Election Prediction Project

North Vancouver-Lonsdale
British Columbia 2005

Update/Mise à jour:
10:17 PM 15/05/2005

Prediction Changed
La prévision a changé
2:51 PM 24/02/2005



Constituency Profile

Candidates:
(Links? See sponsorship details.)
Marijuana
Rebecca Ambrose
Reform BC
Ron Gamble
NDP
Craig Keating
Green Party
Terry W. Long
Democratic Reform BC
Matt Wadsworth
BC Liberal
Katherine Anne Whittred

Incumbent:
BC Liberals:
WHITTRED, Katherine
1996 Re-distribution:
Population:45760
Dev. from Quota:-2.94%
Area (km2):25
Pop Density:1830.40

2001 Result:
(2001 Prediction)

59.84%
15.89%
20.14%
0.00%

1996 Result (redistributed):

35.44%
46.41%
6.02%
8.87%
2.04%

Surrounding Ridings:
North Vancouver-Seymour
Vancouver-Burrard
Vancouver-Hastings
Vancouver-Mount Pleasant
West Vancouver-Capilano



Authorized by the Official Agent for Matt Wadsworth
15 05 05 Jay
I think it's ridiculous to say Katherine Whittred will lose this. The Liberals won it in 1996 with a large margin. The Liberals won this in 2001 with an even larger margin. Plus, this being a generally conservative/liberal riding, Katherine Whittred will not lose this one.
12 05 05 koby
Craig Keating will take this riding. The failure of the BC Liberals to make good on their promise for 5000 new long term care beds by 2006 has dogged the former minister responsible throughout the campaign. Whittred has also added to her own troubles by repeatedly denying that the women centers provide any services and as such there was no harm in the Liberals cutting all funding for the North Shore Women’s center. She should have cried uncle on this one. It is one thing criticize the political views of those who run the women’s center; it is quite another to claim that the center is completely useless. Not only that, many people where not too happy with Whittred for saying the following about child care: “That is about the cheapest babysitting anyone’s is going to get, if you want to go and have a tennis game.” What she said about the women’s center just reminded them of why they thought her out of touch when it came to women’s issues.

Finally, by keeping the issue in the public eye, she has only helped Keating get out one of his talking points. As councilor for North Vancouver, Keating was instrumental in securing funding to keep the women’s center afloat.
07 05 05 Pete Smith
Moving my prediction from BC Lib to "too close", Whittred is running a horrible campaign and her office is closed after 5pm most nights. The entry of Reform BC's Ron Gamble into the race will sap away a crucial number of votes since she is a left wing Federal Liberal and a lot of those old Reformers don't like her.
If the NDP looks like they may have a shot a Government, then the Libs will pull this off but it looks like it's safe to toss Whittred, there's a good chance she's gone.
02 05 05 Brent
Many posters here are quoting ONE poll (Ipsos) taken from the 13-16th of April, before the election got underway. I feel Lonsdale will be much closer than most posters here believe (unless there's an NDP collapse)...and given the demographics, local issues, political record/resourcefulness of the candidates, etc, etc, I feel there's a chance here for an upset on May 17. Too close to call.
30 04 05 M. Lunn
Considering the liberals are polling five points ahead of 1996 and even more so in the Lower Mainland, there is no way they will lose a riding they won by 11 points. Craig Keating may be a popular city councillor, but in this polarized race, most people will vote for party, not person. And even if his name recognition helps him, it won't be enough to close what is probably a 15 - 20 point gap. The NDP only got 15% in the last federal election and even though I expect them to do much better than that, they won't capture all of the federal liberal vote. They would need to capture 2/3 of the federal liberal vote, which won't happen. I am guessing 50% liberals, 35% NDP, 15% Other.
28 04 05 randy
this is the only seat on the north shore that will fall into ndp hands.internal polling shows north van city coun. craig keating ahead of lib candidate katherine whittfred 2 to 1.yes,other posters on here bring up other factors on here,one fellow brought up the issue of rav,what does that have of any benefit to the north shore,i'll answer none,not one benefit,the north shore could use another seabus route or improvements in th
25 04 05 Mazen
"Oh yeah -- and the Greens are gonna hold good numbers here too, at the expense of the "anybody but Liberal" vote, which Keating would need to seriously contemplate the possibility of victory."

