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To: conservative in nyc

Bump for later. What internet sites will give the early returns from Newfoundland and the Maritimes? Do you have any links?


6 posted on 06/28/2004 3:08:30 AM PDT by Former Proud Canadian
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To: Former Proud Canadian
I'm working on Atlantic Canada links.

Here's the CBC's article on what to watch:

Election night: A guide to the action

By Keith Boag
Ottawa Bureau Chief, CBC TV News

June 28, 2004

Something you'll hear over and over again on Monday night is that this election has provided one of the most exciting political stories we've seen in Canada in a generation. If you've been missing that sense of real competition in our politics, Monday night will deliver it with a vengeance. Among the great side benefits of that is the possibility it will attract new people to the Canadian political story, people who have not been drawn into it previously because it lacked the elements of a good suspense drama. The trick for us will be to turn that passing curiosity into a life long passion.

For the the hardcore political trainspotters, it's the details that keep them interested. So for newcomers it's important to look for the details and to appreciate that the big story, the story about who forms a government, is only one among many dramas that will play themselves out on election night. In fact there are 308 elections happening across the country and each has its own narrative and cast of characters. You don't have to know all of them but there are some that can be particularly meaty. Here's a handful:

Start the evening with a couple of ridings to watch in Nova Scotia where Scott Brison (Kings-Hants) and Peter MacKay (Central-Nova) are running. Both were elected as Tories in 2000, both ran for the leadership of the Tory party in 2003. MacKay won that contest in part by promising he wouldn't negotiate a merger with the Canadian Alliance. He then went on to negotiate exactly what he'd said he wouldn't with Stephen Harper and the Canadian Alliance, and the result was the Conservative Party that Harper now leads.

Brison considered the new party for a few weeks but decided its values did not reflect his own and so he crossed the floor to join the Liberals. Election night will test whether Nova Scotians want to punish either of these young sons for the different ways in which they abandoned the banner under which they were elected last time.

In Quebec, keep an eye on Outremont, a federalist stronghold where Jean Lapierre is running as a Liberal. He was a founding member of the separatist Bloc Québécois and for a while that was the main reason a lot of Liberals didn't like it when Paul Martin chose him as his Quebec Lieutenant. As the campaign developed Lapierre's loose talk gave Liberals new reasons to wonder whether he was more trouble than he's worth. He should win the seat in a walk, but if it turns out he's in a tight race in Outremont Monday that will be one way to measure his impact on the whole Quebec campaign.

There are tonnes of stories to watch for in Ontario. Will Ed Broadbent complete his political renaissance with a win over Paul Martin's long time friend Rick Mahoney in Ottawa Centre? Will Jack Layton (Toronto-Danforth) and his wife Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) both win their Toronto ridings and become the first husband and wife team in the House of Commons?

Can Transport Minister Tony Valeri (Hamilton East-Stoney Creek), who won the fiercest, nastiest, highest profile nomination battle over Sheila Copps in Hamilton last winter, now hang on in a tough fight with the NDP? And what about all those seats where the combined Progressive Conservative/Canadian Alliance vote in 2000 would have been enough to beat the Liberals? Will the new Conservative Party win them now.

In the West, popular Winnipeg Mayor Glen Murray (Charleswood-St. James) took the gamble and quit city hall to run as a Liberal. He could find himself out of politics altogether. In Saskatchewan former NDP provincial cabinet minister and federal MP Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin) is running as a Liberal, but he might have picked the wrong time to ditch his former party if the Liberals haven't made up some ground there by Monday night. And then, of course, there's Edmonton West where deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan has beat the odds three elections running to eke out down to the wire victories. Does she have one more in her?

And finally to where it all might be settled come election night: British Columbia. What an odd race it's been there. Different polls have shown different realities all through the campaign but if it comes down to a handful of seats between the Liberals and Conservatives, that handful may well come from BC.

Paul Martin certainly seems to think that could be the case. He did a fast last-minute run out to BC on Sunday and then turned the campaign plane into a red-eye flight back to his Montreal riding for the vote. He felt so bad about it that he visited the pressroom Saturday to personally apologise to the media for putting them through it. Obviously there is something out there he thought was worth the trip.

There are other great stories all over the country and they're worth investigating now because if this race turns out the way it looks as though it will, all this will be good research for the next election campaign, which may be upon us before we know it. Enjoy!

8 posted on 06/28/2004 3:14:20 AM PDT by conservative in nyc
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To: Former Proud Canadian

ATV & CTV promise results from Newfoundland as soon as the polls close at 7:00PM.

Their main election coverage page is here:
http://www.ctv.ca/mini/election2004/


9 posted on 06/28/2004 3:19:58 AM PDT by conservative in nyc
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