who to support

There is only one opposition candidate that makes sense to support. Elizabeth May is running neck and neck with Gary Lunn. To support either the Libs or NDP in this riding is to help ensure a victory for Gary Lunn and isn't that what we are trying to avoid. In other ridings the Lib or NDP is the logical choice because of past electoral history etc. Elizabeth May chose this riding because it was identified as the riding with the greatest amount of support for environmental issues and polls in the riding show Ms May is in the best position of the opposition candidates to unseat this particular Conservative candidate.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Pat Barclay on April 6, 2011 at 1:57pm

The LPC is spending plenty in this riding but concentrating it in Saanich, where over 82.5% of the votes are.

Also, various MPs have been to the VI section of S-GI in support of Renee. They include Ignatieff, Rae, Brison, Dryden, Oliphant, and Crombie. Senator Frank ("The Big M") Mahovlich and his wife were also in S-GI supporting Renee in December.

Today (April 6) in fact, MP Dr. Carolyn Bennett, Liberal critic for Democratic Renewal, is out door-knocking with Renee in Saanich!

Permalink Reply by C M on April 21, 2011 at 10:23am

Please unite for the common good! We are only aiding Harper otherwise.

Permalink Reply by Cindy Lee on May 2, 2011 at 12:41am

From what I have heard there is a big surge of NDP youth support in Saanich. Let's hope Elizabeth gets the X.

Permalink Reply by Marion Pape on April 3, 2011 at 4:33pm

I noticed that this message sent earlier this morning did not appear in the discussion part of the site but, I believe, did goto all the members of this group. So I am re-posting it here.

Wonderful that together, we pulled it off to ensure Elizabeth received the endorsement from Catch 22. Now we need to make it happen.

I have been interested that vote trading with other parties and other ridings is starting to happen.

Suggest we consider an informal alliance with one riding and put everything into supporting it. I have taken a giant leap as a Past President of the Salt Spring NDP Club to put my support behind Elizabeth. Many, many New Democrats are doing the same at considerable cost and soul searching.

I do not wish to dwell on this now because we have to get Elizabeth and other progressives elected federally.
However, I would like us all to remember NDP candidate Gary Holman, when he runs for the provincial election coming up likely in the fall.

Let the revolution begin if we can unseat two cabinet ministers by two of the "greenest" candidates I know.

Marion Pape

Permalink Reply by Pat Barclay on April 5, 2011 at 5:36pm

May supporters need to know that the McAllister poll is very likely false. For reliable info, go to the Oraclepoll Report, also commissioned by May's organization, at http://www.greenpartystrategy.com/articles/saanich-gulf-islands-poll . Headed "S-GI Poll - Oversampling recalculation," this data corrects responses to two of the many questions asked in the Oraclepoll.
The first corrected response was in answer to: "If a federal Election were held today, which Party would you most likely vote for?" The results may surprise you: Liberal, 37.0%; NDP, 18.6%; Conservative, 25.3%; Green, 19.1%.
The second corrected response was in answer to: "If a federal Election were held today, which of the following Party's candidates would you vote for in your riding of S-GI?" The results were: Hetherington, 26.4%; Loring-Kuhanga, 14.9%; Lunn, 30.4%; May, 28.3%.

So, why was correction needed in both this poll and (very likely also) the McAllister poll, both conducted in the fall of 2010? From his introduction to the data above, by Green Party Strategist Dermod Travis: "According to Elections Canada voting data for the 2008 election, 82.5% of Saanich-Gulf Islands voters resided in Saanich and 17.5 per cent on the Gulf Islands.Due to an oversampling in the poll from the Gulf Islands (37.9 per cent of all respondents), GPS reweighted the results in our reporting for questions two (generic party result) and five (candidate with party)."

One question this information begs is, How did professional pollsters manage to make such serious mistakes?

A second question is: Why do May supporters discard the wisdom of the much-respected Briony Penn in choosing to run for the LPC?
This is, after all, the national party best qualified and ready to form a government that will deliver us from Harper's Canada.

As for Penn's wisdom in nominating Renee Hetherington to succeed her, see http://reneehetherington.liberal.ca/ and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6oQ_SrrQ0k .

(This video was prepared by Suzanne Chisholm of "Saving Luna" fame, another wise woman who supports Renee Hetherington.)

Permalink Reply by Geoffrey on April 6, 2011 at 12:15am

From my understanding (and this has been discussed here), that poll was not commissioned by the Green Party, but by another organization.