Go to http://www.buildingbc.com/tree_services/tree_servicesn.html. At the top of the page is a tree faller near the top of some sort of ever green tree, which has nearly been stripped of branches. Scroll down until you hit North Vancouver. The first North Vancouver business listed is A Cut Above the next one down is Aberdeen Tree Service, Green party candidate Terry Long’s business.
Keating will do well with environmentally conscious North Vancouverites. Terry Long will fail to cut it with them.
The Liberals may win the election, but there is no denying there is a lot of anger directed at the Liberals, especially when it comes to the issue of long term care. As the former Minister responsible, a lot of that anger is directed at Katherine Whittred. Callers to a CKNW all candidates' debate certainly let her have it. 171 beds is a far cry from the promised 5000.
My prediction holds. Keating will win in a upset.
24 04 05 Mike Mulroney
Here’s my statistical analysis. In 1996, the BC Liberals won 45.9% in the Lower Mainland (in which I am including Chilliwack and Abbotsford) while the NDP won 39.2%. What this recent Ipsos poll tells us is that the Liberals are 5% percent higher than they were in 1996 in the area (at 51%), and the NDP are 2% lower (at 37%). The error margin of the entire poll was 3.5% 19 times out of 20, so the error of the Lower Mainland would be 3.5 x (2)^1/2 = 5% (Error would be lower if results were pooled in a running poll with a recent Mustel poll, which showed similar results at 46%-40% overall in BC) Regardless, what this tells us is that is there is only a 1/40 chance that the Liberals currently have less support in the Lower Mainland than they actually won in vote percentage in 1996 election. Even assuming the worst (that the BC Liberals only have the same support now as in 1996) they won this riding in that election by more than 11% running against an incumbent. A statistical analysis of the implications of this poll show how farfetched an NDP prediction in this riding actually is. The Liberals are not going to lose this riding.
23 04 05 Laurence Putnam
There is certainly good reason for some to speculate about the possibility of an NDP win, logically it makes sense: Lonsdale School has been closed, Whittred continues to be invisible and poorly organized (interestingly making the decision to run an ad in the paper recently with the old federal Liberal logo -- why???) but at the end of the day, the folks moving into all those new yaletown-lite condos along the water aren't going to vote NDP.
And anyone who brings up the Iranian factor in the riding doesn't understand: all those small Iranian businesses on Lonsdale WANT their tax cuts. Iranian-Canadians are some of the most intelligently business-minded people in North Vancouver City. Some may vote NDP. Most who do vote will vote Liberal.
And sure, Keating is a City Councillor, but who cares? He's hardly the most distinguished member on council...he's no institution a la Jack Loucks or Stella Jo Dean. (If you don't know who these people are - you don't know this riding well enough to comment, frankly)
Fed Lib and Fed Tory support in North Vancouver combined is far too powerful for Keating to overcome. It just ain't gonna happen.
1991 was a blip on the radar because of a vote split caused by popular District Mayor Marilyn Baker who for whatever reason chose to run as the Social Credit candidate in the Lonsdale riding. Even if Keating scores in the high 30's like Schreck did when he won in 1991, in a polarized race against the Liberals, he will still lose to Whittred in the low to mid 40s.
Oh yeah -- and the Greens are gonna hold good numbers here too, at the expense of the "anybody but Liberal" vote, which Keating would need to seriously contemplate the possibility of victory.
This will be the NDP's best showing on the North Shore, but for the third consecutive election, all four North shore seats are going Liberal.
09 04 05 yalie
This riding is becoming "more urban" but it's more urban-suburban than anything else. It certainly doesn't have the social problems or socioeconomic mix of a truly urban area. Not to mention the city of North Van has been significantly gentrified - lots of its working class residents have fled to places like Burnaby, New West and Coquitlam in search of cheaper housing and they have been replaced by well-off professionals. These professionals aren't NDP-leaning - it doesn't have a lot of left-leaning "Jack Layton yuppies" or "champagne social democrats" - they tend to be in real urban neighborhoods like Yaletown, the West End and Kits (and increasingly Main/Broadway and Commercial Drive). Liberal hold.
07 04 05 Ed the Sock
It's sad that neither the NDP nor the Greens will be able to topple the local Liberal candidate here. Frankly, Katherine Whittred has a very spotty record here, and I think a previous posting -- about the emerging clout of the local Iranian community -- is dead-on.
HOWEVER... Craig Keating has come out on the wrong side of way too many issues at the local level. He was against RAV, even though many people who commute to Vancouver via Seabus will benefit directly from using the RAV. He is perceived as soft on crime... even while crime continues to be a problem in the Lonsdale corridor. As for the Greens, while they have some compelling candidates provincially, their North Shore contingent borders on the radical side. For these reasons, the Liberals won't have a problem winning this riding.
06 04 05 BLJ
While this seat can go NDP as it did in both 1972 (33%) and 1991 (39%), the NDP would require the same dynamics of those two elections to gain the seat (longtime tired governments, which the voters are willing to give the boot) but I do not see those dynamics in this election.
This is not a swing riding.
Based upon provincial support levels, the NDP fared worse in this riding in both 1996 (~ -4%) and 2001 (~ -6%), while the Liberals fared better than their overall provincial support levels by about +4% and +3% respectively.
31 03 05 Pundit
This is Liberal country, it was nevery a good for Socreds. Now that the Liberals are in power, there is no way that the Liberals will lose this.
Note that the Liberals just won the are federally.
30 03 05 koby
During the last Federal election Liberal support was up substantially in three key ridings. In Burnaby the Liberal share of the popular vote was up by 7.84%. In Vancouver Quadra it was up by 8.57% in North Vancouver it was up by 7.52.
