{"id":1759,"date":"2008-05-05T18:35:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-05T22:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1759"},"modified":"2008-05-05T18:35:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-05T22:35:00","slug":"taking-guelph-by-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1759","title":{"rendered":"Taking Guelph by Storm?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It wouldn<\/span>\u2019t surprise me if Liberals are starting to view by-elections like a trip to the dentist \u2013 every six months you get a bit of discomfort\u2026with the possibility of a lot of discomfort if they find a cavity. And there\u2019s a toothache right now, with another quartet of by elections looming. Asuming, of course, that there\u2019s no spring election.<\/p>\n

The two in Quebec should go according to script. The Bloc took Saint Lambert<\/strong><\/a> by a 2 to 1 margin last time, and Marc Garneau<\/span> should launch off in Westmount<\/span>-Ville-Marie<\/strong><\/a> with no problems (rule of thumb: any riding with the word “westmount<\/span>” in it is still safe in Quebec<\/em>). With both the BQ<\/span> and Liberals struggling in Quebec, it will be interesting to see how much the margins of victory shrink but I wouldn<\/span>\u2019t expect anything too earth shattering.<\/p>\n

In Don Valley West<\/strong>, John Godfrey will be stepping down July 1st, which kiboshes<\/span> doing all four by elections in June. Rob Oliphant<\/span> won a nasty nomination for the Liberals, while John Carmichael, who lost by 20% to Godfrey last time out, will be the Tory nominee again. Again, I\u2019d expect a drop in Liberal support due to the incumbent leaving, but it should be a hold.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The most intriguing of the four is Guelph<\/strong>, following Brenda Chamberlain\u2019s official resigning on April 7th<\/span>. That means Harper can call the by election anytime between now and October. If I were Steve, I\u2019d be targeting June since the students won\u2019t be there, and it could generate some momentum going into the summer break. Of course, doing all four at once would be neater, he\u2019s shown a willingness to delay by elections before and, there\u2019s the somewhat counter intuitive theory<\/a> that Harper doesn<\/span>\u2019t want to<\/span> win any more by elections.<\/p>\n

Whenever it happens, this one will be an interesting test, since the road to a Harper majority would likely be paved with ridings<\/span> like Guelph. The riding has seesawed back and forth in the past, usually going to the party in power, and Chamberlain only won by 5,000 votes in 2006<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Brenda Chamberlain (Lib) 38%
Brent Barr (CPC<\/span>) 30%
Phil Allt<\/span> (NDP<\/span>) 22%
Mike Nagy (Green) 9%<\/p>\n

Here’s the field for this time:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Liberals:<\/strong> Frank Valeriote<\/span><\/a>, a lawyer with lots of community involvement.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Conservatives:<\/strong> Gloria Kovach<\/span><\/a>, a 16 year city councillor and, judging from her picture, member of Deborah Grey’s motorcycle gang.\"\"<\/a> Kovach’s nomination generated a fair bit of controversy<\/a> after the original CPC candidate was removed.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
NDP<\/span>:<\/strong> Tom King<\/a>, a University Professor and creator of CBC radio show “the dead dog cafe”. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Greens:<\/strong> Mike Nagy<\/a>, who has run twice for the Greens before.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It wouldn\u2019t surprise me if Liberals are starting to view by-elections like a trip to the dentist \u2013 every six months you get a bit of discomfort\u2026with the possibility of a lot of discomfort if they find a cavity. And there\u2019s a toothache right now, with another quartet of by elections looming. Asuming, of course, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=1759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}