Election night cheat sheet for political junkies

UPDATE: Election post-mortem here

Will tonight’s federal election result in more of the same or are we in for a surprise or two? Here’s a cheat sheet on the tightest local races, which are likely to decide the election. Clip, save, place next to your chips, beer and TV remote, and consult as results pour in from east to west:

Atlantic Canada

Newfoundland and Labrador: The big question here is how effective Premier Danny Williams‘ Anyone But Conservative campaign has been. The Conservatives went into this election holding three of the province’s seven seats — St. John’s East, St. John’s South – Mt. Pearl, and Avalon — and are in danger of losing all three: Two to the Liberals and St. John’s East to the NDP’s star candidate, Jack Harris, the party’s former provincial leader.

Prince Edward Island: The Island’s four ridings have not gone anything but Liberal for 20 years. The Conservatives seem to think they have enough of a shot in the riding of Egmont, which takes in the city of Summerside and the western part of PEI, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper made PEI the first stop in his big final-day cross-country push yesterday. The Liberals are running former PEI Premier Keith Milligan there against the Tory candidate Gail Shea, a former provincial cabinet minister.

Nova Scotia: No riding here has garnered more interest than Central Nova, where Green Party leader Elizabeth May is trying to topple Defence Minister Peter MacKay. If she succeeds, it will be one of the top stories of the election. Elsewhere, former Conservative MP Bill Casey will try to hold onto Cumberland – Colchester – Musquodoboit Valley as an independent candidate, and the NDP hopes to add to its two N.S. seats (Halifax and Sackville-Eastern Shore) by poaching Dartmouth-Cole Harbour from the Libs and South Shore – St. Margaret’s from the Tories.

New Brunswick: The Liberals tend to dominate in the northern half of this province (with the exception of the NDP stronghold of Acadie-Bathurst). and the Tories tend to dominate in the southern half, leaving a trio of adjoining swing ridings in central and western New Brunswick worth watching: Fredericton, Tobique – Mactaquaq and Madawaska – Restigouche.

Quebec

Montreal / Laval : The Conservatives are not a factor anywhere in the metropolis, where the Liberals still hold on to their core Quebec vote. There are four races to watch here, all in traditional Liberal ridings the Grits hope to retake from opponents. In Papineau, Ahuntsic and Jeanne-Le-Ber, those opponents are Bloc MPs. Papineau Liberal candidate Justin Trudeau hopes to become the third son-of-a-Prime-Minister in Canadian history to sit as an MP (trivia points to anyone who can name the other two). In Outremont, the Liberals hope to unseat NDP incumbent Thomas Mulcair, who won the seat in a byelection. If Mulcair holds on, it will be the first time in history that an NDP candidate won a Quebec seat in a general election.

Quebec City / Northeastern Quebec: These are the areas where the Conservatives made their great breakthroughs in the last election – breakthroughs they hoped to build on this time around. Instead, an erratic campaign has them hoping to preserve what they already had. Their seats on the south shore of the Saint-Laurent, across from Quebec City, seem safe, but several in the provincial capital and in Saguenay-Lac Saint Jean are in danger of swinging back to the Bloc. These ridings include Beauport-Limoilou, Charlesbourg-Haute-Saint-Charles, Louis-Hébert, Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean, and the Jonquière-Alma riding of cabinet minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn. The only safe Conservative seat north of the river seems to be Louis-Saint-Laurent, held by Heritage Minister Josée Verner.

Elsewhere: It’s all safe Bloc seats, including Vaudreuil-Soulanges, where previously unelected cabinet minister Michael Fortier is expected to remain unelected. The only exceptions are the three Outaouais ridings, across the river from Ottawa. Hull-Aylmer is the only remaining safe-ish Liberal seat outside of Montreal. Pontiac will continue to be held by Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon if the other three major parties continue to split the vote. And in Gatineau, NDP candidate Francoise Boivin hopes to win back the seat she lost to the Bloc as a Liberal incumbent last time around.

Ontario

Toronto: The biggest Liberal bastion in the country. A couple of tight NDP-Liberal races worth watching are in Parkdale – High Park, where former Liberal leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy hopes to win back his old provincial riding from incumbent New Democrat Peggy Nash, and Beaches-East York, which former NDP MPP Marilyn Churley will once again try to win away from longtime Liberal MP Maria Minna.

