Column: Hot to talk Northern election
With an election on Monday, it’s time to send out some prediction on who’s going to win, and more importantly: why. We could get into how difficult it is to campaign up here, what with -30 C weather and great distances between tiny communities, but this close to the election, I’m just hot to talk turkey.
So let’s set it up: last time around, the race in the Northwest Territories must have been one of the country’s most exciting.
NDP candidate Dennis Bevington lost by 53 votes to Liberal incumbent Ethel Blondin-Andrew, whose photo appears here courtesy of the Prime Minister’s Office.
It was the closest race in the country. And unlike many ridings, the NDP camp was still sitting around on the floor of its humid office, chomping nervously on their nails late into the night, waiting for the final polls to come in as old man Martin delivered his victory salute on the tube.
The Conservative candidate – flown in from somewhere on the east coast – finished a distant third.
This time things are different. In Richard Edjericon, the Conservative camp has found someone who while not necessarily capable or well-respected, is at least local. And like Blondin-Andrew, he’s aboriginal.
Having a pair of aboriginal candidates running for two of the three mainstream parties has lead some to suggest a potential split in the aboriginal vote, allowing Bevington to come up the middle to be crowned King of the Arctic his third time out. This theory seems way too simplistic and I’m predicting a tight three-way race.
Some say that in the territories, because there are so few people, voters choose a candidate based on their character. This may be true. But I say people up here want to vote for the winning party just as much as the rest of Canada.
I suppose now is the time to come to terms with it, even though we may be crying about it six months from now when we realize what exactly we’re in for. By this I mean that Stephen Harper is our next Prime Minister, no matter how short his reign may be.
Up here, it may be even more important to have an MP in government than anywhere else. This is a huge territory, with very few people, and it is understandably a low priority on a lot of people’s political radar screens.
Paul Martin seemed to be trying to leave a legacy by paying attention to what was going on up here, but ideas such as the “Northern Strategy” captured the attention of few Canadians at large, and even fewer reporters.
More importantly, I think in the last election, a vote for Bevington was a vote to oust Blondin-Andrew, more than solid support for the man. Locals say there has never really been a strong NDP movement up here, and Bevington seemed to come out of nowhere. To me, this says he could fade back into nowhere just as fast.
And people seem to have forgotten that prior to 1987, or whenever Blondin-Andrew was first elected, the territories elected a Conservative MP for three consecutive terms.
This leads me to believe that there were a lot of Conservative supporters who have been hiding in the closet for a long time – either voting Liberal in hopes of getting/keeping federal money flowing up this way, or voting NDP last time around in hopes of getting rid of a been-there-too-long MP.
We’ve also got quite a few RCMP and Canadian Forces members up here, and the ones I’ve talked to have seemed pretty impressed with Harper’s plan to help defend the Arctic.
This brings my prediction for Monday: Edjericon wins what will once again be one of the tightest races in the country. I’m just waiting to see if those closet conservatives are willing to come out and support him, or whether the soft vote which propped Bevington up last time can be taken away as easily as I think. With no official Northern polls, we'll have to wait and see how everything shakes out on Monday.
The Greens are running a young guy who will capture some of the soft NDP support, as well. We’ve also got an independent candidate who seems hell-bent on pissing off aboriginal people, though I’ve never actually spoken with him.
With so many ideas swirling about, who doesn’t love federal politics? Now we just need some people to get out, cast their ballot, and add a little bit of legitimacy to this whole thing.
So let’s set it up: last time around, the race in the Northwest Territories must have been one of the country’s most exciting.
NDP candidate Dennis Bevington lost by 53 votes to Liberal incumbent Ethel Blondin-Andrew, whose photo appears here courtesy of the Prime Minister’s Office.
It was the closest race in the country. And unlike many ridings, the NDP camp was still sitting around on the floor of its humid office, chomping nervously on their nails late into the night, waiting for the final polls to come in as old man Martin delivered his victory salute on the tube.
The Conservative candidate – flown in from somewhere on the east coast – finished a distant third.
This time things are different. In Richard Edjericon, the Conservative camp has found someone who while not necessarily capable or well-respected, is at least local. And like Blondin-Andrew, he’s aboriginal.
Having a pair of aboriginal candidates running for two of the three mainstream parties has lead some to suggest a potential split in the aboriginal vote, allowing Bevington to come up the middle to be crowned King of the Arctic his third time out. This theory seems way too simplistic and I’m predicting a tight three-way race.
Some say that in the territories, because there are so few people, voters choose a candidate based on their character. This may be true. But I say people up here want to vote for the winning party just as much as the rest of Canada.
I suppose now is the time to come to terms with it, even though we may be crying about it six months from now when we realize what exactly we’re in for. By this I mean that Stephen Harper is our next Prime Minister, no matter how short his reign may be.
Up here, it may be even more important to have an MP in government than anywhere else. This is a huge territory, with very few people, and it is understandably a low priority on a lot of people’s political radar screens.
Paul Martin seemed to be trying to leave a legacy by paying attention to what was going on up here, but ideas such as the “Northern Strategy” captured the attention of few Canadians at large, and even fewer reporters.
More importantly, I think in the last election, a vote for Bevington was a vote to oust Blondin-Andrew, more than solid support for the man. Locals say there has never really been a strong NDP movement up here, and Bevington seemed to come out of nowhere. To me, this says he could fade back into nowhere just as fast.
And people seem to have forgotten that prior to 1987, or whenever Blondin-Andrew was first elected, the territories elected a Conservative MP for three consecutive terms.
This leads me to believe that there were a lot of Conservative supporters who have been hiding in the closet for a long time – either voting Liberal in hopes of getting/keeping federal money flowing up this way, or voting NDP last time around in hopes of getting rid of a been-there-too-long MP.
We’ve also got quite a few RCMP and Canadian Forces members up here, and the ones I’ve talked to have seemed pretty impressed with Harper’s plan to help defend the Arctic.
This brings my prediction for Monday: Edjericon wins what will once again be one of the tightest races in the country. I’m just waiting to see if those closet conservatives are willing to come out and support him, or whether the soft vote which propped Bevington up last time can be taken away as easily as I think. With no official Northern polls, we'll have to wait and see how everything shakes out on Monday.
The Greens are running a young guy who will capture some of the soft NDP support, as well. We’ve also got an independent candidate who seems hell-bent on pissing off aboriginal people, though I’ve never actually spoken with him.
With so many ideas swirling about, who doesn’t love federal politics? Now we just need some people to get out, cast their ballot, and add a little bit of legitimacy to this whole thing.
posted by Brent Reaney at 7:51 PM
2 Comments:
you make such beautiful predictions! i ask you to make nice predictions forever now! thank you! my name is richard! my last name is edjericon! i love you!
well you got thumped Richard. Sadly for you his prediction was a little off.
Post a Comment
<< Home