Tories and Libs focusing on
‘key battleground’ of fertile Ontario
The Hill Times, March 2nd, 2009
NEWS STORY
By Abbas Rana
Tories and Libs focusing on 'key battleground' of fertile
Ontario
Conservatives say Ontario will be fertile political ground in
the next election.
The Conservatives, who could be defeated in June by the federal
Liberals, say Ontario will be fertile political ground in the next
election and will pay special attention to all the ridings where
they lost by a margin of five per cent or less.
"Ontario is going to be [a] key battleground and we're working very
hard not only to keep the seats that we already have but also to win
more especially the close ones," a top Conservative told The Hill
Times recently.
In the Oct. 14 election, there were 13 Ontario ridings where the
margin of victory was five per cent or less.
The Liberals and Conservatives won five each and the NDP won three
of the 13 ridings. Overall, out of the 106 Ontario ridings, the
Tories won 51 seats, the Liberals 38 and the New Democrats 17 seats.
Prior to the last federal election, Quebec was seen as the potential
province where Conservative were hoping to make significant gains
but the government's initiative before the election to make cultural
cuts and youth crime proposals caused anger in the province.
As a result, Conservatives were able to win only 10 seats in the
Oct. 14 election, the same number they won in 2006.
After the election, the situation became more precarious when
Liberals and the NDP formed a coalition with the support of the
Bloc, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.)
called it a "separatist coalition." This label gained traction in
the rest of the country especially in the Western Canadian provinces
but Quebecers showed significant resentment.
Recent public opinion polls indicated that the Conservatives are
trailing the Bloc and the Liberals with a significant margin in
Quebec while Conservatives are running neck and neck with the
Liberals nationally.
According to a Nanos Research poll released on Feb. 12, the
Conservatives and the Liberals were in a statistical dead heat in
popular support with 34 and 33 per cent, respectively. The NDP
support was at 16 per cent, followed by the Bloc at 10 per cent, and
the Green Party support was at 10 per cent.
In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois was still leading the pack with 38 per
cent support followed by the Liberal Party at 28 per cent. The
Conservatives were at 16 per cent, the NDP at 14 and the Green Party
had five per cent of Quebecers.
In the vote-rich province of Ontario, Liberals were leading with 43
per cent support followed by the Conservatives at 34 per cent, NDP
at 15 per cent, and the Green Party at nine per cent.
Liberal insiders agreed that the next key battleground is going to
be Ontario with a special focus on ridings where the margin of
victory in the last federal election was five per cent or less
because the Conservatives are unlikely to make any gains in Western
or Atlantic Canada.
"The [Conservative] strategy is reflective of the reality of the
situation. In Quebec, the fight will be to hang on to the 10 seats
that they currently hold. Realistically, there's not a lot of room
for gain in Western or Atlantic provinces. The only battleground
left is Ontario," said one Liberal insider.
There are 92 House seats in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and
British Columbia. In the last federal election, the Conservatives
won 77 of those seats, the Liberals won seven and the NDP won 14.
The Conservatives won nine of 14 seats in Manitoba, 13 of 14 in
Saskatchewan, 27 of 28 in Alberta and 22 of 36 in B.C. The Liberals
won five in B.C., one in Saskatchewan and one in Manitoba. The NDP
won four in Manitoba, one in Alberta and nine in B.C.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick, there are a total of 32 seats and in the Oct. 14
election, the Conservatives won 10, the Liberals 17, the NDP four
and one seat was carried by Independent MP Bill Casey
(Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, N.S.). Mr. Casey has
announced that he is not seeking re-election in the next federal
election.
Conservative and Liberal sources said that ridings with close
margins are usually the ones targeted by the political parties.
"There's always been this theory that local campaigns can make a
difference of up to five per cent. If it's a marginal riding and
let's say the marginal gap is 10 or 15 per cent, that's harder to
cover. But if it's five per cent, that usually means, if you run a
strong campaign, locally with a right candidate, that riding becomes
more competitive. There's no point in having a strong local campaign
and putting more resources when you lose that riding by 30 per cent
every time," said a Liberal based in Western Canada.
"The marginal ridings are the ones that determine elections because
those are the ones that swing back and forth or are always
competitive, whereas, there are other ridings in the country that
are generally considered as safe ridings," said the source.
Political parties pay particular attention to these close ridings by
recruiting quality candidates, help candidates raise funds, provide
campaign literature, arrange advance visits of high profile Cabinet
ministers or in the case of opposition parties, prominent MPs and
also schedule party leaders' visits both before and during the
course of the campaign.
Ontario Conservative MPs, who won in close ridings in the last
election, told The Hill Times last week said that their
strategy to win the next election is to prove themselves to be good
constituency MPs.
"When you're a new Member of Parliament, you've got priorities and
priorities have to be learning this job and making sure that your
absolute priority is taking care of your constituents because if you
don't do that, the rest of it just doesn't matter," said
Conservative MP Ed Holder (London West, Ont.) who won the last
federal election by a margin of 3.7 per cent of the vote and
defeated five-term Liberal MP Sue Barnes.
Rookie Conservative MP Paul Calandra (Oak Ridges-Markham, Ont.) said
that in addition to serving his constituents well, he also keeps in
close contact with the local media in his riding so that
constituents are aware about his work as an MP.
"My focus is on the riding. I make sure that my local media knows
what's happening, that's my job as a local representative. I leave
the national media up to other people. I want to make sure that
people have a very good understanding about what we're doing in the
riding what I'm doing as a Member of Parliament, what the government
is doing, and how we're working with other levels to get things done
for the riding," said Mr. Calandra, who won the last election by a
margin of .7 per cent of the vote by defeating two-term Liberal MP
Lui Temelkovski.
NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland, Ont.), who defeated former five-term
Liberal MP John Maloney, said that he started his campaign right
after the last federal election and is also focusing on helping out
his constituents.
"We're always working hard, our folks in the riding are still
working hard. Once the results come in and you've won the riding, it
doesn't mean to say you should rest on your laurels, no matter how
big or small that number is. It's really about continuing to work
hard [and help constituents in solving their problems]," said Mr.
Allen.
Former Ontario Liberal MP Omar Alghabra, who lost the last federal
election to Conservative MP Bob Dechert, told The Hill Times
that since the October election, he has been planning on preparing
for the next election.
Mr. Alghabra said he's been in consultations in the riding to
reconfigure his campaign team, assess why he lost the last election
and to plan for the next election.
Mr. Alghabra said that the party headquarters has been helping him
out in his preparations but declined to give out any details.
"The Liberal Party has certainly been very active in helping our
riding from providing guidance to providing resources," said Mr.
Alghabra.
When asked if he was confident of winning the riding back, he said:
"This is politics, one cannot be presumptuous about anything. All I
could say is that in a twisted way, defeat is good for everybody,
Bob Dechert himself will say that. He lost twice so I'm benefiting
from the experience and I'm looking forward to the next campaign."
