Libranos hold Labrador

Not surprisingly, Liberal Todd Russell won yesterday's by-election - but the Conservative candidiate more than doubled his vote from the 2004 general election, so I guess there's a silver lining:

Metis activist Todd Russell has become the latest member of Parliament, and has given the Liberal minority government a crucial extra vote in Parliament.

According to unofficial results from Elections Canada, Russell won 51.5 per cent of support of voters, or 5,438 ballots – more votes than all other candidates combined.
[...]
Labrador voters have only failed to pick a Liberal candidate once – in 1968, when Ambrose Peddle was one of a slate of Tory candidates that benefited from a backlash against then-Liberal premier Joey Smallwood.

Labrador City Mayor Graham Letto represented the Tories in this byelection. With 3,415 votes, or 32 per cent of the total vote, Letto had the best showing by a Conservative candidate in more than two decades.

Last week, after the Conservatives voted to bring down the government, the vitriol directed at Loyola Hearn and Norman Doyle on the open-line radio shows had to be heard to be believed. (A major talking point: the Conservatives "voted against Newfoundland".) Even accounting for the fact that opposition candidates usually do better in by-elections, this result at least goves the Tories some hope.

Contrary to what I wrote yesterday, blogger N=1 points out that the Conservatives can still bring down the government without the support of all three independent MPs:

Last week, given the cancellations due to pairing, the Libs (incl. Stronach) and Dips were 150; they needed Parrish and Cadman to get to 152. The speaker's vote--which is cast ONLY in the case of a tie--brought them to 153.

The Tories plus Bloc plus Kilgour were 152.

Assume the Lib/Dip/Parrish/Cadman total goes up by 1 with a byelection. The Tories don't lose anything, of course, meaning that the L/D/P/C's have 153, and the T/B/K's still have 152.

What this means is that, just like last week, the Libs need to keep
the Dips AND Parrish AND Cadman in order to win. If Cadman switches
his vote, then the L/D/P side drops to 152, and the T/B/K+C team rises to a winning 153. The extra vote brought by the speaker would not be cast, and the government would fall.

The bottom line is that for the Libs, winning today's byelection would have literally no impact at all on their ability to retain power (assuming all MPs actually vote, and non abstain--a fair bet, given the importance of these non-confidence motions). All it means is that there will be no more tie votes requiring the Speaker's intervention.

Posted by damian at May 25, 2005 07:32 AM | TrackBack