Briony Penn was a former Green, and it is often not mentioned that the NDP candidate was forced to withdraw, thus affecting both Conservative and Liberal votes. (If you look at second choices, this would suggest a majority of NDP votes going to the Liberals as well giving the Conservatives a bump of several percentage points).

I would think Lunn would return to a 35% support level, and the NDP and Liberals being back at similar levels to each other (all else being equal). Both the Liberals and NDP seem to have very qualified candidates, and in most other ridings I would happily vote for either of them, but I think Elizabeth May is one of the few people who can push the opposition vote over the top.

This website is asking many Green voters from across the country to vote Liberal/NDP. This is the one and only riding where Liberals and NDP's are being asked to consider voting Green. And with Elizabeth May dominating the news these days (although not for the reasons she may have hoped for), her name is out there, and this is a rare opportunity - and maybe the last for the Greens.

There may be some people from the Liberal camp still pushing for their candidate on here, but if we accept the premise of Catch-22 (which brings together Lib-NDP-Green voters), we need to speak with one voice and not divide the non-Conservative vote further.

Permalink Reply by Pat Barclay on April 11, 2011 at 9:02pm

I quite agree with the goal of defeating Gary Lunn. To achieve this, however, Elizabeth will have to make up the large number of votes that separated Lunn's total in '08 from that of Andrew Lewis. Granted, the green-oriented Liberal candidate may have had a partial advantage in '08 in the NDP candidate's withdrawal at the last minute, but Briony Penn also had two significant advantages that Greens today seem completely to discount: family roots of long standing in S-GI and the backing of a Liberal party ready to form government.. In 2011, however, Renee Hetherington not only shares these same advantages but also combines her business and cattle-ranching abilities with oustanding green qualifications.

To my way of thinking, then, you can take the risk that Elizabeth will somehow manage to defeat Gary Lunn and so vote for her, or you can seize the opportunity to defeat not only Gary Lunn but also the Harper government, by voting for Renee.

P.S.:By the way, in reply to Geoffrey's 2nd paragraph above, as a person who voted NDP for many years I cannot imagine, under any circumstances, voting Conservative as my second choice :) .

Permalink Reply by C M on April 21, 2011 at 1:14am

Please stop diluting the votes. We all appreciate the effort but change and betterment can be found elsewhere.

Most sincerely.

Permalink Reply by Bill Davidson on April 27, 2011 at 12:31pm

I don't think all Green supporters are ignoring anything. Most of us are working very hard and not taking anything for granted. "Discarding wisdom..". We make our choices for our own reasons. Obviously, with a 4 decade track record there is at least a little bit of wisdom in choosing to support Elizabeth May.

Choosing to support Elizabeth May is not a criticism of Briony Penn. I know you are campaigning for your LPC candidate. Surely you can appreciate that regardless of the odds, some of us feel that Elizabeth May would make the best MP for SGI and be the best MP for Canada.

I hate this FPP electoral system.

Permalink Reply by Bob Morgan on April 27, 2011 at 12:50pm

Bill,

You make a good point about the problems with the FPTP system. I feel that Catch 22 and its sister groups focusing on strategic voting is the best short term approach which is to diminish Harper's influence. In the long run, you quite rightly state that PR is the way to go. Have you considered joining Fair Vote Canada? They are the national group with chapters in different parts of the country that promote PR. It is only $10 to join for the first year. Their is also a separate group that works on it for BC. I think it is called Fairvoting something. Now i can't remember the exact web site. That Fairvoting group I believe promoted the yes vote for the BC referendum.

Permalink Reply by Bill Davidson on April 27, 2011 at 1:02pm

Yep. Agreed. Cheers. Rock n roll.

Permalink Reply by Steve Abbott on April 27, 2011 at 5:14pm

As was discussed elsewhere, the Oraclepoll report you refer to was not commissioned by May's organisation, but by a private agency masquerading as the green party. GreenPartyStrategies is not the Green Party. It is opposed to Elizabeth May. Secondly the Oraclepoll report does not refer to the McAllister poll. In fact is does not specify to which poll it refers. It was an effort by GreenPartyStrategies to fudge their own poll results, because they agreed with the McAllister poll, and they did not want them to. GreenPartyStrategies released this poll, and then hid their own poll to which it referred, apparently hoping to imply that it was meant to correct the McAllister poll.

One is tempted to ask, why GreenPartyStrategies would masquerade as the green party, if they had an honest case to make in their own right. One wonders too, why people are so easy to fool with this kind of trick...