Right Turn

Polls out today show fiscal conservatives ahead in Calgary and Toronto.


Calgary (Leger, n=500 phone)

Ric McIver 43% (profile)
Barb Higgins 28%
Naheed Nenshi 8% (profile)
Kent Hehr 4.1% (profile)
Bob Hawkesworth 3.9%
Craig Burrows 3.6%
Joe Connely 2.9%
Wayne Stewart 1.8%
Alnoor Kassam 1.4%
Oscar Fech 1.2%
Bonnie Devine 0.8%
Paul Hughes 0.8%
John Lord 0.4%

Kassam and Hughes are actually out of the race. Likely a wise move, because if you're tied with Oscar Fech, it's time to go (Oscar's platform usually involves digging up gold buried under City Hall).

The results from this poll are hardly earth shattering. McIver has been the front runner for the past 5 years and Higgins is still finding her feet in this race. However, the news isn't all bad for her - 15 points can be made up in month municipally, and she is clearly positioned as the "anybody but McIver" candidate. Nenshi is still far back, but can at least spin this as a sign he's pulling away from the pack. For the rest of the field, there's little joy in mudville.


Toronto (Nanos, n = 1221 phone)

Ford 45.8%
Smitherman 21.3%
Pantalone 16.8%
Rossi 9.7%
Thompson 6.4%

This poll will come as more of a shock for anyone living outside of Toronto. Yes, those "Liberal elites" John Baird rails against are lining up behind a man who could become Canada's first Tea Party mayor.

For those in Toronto, it's not as big a shock. Ford has become the torch bearer for every suburban voter fed up with waste at City Hall and has forged a Ralph Klein common man connection to voters, to the point where voters will forgive his many deficiencies.

Luckily, as is the case in Calgary, there's still a lot of baseball to be played and many voters are just now tuning in this episode already in progress. Right now, the "Stop Ford" vote is being split - by Election Day it will congeal, presumably around Smitherman.

Still, the early returns are strikingly similar in both Calgary in Toronto - in both cities, voters have clicked their right turn signal, looking to the candidate who talks the loudest about cleaning up waste at City Hall.

Let's Get Municipal

Calgary: Calgary is still buzzing over Barb Higgins' entry into the Mayoral race, and there are reports she has hired Liberal strategist Don Lovett as her campaign manager.

On the policy side, frontrunner Ric McIver has released his vision for Calgary, and Higgins has responded with her "policy framework". Both are bland, unoriginal, and short on specifics (the platforms, not the candidates, both of whom I find intriguing). Fellow candidate Naheed Nenshi offers a strong critique of these policy "announcements" on his site.

The airport tunnel is emerging as a big issue. True to the bizarre nature of Calgary politics, the right wing candidate wants to spend and the NDP proxy in this race thinks it's a waste of money. Go figure.


Toronto: With John Tory out of the race, it's now very much a Smitherman versus Ford affair.

And the Smitherman campaign is starting to turn up the heat, launching an attack "FordonFord" website.


Edmonton: Edmonton Politics is the must see source for this one. Also, Alex Abboud runs down the hotly contested ward races.


Montreal: Speculation is now rampant about the next mayoral election...in 2013. Good grief, we'll probably have 2 or 3 federal elections before then.

Regardless, the latest rumour has Denis Coderre making the jump to municipal politics. My anonymous Liberal sources have also confided to me that Martin Cauchon is now considering a run for Montreal mayor in 2013.


Dauphin: Tory MLA Inky Marr is running for mayor. Which means, in Inky's opinion, being a backbencher in Stephen Harper's caucus is a less glamourous position than being mayor of a town of 8,000 people.