Sep 18 2017 — Alice Funke — National Newswatch — How do you choose from among your friends? It’s the most painful part of a leadership contest in a political party, an organization that depends on volunteers for so much of its basic governance and organizing work. The friendships and personal loyalties forged through shared ideals and endeavours, wins, and as often painful losses, are […]
Sep 17 2017 — Alice Funke — National Newswatch — As an exercise, I tried to draft a job description for a federal party leader. That is one daunting job. A political party has two main jobs in our democracy: to recruit, train and elect candidates, and to develop and promote a nationally-balanced, coherent platform for government according to that party’s political philosophy and membership […]
Sep 28 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — The Liberals have run a strong and energetic campaign thus far under leader Justin Trudeau, so it seems unfair how hard it will be for them to find enough seats to claim the head of a minority government. Whether you’re following one of the popular poll aggregator and seat projectors, or just working from your […]
Sep 8 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — Following the maxim that you shouldn’t wear white after Labour Day, none of the major political parties will be waving the white flag just yet either. But as the extra-long election campaign called by the incumbent Conservative Prime Minister crosses the hump from pre-season into prime time, there are signs the governing party’s machinery is […]
Aug 28 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — And now for something completely trivial. There will be three sets of candidates with the same names on the ballot this coming October:
Aug 27 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — As we head into Labour Day weekend, the three main parties are within eyeshot of completing their national 338-seat slates, as is the Bloc Québécois in la belle province. The NDP leads the pack with 326 or 96% of their candidates selected, with the Liberals just behind at 322 or 95%, and the Conservatives close […]
Jul 16 2015 — Alice Funke — National Newswatch — The morning after he had won the last federal election, Stephen Harper was asked how people fearing a Conservative majority government could be re-assured. “One of the things I’ve learned is that surprises are not generally well received by the public,” he replied.[i] That’s why the Prime Minister sought a mandate during the last election […]
Jul 1 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — The law of unintended consequences is getting quite a workout with these – legally necessary – but otherwise totally pointless federal by-elections. The fact they weren’t called long ago, but now have to be called this close to a fixed election date, the fact that the spending limits are obscenely huge because of the long […]
Jun 28 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — We’ll continue north over the Malahat and up the Island Highway where we left off last time, reviewing the ridings and nominated candidates in central and northern Vancouver Island. Part I of the series on Vancouver Island can be found here.
Jun 25 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — The seven seats on Vancouver Island are key to both the Conservative and NDP paths to victory, and have been a key regional concentration of Green Party support. Recently some of its ridings were the focus of publicly-released opinion polls from an activist group. The Island gained a seat during the redistribution, and is home […]
Jun 18 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — We can say with more certainty at the end of the final session of the 41st Parliament how many MPs will be retiring at the next election, but there may still be a few shoes left to drop.
Jun 11 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — Four federal Liberal candidates have quietly stepped down over the last few weeks, and are in the process of being replaced. The first one we know of is lawyer Susan Watt, who won a contested nomination against former Liberal leadership contestant George Takach last November, in Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON. Her resignation was kept quiet by the […]
May 26 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — Just over one in three of the 338 ridings being contested in October’s federal general election will be either new, or will have unfamiliar or no sitting MPs running in them by the time the writ is dropped. Add that to the current three-way poll standings of Canada’s major national parties, and it will make […]
May 6 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — Doing the arithmetic in the Alberta election was the easy part, but fully absorbing the math of it all is surely more difficult for both federal and provincial conservatives today. One provincial seat (Calgary-Glenmore) was left in a PC-NDP tie after last night’s unofficial tallies, which under Alberta election laws could result in an instant […]
May 4 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — Pointing to the need for a couple of common sense amendments to the Canada Elections Act, the three currently vacant House of Commons seats will be undergoing by-election campaigns from now until the writs for forthcoming general election are issued sometime in the early fall.