Prime Minister Stephen Harper, defying opinion polls that suggest his Conservatives are slipping in the key battlegrounds of Ontario and Quebec, yesterday called a pair of by-elections for Nov. 27 to fill vacant Commons seats in both provinces.
Harper announced the by-elections in London North Centre and the Montreal-area constituency of Repentigny.
Neither riding has been kind to the Tories in recent years and party insiders admit privately they face long odds this time around as well.
"The London seat is a pretty strong Liberal (one) and Repentigny is pretty strong Bloc Québécois," said one Conservative strategist. "We appreciate we have an uphill battle, but we're going to give it a good shot."
London North Centre was held for 18 years by Liberal Joe Fontana, who quit federal politics in September to run for the mayor's job in his home city.
In a way I hope Elizabeth May wins that riding. Then if Garth Turner joins the Greens, they will have 2 seats.
Is one seat all they need to be included in the leader debates?
I think that if you are represented in the Commons you get a debate. I can't see the Frogs going Green, though. I'll try to find the current House seat count
Luther Wrote:
a butt load of people who sit in those small cubicles pretending to work while submitting a "take."
Green Party leader Elizabeth May says it would be "classy" if she was allowed to run unopposed by the governing party in the coming by-elections, as the Liberals allowed Stephen Harper to do when he was a new leader facing a Calgary by-election in 2002.
Former Liberal leadership candidate Carolyn Bennett also thinks that the Conservatives would be sending a strong signal about the importance of women in politics if May was allowed to run unopposed in the London North Centre by-election on Nov. 27.
"This kind of chivalry we'd applaud," Bennett said yesterday.
But the Tories already have their preferred candidate — former London mayor Dianne Haskett — and the practice of allowing new party leaders to run unopposed in by-elections will not be extended to May, elected as Green Party leader in late August.
"I can't answer to how much that tradition has been adhered to," Government House Leader Rob Nicholson said yesterday as he was unveiling new legislation to tighten up Canada's election law, including stricter requirements on showing voter identification. "It is our intention to run a candidate."
It's not a practice set in stone, but there is a loose tradition of letting new party leaders run for a seat in the Commons without opposition from the government. It doesn't stretch to general elections, but it has happened in at least three by-elections in the past decade.
Harper did not face a Liberal challenger when, as new leader of the Canadian Alliance, he ran in the 2002 by-election.
If it was a new Tory leader running, it would be expected by the tories no one run, plus I don't think the conservatives take the Greens to seriously anyways.
