Apr 1 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — Two hundred and twenty-eight candidates were nominated in the first three months of 2015 – three more than in the final three months of 2014 – but no party has yet confirmed much more than two-thirds of its national slate as the second quarter begins, making an early spring election call even more unlikely than […]
Mar 9 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — Seven of the weekend’s nine nomination meetings saw women candidates selected – 3 New Democrats, 3 Liberals, and 1 Conservative – and three of those seven women were able to win competitive nominations, in order to secure their spot on their party’s ticket.
Feb 23 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — With an election looming on the horizon, 21 Members of Parliament have still not been confirmed as candidates for the upcoming federal election, while 44 others are bowing out, and 2 Commons seats sit vacant. The “As yet Unrenominated Incumbents” list includes MPs from the Conservatives, Liberals, Bloc and one Independent MP who has yet […]
Jan 30 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — The sitting Member of Parliament in Joliette is long-time NDP activist Francine Raynault, who finally ran in 2011, taking her turn after supporting earlier runs by her husband in the same seat. Mme Raynault will be turning 70 years old in March – not to suggest that our elders don’t belong in Parliament, but most […]
Jan 28 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — How will the 30 new ridings change the game in Canadian politics? Three competing trends will play out in the fight for the redrawn electoral map in the next federal election—and they’ll make it one for the ages.
Jan 17 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — The 2015 election won’t set a record for the number of retiring MPs, but given the 30 new seats being added to the House of Commons, it’s setting a 25-year record for the largest number of open seats. An open seat is one having no sitting Member of Parliament running as a candidate. And it’s […]
Jan 15 2015 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — Anyone still debating the question of an early election date, versus a fall election date as planned, is completely missing the point. The question nowadays – thanks to a little-noticed amendment buried in the Fair Elections Act – is not what day the election will be held. It’s what day the election will be called.
Dec 2 2014 — Alice Funke — National Newswatch — No-one else knew for sure what went on in that room, but the two MPs who were there. She provided contraception, and no-one said no. But consent, along with the power relationship between the two of them, remained at issue. How could that be? Well, if you watched the scene I just described from the […]
Nov 26 2014 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — Between them, the opposition NDP and Liberal parties will have nominated eighty candidates in the month of November alone, a sure sign that election readiness is top of mind in the year or so leading up to the next federal general election. Add those to the at least 11 Conservative nomination meetings (and likely more), […]
Nov 18 2014 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — You could be forgiven for thinking this result was unlikely, given the extent to which Liberal talking points penetrated the media’s pre-game analysis, egged on by some torqued analysis from the only pollster willing to give away his work for free anymore. Conservative standard-bearer Perkins in fact exceeded the vote-share with which Jim Flaherty first […]
Nov 10 2014 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — As of this past week, the Conservative Party reached the 50% milestone in terms of the percentage of its 2015 slate of candidates nominated on the new boundaries. The effort required to bring the governing party to this level of readiness – and before any of its competitors, though in fairness it had a lot […]
Nov 9 2014 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — While the number of MPs announcing their retirement at the next election might seem high, it’s still not that big by historical standards. Certainly, at 34 currently sitting MPs already announcing their retirement, it feels like a lot of them are going, but that’s just because – with the new riding boundaries – incumbents not […]
Oct 29 2014 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — If you’re not already in Parliament, chances are you’re going to have to win a nomination contest to get there in 2015. That’s because of the large number of competitive races we’re seeing to carry party colours into the next federal election — especially in comparison with previous elections this century, and it’s particularly true […]
Jul 3 2014 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — The Conservative Party’s mysterious software project was no longer listed as an “asset under development”, but rather full-fledged “computer software”, in financial statements the party recently filed with Elections Canada for the 2013 calendar year. At a total cost of $7.1 million into over the previous three years – $2.17M in 2010, $3.4M in 2011, […]
Jul 1 2014 — Alice Funke — Pundits' Guide — Until Monday, Canada had never had a federal by-election with turnout under 20%. As of today – Canada Day – we’ve had two of them. Whether by accident or design, the decision by the Prime Minister to hold four federal by-elections on the Monday between a summer weekend and a statuatory holiday led to the […]