Liberals ahead in latest polls in Quebec election

Posted on April 3, 2014 by haroldchorneyeconomist

There have been three new polls in the Quebec election which suggest that Liberals are definitely ahead in voter intentions. The first of these polls was conducted among Francophone voters only. It shows the PQ with 36 % of the prospective vote; the Liberals with 29 %; the CAQ with 24 % and Québec solidaire with 14 %. all among francophones who constitute 78 % of all voter.

But we can presume that the situation is radically different among the anglophone voters who are 7.7 % of all voters and also rather different among multicultural allophone voters who constitute 12.7 % of all voters. Once we take these votes into account by making the following assumptions : among anglophones the Liberals will capture at least 80 to 90 % of the vote. Among allophones we assume that the Liberals will capture 70 % of the vote. The PQ will take 10 % or less of the allophone vote, the CAQ 20 %.

Recalculating the overall percentages adds just 2 % points to the PQ vote so their final vote will be if the poll holds on election day about 30 %. The Liberals on the other hand would end up with 24 % +7 % points from the anglophones equals 31 % + 8.4 % points from allophones for a total of 39.4 %. The CAQ would receive 19.2 +2.4 %plus whatever small percentage of anglophone vote for the CAQ So their total would about 21.6 %

Reinforcing this data are two new polls just released in the past two days. A CTV internet poll done by Ipsos Reid with 1012 participants has the PLQ- the Quebec Liberal party -at 37 %, the PQ at 28 %, the CAQ 19 % and Quebec solidaire at 13 %. 30 % are still undecided.

A Forum poll with a proper random sample of 854 people and a margin of error of 3 % 19 times out of 20 has the Liberals or PLQ at 41 %, the PQ at 29%, the CAQ at 19 %, Québec solidaire at 10.1 %.

An earlier Léger internet poll with 3692 participants had the PLQ at 40 %, the PQ at 33 % the CAQ at 15 % and Québec solidaire at 9 % the Greens at 1 and Option Nationale at 1 %.

If these sorts of percentages hold on election day the odds are strongly in favour of either a small Liberal majority government or perhaps a several seat less Liberal minority government. But even a PQ minority government , though very unlikely is a possible outcome depending on the vote split.

As all politicians know and most Québecers the only true poll that counts is the one on election day.

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Léger internet poll of 3692 participants in Quebec: Liberals ahead 40% to PQ 33%, CAQ 15, QS 9%

Posted on March 25, 2014 by haroldchorneyeconomist

Another  internet election  poll in Québec this one by Léger was  published this morning . It surveyed 3692 people from an internet panel weighted by region, gender, linguistic status and age to resemble the Québec electorate. The results are similar to other recent polls showing the Liberals at 40 %, the PQ at 33%, the CAQ at 15 % and Québec Solidaire at 9 %. If this were the result on election day this would likely give the Liberals somewhere between 61 and 65 seats, the PQ about 54 seats, QS 2  and the remainder from 8 to as few as 4 seats to the CAQ.

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The electoral swingometer returns to Quebec

Posted on March 24, 2014 by haroldchorneyeconomist

The late Robert Mackenzie a Canadian political scientist who made his career in London introduced a cute technique for measuring the liklihood of a given constituency falling into a different party’s hands on election day. So if the swing from the Tories to Labour was 5 percentage points, as a rule of thumb you grouped all those constituencies where the margin of victory in the last election was 5% points or less of the Tories over Labour as ones highly likely to switch to the Labour party on election night. Using the same principle and using the possibility that the swing in the average of the polls shows a Liberal gain of almost ten percentage points from the CAQ most of it going to the Liberals and the PQ gaining about 3 % points from last time there are a total  of at least fifteen ridings where the Liberals may well pick up additional seats over last time. These are seats mostly in the Quebec city area but also a few in the Montreal area, in Laval and on both the south and north shore and in the Gatineau and north. They are as follows:

With a five percent swing to the Liberals from the CAQ and no serious swing to the PQ from the CAQ ,that is, no more than 2-3 % points there are 8 ridings that the Liberal party could pick up. If the swing is 10 % there are 7 or 8 more that will be in play.

