Liberals pick up three out of four

Four seats, all previously held by Liberals, were being contested in today’s Federal by-elections. The news media are reporting that the Liberal Party has won three out of four: two in Toronto and one in Vancouver. All three of these seats were considered fairly safe Liberal territory. The fourth riding of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, elected the Conservative candidate Rob Clarke. There was a significant Nader effect in the Saskatchewan and Vancouver races: exact numbers are not yet available, but the latest data from Elections Canada seems to indicate that the results could have come out differently if the NDP and Green totals could have been added to the Liberal total. (One of these days, I’ll shut up about the single transferable vote system. But not today.)

Basically, these election results allow all sides to claim (read: spin) victory. The Liberals can claim that three out of four is a good hold, they held on to traditionally Liberal territory, this election sends a clear message to Harper’s government that people are fed up with its lack of transparency and distance from the common people, and is a good recovery from the Liberals’ failure during the by-elections in Québec last year. The Conservatives can claim that the Saskatchewan pickup is a vindication of their policies and their government, the Liberals should have run the table because the candidate there was hand-picked by Stéphane Dion, and if the people were really so fed up with the Conservatives, the Liberals should have picked up the seat. The NDP and Greens can claim, especially with the very high numbers they received in Vancouver Quadra and Toronto Centre, that both major parties are flawed and incompetent. For my part, I think Stéphane Dion really needs to take a long, hard look at himself and his leadership of the party.

More on this later. Analysis and actual numbers when Elections Canada finishes counting the votes, and I (and the rest of the country) have had a chance to sleep on it all.