H/T also to Mark Collins who made a similar observation yesterday.
Posted at 2006-01-25 08:20:28 [PermaLink]John B: Actually I wrote the post--I fear I'm reworking some material.
Mark
Ottawa
I also agree that the whole urban-rural split thing is overblown. The Conservatives aren't going to ignore urban Canadians. The Liberals got a high percentage of the vote in the regions. The percentage difference isn't that significant and I think the media must be bored for a story.
However, to suggest that, because Calgary and Edmonton voted Tory, the Tories support all Canadian cities, well, we always knew Alberta was going blue. That wasn't exactly a surprise.
And while the absence of any seats in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver doesn't necessarily mean the party has no support among the people living in these three cities, it does mean that none of the MPs from these cities come from the governing party. Ergo, no cabinet ministers from the three cities, no influential MPs except in opposition, etc.
Depending on how you look at it, that's either good news or bad news. But I hope Mr. Harper remembers that Canada's three largest cities have needs, and that those needs cannot be neglected simply because nobody in his caucus hails from them.
When speaking of "Vancouver" not electing any CPC MPs people are forgetting that Vancouver is only 500,000 people with 5 or 6 ridings. Vancouver is not like Toronto and Montreal which were consolidated into much larger cities in the 90's. However, the metro Vancouver area elected 4 or 5 CPC MPs. The Lower Mainland of BC (aka metro Vancouver) is an urban anomaly in Canada with 20+ separate municipalities all packed together under separate councils. So the news media should really be comparing the results of Metro Vancouver (Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey, Delta, Burnaby etc) to those of Toronto and Montreal. And when they do that they will find that only Toronto and Montreal shut out the CPC.
Posted at 2006-01-25 09:16:52 [PermaLink]A good blog post by Tim Denton on this: [External Link]
Posted at 2006-01-25 09:46:35 [PermaLink]Don: Excellent point about Vancouver--I wonder why the MSM don't point it out too (!?).
I used the Elections Canada city list and figures simply because they seem about as "objective" as one can get (flawed though they obviously are) and thus one could not be accused of personal bias in the city data base one used. Also because they were there and easy to consult.
I find the actual vote count figures most interesting.
Mark
Ottawa
I imagine that the MSM didn't point out the difference between Vancouver and Metro Vancouver / Greater Vancouver because 1)it would take away their news story that Canada's three largest metro areas shut out the CPC: 2) the Elections Canada website makes it seem as though the Vancouver listed is in fact Greater Vancouver: 3) MSM's knowledge of BC geography is limited.
Some demographers even suggest that in the not too distant future the Vancouver suburb of Surrey could surpass Vancouver as the largest city in BC.
Mark:
Thump, thump. Sound of head hitting wooden desk. For some reason I've never looked at the tiny little "posted by" at the bottom.
Cheers.
Don:
Are you suggesting the MSM actually get out and do some serious research - especially when the results may contradict various long held dogmas.
This is not overblown folks. I want to make 2 arguments:
1) I don't count any place with less than 1 million to be a city. You can call it a metro/Canada split if you want, but I don't count places like Winnipeg or Edmonton or Ottawa as cities. Let's face, they are just big small towns and have more in common with suburbia than they do with ... CITIES.
2) What drives this urban/rural split is the female vote. Most women in the cities will not, under any circumstances, vote for Harper. BTW, that interview he gave with Kevin Newman from Global where he refused to answer the abortion question was the biggest mistake, not his ruminations about the Supreme Court. Women in the cities will not vote Harper. THat's why you saw the Conservatives do so, so poorly in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. And that's why you see the NDP outperform the Conservatives in many of the ridings in those 3 places, outside Quebec.
Yes John, it would be refreshing for the MSM to do a tiny bit of research once in a while, but I don't hold my breath.
Regarding doing poorly in Vancouver City (pop. 545,000, so I don't know if it qualifies) and some of its suburbs, part of the blame lies in voter confusion due to the word "Liberal" in the BC Liberal party. Many BCers don't know that the BC Liberal party cut all formal ties to the federal party. They see a right wing party and gov't run under the banner "Liberal" and think that local candidates under the federal Liberal banner must be the same. This, and the lack of some "name candidates" for the CPC, is what lets the fed Liberals win by narrow margins some of their metro Vancouver seats.