The 5 % swing ridings are Montmorency in Quebec city region where the CAQ won it with 38.2 % of the vote compared to Liberals 33.24 % ,the PQ 20.5 % the QS 3.4 %.

Charlebourg CAQ 36.9 %, PLQ, 34.1 %, PQ 21.4 %, QS 3.9 %.

Vanier La Rivière  CAQ 37.9 %, PLQ 35 %, PQ 21.4%, QS 3.9 %

in Gatineau north western Quebec  Abitibi east  PQ 38.4% PLQ 34.85,  CAQ 18.5 % QS 4.8 %

St. Francois, south shore P Q 36.4%, PLQ 36.14%, CAQ 18.1%, QS  5%.

Port Neuf CAQ 40.7 %, PLQ 33.5 %, PQ  18.0% QS 3.01 %

Montreal south shore La Prairie CAQ 32.7, PQ 32.4,PLQ 27.4 QS 3.5

Laval des Rapides PQ 37.85, PLQ  32.8 CAQ 21.7%, QS  4.13%

Note: the percentages are party results in these ridings in the 2012 election. PLQ Liberal party of Québec; PQ Parti Québecois; CAQ Coalition Avenir Québec;QS Québec Solidaire.)

If the swing is closer to 10 % then an additional 6-7 ridings come into play these are Cremazie in Montreal, Ste. Rose in Laval, Groulx, north of Laval, Taschereau in Quebec city area, Arthabaska south shore of St. Lawrence east of

Trois Rivières, Ungava northern Québec , Rouyn Noranda north west Québec and Nicolet Becancour between Montréal and Québec city on south shore.Of these 8, Ungava and Rouyn Noranda because of their history of strong support for the PQ seem less likely to be captured by the Liberals. Eight of these ridings would be losses from the PQ bloc of seats seven would come from the CAQ.

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Latest Québec election poll shows sharp rise in Liberal intended vote:Margin over PQ grows to more than 12 % points

Posted on March 22, 2014 by haroldchorneyeconomist

There have been several polls in the last three days which show the Liberal likely vote share rising while that of the PQ has been falling. Three of these polls are internet samples from an on line affinity group of people willing to act as a focus group and weighted to reflect the actual population but without a statistical margin of error because of the problem of lack of randomness in the sample selected. So the results are not  very reliable. However yesterday the Toronto Star published a Forum poll with a large random sample of  1650 potential voters which showed a sharp rise in those who said they would vote Liberal45% as opposed to a drop in those who would vote for the PQ, 32%. The results would yield if they held on election day at the 95 % confidence interval very likely a clear Liberal majority of well over 70 seats (up from 51 they currently hold) in the 125 seat National assembly. The PQ would be reduced to as few as 43 seats from the 54 they now hold with 2 each for the CAQ and Québec solidaire.If this holds on election day it would be a devastating defeat for the PQ  and its radical nationalist agenda based on the divisive identity politics of the charter of values  and a stubborn insistence on a new third referendum despite the wishes of a clear majority of Québecers not to hold one anytime in the near future.Most people’s priorities are health care, the economy, jobs, education and restoring prosperity. The PQ may well pay a big price for having ignored this reality.

The other polls which are internet polls show the following results.

Poll                        date        no.polled     PQ       Lib     CAQ     Québec solidaire

Ipsos Reid CTV  03 14-18th   810              33%    40%       14%           9 %

 

CROP/La Presse 03 12-16th   1400           36%     39%          13%            10%

 

Léger/Globe        03  11-13th  1205            37 %     37%      14%         9%

Le Devoir

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Quebec election debate: informative but also a loss for Pauline Marois. Couillard,Legault and David hold their own.

