Post analyzes some of the more surprising results
Bin Laden’s cult of hate will live on
Robert Fulford: Even in death, Osama bin Laden provides fresh reasons why the world should continue to fear the crazed fury of radical Islamists. To admirers, his accomplishments make him a heroic, exemplary figure
Election 2011 will be one for the books
One seasoned pollster deemed it the “Seinfeld election” — the election about nothing. But the election about nothing soon became a historic competition with an unprecedented narrative, driven by a cast of characters who were themselves scrambling to understand the suddenly wily electoral landscape.
Live Now: Election 2011 pre-game show
Join the National Post team for our live coverage as results come in for the 2011 Federal Election. Until 10:00 p.m. ET we’ll preview the key ridings and candidates you’ll want to watch. Polls close across the country at 10:00 p.m. ET and we’ll have all the breaking results and instant analysis.
Join us tonight for our LIVE #elxn41 night coverage, Battlefield Canada
Mao Tse-Tung once said, “Politics is war without bloodshed.” And while we can assume that there will be no harm done as Canadians head to the polls Monday, there will certainly be no love lost as the country’s five main political parties grapple for control of Canada in what may be the most wide-open election in recent memory.
Indeed, there will be no shortage of action Monday night once the results start pouring in, and the National Post has you covered with our special election night online feature, Battlefield Canada. Click here for details
Our complete Election 2011 coverage
Latest Election 2011 news
Full Comment on Election 2011
Follow the leaders: Day 32
How do you stem a surging NDP with less than a week before Canadians head to the polls? If you’re Conservative Stephen Harper, you take on Jack Layton head-on. Both party leaders are travelling to Quebec today to shore up support in a province that is shaping up to be this election’s kingmaker.
Follow the Leaders: Day 27 on the trail
It’s the day before advance polls open for the long weekend and party leaders know they’ve got to make an impression on the ground. Again, you’ll find them concentrated in the east, with Stephen Harper making a foray into the Maritimes and Michael Ignatieff kicking around Montreal. Can they capture voter attention before heading into Easter Weekend?
NDP surge to the lead in Quebec: poll
Jack Layton’s New Democratic Party has surged past Gilles Duceppe’s faltering Bloc Quebecois and is now in first place in Quebec, according to an Ekos public opinion poll released exclusively to iPolitics. The poll, conducted earlier this week, found the New Democrats have jumped 10 percentage points since the eve of the leaders debate to 31.1% while the Bloc has dropped like a rock by 7.4 percentage points to 23.7%
Ignatieff says Liberals ‘clear’ choice for Quebecers
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said Thursday that Quebecers are “experimenting” about how to replace the Conservative government, but he argued that his party would be the clear choice at the end of the day. “The electoral situation in Quebec is volatile, but a couple of things are clear,” said Ignatieff after a morning round table with representatives of Quebec’s artistic community in Montreal.
Harper vows not to reopen abortion debate as prime minister
Stephen Harper has vowed that a Conservative government will never endorse anti-abortion legislation while he is in power, but he refused to disclose his personal view on abortion. The Conservatives continued to distance themselves Thursday from remarks by Saskatchewan incumbent MP Brad Trost, who said the Tories have decided to “defund” the International Planned Parenthood Federation, an organization that provides abortions around the world.
What the #!%* will happen after May 3?
Q. The polls suggest Conservative leader Stephen Harper will get a minority. What would happen then?
A. Mr. Harper would get first crack at governing. He would appoint a cabinet and convene Parliament. In all likelihood, he would introduce a Speech from the Throne, which is followed by a vote. That would determine whether he has the confidence of the House of Commons, said Ned Franks, a parliamentary expert at Queen’s University. If he is defeated, Mr. Harper would visit Governor General David Johnston and either resign or ask that Parliament be dissolved for another election. At that point, the GG would approach the leaders of other parties, first and foremost Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, to see if he could glean the confidence of the House — whether via an agreement or an official coalition.
37 Days: They will make constitutional scholars of us yet
Try as the general public might to avoid questions about parliamentary procedure and the rules governing the House of Commons, there’s a good chance that in two weeks’ time our federal leaders will again force us to bone up on things like the Governor-General’s reserve powers of the Crown.
Chris Selley: Not everything Ignatieff says is proof of a coalition conspiracy
After a two-week break to talk halfheartedly about issues, the 41st election campaign now seems ready to revert to its natural state — a slagging match over the legitimacy of coalition governance and whether Michael Ignatieff harbours a secret plan to engineer the defeat of a minority Conservative Throne Speech or budget, no matter what their content, in order to install himself as prime minister.
![Q&A: VintageVoter digs out old photos of party leaders Once upon a time, Stephen Harper was a mop-haired, plaid-clothed university student, and Jack Layton’s mustache was still black. Fast-forward some 30-odd years to meet David Leibl, a 31-year-old communications strategist from Winnipeg, who found these old photographs scattered across the Internet, sought the help of two tech-savvy friends, and compiled the images to make VintageVoter.ca. The Post’s Michael Fraiman spoke with Mr. Leibl on Tuesday, roughly 24 hours and 130,000 views after his site’s launch.Q: How did you get the idea?A: You know what — the motivation came from frustration with the level of voter participation in Canada. Why funny vintage pictures of Canadian leaders? It stems from just tripping across an old photo — actually, the first photo on the site, of Michael Ignatieff in interview in the late 1980s, and we thought the photo was just hilarious. And the Internet is such a wonderful treasure trove of photographs like those ones. We launched the site [Monday] morning, and it’s been our good fortune to have had a few more photos roll in.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljyb5fZGrC1qze0z6o1_1280.jpg)
Q&A: VintageVoter digs out old photos of party leaders
Once upon a time, Stephen Harper was a mop-haired, plaid-clothed university student, and Jack Layton’s mustache was still black. Fast-forward some 30-odd years to meet David Leibl, a 31-year-old communications strategist from Winnipeg, who found these old photographs scattered across the Internet, sought the help of two tech-savvy friends, and compiled the images to make VintageVoter.ca. The Post’s Michael Fraiman spoke with Mr. Leibl on Tuesday, roughly 24 hours and 130,000 views after his site’s launch.
