By West Annex News | From Elections Canada, with 317 of 317 polls reporting:
NDP Olivia Chow: 35,493 – 54.1% of votes cast
Liberal Christine Innes: 15,218 – 23.2%
Conservative Gin Siow: 10, 938 – 16.7%
Green Rachel Barney: 3,279 – 5.0%
Libertarian Chester Brown: 454 – 0.7%
Marxist-Leninist Nick Lin: 178 – 0.3%
Total number of valid votes cast: 65,560 out of 95,363 registered voters – 68.7% voter turn-out.
Image credit: Michael Loudon
By The Maven | Thankfully, this is a riding where we don’t have to worry about the Conservatives winning. We can vote as we wish without having to worry about voting strategically.
Or at least so we thought.
Olivia Chow has held the riding for the NDP since 2006. Before that Tony Ianno held it for the Liberals between 1993 and 2006. Although Chow won in 2008 with a 3500 vote lead over Liberal Christine Innes, the latter ran a terrible campaign. She doing a better job this time around. Rumour has it that this riding is a toss-up right now.
I was at the Trinity-Spadina all-candidates meeting on Wednesday, April 20, and some of my thoughts follow.
What I find interesting about Innes’ campaign is what isn’t being discussed, or at least not by her.
For instance, I feel strongly that a candidate be judged on her own merits. The fact that she is Tony Ianno’s wife should theoretically not be held against her. However, I do find it interesting that she has made no mention of their relationship at all in this election. In fact I cannot find out much of anything about her. Aside from having four children and being involved in the Annex Residents Association and her church, she is a self-described community leader of whom very few people seem to have knowledge. The bio she provides on her website suggests she has a long history of political backroom activity within the Liberal Party and works now as a political appointee to a provincial Liberal cabinet minister.
She really sounds like the proverbial backroom boy. Not a lot different from our previous Liberal MP, her unspoken husband. You may remember he was called out for having the worst participation record of any Toronto MP in the House of Commons and for supporting causes–like the Toronto Port Authority–hostile to Torontoians’ interests.
There are some questions that some people in this riding would like addressed:
Well fellow Trinity-Spadina-ites, without those questions answered, I don’t feel comfortable with Ms Innes. The previous Liberal government left power with an unfortunate reputations for sleaze. It’s important that all Liberals make a clear break from that era. Innes’ close ties with the last Liberal member don’t do much to dispel old perceptions. I think people can be judged by the company they keep and it’s company I am not comfortable with.
In Election Diaries, The Maven comments on the leaders, the parties, the issues and the campaigns for Canada’s 41st federal election.
Read more of The Maven’s Election Diaries at www.tomaven.wordpress.com.
For past articles by The Maven on the West Annex News, visit The Maven archive.
Visit Michael Loudon/thorneypup’s photostream on Flickr.
Olivia Chow and Christine Innes | Image credit Medmoiselle T/candidate website respectively
By West Annex News | According to Project Democracy, NDP candidate Olivia Chow and Liberal Christine Innes are running neck and neck in Trinity-Spadina. Projections based on the most recent polls say only 15 votes separate the two candidates out of an expected 60,000 to be cast on election day, May 2, 2011.
Close polls should make for a lively debate at the Trinity-Spadina all-candidates meeting on Wednesday, April 20 at 7:30PM at Trinity-St. Paul’s church, 427 Bloor Street West.
Trinity-Spadina riding map | Image credit Slyguy/Wikimedia Commons
The riding of Trinity-Spadina encompasses most of the western part of downtown Toronto, and is one of the most ethnically diverse in Canada, containing Toronto’s Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy, and Little Portugal. More than 41 per cent of residents listed other than English or French as their first language. The Annex, West Annex and Seaton Village make up the northern part of the riding, from Bloor Street to the CPR tracks north of Dupont Street.
Although the riding has been described as the most left-leaning in all of Toronto, it has changed hands regularly between the NDP and Liberals since the riding was created in 1988 out of the former ridings of Trinity, Spadina, and smaller parts of Toronto Centre—Rosedale and Parkdale—High Park.
In the 2001 Canadian census, the population of Trinity-Spadina was 106,094 people, of which 74,409 were eligible to vote. Since then explosive growth has taken place in that part of the riding south of Queen Street where there has been a boom in residential condominium construction. The Star reports that twenty-seven new highrise condominium buildings containing 8,170 new units have been added since the last federal election alone. The Star, CBC.ca and others have speculated that young downtown condo dwellers bring right-wing voting tendencies with them from the suburbs where they grew up, and that Chow’s 3,475-vote margin of victory over Innes in 2008 is at risk.
Election results since the creation of the riding are:
Both Chow and Innes have famous husbands, Chow federal NDP Leader Jack Layton, and Innes former Liberal incumbent Tony Ianno.