Posted on March 21, 2014 by haroldchorneyeconomist

Last night’s Quebec provincial election debate (the election is April 7) was very informative and mostly operated on substance with each party leader defending their turf, attacking their opponents in a polite manner but also revealing their differences on a number of key policy issues, including public finance, economic development strategies, health care, education, social policy, the question of sovereignty and the charter of values. Voters who watched the debate should now have a clear sense of whom they are voting for. On the most dramatic issue that of holding a third referendum on the creation of an independent Quebec and the fracturing of the Canadian federation Madame Marois was unconvincingly evasive despite strong efforts by M.Legault the leader of the right of centre CAQ and M.Couillard to get a straight answer about her commitment to holding a referendum if she wins a majority. On this issue outside of her core supporters she will be seen as unreliable by voters who otherwise support the PQ and some former Liberal voters who have been supporting the CAQ but don’t want a referendum. This posibility and her less convincing performance on the question of unemployment and economic development raised strongly by Legault and also by Couillard may  well erode some of the support for the PQ and improve the vote for the Liberals who are now ahead by five percentage points in the latest poll. Françoise David’s performance was also effective and should strength the vote for Québec solidaire enabling them to win 2-3 seats in Montréal.

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Ukraine situation grows more confrontational:Russian forces occupy Crimea Western countries warn of consequences

Posted on March 2, 2014 by haroldchorneyeconomist

The situation in the Ukraine grows more dangerous by the hour as Russian forces have appeared to occupy strategic points on the Crimean peninsula. Russia claims they are there to protect the Russian speaking population which composes 60 % of the residents. The authorities in Kiev have denounced the occupation as an act of war. So we now have the beginnings of another cold war unless there is some effort to compromise on both sides. The American scholar who is also a leading expert on Russia Stephen Cohen who taught for many years at Princeton and then NYU has come out with a very interesting analysis of how we got to this point. He largely blames the strategists at Nato and within the White House for miscalculating how far they could go in threatening Russia by bringing Nato to its borders and wooing the Ukraine to ally with the European union and distance themselves from Russia.You can see his analysis in The Nation magazine. Cohen also points out that some of the actors in Kiev are in fact rather anti European in terms of the values they espouse and in terms of their anti-semitic beliefs.He also points out as I have that the EU is not about to grant the Ukraine financial terms that are better than the terrible austerity packages it offered Greece and Portugal who are already full members of the EU. So far Cohen has briefly appeared on CNN and PBS to offer his alternative explanation of what is happening but for the most part he is ignored by the mainstream media and also denounced as a Russian apologist by neo-con magazine writers. Whoever is at fault in this conflict it is clear that reviving the cold war benefits no one except the arms industry.It will if it comes to pass be a major failure of American foreign policy.

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Momentous events in the Ukraine

Posted on February 22, 2014 by haroldchorneyeconomist

Another revolution appears to be taking place in the Ukraine. This potentially wealthy country on the border of Russia with its troubled tragic but rich history which suffered much during the second world war and was the scene of horrible genocide against its Jewish ethnic and religious minority during the Nazi invasion and much suffering during its famine after the Russian revolution and Stalin’s forced and brutal collectivization policies in the early 1930s has been courageously struggling to find its way in the post cold war world. Riddled with corrupt politics and failed economic policies a large portion of the people or at least the coalition of pro democracy forces has risen up and demanded the resignation of the current elected pro Russian President,Viktor Yanukovitch .Indeed, the Parliament has just voted to replace him and called for new elections in May.

The principal leader of the opposition forces the former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was released from prison by the parliament in response to the demands of the protesters who occupied the central square in Kiev for the past months to protest the government’s decision to reject a pact with the European union and instead sign one with Russia in exchange for concessions on natural gas prices and 15 billion $ in financial aid. These protests led to violence and and the death by sniper fire and repression of many protestors . These violent deaths totally discredited the Yanukovitch government.

