The ToMo metro party

Our media have been constantly telling us that the Liberals are the party of urban Canada, whereas the Conservatives are the hick party. But that is simply not true. Toronto is the only "major centre" (as StatsCan terms them) in the whole darned country--Gatineau aside--where the Liberals led in the popular vote in the Oct. 14 federal election, winning 32 of 42 seats (the Liberals also won 12 of their 13 Quebec seats in Montreal but the BQ beat them in the vote).

The Conservatives are in fact the party of urban Canada; they led in the popular vote in all other major centres except: Halifax (NDP), Montreal (BQ, Liberals second), Gatineau (Liberals), and Windsor(NDP). [Some of us consider St. John's, where the Tories were thrashed, a "major centre," too. - DP] The Conservatives won the most votes in:

Calgary
Edmonton
Hamilton
Kitchener
London
Niagara
Ottawa
Québec
Regina
Saskatoon
Vancouver (Yes, you read that correctly--41.5% of the vote)
Victoria
Winnipeg

In those places the Conservatives also won 66 of 104 seats. Pretty decisive, what? Toronto and Montreal are the two elephantine anomalies in the urban electoral room. And even if one includes the seats in those two, truly "metro", oddities, the Conservatives still won 74 (8 in metro Toronto, 0 in Montreal) of 180.

Some knuckle-dragging, red-necked hicks, eh? But then I guess our major media, almost all in ToMo, just can be bothered to do the arithmetic, what with their certainty that only they live in the real word. The power of unexamined journalistic memes in Canada.

Canada now truly does seem to be quatres nations: The RoC, Québec, Toronto and Montreal. With this further nasty reality, that the Québécois really, really, do not think themselves Canadian in any real sense anymore.

Mark C.

Posted by markc at October 15, 2008 10:06 PM