Here are the election results for Markham Oak Ridges. Congratulations goes to the Paul Calandra for his re-election and strong majority support, both locally and nationally for his party. Of course, congratulations goes to all the other candidates for a well fought campaign. See the video below for an excerpt from Paul Calandra’s victory speech, courtesy of Stoufville Connets.
Our next segment will be focused on what happened in this riding, followed by an analysis of the national election results. stay tuned.
In our last segment we went over the main factors that influenced the local aspect of the Oak Ridges Markham campaign. These were mainly: the nature of the riding itself as a key battleground won by a slim margin in the 2008 election (by 500 votes for the conservative); the amount of high profile liberal attention that has been given to this riding (2 visits by Ignatieff, 1 by Trudeau); The issues of the Rouge River national park and the “re-elect” Lui signs; and the upsurge of support for the NDP.
Of all of these factors, it would seem that the NDP upsurge could be the deciding factor for this riding, which has traditionally been a race between the Liberals and Conservatives. Thereby, this could have the effect of subtracting and weakening support for the Liberals, leaving conservative support strong. But you probably already know this by now, so let’s get into the numbers.
By the numbers then, in the last election 55.7% of eligible voters cast their ballots in an election no one wanted, with literally just fewer than half the votes in favour of one of the weakest liberal leaders Canada has ever seen. In the election before that, involving the same liberal candidate, but with Paul Martin at the helm, the Liberals received close to 6500 more votes than the conservatives by a margin of 8.5%. At the same time, NDP support for both those elections hovered around 9%, while the Green Party received 54% more support in the 2008 election, 7% of the total, then they did in 2006.
And that’s only the basics. We haven’t even gotten into polling yet. A rather interesting site that I recommend for this is threehundredeight.blogspot.com where they have a number of daily polls available, as well as an official prediction for each riding. However, it’s difficult to tell what they’re predictions are based upon, whether provincial polls, or local ones. In any case, for Oak Ridges Markham this rather detailed site is forecasting a conservative win with 44.4% of the vote, liberals with 37%, the NDP with 12.5%, the Greens with 4.9%, and the PC candidate with 1.2% of the vote. However, there appears to be little mention of the voter turnout.
So in consideration of the forecasts by these sites, and the factors discussed in our previous article we present our modest predication for the riding of Oak Ridges Markham. Give me a second while I get my crystal ball and place my lottery numbers folks.
Voter turnout: In the mid to low 60 percentile, with up to 80 thousand ballots cast.
PC Support: 0.8%
Green Support: 4.9%
NDP Support: 11.7%
Liberal Support: 40.5%
Conservative support: 42.1%
I believe we are in for a repeat of history. This riding seems to be too close to call, due in part to a strong conservative candidate who can hold onto the support from the previous election, and make some gains based on his record. On the other hand you have the NDP siphoning votes away from the Greens and the Liberals. However, the Liberals should be able to gain back a significant enough portion of the votes they received in the 2006 election in order to balance the deficit caused by the NDP surge.
All in all, you can probably expect another nail biting race, whose outcome is impossible to accurately predict and results you won’t know until the day after, once every ballot is counted. But what do I know, here’s a poll!
The last day of the campaign, the excitement is palpable. I can’t say that I have witnessed many elections, but I have seen enough to know Canadians are engaged, though not necessarily fully aware. Mostly, there is a large amount of confusion over the NDP’s apparent upsurge in support that has left the Liberals reeling, and the Bloc trying to salvage its sinking ship. And to think, we were expecting another boring election. Luckily, it seems our low expectations for the political, reinforced by the constant bombardment of guilt tripping by the media that Canadians don’t vote or care about democracy, has reignited interest in the democratic process. Which is why you can expect there to be a larger than normal turnout in this election. Canadians are tuned in, and evidence of this is seen in the considerable turnout in advanced polls across the country, 35% up from the last 2008 election. On the local level in York Region, voter turnout has risen 57%. And the interest for the election in Oak Ridge’s Markham is especially surprising, with advanced polls up a whopping 210 percent from the last election, with 15003 ballots already cast. That’s almost 20% of the total votes from the 2008 election. (The Economist and Sun) This seems to come as no big surprise for this battleground riding, considering the conservative incumbent won by a slim margin of about 500 votes, or 0.6% of the total votes cast in the last election. In relation, because of the close nature of this riding, we see the Liberal leader stopping by to support the local candidate at the start of the election, and also on the last day of the election campaign. In addition, celebrity politician Justin Trudeau also dropped in at the middle point of the campaign to bolster the local liberal’s campaign efforts. This seems to indicate the liberals believe they can win back this riding, and perhaps a last rallying of the troops by the party leader before Election Day will be enough to win back the voters who voted for Martin but not Dion. Or maybe not. The NDP factor seems to have the potential to burst the bubble of support that seemed promising for the Liberals in this riding at the start of the campaign. And believe me; Canadians are confused about this NDP surge, leaving many considering the option of voting Layton. And granted, most Canadians do not get past the headlines of MSN homepage to consider the implications of their vote, or the strategic viability of their choice. “What the heck is a swap vote, eh?”