Q: How did you get the idea?
A: You know what — the motivation came from frustration with the level of voter participation in Canada. Why funny vintage pictures of Canadian leaders? It stems from just tripping across an old photo — actually, the first photo on the site, of Michael Ignatieff in interview in the late 1980s, and we thought the photo was just hilarious. And the Internet is such a wonderful treasure trove of photographs like those ones. We launched the site [Monday] morning, and it’s been our good fortune to have had a few more photos roll in.
Follow the leaders: Day 25 on the trail
Now in their fourth week of riding four wheelers, playing with power tools, eating sandwiches…oh, and meeting constituents and making policy announcements, the federal party leaders are still keeping busy on the trail. On Tuesday, the three major parties are hoping to ratchet up support mostly in Ontario, but will also make appearances in next-door provinces Manitoba and Quebec.
Tories hit home stretch with 12-point lead over Liberals: poll
The Conservatives are hitting the home stretch with a 12-point lead over the Liberals, while the NDP enjoys a swell of national support, a new Ekos-iPolitics poll shows. Pollster Frank Graves said the NDP is the only party that has improved its prospects during the campaign. The survey of 2,400 Canadians finds 37.4% would vote Conservative, 24.9% Liberal, and 20% NDP if an election were held today. Another 8.4% plan to vote for the Green Party and 7.8 % for the Bloc Quebecois.
Chris Selley: Jack Layton + nationalist agenda = NDP surge
This year’s Angus Reid poll, released Monday, was conducted within days of the leaders’ debates, where Mr. Layton landed some pretty good shots on his competition. Stephen Harper was mostly running defence, Mr. Ignatieff ran hot and cold, and Mr. Layton had the advantage of being neither leader’s primary target. It’s also true that the New Democrats are increasingly relevant in Quebec. Both the Angus Reid poll and a Nanos Research poll released Monday have the NDP at roughly double their popular vote haul in 2008, which was 12%. If the nationwide NDP surge is real, it’s safe to assume that’s a huge part of what’s driving it.
Post-debate poll: Who’s likable, attractive, a prime minister?
While each party always claims victory after a debate, pollsters Ipsos Reid asked potential voters to pick winners and losers of the English debate Tuesday night. The results suggest Prime Minister Stephen Harper and NDP leader Jack Layton especially impressed people.
Harper the target in both languages
Graeme Hamilton: The Bloc Québécois is the clear front-runner among the federal parties in Quebec, but you wouldn’t have known it from Wednesday night’s French-language debate.
National Post front page for April 14, 2011
Harper the target in both languages
NATO-led coalition increasingly unwilling
Drug plans face historic squeeze
Leaders debate: He said, he said
Despite the much-ballyhooed one-on-one format for Tuesday night’s debate, some of the snappiest exchanges between leaders took place during the free-for-alls that happened at the end of each round. Below, some key quotes:
Live Chat: Join us for the French language leaders debate, 7:30 p.m ET
Kelly McParland: Harper deploys Iron Dome to deflect opposition missiles
As each party leader in turn luxuriated in their favourite insults, the Prime Minister stuck to his theme, turning the attacks to his advantage as he noted that a majority government could turn off the caterwauling and save the population from yet another vote a year or two down the road.
Chris Selley: Ignatieff sticks to script, misses opportunity to close gap on Harper
If Michael Ignatieff needed a decisive win in the English-language debate on Tuesday night to start navigating 10%-or-so gap between his Liberals and the Conservatives … well, he didn’t do it. “Hash-tag fail,” as Jack Layton very strangely said at one point.
John Ivison on the debate: Harper won by avoiding blunders
The only question that really counted on debate night was whether Michael Ignatieff could convince those Canadians who know next to nothing about him, that he has what it takes to be Prime Minister.
Report on G8 spending won’t be released, Auditor General says
The Conservatives defended themselves against allegations an Auditor General investigation had found the government misinformed Parliament on nearly $50-million in funding for projects related to last year’s G8 summit in a Tory Cabinet minister’s Ontario riding.
37 Days: Knockout punches no longer part of debates
Short of Michael Ignatieff acknowledging that he really is Just Visiting, or Stephen Harper producing a black book titled ‘Hidden Agenda’ from his blazer pocket, it will be impossible to state that a decisive blow was struck
Killing vote subsidy could alter electoral landscape: analysts
Behind the principled rhetoric surrounding the debate over $2-a-vote public subsidies for political parties are the parties’ competing self-interests, each with implications for the Canadian electoral landscape
Ignatieff’s time outside of Canada is still a problem for voters
Chris Selley: Every time there’s a citizenship-related debate in this country, Canadians reliably prove that the Liberals’ expansive, hooray-for-everyone vision of Canadian-ness is far from a consensus
