Talk:2006 Canadian federal election/Archive 1

message: I've decided to add Candidate Tables for the next election, I would hope nobody deleated this because I worked really hard on this-Jack Cox
:Looks good, but the tables should look more like those for the last election: Results of the Canadian federal election, 2004: All on one page Earl Andrew 05:10, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Candidates 

message: Any guesses at what the results may be?
*Libs: 120-140 seats
*Cons: 80-100 seats
*BQ: 40-50 seats
*NDP:20-30 seats
*sorry Mr Harris, none for you!!
These guesses are pretty general but there are some problems with them.
-if NDP ar the big gainers, liberals are going to be the losers
- right now the bloc will for sure match their 54 and won't be losers
- how much can the conservatives really lose, i think they have a better chance of staying the same or gaining.
so here is what i think...
*Libs: 110 seats
*Cons: 114 seats
*BQ: 57 seats
*NDP: 25 seats
:Comment Not necessarily... the NDP could take 6 or 7 seats from the Conservatives in SK and in both GTA and Vancouver there were a number of Conservative seats where the NDP finished second.  They'd take their seats from about half and half.  It is pretty impossible to speculate at this point because we don't know when and how the election will come to be.  Who forces the election, whether or not Gomery is over, etc makes a big difference in the outcome. - Jord 02:36, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure I agree with that.  With most NDP voters being left of centre, logic would dictate that growing strength for them would mean more of a blow to the Liberals.  And with the Conservatives being out of power, what motivation would voters have to throw their MPs out of office?  69.47.102.177 21:53, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The wonders of the first past the post system. Here's how it works: in Upper Moose Elbow--Dried-up-River-Bed riding in 2004, Mr. Conservative got 40 votes, Ms. Newdemocrat got 35 votes, Mr. Liberal got 25 votes. This time, 15 Liberal voters defect because of Gomery -- 12 to the NDP, and 3 to the Conservatives. The result: Ms. Newdemocrat wins with 47 votes, beating Mr. Conservative's 43 votes and Mr. Liberal's 10 votes. So even though Mr. C win more votes, he still loses. Polls show that Liberals are more likely to go to the NDP than to the Ocnservatives (I think it is a 2/3 - 1/3 split). Ground Zero 22:06, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Election

message: Why is it that on this website, the conservative logo is the only one that does not have their name in it. They should have one. --Esto 02:01, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Logos

message: To whatever anonymous bloke that thought I put down the wrong Ekos numbers, and wrote so on the article page: The numbers I put down were simply rounded to be like all the other numbers. I de-rounded the other numbers, to be consistant with your change. If you have a problem with something like that, write it here.
--Volrath50 20:22, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poll Numbers 

message: I know that there are 20 riding targets for all of the other parties, however, after the top 13 targets for the BQ you reach the Prime Minister's riding, which was won by a landslide margin of 25.8%.  If memory serves correct a student ran in this riding for the BQ instead of a serious candidate, thus it seems innapropriate to even have LaSalle—Émard as a riding target for the BQ.  You might as well have Mount Royal as a target.  I'm going to delete LaSalle—Émard as a target.
Comment removed by author. (05:50, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I originally had 20 target ridings for the BQ, which listed all the Liberal ridings in Quebec except Mont-Royal, but someone removed some of them, and put a cap at 15% margin. Far be it for me to revert those changes. --  Earl Andrew - talk 16:30, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bloc Quebecois Targets 

message: * The budget bills have passed in the House link, extending the government's likely lifetime until at least this fall.  Most of the opening matter in the article needs revised in light of this. Majromax 22:51, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Budget Bills Pass 

message: Seeing as how much of the perceived suspense leading up to this vote, IMO, rested with the tenuous status of indipendent MP's (especially Chuck Cadman, with his cancer, former conservative status, and polling of constituents in "volatile" Surrey), I thought it fitting to add their significant roles to the pre-intro paragraph. I mean, jeez, Old man Caddy's on the front page of most major newspapers in Canada right now. -- Clapaucius 20:42, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added indipendents to pre-intro paragraph 

message: If any party, major or minor, has a significant innovation to offer that would reduce taxes, boost job opportunities among the unemployed, add to children's quality of upbringing, why should it be deleted?
GBC 04:52, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Why the last deletion?

message: There are a lot of items in the timeline that were quite relevant when they were added and would have been relevant had the election been called in and around that time but now amount largely to clutter.  I would be happy to volunteer to try to clean it up and propose a truncated timeline here, but don't want to do so if it is going to ruffle feathers.  Please advise. - Jord 21:04, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have drafted a proposed timeline at Canadian federal election, 2006/Timeline cleanup, you can see the differences between the current (as 23:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good, the timeline is overdue for a prunning. - SimonP 00:44, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Done.  Can an admin kindly delete Canadian federal election, 2006/Timeline cleanup? - Jord 15:56, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timeline cleanup 

message: We've locked the page temporarily due to a persistent vandal. However, if you want to add info, please note it on the talk page and we'll add it for you (until, of course, the vandal goes away and we can unlock the page). Sorry, we know it's not ideal but its the best we can do right now! We don't like it either: it's a lot more work for us and our time could be spent better on other articles. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:33, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Persistent vandal 

message: I quote from the article: "Most Conservatives oppose legal recognition of same-sex marriage, although 26% of Conservative Delegates at the 2005 Biennial Convention voted against one man-one woman marriage". Is this accurate? What do they want, polygamy? Kel-nage 13:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: They probably voted against defining marriage as between one man and one woman, i.e. they voted not to explicitly ban same-sex marriages. - Cuivienen 02:45, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conservatives against hetrosexual marriage? 

