The NDP and the Quebec Question

The latest trendline from Nanos shows the following in Quebec:

Conservatives - 14.1
Liberals - 22.0
NDP - 30.2
Bloc - 27.4

But there is a margin of error plus or minus 6.4 meaning the above could be off by as much as 12.8

So Conservatives range from 1.3 to 26.5
Liberals 9.2 to 34.6
NDP from 17.4 to 43
Bloc 14.6 to 40.2

And despite this, the talk is that the NDP could make enormous strides in the province. Good for them if they do. But it has also made the race between Layton and Harper. A race that Harper could win given some of the candidates running for the NDP.

... the kind of people about to head to Ottawa may surprise potential NDP voters in Quebec and the rest of the country.
For instance, Lawrence Cannon’s seat in Pontiac is the kind the NDP can win if these numbers hold. The candidate there is Mathieu Ravignat, who ran for the Communist Party in 1997. A moving story in the Montreal Mirror describes the young Mr. Ravignat and his commitment to Communism, weeping over the seizure of the party’s book collection along with its other assets after failing to field enough candidates to retain official status in 1993.

Alexandre Boulerice, the NDP candidate in Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie remains an “independentiste,” and continues to be a member of Quebec Solidaire, a provincial sovereigntist party.

The Conservatives will be all over this.

In a few ridings, the candidates are simple placeholders. Reporters have been unable to contact the NDP candidates in Bas-Richelieu–Nicolet–Bécancour and in St-Maurice-Champlain. Of one NDP candidate, local media wrote: “Other than knowing she is 71 years old, we don’t know even where she resides.” ...Others work and live at the other end of the province from the riding they may represent.

What in the hell has the media done? By trumping up the national polls they failed to look into who the NDP had running in Quebec. Few with a hope in hell of winning, and if they did, may not even realize they were running.

In Ontario the NDP is at about 17. Or not. Margin of error 5.4.

Unbelievable.