The 905: The region surrounding Toronto where many elections get decided. Many interesting races to watch here. In the eastern part of the 905 semi-circle, Oshawa always hosts tight three-way races. Farther west, the Conservatives hope to retake Newmarket-Aurora now that Belinda Stronach has left politics and Halton, now that incumbent Garth Turner has left their party and become a Liberal. Similarly, the Liberals hope to retake Mississauga-Streetsville from Grit-turned-Tory Wajid Khan. Conservatives also have a chance in several other ridings that have gone Liberal for years: Mississauga-Erindale, Mississauga South, and Oakville. In the Hamilton-Niagara region, the Liberals hope to retake Hamilton East – Stoney Creek from the NDP and St. Catherines from the Tories. And look for a close three-way race in Welland.

Southwestern Ontario: The two closest races in this region are likely to be in Brant and London West, where Liberal incumbents defend their seats against Conservative challengers.

Eastern and Northern Ontario: Incumbents seem pretty safe in Eastern Ontario. The closest race in this region is likely to be Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, where Dan Boudria attempts to win back his father Don‘s old riding, won by the Conservatives in 2008. The NDP has high hopes in the north, where New Democratic candidates have their eyes on a number of seats the Liberals won last time around, including Algoma – Manitoulin – Kapuskasing, Kenora, Nickel Belt, Thunder Bay – Rainy River and Thunder Bay – Superior North. Also worth watching is Parry Sound – Muskoka, which cabinet minister Tony Clement won last time in the closest race in the country.

Prairie Provinces

Manitoba: The Liberal’s three incumbent MPs in the province were all fighting tough battles in this election. The NDP hopes to grab Churchill, the Tories hope to win Saint-Boniface and Winnipeg South-Centre. If the Libs have any chance to regain an old seat, it will be in Winnipeg South, won by the Tories last time.

Saskatchewan: Ralph Goodale‘s one Liberal seat in this province is probably safe, as are most of the other Conservative seats in the province, with the exception of Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar and Palliser, former NDP seats that party hopes to win back, and Desenthé-Missinippi-Churchill RIver, which Progressive-Conservative-turned-Liberal David Orchard hopes to win after being denied the nomination by Stéphane Dion in a recent byelection.

Alberta: The easiest province to pick should go all-Tory all-the-time. The two ridings where there could be longshot upsets are Edmonton-Strathcona, which the NDP often wins provincially and where it has the best (longshot) chance in he province, and Calgary Northeast, where a divisive nomination race resulted in one Conservative running as an independent against the official party candidate, with a (longshot) chance at splitting the vote.

British Columbia and the North

Vancouver Island: Three races to watch here: Esquimault-Juan de Fuca, where Liberal incumbent Keith Martin is in a three-way race, Vancouver Island North, which the Tories hope to take back from the NDP, and Saanich – Gulf Islands, where cabinet minister Gary Lunn faces an unexpectedly strong challenge from the Liberals, after the NDP candidate was forced to withdraw from the race.

Greater Vancouver: Many interesting races here. Liberal incumbents face strong Tory challenges in Richmond, Newton-North Delta, North Vancouver and Vancouver-Quadra, and the Liberals and NDP are in a tough race in Vancouver Kingsway, most recently held by Liberal-turned-Tory-turned-retired-cabinet-minister David Emerson. Two other ridings worth watching are West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, which the Conservatives hope to win back from Liberal-turned-Green Blair Wilson, and Surrey North, once held by the late Chuck Cadman. Cadman’s widow Dona is running for the Tories in a riding won in 2006 by the NDP.

Elsewhere in B.C.: Many safe Tory and NDP seats all over rural British Columbia. The one exception may be Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo, which the NDP hopes to poach from the Conservatives.

The Arctic Territories: Yukon is a safe Liberal seat, Western Arctic is a safe NDP seat, but Nunavut may be tossup, which explains why so many leaders have visited Iqaluit lately.

Tune in tonight, and keep this guide handy…

The Federal Election: Central Canada decides again?