Rachel Barney of the Green Party and Gin Siow of the Conservatives will also be participating in Wednesday’s debate. The Gleaner online has a good indepth overview of the riding, and interview with the candidates on the issues.
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Image credit: screen captures from televised Federal Leadership Debate 2011
By The Maven | I haven’t posted anything for a while about the federal election. It’s just not happening for me. We started off with some sparks but the past week has been really dull.
The Conservative ads have now turned to “the vision”. There is Harper talking about what Canada is and can be. Only problem is that beyond a strong military and lots of jails, he really doesn’t have anything to say. He doesn’t like government, except when using it to try to buy votes. His whole economic plan–until the opposition forced him to take action–is essentially to do nothing. His ‘stay the course’ really means ‘let things go’. He is an old-fashioned laissez-faire capitalist (again, unless he can buy power with targeted spending).
But if any leader has a vision, I think Harper’s vision of a more militaristic, conservative, individualist nation is the most clearly expressed. It’s unpalatable but it is there.
So the Conservative campaign is really a boring old hash of nothing with a small dash of something rotten.
And the press coverage? We keep hearing that the Conservatives will only allow reporters four questions per day. Wow, where is the press on that issue? Nowhere. I would have thought this incredible assault on democracy would be in the news daily. Where is the reporter writing the Prime Minister once again refused to answer questions. That would be headline news every day if I ran a media outlet.
The NDP feel they can smell power…well, power of the sort the NDP refers to. They think they are within reach of Official Opposition status.
But where once there was an NDP vision of a just and more egalitarian Canada, there are now only families and targeted programs. Now, I don’t really blame them. When I was younger I railed against the NDP for not remaining true to the concept of a movement and not just another political party. As I have grown older I realize the usefulness of a party on the left that actually seeks to attain power even if it means watering down some policy. It’s easy to criticize progressive parties for the compromises they make to get elected.
I suppose the alternative is to keep shouting from the sidelines but I don’t find that terribly useful and neither does the NDP. But I still can’t help but feel that there has to be something more to the peoples’ party. Is this all it’s come to: tax deductions?
The Liberals, now there is a letdown as well. Not because I think they would change the world. It’s really because I’m afraid the Conservatives would change the world. That’s why I am so concerned about the Liberal Party. Who else can stop the Conservatives?
The Liberals owe it to Canadians to not be so stupid. Where once they had a brains trust, there now seems to be no one at the helm. It is interesting to think about what a Liberal government might look like. Except for Iganatieff who is on the conservative side of the party, there are a number of NDP types who would be in any cabinet. Think of Bob Rae, Gerard Kennedy, Ujjal Dosanjh, Ken Dryden. These are people who could easily be in the NDP and who do, I think, have a vision of a better Canada.
But, alas, a Liberal government is not to be. And that is partly because the left, unlike the right, have refused to co-operate, but also because the politicians, the press and we Canadians have let the Conservatives define democracy for us. I mean how many parliamentary democracies have majority governments today? New Zealand, the United Kingdom and almost every European country have coalition governments. Canada has a long history of minority government either nationally or provincially. So majority governments which used to be the norm in Canada, are certainly not usual globally.
Yet Stephen Harper, with the acquiescence of a docile press, has convinced us that parties representing over 60% of the vote do not have the right to govern… either in coalition or co-operation. Just how can it be that this ahistorical and constitutionally incorrect interpretation of parliamentary democracy can have won the day?
Why does our press ape Harper’s pronouncements without question? Why do they accept his isolation and lack of accountability without ridiculing him over it?
Maybe it’s time to ask the press some questions. But first, let’s do whatever we can to keep this clown Harper out of a majority government.
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In Election Diaries, The Maven comments on the leaders, the parties, the issues and the campaigns for Canada’s 41st federal election.
Read more of The Maven’s Election Diaries at www.tomaven.wordpress.com.
For past articles by The Maven on the West Annex News, visit The Maven archive.
Provincial Conservatives Hudak and Harris: not exactly urban-friendly | Image credit G. Keeming, YouTube screen capture
By The Maven | Mayor Robdoug announced late this week that if Dalton McGuinty doesn’t cough up the over $300 million he has asked from the Ontario government he will work against the Liberals in the next provincial election this October.
Now, never mind that Robdoug shamed the previous City Council for asking Ontario for money (“Toronto has a spending problem, not a revenue problem”) and that he has cut taxes, amounting to about $120 million in lost revenue to the City. And, of course we know that Robdoug is a member of the Conservative Party.
However, here is the thing: the Conservatives, who began the beggaring of Toronto under Mike Harris, are not urban friendly and would be less likely than the Liberals to give money to Toronto.
So, that leaves the NDP, as pro-urban, downtown progressives to support Toronto. Which can only mean that Robdoug is about to announce his support for the Ontario NDP in the fall election.
Who says shit doesn’t stick?
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See gkeeming’s channel on YouTube.
For other articles by this author, visit The Maven archive.
West Annex News 