Monday Quick Hits

1. The Hill Times has released their annual MP survey. John Baird and Bob Rae do well in the more meaningful categories, while Rona Ambrose and Pablo Rodriguez continue their dominance in the "best hair" category. Rona is also on top for sexiest woman, with Helena and Ruby falling off the list after a difficult year. For the men, Peter McKay held off a challenge from the "hippest MP", Justin Trudeau, to defend his crown.


2. In other polling news, the latest from Environics shows few changes in Alberta since March:

PC 34% (nc)
WAP 28% (-2%)
ALP 23% (nc)
NDP 12% (+2%)

They do some seat projections that show the PCs with a razor-thin majority but, for the life of me, I'm not sure how you can do a credible seat projection when a party rises from obscurity to second place.


3. In Quebec, the news is less rosy for the incumbent:

PQ 40%
Lib 31%
ADQ 8%
QS 8%
Green 7%

With the PQ up 48% to 22% among francophone voters, they're squarely in majority territory. We're still a ways off from an election but the federal parties should at least start thinking about the implications of having a separatist government in Quebec in a few years.


4. Speaking of which, a regular reader is looking to give away a pair of hardcover Rene Levesque biographies - Memories and My Quebec. If you're in Calgary you can pick them up, otherwise you can send cash for postage. If you're interest, drop me an e-mail and I'll get you in touch.

Sondage Says...

It's been a busy week for political polls...I'll have the May poll dance up by week's end, but with two Quebec-only polls in field at the same time, this is a good chance to take a close look at a province which is all too often overlooked by both pundits and politicians - Quebec.

Leger, CROP, and Ipsos were all in field last week - if we take a weighted average based on their Quebec samples, we get the following:

Liberals 35%
Bloc 35%
CPC 14%
NDP 13%

Pas pire, no matter how you slice it, considering the Liberals have generally been about 15 points back of the Bloc in all three post-Chretien elections (although they did hit 34% in 2004).

I haven't been able to see the regional tables at all, but the CROP poll does detail the collapse of Harper's Quebec City Fortress:

Puis, les troupes de Stephen Harper ont glissé au troisième rang des intentions de vote dans leur bastion de la région de Québec, tout juste derrière le Bloc québécois et à 10 points du Parti libéral. À ce chapitre, le PLC termine au premier rang, avec 33%. C'est du jamais vu depuis janvier 2004, soit quelques semaines avant la publication du rapport dévastateur de la vérificatrice générale sur le scandale des commandites.

The Liberals haven't won a seat in Quebec City since 2000, and finished third in every riding there last election - usually well over 10,000 votes behind. With little organization in the region, they'll clearly have to put some resources into it - all the more evidence why it makes sense to have a 308 riding strategy, where you at least have a base level of organization in every riding that can be mobilized when things like this happen.

So what does this all mean electorally? Well, it's too early to tell, but a real quick and dirty seat projection based on the 2008 results shows the Liberals poised to win between 20-30 seats in Quebec. And that's just the way the Quebec map usually plays out - in the 1997 election for instance, the Bloc edged the Liberals 38% to 37%, but beat them on seats 44 to 26.

So while these gains are nice, they also show the 66-seat gap won't be closed in Quebec alone. Even in the best-case Quebec scenario, the Liberals will need to flip at least 20-25 seats elsewhere, in order to get back to government. (certainly doable, given stories like this)

Bart's Books: French Kiss

French Kiss: Stephen Harper's Blind Date With Quebec
by Chantal Herbert

I’ll be honest. The only reason I decided to review Chantal Hebert’s latest book was because I’m hoping to get a few google hits for “french kiss”. I’ve always found Hebert’s view of federal politics and federalism frustrating but she certainly knows Quebec politics inside out and is undisputedly Canada’s preeminent Quebec columnist for people living outside of Quebec. With a Quebec election behind us and the possibility of both separatist parties delving into leadership races, now seems like a good time for an in depth look at Quebec politics and some speculation about the future of the politics in that province.

Unfortunately, French Kiss doesn’t really provide either. It’s yet another book on the dynamics of the Martin versus Harper era, with a focus on Quebec. Less than half the book deals with Quebec politics which is unfortunate since Hebert is clearly more in her element when writing about that topic than about, say, Alberta politics, where there is no real deep analysis on her part. There’s also no profound speculation about the future beyond “Harper will fail...or he won’t”, which is probably fair enough since no one really knows how Harper’s courting of Quebec will end. For Hebert, it’s hard to predict how the Harper positives of offering more autonomy for Quebec will be balanced against policy issues like Afghanistan and the environment where he’s completely off base from Quebecers. She does get off a good line at the end of the book though, by cautioning that Harper should “not read too much into a first date kiss”.

Hebert should have taken a page from her subject’s focused priorities approach, because she jumps around from topic to topic in Paul Martin style, leaving the reader dizzy at times. For example, one chapter starts off talking about the benefits of a Liberal-NDP merger, moves into electoral reform, and winds up lamenting the lack of women in politics. Another chapter starts off talking about the legacy of the Charter in Quebec, moves on to BC politics, and ends with an analysis of the equalization formula. As a result, French Kiss reads like the transcript of how you might imagine a talk with Chantal Hebert over beers at a pub might sound, rather than a book tightly focused around a central thesis about Quebec politics.

Much like Chantal often does, I’m probably sounding fairly negative so far, so I will say that Hebert does provide enjoyable reading when she sticks to Quebec. Her opinion that the presence of the Bloc Quebecois has hurt the separatist cause was especially fascinating. In her view, by showing separatists working with Canada and by bringing Quebec issues to the fore, it undermined the argument that Canada doesn’t work. Hebert also believes that the Clarity Act debate turned into a “family affair” with Dion and Duceppe duking it out in Ottawa, whereas without the BQ, it might have been seen as Ottawa imposing its will on Quebec.

Not surprisingly, I strongly disagree with Hebert’s opinion that the only way to power in Canada is through “open federalism” and decentralization. Throughout the book, she is constantly urging the Liberals and NDP to copy the Harper/Mulroney federalism blueprint. In addition to disagreeing with this in principle, I’m not sure it would be a political boon for either party to shift their view in that direction. Her chapter long “Ode to Meech” where Hebert describes the utopian society Canada would be had the ill-fated accord passed had me rolling my eyes a few times.

Still, even though I disagreed with many of her points, throughout the book Hebert defends her arguments well and writes in a very readable style, full of colourful analogies. So while it probably won’t be my favourite political book of 2007, it does have its moments.

Recommendation: Pick it up as a bargain book or borrow it from a friend.


Other Reviews
Bound by Gravity
Olaf
A BCer in Toronto
Political Staples interview

A copy of French Kiss was provided free from Random House, for review