“I think the Atlantic has become extremely hostile to [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper. That’s changed,” Ekos Research pollster Frank Graves told The Hill Times. “I don’t think the NDP are up from the last election. I think they are about holding their own. If anybody it looks like the Liberals might be up a bit. In some of the polls we had them leading in the Atlantic. It looks like a pretty tight three-way race.”
Mr. Graves said that “antipathy to the current government” is what is driving NDP support. The NDP is scheduled to begin its two-day fall caucus retreat in a St. John’s hotel on Sept. 4, the day of the Quebec provincial election. All three federal parties will hold caucus meetings prior to the House of Commons returning on Sept. 17. The Liberals are holding their fall retreat at the same time but because of the budget limits they have as the distant third party in the Commons, the meeting will be closer to Ottawa, at the Montebello conference and resort hotel in Quebec. The Conservatives are also likely holding their caucus meeting in Ottawa.
The NDP’s key strategy and planning session in St. John’s will give the party the opportunity to make their pitch for Atlantic support, which has grown significantly in federal and provincial elections in the region over the past several years. It comes at a time when recent federal policies, primarily a controversial proposal to severely limit access to employment insurance benefits for seasonal workers, has sent voters scouring the horizon for an opposition choice that will be best poised to unseat Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and his Conservatives in the 2015 federal election.
“The Conservative core has been whittled down to its bedrock and it looks very committed, very strong. But in the rest of the spectrum, the appearance that they’re stable from month to month, belies the fact that there is a tremendous amount of churn going on below the surface,” Mr. Graves said in an interview.
He said Ekos polls reveal voters across the country, but notably in the Atlantic, are temporarily shifting, from preference for the Liberals to the NDP, and in the other direction, as they search for an alternative to the Conservatives.
“This kind of casting about that we see is a reflection I think of a low level of commitment, a low level of confidence and certainty about where to go, where to park your vote in order to get an alternative to the current government, which increasingly is seen by Canadians as taking the country in the wrong direction,” Mr. Graves said.
Hill and Knowlton vice-president Mike Storeshaw, a former Conservative Cabinet Hill staffer told The Hill Times recently that it’s difficult to gauge support during the summer, when Parliament is not in session. “You can look at polls to try to guess how parties are doing in the summertime, but even those are hard to read, given the level of attention on politics and the level of priority that the general public puts on it, at the best of times, is also often not that high and can be lower in the summertime,” he said. Mr. Storeshaw noted that with the NDP’s new leader, and the Liberals without a permanent leader, the polling numbers could be artificially inflated and deflated.
The NDP’s caucus meeting will focus not only on short-term plans and strategy for when MPs return to Parliament, but will also begin laying ground for 2015 and gives NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair (Outremont, Que.) the opportunity to step out ahead of the Liberals as the fight for Atlantic support begins.
At the centre of that campaign will be the outright fear and concern the population of a region that vitally depends on a range of seasonal industries is experiencing, critics said.
“Folks out here do not like Harper. He does not resonate with Atlantic Canadians, or with Atlantic Canadian conservatives,” NDP MP and deputy leader Megan Leslie (Halifax, N.S.) told The Hill Times. “It’s a different brand of conservatives out here.”
Ms. Leslie, who represents a largely urban riding, said her travels in the countryside and to other provinces as part of regular meetings of the entire six-member NDP Atlantic caucus, have impressed the deep concern residents of small coastal and interior communities have on limits to EI.
“People really are talking about EI and they are really scared,” she told The Hill Times. “Almost everything is seasonal here, it’s not just fishing. Tourism is seasonal obviously. The blueberry farm, blueberries are big out here—seasonal. Christmas tree farms are big out here—seasonal. Farming in P.E.I., parts of Nova Scotia—seasonal. Everything is seasonal, and so people work like the dickens but they need help to fill those gap months. … People want to work at home, they don’t want to have to move to another province, right, they want to stay in their communities and they want to keep their communities going, and they’re doing great stuff eking out a living.”
Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal MP Gerry Byrne agreed that the depth of concern, which rises to the surface even in conversation with traveling summer visitors, said it is the centrist Liberal Party, not the NDP, which will attract voter support.
He rejected a suggestion that Atlantic Canadians will more likely turn to Mr. Mulcair, portrayed during the recent NDP leadership election campaign as a moderate liberal compared to NDP leaders of the past, because his party, as official opposition, has the best chance of ousting Mr. Harper.
“In actual fact, what the concern will be, from my point of view, on the ground itself in Atlantic Canada is that people look at this and say, ‘Do we actually swing the pendulum, swing so hard the other way, to the left, that these changes actually become inevitable?” he told The Hill Times. “What people are actually looking for is a balance. There is a need for a balance between the needs of business, the needs of the finances of the country and the needs of the working woman and man, and that’s where the Liberal Party has always stood.”
Ms. Leslie disagreed. She noted that Nova Scotia has elected an NDP government, which proves the party can govern with stability.
“The NDP forming government in Nova Scotia was a watershed moment in Atlantic Canada,” she said. “I got so many emails the day of the provincial election, people saying ‘You know, it’s possible isn’t it?’ The NDP is a possibility and the world didn’t end.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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