On Day One of the Canadian federal election, it was interesting to note the leaders of all four major parties spent at least part of their day in Quebec:

• Stephen Harper made scenic Quebec City his first stop after triggering the election this morning at Rideau Hall:

• Jack Layton launched his campaign in Gatineau, but mostly for the Ontario-based backdrop:

• Stéphane Dion addressed a rally in Ottawa, and then headed to Montreal in the campaign bus that will serve as his main transportation until that Air Inuit plane is ready (echenblog exclusive photos below):

Stéphane Dion, Liberal rally, Ottawa, Sept. 7, 2008

Dion bus, Montreal-bound, Ottawa, Sept. 7, 2008

• and Gilles Duceppe… well… he only campaigns in Quebec, doesn’t he?

But Quebec is where the action is this election. It’s where polls are showing the best prospects for Conservative Party growth in that party’s search for an elusive majority,  where the Bloc Québecois is polling some of the worst numbers in its history, where the Liberals were reduced to a core rump of seats – mostly in English-speaking Montreal – last time ’round, and where the NDP made a historic breakthrough by capturing Outremont in a recent byelection.

The main question is… how many seats can the Conservatives take from the Bloc?

At the end of the recently deceased Parliament, the Bloc had 48 seats, all but seven of them off of the Island of Montreal. In addition, there were three other non-Montreal Quebec seats that were vacant or held by independent MPs.

Taking Montreal – where Bloc losses do not necessarily mean Tory gains (as opposed to outside Montreal, where they most likely do) – off the table, that’s a pool of 44 Quebec seats the Tories have a shot at picking up from a collapsing Bloc. There’s yer majority. There’s nowhere else in the country with as many concentrated ridings that are potential Conservative gains. It will likely be the Bloc’s performance in those ridings that determines whether or not minority government continues in this country.

No wonder Gilles Duceppe is already playing this card.

Ontario also has some possibilities for the Conservatives, none as promising as suburban and rural Quebec.

Here’s a top-of-head take on Conservative prospects for growth in Ontario:

Eastern Ontario: Little room for growth. Most of the ridings in this region are already held by the Conservatives, except for several ridings in central and east-end Ottawa and in Kingston, where they aren’t usually competitive. The Liberals also have a couple of notable candidates who may have shots of winning back ridings they lost to the Tories last time around – former cabinet minister David Pratt, who is taking on current cabinet minister John Baird in Ottawa West – Nepean, and Dan Boudria, who is trying to win back the Glengarry-Prescott-Russell riding that his father Don held for many years.

Central Ontario: Also little room for growth. Last time around, the region was painted Tory blue from Haliburton to Parry Sound down to all of Durham and York regions. They’d like to take back Belinda Stronach’s seat, but they could also lose a couple that were tight races last time around (for example, Landslide Tony Clement’s and Oshawa)

Northern Ontario: Few prospects. This is traditionally a region where the Liberals battle the NDP, while the Tories sit on the sidelines.

Toronto: If the Tories breach the Liberal fortress of Toronto in any significant way, then we can be pretty sure it is a sign of a massive nationwide Liberal collapse, and the question is not whether or not the Tories can win a majority, but rather how big that majority will be.

905 West: This is the only region where the governing party may have some potential to pick up a “concentrated” handful of seats – but barring a massive Liberal collapse (see above) it’s probably only a handful – maybe four or five – in the Brampton-Mississauga area. They may take back Garth Turner’s riding. But the Liberals could take back Wajid Khan’s and St. Catherines. A Conservative breakthrough in this multicultural area may be a sign that the party’s efforts to woo the so-called “ethnic vote” has been a success,  but… we’ll see. There probably aren’t enough potential pickups here to put them into majority territory.

Southwestern Ontario: After being shut-out in this region throughout the divided-Right Chrétien years, the Conservatives regained all of their traditional strongholds here in the last two elections. The ridings that didn’t go Tory are some urban ones in Kitchener-Waterloo, London, and Windsor. Notably, Green Party leader Elizabeth May launched her campaign in Guelph. Could the Green vote split the left in some of these ridings? Maybe, but again, there aren’t a lot of seats left here that the Tories could reasonably pick up.

All that being said, recent polls have picked up on a growing Tory popularity in Ontario, but those polls aren’t specific enough to know whether Harper has gained support in Ontario by firing up his base –  which wouldn’t gain him too many seats – or by reaching out successfully to traditional Liberal constituencies – which would.

As for the rest of the country? To be continued…