Ever since the PCs won their 10000000th consecutive election in Alberta a few weeks ago, everyone has been abuzz about nothing. False. The PCs got blown to smithereens, so everyone is abuzz about orange. Should we make the maple leaf on the Canadian flag orange? Should we change Canada’s name to CaNDPada? No, obvious changes would be too Conservative. For now, Canadians will have to settle for changing the composition of the House of Commons. New polls suggest we are well on our way to doing just that.
Watch out for Mulcair
Pro Wrestling Powerhouse
Polls released last week by EKOS and Forum suggest that the federal NDP are now in a three-way race with the Liberals and Conservatives, with each party supported by roughly 30% of eligible voters. This level of support for the NDP is unprecedented in recent history, and, in Forum’s case, totally unprecedented. That isn’t the only surprise.
CBC poll analyst/total nerd Eric Grenier says that the surging NDP support is not because people like Tom Mulcair. In fact, in both the EKOS and Forum polls, his approval ratings of roughly 50% trended slightly downward. He still remains more popular than Trudeau and far more popular than Harper. Of course, neither poll asked which leader Canadians would most like to bang.
Still winning where it counts.
CP
Why the surge? Has the Alberta NDP government done anything to prove its value? No, not yet, but the Alberta NDP has a history of delayed action. Remember, it took them a while to launch a platform. So no, evidence suggests that this isn’t a response to an excellent NDP performance, but rather a response to a new discovery that the NDP can win an election in unfamiliar territory. Simply put, if the provincial NDP is capable of forming a government in Alberta, the federal NDP is presumably capable of doing the same thing across Canada. Sure, the Liberals won in P.E.I., but no one is counting on Miracle Boy Trudeau to do what Wade MacLauchlan did.
Apparently, folks, the Canadian electorate is so desperate for change that people are willing to vote NDP just because other people are willing to vote NDP. Anything to oust King Harper. Perhaps desperate times call for desperate measures. So join in the chorus: “Go NDP, sort of!” Don’t get me wrong, change can be good. This triple-threat election, should it deliver, might be the most exciting in recent memory.