message: It is regrettable that there are people who vandalize.
I don't know what the software is capable of, but here's my solution:
- members, who can be identified, are allowed real-time changes to articles
- non-members, and members who have not logged-in, cannot make real-time changes, rather can only submit changes to a queue, where they are checked for obvious "clearance - everything must go" vandalism and then cleared to a queue that watches for vulgarities and other small-scale vandalism before they are put into the article.
It would stop a lot of vandalism. People who become members and then vandalize would require some other sort of discipline or flagging.
GBC 19:25, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia protection

message: How about telling some folks, both left and right wing (I'm looking at you SimonP), that people who do not agree with their ideology deserve the same right to edit the Wiki as they do without automatic reverts.  Edits are much better.  We are working towards consensus here.
rasblue 23:22, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV without reverts (I'm looking at you SimonP)

message: Is this thing official yet? I thought it was still being threatened.CaptainAmerica 00:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not technically official, though 100% certain.  The opposition parties, who hold 169 of 308 seats are all planning to vote non-confidence at a vote which cannot be deferred past 5:30 p.m., November 28.  If this is somehow averted, it would likely by means of a compromise agreement requiring an election to be called in January and, saving that, the Prime Minister has pledged an election call by March 15. - Jord 00:41, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! CaptainAmerica 21:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: American Wikipedian has question

message: The paragraph about same-sex marriage seems a little unlikely to me. Is the issue not kind of dead at the moment. Same-sex marriage has been completely legalized across the country already. What's left to talk about? How likely is it that the conservatives, should they get into power, are going to suddenly declare gay marriage illegal again and nullify all the marriages that have already taken place?
It just seems to me, and everyone else I know, that gay marriage is kind of a done deal, over with, which is why I'm puzzled by the implication in that section that the same-sex marriage issue is going to get some kind of play in this election. I'd be willing to bet that the conservatives don't even bother bringing it up during the campaign.
Gay marriage is only a hot button issue to a few Albertans and those who vote for the Christian heritage Party. 207.6.31.119 06:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, Harper resurrected it; whether the electorate cares is another matter. From what I hear of opinion polls, most people consider the issue done and over with... Radagast 15:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The CBC poll says that 66 per cent think that the issue is settled . But when has Harper cared what Canadians think? Ground Zero | t 16:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Yeah, and I want to be part of an institution based on discrimination and inequality. Maybe I can join a private club that bars women and Jews, too. Not. Ground Zero | t 19:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Same sex marriage

message: I was watching the vote of no confidence on the CBC and Peter Mansbridge said something about it being the first time in Canadian history that the government has been defeated with a direct non-confidence motion.  I'm assuming that he was referring to the fact that the government was defeated on an opposition motion that explicitly declared it a motion of no confidence against the government (more-or-less in those words), rather than the more typical non-confidence motion that is inferred by a lost vote on a budget or a speech from the throne (which are confidence motions by implication if defeated, but not by design, whereas the motion of 28 Nov, 2005 was introduced solely as a matter of confidence).  Can anyone verify this?  If Mansbridge's observation is accurate, it might be a note-worthy footnote for the article.  Rod ESQ 07:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Mansbridge was largely correct, when Joe Clark's government fell in 1979 it was on a sub-amendment to the budget motion which struck "that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government" and replaced with "that this House has lost confidence in the government".  So, this is the first time the government has fallen on a main motion which specified confidence, but it has falled on an explicitly confidence amendment before. - Jord 15:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: First "true" non-confidence vote?

message: So with seven weeks to go in this thing, we're already sitting at around twice the recommended article size. I realize the the 32K recommendation is for text, and excludes tables and charts, but this article is already long. Any ideas for cutting chunks off to branch articles? Ground Zero | t 21:13, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The poll section is huge; the timeline is huge; the issues are pretty huge, but also more germane. Candidates and targets are also more 'dry'; we may want to keep the main article to narrative exposition, and put facts and figures in the separate articles. Radagast 22:45, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would suggesting splitting off the following sections into seperate articles, with links: Timeline (which can only get a lot bigger), Opinion polls (ditto), and Issues. For the first two, it might be worth keepign the last week of info in. For Issues, maybe give a summary of the biggest issues with the 4 parties' policies.  On a more general point... a good example of how Wikipedia has handled a recent major election, see United Kingdom general election, 2005. The main lesson learnt was to be prepared as much beforehand as possible. For example, for results (cf UK results), listing every parlimanetry seat in  heavily sectioned article, with the table pre-prepared. (the colours were added later). Depsite being from the UK, I have a hefty interest in Canadian politics for varoius (complicated) reason, so I expect I'll be involved with this quite heavily. Tompw 23:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Now, now.  We've had scary-huge seat-by-seat tables on this side of the pond for nearly two years.  The Tom 05:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Wow, I'm impressed and suitably humbled. Hmm... all you need to do to show who's is change a cell's colour or similar. Tompw 01:37, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Article size

