{"id":1354,"date":"2007-04-07T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-07T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1354"},"modified":"2007-04-07T15:30:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-07T19:30:00","slug":"provincial-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1354","title":{"rendered":"Provincial Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless you’re a hockey fan<\/a>, it figures to be a pretty slow news weekend. So I thought it might be a good time for a little election speculation. However, it certainly seems to me that there’s a speculatory<\/span> imbalance with all the hype being on the federal vote, so I figured I’d take a looksy<\/span> at some of the provincial elections coming up this year. I’m certainly not an expert in the intricacies of Newfoundland or Manitoban<\/span> politics, so this is more of an open thread for those closer to the action to give their two cents on the local scene.<\/p>\n

Ontario<\/a><\/strong>
<\/strong>
October 10th<\/span>, 2007 will be voting day as Dalton McGuinty<\/span> guns for a second term against the tory<\/span> Tory. The latest<\/span> SES<\/span> numbers <\/a>have the Liberals ahead, although not at their 2003 numbers quite yet:<\/p>\n

Lib 41
PC 33
NDP<\/span> 17<\/p>\n

Despite the early flack for broken promises, I’d be surprised to see McGuinty<\/span> lose this one.<\/p>\n

Newfoundland & Labrador<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

King Williams seems to be the safest Premier in Canada these days, with opinions polls <\/a>showing him miles ahead of an opposition in disarray<\/span><\/a>. Despite a recent by election win by the Liberals<\/a>, this should be another walk in the park for Danny as he runs on his anti-Ottawa platform.<\/p>\n

It’s weird – politicians who are adored outside of their home provinces like Bernard Lord and Jean Charest<\/span> are usually reviled<\/span> at home, while those who turn into punch lines like Danny Williams and Ralph Klein are the ones who cruise to record majorities.<\/p>\n

Saskatchewan<\/strong> <\/u>
<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lorne Calvert will certainly be tempted to take a page from Premier Williams and wage war on Ottawa during the next campaign. Despite an economic boom, after 16 years in power, voters seem to be tiring of NDP<\/span> government and the Sask Party (slogan: “Just like the old PCs, minus the kick backs!”) has routinely been ahead in the polls <\/a>over the past year. They are led by Brad Wall who I doubt anyone<\/em> outside of Saskatchewan has ever heard of.
<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manitoba <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

You probably want to check out Hack’s<\/span> blog <\/a>for the low down on Manitoba politics, but it certainly sounds like the opposition are poised to knock off Gary Doer <\/a>here.<\/p>\n

PEI<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pat Binns<\/span> is the Premier. Above and beyond that, I really don’t have anything insightful to say about the state of PEI politics. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller<\/span>?<\/p>\n

UPDATE: <\/em><\/strong>OK, here’s some news on PEI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alberta<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

My money is on 2008 for the next election but it could <\/em>be joining the 007 club if Ed Stelmach<\/span> decides he wants to get his own mandate. It has been 36 years since the last government change here so, even by Alberta standards, we are due. <\/em>The Liberals have their sights set on a Calgary breakthrough as the former farmer Stelmach<\/span> is seen to be anti-Calgary in many circles (those circles usually comprising of Jim Dinning supporters). But with an electoral map which favours rural Alberta dramatically, it would take one heck of a stumble for the Tories to fall out of power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unless you’re a hockey fan, it figures to be a pretty slow news weekend. So I thought it might be a good time for a little election speculation. However, it certainly seems to me that there’s a speculatory imbalance with all the hype being on the federal vote, so I figured I’d take a looksy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[72,71],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}