{"id":2516,"date":"2009-12-18T21:18:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-19T02:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2516"},"modified":"2009-12-18T21:18:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-19T02:18:00","slug":"provincial-uprising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2516","title":{"rendered":"Provincial Uprising?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In October, I mused<\/a> about the difficulties facing the three Liberal titans – Dalton McGuinty, Jean Charest, and Gordon Campbell. For the last 7 years, they have led Canada’s three largest provinces, winning 8 elections between them. But all three now find themselves down in the polls, a fact confirmed by this Angus Reid survey<\/a>, asking Canadians to rate their Premier:<\/p>\n

Danny Williams<\/strong> (Newfoundland) 78% approve, 10% disapprove
Brad Wall<\/strong> (Saskatchewan) 58% approve, 29% disapprove
Darrell Dexter<\/strong> (Nova Scotia) 43% approve. 32% disapprove
Greg Selinger<\/strong> (Manitoba) 29% approve, 22% disapprove
Jean Charest<\/strong> (Quebec) 25% approve, 52% disapprove
Gordon Campbell<\/strong> (B.C.) 21% approve, 66% disapprove
Shawn Graham<\/strong> (New Brunswick) 20% approve, 63% disapprove
Dalton McGuinty<\/strong> (Ontario) 18% approve, 56% disapprove
Ed Stelmach<\/strong> (Alberta) 14% approve, 61% disapprove<\/p>\n

Let’s start at the top of the list. Danny Williams is Danny Williams. Bulletproof. Unbreakable. Unbeatable. He is this generation’s Peter Lougheed. No surprise at his numbers.<\/p>\n

Brad Wall and Darrell Dexter are new on the scene so it’s not really surprising that they remain popular. As for Greg Selinger, well, it doesn’t appear that anyone outside of his family and High School classmates have an idea of who he is. The jury is still very much out on Gary Doer’s replacement.<\/p>\n

After that, the numbers are ugly. Still, Jean Charest likely isn’t sweating – he’s been through worse and has three years to turn it around. No one who has followed Quebec politics over the last decade is going to bet against Charest.<\/p>\n

I also tend to think Gordon Campbell has decided against a fourth term. In BC politics, 3 majorities is unheard of – plus he’ll have the Olympics and a few legacy policies under his belt, so there’s no need for him to stick around.<\/p>\n

So the three men on the hot seat are Dalton McGuinty, Ed Stelmach, and Shawn Graham – three Premiers who have learned the hard way that a year is a long time in politics. Think about it. One year ago, Stelmach was coming off Kleinian election triumph, McGuinty was slapping around a hapless John Tory, and Shawn Graham was drawing praise for his bold agenda both inside<\/a> and outside his home province.<\/p>\n

The good news for this trio is that a year is a long time in politics. The economy will improve. They can all turn it around.<\/p>\n

Graham’s numbers are being hurt by the NC Hydro sale so this might just be a temporary blip. And, besides, he only has one term under his belt, and Canadians are usually willing to dish out a second term. Stelmach and McGuinty both have powerful political machines behind them and are facing untested opposition.<\/p>\n

But unless you live in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, or Saskatchewan, provincial politics will certainly be worth following in 2010. And for the political junkies living in those three provinces it’s probably still worth tuning in…Misters McGuinty, Stelmach, and Graham showed us why in 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In October, I mused about the difficulties facing the three Liberal titans – Dalton McGuinty, Jean Charest, and Gordon Campbell. For the last 7 years, they have led Canada’s three largest provinces, winning 8 elections between them. But all three now find themselves down in the polls, a fact confirmed by this Angus Reid survey, […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516"}],"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=2516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}