message: *Can now be found at 2006 Canadian federal election opinion polls. SFrank85 23:48, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Moved the polls from the past week back onto the main page. We should keep the most recent polls in the main article so that people don't have to visit another page to see recent opinions. Opinion polls from April and May are less likely to be interesting to an observer. - Cuivienen 14:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  2006 Canadian federal election opinion polls 

message: The number of candidates listed for the various parties in the table near the bottom only shows numbers for the five major parties, and shows dashes instead for the minor parties.  I am going to assume that these dashes indicate a lack of information, and am going to therefore update the entry for the Libertarian Party with the correct number.  If I have misunderstood the correct use of this table, please post here to explain it. --Dglynch 13:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the source for the information? CrazyC83 16:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Various sources, party websites, news articles, etc.  Once nominations close we'll be able to get final official numbers from Elections Canada. - Jord 16:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of candidates 

message: The section on swing ridings is very interesting, but unfortunately, it's a bit confusing.  Listing each riding in a column under the logo of a party that doesn't currently hold it is counter-intuitive, and it took me a long time to be sure of what was going on.  David 01:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a good point, perhaps we should change the name back to "targets" which would make more sense for the format in which it is in. - Jord 15:09, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  There are two types lists you can do... one is a party's most vulnerable seats (held by the party by the smallest percentage), and the other is party's top target seats (seats where party came 2nd by the smallest percentage). Can also highlight most/least secure ridings nationally. Should this be put in a seperatepage? Tompw 01:41, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swing ridings 

message: The frequency of SES polls is somewhat misleading, as they did in the 2004 election, they are doing rolling polling.  Their current formula has them make 400 calls/night and then they take the three most recent nights results to get a pool of 1200 surveyees.  Essentially, every night they release a poll with 1/3 new data and 2/3s old data.  This being the case, I am not sure if we should list them every day as a new poll, but I am not sure how else to deal with it?  Thoughts? - Jord 02:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that it is not a new poll, it is a 1/3 new poll.  I would suggest you list the poll each day but when the next day comes out, you drop the old listing such that you have the polls every three days and thus with new data.  i.e. today we would have the Dec 5 poll, but we would not have the Dec 4 or 3 polls listed on the main page as they are using some of the same data.  All of them could be listed on the larger Opinion polling in the Canadian federal election, 2006 page. -Jord 15:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Yeah, that sounds reasonable.  Though later today we will get the Dec 4th poll.  The Dec 5th polling would be done this evening, and released on December.  One problem though, is that if you have every third poll, then every time you put in a new poll, you have to resurrect the poll from 3-days earlier that was already deleted ... Nfitz 17:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I removed every second and third poll from the main page.  I commented them out actually, so that they are still there, so when the next daily SES poll comes in, someeone can unhide the ones 3-days previously, etc ... Nfitz 00:08, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

text: And someone unhid them again ... not sure why ... I'll rehide them.  Perhaps the person who unhid can comment here so we can get consensus? Nfitz 6 December 2005
No-one else has been bothering to only list 1 out of 3 SES polls on this page; and no-one has had any concerns about the SC polls having the same issue, so I have stopped showing just 1 out of 3 polls on this page.  Too much work when cutting and pasting new results from detailed page! Nfitz 14:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  SES polls 

message: One of the vandalisms posted the remark "Politics are dumb".
Politics is the process, whether we think it's ideal or not, by which we choose the people who decide our taxation, laws, national defence, transportation regulations, Internet oversight, etc.
If politics are corrupt, I attribute it to this: LACK of involvement!!
Bad politics are the result of good people not getting involved!  My belief is that every single Canadian should: (1) join the political party that best represents what they believe to be right, (2) come out to meetings of that party, (3) help elect convention delegates who they believe will faithfully represent those values, (4) help financially support candidates they believe have the integrity to faithfully represent those values, (5) vote for those candidates at nomination meetings and again in general elections, (6) volunteer for their party between and during elections to help communicate the party's message.
With the thorough neglect of this involvement, a few ambitious people, some of whom are corrupt, are left to take control of parties, nomination processes, policy conventions and, therefore, governments.  It is given to us to take that control back from them; too few people use it. And the worst of it is, they give corruption as the reason they don't want to be involved, when it is their lack of involvement that has allowed the corrupt to take control!
GBC 02:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Politics are not dumb