Liberals and the Unelectable Fringe lose big

Three Ontario provincial by-elections were held tonight, resulted in York South-Weston being taken by the New Democrats from the Liberals, Burlington remaining within the domain of the Progressive Conservatives and Markham being retained by the Liberals. With voter turnouts from 46881 or 61.5% in 2003 to 22748 or 29.8% presently in Burlington, Markham's 2003 result of 52978 or 53.8% to 18411 or 18.7% now and 32774 or 50.7% of 2003 to 18897 or 29.2% from the current York South-Weston, one might have expected better from all three, but how so when the majority of the candidates refuse to answer the questions of the public. Though some may look at the weather, local issues or just plain voter apathy to explain the lack of voter turnout, I think one can tell by the results of those who actually voted where things are most likely to go, or better yet where they are most likely going towards.

Though one would think now, it would seem either the Ontarian electorate would be set to re-elect the Mcguinty Liberals back into power as the Government of Ontario, but one must read past the results of the unprincipled mainstream provincial political parties and instead let the results of the unelected fringe provincial political parties set in.

Out in York South-Weston, Independents understand the game well, Green Mir Kamal was almost hunted down with 262 votes or 1.4% by Independent Kevin Clarke's 220 votes or 1.2% only 43 away from being fourth, one the other hand, Independent Mohammed Choudhary's 142 votes or 0.8% did take out the Family Coalition candidate Mariangela Sanabria who only gained 139 votes or 0.7% for placing 6th by 4 votes, with other fringes doing worse than even this lowly Independent, the Libertarian candidate Nunzio Venuto staying alive with 98 votes or 0.5% for 8th and way back on the bottom at 9th was the Freedom candidate Wayne Simmons could only garner 77 votes or 0.4%. Markham witnessed their Green candidate Bernadette Manning pick up 999 votes or 5.4% for the fourth spot, with the environment agenda over the other fringe candidates, in Libertarian, Freedom and Family Coalition parties, that all made their vote totals into the hundreds unlike the other ridings. Finally around here in Burlington, this enviro trend fell simply flat on its face, the Green leader Frank de Jong finish out with fourth place as his reward, after gaining just 734 votes or 3.2%, almost doubled by the New Democratic candidate, a mirror opposite to recent federal results from London North Centre where the Green leader Elizabeth May finished second ahead of the solid Conservative and New Democratic candidates with about 9,864 votes or roughly 26%, which backs my past guesstimation that his next election run will be his last.

Before people just look at the results, believing the people had their say, remember this little tidbit of information, I had a good pal of mine from the political action days tell me, that as one loyal New Democrat, he and literally hundreds of his fellow comrades were honestly forced by upper party management to go out and, to quote the party brass, win York South-Weston as though it was the life of the party at risk and make sure no door was unknocked. He told me that busload of convention delegates would hit the streets, making it absolutely impossible for anyone in the area to not know their New Democratic candidate, easily making Paul Ferreira the only game in town and obviously making the exception for those already buying another party line, sinker and hook. I figured I would tap into Tory base there and find out what the word had been, supposedly they were told just evacuate with their hides and they did so with extreme precision and prejudice.

So before one judges the way the electoral process works, always read the inside baseball, or in this case hockey, first on these weird, wild and wacky by-elections, they are the keys to knowing how general elections themselves work, just on a more concentrated level and more tricks of its trade involved as such.