Monday Roundup

1. In an article in today's Globe about how Elections Canada deals with those who accidentally break election rules, they mentioned that Jean Lapierre got in a bit of trouble for showing his ballot to a TV camera. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the infraction didn't occur on October 30th, 1995.

2. There's some more in The Hill Times about the "rebel" Conservatives in Quebec, calling for Harper to resign. As I said earlier this week, the people speaking publicly against Harper are those in the party who never supported him and have little influence on the CPC. And as Paul Wells comments here, there are far more credible Liberals who previously supported Paul that are none too pleased with his performance. I don't really buy into the whole "media bias" argument the right constantly raises, but there's certainly a mob mentality in the media right now against Harper.

3. Hanging Chads anyone? Germany is in for a very interesting few weeks of political haggling and deal making.

4. We're hearing more and more noise about a November election from all parties. I suspect Tony Valeri is going to be very careful in his scheduling of opposition days during October.

5. The latest Leger poll has the liberals at 40%, including a shocking 34% in Alberta (which translates to...I'd guess one seat). Before people get too giddy, there are 20% undecided, the Quebec numbers are still ugly, and over 50% of Canadians are dissatisfied with Paul's leadership. Still, the potential is there for a big pickup in BC which could make up for any losses in La Belle Province.

The poll also has a few other goodies included in it. Ralph Klein and Jean Charest are the most popular provincial premiers...Charest's popularity is mostly outside his own province but it's surprising to see Klein doing so well nationally. The fact that 75% of Canadians have no opinion on Bernard Lord raises some questions about his label as CPC saviour.

The poll also says that 52% of voters feel it's time to move on to other issues besides Gomery...they spin this as good news, but that means that 48% of Canadians are still hung up on it.

Interestingly, 45% of Canadians favour the opposition defeating the Liberals this fall, while only 41% oppose this. So this means that last spring when everyone hated the Liberals, no one wanted an election but now that everyone likes them, people want one. To me this shows some major problems with either the Canadian electorate or public opinion polls.