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.

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.

Other sites, such as the Globe and Mail are also forecasting a conservative win in this riding, echoing the same sentiments of our previous article, “We think the NDP will only help Tory incumbent Paul Calandra to hold onto this riding, which he narrowly won in 2008.”   In addition, project for democracy’s website is also exceptionally helpful in terms of polling data, allowing you to view multiple polls at different times. Not surprisingly, they also label this riding as a key contest, but are also forecasting the Liberal candidate, Lui Temelkovski as the winner.

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!

For minute to minute online voting results for this riding visit the Globe and Mails website.

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.

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmM6Hbqsvms

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijOIXnvjzKI

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.

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.

“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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jGprijARSM

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.

Please see the first video below for the highlights of the interview, followed by the full uncut interview in the link below. For more information on the Green Party and the Candidate for Oak Ridges Markham go to http://www.trifonhaitas.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH-nrw6r5pw

Stay tuned for an interview with the NDP candidate for Oak Ridges Markham, Janice Hagan, in our next feature.

Some high profile faces came out to see the Liberal leader in action, such as: Michael Ignatieff’s wife Zsuzsanna Zsohar; John McCallum, candidate for Markham Unionville; MPP Michael Chan; Political commentator for Macleans Andrew Coyne; and reporter Rosemary Barton from the CBC.

In any case, the rally seemed to give some momentum to the Temelkovski campaign, despite the appearance of Prime Minister Harper in the riding just a couple of days before. Finally, the attention this riding is receiving from the leaders indicates its importance in the minds of the backroom strategists. We’re in for an interesting campaign.

Please see the video above for a summation of the event, and a satirical take on the event by our very own Korri Birch in the video below.

For some background information on this battle ground, the candidates are: the incumbent Paul Calandra, running for the Conservatives; former MP and veteran candidate for the Liberals, Lui Temelkovski; veteran candidate for the riding, Janice Hagan for the NDP; and newcomer, running with the Green Party, candidate Trifon Haitas.

In all things dramatic, in this the largest riding for eligible voters in Canada, the last election in 2008 came down to a nail biting 430 votes, with Paul Calandra as victor over incumbent Lui Temelkovski, with 31,963 votes to 31,533. The final results were: 42.11% Conservative; 41.54% Liberal; 9.38% NDP; and 6.98% Green.

Compared to the 2006 election these percentages changed by: + 3.64% Conservative; -5.52% Liberal; -0.5 NDP; and +2.39 Green. As it can be seen by these numbers the trend seems to indicate that perhaps 2.39% of the votes could be potentially up for grabs, due to the lacklustre performance of the liberals in the last election, compared to that of the Martin election in 2006. This could perhaps be enough to sway the electorate towards a liberal win this time around if the Greens can’t hold onto their past support, which has been threatened by Elizabeth Mays absence in the National Debates.

But as all things in politics, you never really know and anything can happen. But one thing you can know for sure is that this is a riding to watch on May 2nd.

The York Life is an independent media group of students at York University. In the past we have covered such events as the Toronto G20 summit protests, Michael Ignatieff’s town hall at the University of Toronto in Mississauga, the York University student government elections, and much more!

Finally we would like to say to the candidates and their respective campaign teams all the best. And we look forward to being in contact with you to get your voice out to the people. For our viewers, you can expect a video of Michael Ignatieff’s stop in Markham to appear soon with a short talk with that man himself, as well as an interview with the Green Party candidate, Trifon Haitas. Cheers.