For the moment the situation is still somewhat unclear. We shall see if the European union comes up with enough aid to fill the gap that will occur with the withdrawal of Russian support.Russia clearly has major interests in what happens in a state which borders it and has had historic ties with it.The Eastern part of the Ukraine has historically leaned toward Russia rather than the west. Indeed families live on both sides of the border and speak Russian rather than Ukrainian. So there is a separatist potential in the eastern areas. There is also the danger of extremist right wing anti-semitic forces emerging as influential players on the Ukrainian scene. The next few weeks promise to be very interesting and critical for the future of democracy in Eastern Europe. An additional interesting note is the statement in today’s(Sunday’s) New York Times that in exchange for IMF aid as part of a EU package the Ukraine was asked to embrace conditionality that included austerity. The former President Yanukovitch refused to agree to this. It will be very interesting if the IMF terms change and what the new Government will do in response to this demand if it does not change.

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Smoke and mirrors Canadian Federal budget big on employment rhetoric but limited on delivery: still excessive emphasis upon austerity some good ideas on infrastructure

Posted on February 12, 2014 by haroldchorneyeconomist

The 2014 Federal budget was announced yesterday. There had as usual been a big build up to the budget by Minister Flaherty that obsession over budget balance would take a back seat to employment creation and infrastructure. But regrettably once we examine the fine details in the almost 500 page document we discover that the rhetoric is overblown and the program of job creation for young people who suffer from a close to 13 % unemployment rate is miniscule and will make no serious dent in reducing that rate and creating a substantial number of new jobs.

The budget reports a a very small deficit when measured against the GDP, which is actually a very large high employment surplus and even if we simply take into account the built in reserves in the budget is essentially a nominal surplus. It also goes to great lengths to explain how once certain methodological adjustments are made Canada’s unemployment rate is substantially below that of the U.S. That is true. But there is no time series presented showing what these rates were before the crash of 2007/08 so we can see how far above that level the prevailing rate of unemployment is. There are some clear and good programs of infrastructure investment laid out in the budget but the Government could and should have gone a lot further. Finally, unfortunately despite by their own admission Canada has the lowest debt to GDP ratio in the G8 and virtually no deficit, they still are imposing cruel and unnecessary austerity on government employees simply because they can politically get away with it. Finally both of the main opposition parties have made foolish deficit hysteria comments trying to blame the Conservatives for correctly having run a stimulative deficit in previous budgets. All in all a very unimpressive performance. 

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Politics 212, 2014 second posting of outline

Posted on February 12, 2014 by haroldchorneyeconomist

This course is a survey course which introduces students to the study of political economy a discipline which draws on the sub field in political science but also on the history of economic thought, policy analysis, economic history, neoclassical economics and political theory. It is by its nature interdisciplinary. Political economy itself was what economics was called and called itself from the early nineteenth century right up until the first part of the twentieth century when the name economics took its place. Canada like the U.S. and the entire developed capitalist world has been going through the most severe economic crisis since the great depression of the 1930s. We shall intensively examine the history, traditions and tools of the discipline and use them to analyse a number of contemporary economic policy issues including globalization, unemployment, price stability, market ideology, free trade, economic development and the environment.

 

Text: Frank Stilwell, Political Economy:The Contest of Economic Ideas, Oxford University Press, 2012, 3rd edition.pp.458.

haroldchorneyeconomist.com. A word press blog selected posts on deficits and debt, quantitative easing, the crash and crisis and economic theory.

Grade: Essay 50 % due in class March 4.  Final test 50 %.

Topics:

1. Political economy and politics and economy, introduction and overview. Reading Stilwell part one pp 1-39.

2. The language of political economy  :key concepts Stilwell pp. xl to xxl.

3. Economic systems , economic theories and classical political economy.  Stillwell pp.40 – 96.

4. The critique of capitalism. Crises, slumps and prolonged unemployment. the business cycle and Marx versus Keynes.pp.98-148.

5. Neo-classical economics: Markets, sovereign consumers, utility maximization and economic efficiency.Stilwell pp.149-209.

6. Economic systems and economic theories impact upon policy and politics,   Stilwell pp.200-209. Chorney posts:The theory of the business cycle in Hayek, Keynes and Schumpeter, posted Sept.13, 2011; After the Crash:Rediscovering Keynes and the Origins of Quantitative Easing, June 3, 2011. tba.