For this riding, the NDP factor has the potential to shift votes for the liberals, who are the only real option against the conservatives in this battleground, to the NDP. And it would seem that the conservative candidate is banking on this split between the left leaning parties to aid his victory. Evidence of this can be seen in our recent interview with the conservative incumbent where he praises the good work of the NDP candidate. While at the same time, during his campaign he has often hammered the Liberal candidate for the “re-elect” sign issue, and the controversy over the Rouge River national park. He has even gone as far to say that the Liberals are lying to voters about his position on the park. However, the conservative incumbent has a rather strong and spotless record to show for his two years in the hot seat, boasting at times, “we have brought over 300 million dollars worth of investments to this community since we were elected.” Make no mistake; the conservatives have no illusions about this local campaign, they know the liberals have a real chance at taking back this seat, which is why they are counting on the support for Layton to translate into support for Harper.
Our next segment will include an article of specific predictions about the outcome of the election for Oak Ridges Markham in consideration of the above factors. We also hope to cover Election Day, and maybe get another peak at Ignatieff’s stop in Oak Ridges Markham.
Five days until the fateful voting day, and with 15003 ballots already cast in advanced polls ( a 210 per cent increase from the last election), the York Life is proud to bring you an interview with the conservative MP and candidate for Oak Ridges Markham, Paul Calandra. In this segment we spoke with Paul about the main issues that occurred during the campaign in the riding.
These included the Rouge River national park, the re-elect Lui signs, the NDP prospects in the riding due to the surge of support in Quebec, and the apparent theft and littering of Paul Calandra pamphlets across the riding.
The most interesting occurrence in this interview was Paul’s praise for the NDP candidate. Perhaps this reveals the potential for a split vote between the left, ultimately subtracting votes from Paul’s main competition, the Liberal candidate. “The NDP have a great candidate in this riding, shes a very experienced person, shes run before, they are running a great campaign, and if they do well good for them, if they get more people out voting, good for them. But ultimately, it doesn’t change how we run our campaign, we run to win.”
See the video below for the highlights of the interview.
For the complete version of the interview see the link below. Our next couple of segments will be focusing on the voting expectations for the riding and perhaps a video of my and Korri’s experience during this election and with the candidates.
With less then a week left in the election, and advanced polls closed (showing a turnout of 35% more than the 04 and 06 elections) the York Life presents an interview with Liberal Candidate, Lui Temelkovski.
In this interview we sat down with Lui and talked about the liberal platform, while also discussing his opponent, conservative candidate, Paul Calandra. We also confronted him on the local issues that dominated the local campaign, mainly the “re-elect” sign issue, and the Rouge River national park issue.
For those who are unfamiliar, Lui has been criticized for his use of old election signs with the words “re-elect” on them. This became a controversial issue since Lui is not the incumbent MP. However, as he noted in the interview, “I have run before in 2004, in 2006, and 2008. Twice successfully and once not, so 66% batting average.”
He also noted that the controversy of the signs was no longer an issue because of a compromise he made by using stickers to replace the “re-elect” words with “bring back” on the signs. “They’d rather talk about elect, or re-elect, or bring back or whatever, it’s a red sign… and after listening and talking to people discussing the issue and making some compromises we came up with ‘bring back Lui.’”
For the highlights from our interview with Lui take a look at the video above. For the complete version of the entire interview see the link below.
Our next issue of our election coverage will be focusing on the conservative candidate’s campaign. We hope to soon have an interview with him as well to talk to him about the election issues.
Also in other news, someone has apparently stolen some 1000 old election pamphlets of Paul Calandra’s, and littered them at major intersections in the Markham Oak Ridges riding.
Liberal candidate, Lui Temelkovski’s campaign got a welcome visit from a high profile political celebrity for a brief hour last Monday on the 18th. Justin Trudeau, son of the charismatic Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, stopped by and visited with liberal supporters and canvassed with Lui along Markham main street.
Some forty or so supporters came out to see Justin, and briefly heard him give a saber rattling speech on the Liberal vision for Canada. Also, the York Life was lucky enough to get a word with Justin about his thoughts on youth engagement.
For our next segment, we sit down with the Liberal candidate for Oak Ridges Markham, Lui Temelkovski, and ask him about his thoughts on the conservative candidate, Paul Calandra, and how he plans to get the votes he needs to be brought back to Ottawa. Also see the video below for Justin’s speech at the liberal campaign headquarters.
Welcome to our second feature interview with the NDP candidate for Oak Ridges Markham, Janice Hagan. A veteran candidate and long time participant in democracy as the president of her local union, we sat down with Janice and discussed her vision for the riding and the NDP’s vision for the country. In the interview she discussed everything to her thoughts on the Conservative candidate, Paul Calandra,
“He’s obviously just relying on the fact that he’s a conservative, cause that’s all that matters. If you are a warm body, a conservative and do what your told, I guess that’s how you get elected these days.”
to her own prospects for winning the riding.
“This is not an NDP riding, in a lot of ways, I am hoping to change that…to me it shouldn’t be about winning, it should be about solving the countries problems…i know I’m a long shot, I’m not a fool. but you know as well as I do that sometimes people go for that long shot, they go for that underdog, and I’m an underdog of quality.”
For the highlights from the interview, see the video below. For the full uncut version of the interview see the link below the video.
Interestingly enough, Janice’s comments came on the eve of an upswing for the NDP in the province of Quebec, where they now are leading in the province ahead of the Bloc at 36%. It should be interesting to see if this trend translates into more votes for the NDP across the country, and maybe even in Oak Ridges Markham.
Stay tuned, our next segment will be featuring Justin Trudeau canvassing with Lui Temelkovski on Main Street Markham, followed by a feature interview with liberal candidate for Oak Ridges Markham, Lui.