7. Neo-liberalism and Pareto optimality Stilwell, pp.200-209.

8.Institutional economics:Galbraith, Veblen and Mitchell and American capitalism.Stilwell pp.212-240. ; the natural rate of inflation versus the natural rate of unemployment.Chorney’s website on Galbraith.

9. The state and the economic well being. The role of politics, the rise of Keynesian intervention.  Stilwell, pp 241-262  Chorney web site items.

10. John Maynard Keynes and aggregate demand .Stilwell  pp.264-315. Chorney web site items. Keynes versusu monetarists 1&2; aggregate demand; Revisiting deficit hysteria; Rediscovering Keynes and the origins of quantitative easing.

11. Environmental economics; class ,gender and ethnicity; political economy of the state. Stilwell; pp.318-414.

 

 

Essay Assignment: Write an essay of between 10-12 pages on one of the following topics. Be sure to use a manual of style in preparing the essay and bibliography. Possible topics include the following:(still subject to revision)

1. Select two schools of political economy or economic thought and explore them in depth, including tracing their history, examining their analysis and implications for policy. Possible schools include classical political economy; institutionalism; marxist political economy; neo-classical economics; Keynesian and post Keynesian approaches.

2. Select a policy problem like free trade, unemployment, competition and anti trust, the environment or social policy and analyze it using one or more approaches from the tradition of political economy.

3. The recent financial crash and following recession demonstrated certain flaws in the dominant neo-classical school of thought. What were they and how did they manifest themselves. What do other schools have in their arsenal of tools and analyses that might have led to a better outcome.

4. Explore environmental economics as a useful approach in the twenty-first century.

5. Write an essay on problems of growth and development in Latin America. Make use of one or more of the schools of political economy in analyzing the problems and developing appropriate policies.

6. Discuss the theory of investment and crisis theory in various economic schools of thought. Which approach do you find most convincing.

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Unemployment rates in Canada and U.S. show modest improvement

Posted on February 8, 2014 by haroldchorneyeconomist

The latest news on unemployment is moderately positive. The headline rates are down. But the number of new employees in the U.S. was smaller than expected. Here below courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Labour statistics is the monthly evidence of growing employment since the beginning of the recovery period.In addition to the headline rate falling the broader measure of unemployment also fell from 13.1 % to 12.7%. In April of 2010 it was 17.1 %. This is a good sign. It needs to fall much further but the trend now seems positive if still somewhat hesitant. Unfortunately the fall in federal government employment by 12,000 -a total loss of 85,000 over the past year is not helpful and evidence that the sequestration is hindering the recovery.3.6 million Americans have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks. This number has also declined in January. But, of course, it still remains too high.

In Canada unemployment dropped in the two largest provinces Ontario and Quebec, also a good sign. It needs to drop further if the recovery is to avoid stalling out.The rate of unemployment was 7.5% in both provinces. This compares with 12.0% in Newfoundland, 11.3% in PEI, 8.6% in Nova Scotia 9.9% in New Brunswick, 5.6% in Manitoba,4.3% in Saskatchewan, Alberta 4.6% and B.C.6.4 %.

U.S. Monthly gains or losses in employment 2004 to Jan. 2014 in 1000s
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual
2004 161 44 332 249 307 74 32 132 162 346 65 129
2005 134 239 134 363 175 245 373 196 67 84 337 159
2006 277 315 280 182 23 77 207 184 157 2 210 171
2007 238 88 188 78 144 71 -33 -16 85 82 118 97
2008 15 -86 -80 -214 -182 -172 -210 -259 -452 -474 -765 -697
2009 -798 -701 -826 -684 -354 -467 -327 -216 -227 -198 -6 -283
2010 18 -50 156 251 516 -122 -61 -42 -57 241 137 71
2011 70 168 212 322 102 217 106 122 221 183 164 196
2012 360 226 243 96 110 88 160 150 161 225 203 214
2013 197 280 141 203 199 201 149 202 164 237 274 75(P)
2014 113(P)
P : preliminary

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