What accounts for the Liberal raise in these ridings? One working hypothesis is that although province wide ex Tory support was scattered all over the place, in these 3 ridings ex Tory supporters seemed to have voted Liberal; this works once you factor in the Robinson factor in Burnaby.
What is more difficult though is explaining just what happened to the Conservative Party in North Vancouver. Indeed, whereas in Burnaby and Vancouver Quadra Alliance/Conservative support reverted back to where it was at in 1997, in North Vancouver Alliance/Conservative support was 12.5% lower than it was in 1997.
The two factors that Mazen mentioned have to be considered. Comments Ted White made about the Iranian community were, certainly front and center during the campaign and Lions Gate Studies was annoyed enough with Ted White that it took out a full page ad in the North Shore News condemning him. The Conservatives took enough heat on the film industry issue that John Reynolds tried to distance himself from Ted White. It did not matter; the Conservatives lost both West Van and North Van. It was Powell River that put Reynolds back in.
Now, while several posters have cast doubt on the film industry angle, the Iranian community could be a factor again. They want, and quite frankly deserve, a community center and Whittred has done nothing to move this along. The role they played in toppling Ted White has made them aware that they are a force on the North Shore.
The point of all of this is that local issues can sometimes trump larger provincial ones. When this happens it is often because the heavy favorite made a series of major errors; such was the case with respect to Ted White. Katherine Whittred is not well liked and she has a poor record. Neither was Ted White. If she messes up, the community could punish her in the same manner as the punished Ted White. This is easy to do when you have a well liked local politician, in Ted’s case Don Bell and Katherine’s case Craig Keating, to take their place. I will reserve my prediction until the campaign is underway.
30 03 05 Rob
Well, I'm not an NDP die hard, but I am a statistics junkie. Some of the posters in this forum seem to believe that a 51% Liberal 37% NDP split in the Lower Mainland is some sort of insurmountable lead. Consider this: The Lower Mainland polling region includes Richmond, West Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, Deep Cove - all Liberal strongholds. In those areas, the Liberals will likely win 60 - 33 often times. The Tricities, Burnaby area, New West, and Maple Ridge more or less cancel each other out: fair fighting ground. Lonsdale is far more interesting, on the other hand. First of all, the NDP has always closed its gaps during an election period. Next, Lonsdale's demographics are shifting in the NDP's favour. More and more working people, more and more seniors, fewer, and fewer people angry at the NDP. When you consider all things equally, I'll take on the other poster's wagers about who's going to win this one. Take the standard error of the mean (somtimes called margin of error) caused in the uncertainty of the polling, compounded by the geographic differences of the Lower Mainland voting area, and factor in local considerations... NDP by nose. Also, having looked at a few other ridings, I notice the people predicting a Liberal win are predicting Liberal wins in EVERY constituency. I noticed the others have predicted Liberal wins in various places. I'm more inclined to find them objective than people like Mike Mulroney and M.Lunn who pretty much predict the Liberals will win everywhere. The fact of the matter is that the NDP is closing this election, and while they may not win the whole show, this constituency is going to flip. The numbers are there, if you can crunch them.
28 03 05 M. Lunn
Considering the Liberals won by 9 points in 1996 and they have a 14 point lead in the Lower Mainland, this means a definite liberal win. The NDP would need a 10 point lead provincially before this riding would come into play so as popular as Craig Keating is, he won't win this riding. Just because this riding went liberal federally, I should remind people it has gone for parties on the right for the last 30 years and the Conservatives won the advanced polls. While Ted White hurt the party, so did the other White, namely Randy White with his stupid comment about using the notwithstanding clause regularly. While it is true some federal liberals will go NDP, which is why the NDP will get around 35% as opposed to 15%, but many also go BC Liberals, since the federal liberals are to the right of the NDP and left of the BC Liberals. Not all federal liberals are left leaning and have the NDP as their second choice. Paul Martin is after all seen as a fiscal conservative. I am guessing 35% for Keating, 50% for Whittred and the remaining 15% for the other parties. This will be the NDP's best showing the North Shore and worse liberal showing on the North Shore, but it will still go liberal.
28 03 05 Mike Mulroney
I can’t believe what I’m reading on some of these NDP Predictions.
Bob Cline seems to think that the BC Liberals will be spreading their resources evenly over 70 ridings; I hope he’s not actually so naïve as to think that the BC Liberals would put as many resources into a solid riding as a swing riding. He must not realize that BC Liberal organizers use strategy too. Regardless, the BC Liberals have way more money than the NDP. If the BC Liberals actually put 1/70th of their funds into this riding, and the NDP put 1/50th, the BC Liberals would still be spending more money, and be spending it on a Liberal leaning vote. Cline also mentioned that the NDP candidate is endorsed by the chair of the women’s centre. Of course she supports the NDP; she’s the chair the women’s centre for crying out loud. That doesn’t give the NDP a special advantage.
Mazen just isn’t able to differentiate between how he/she thinks or feels and plain reality. It doesn’t matter that Mazen thinks “the film industry SHOULD pay attention to what [Campbell] says,” or that “film industry people SHOULD not count on Whittred to fight for their interests.” What matters is whether enough of them will. The Campbell government won big in this riding despite the promise of “[cutting] all subsidies to business, every single one.” The film industry is hardly suffering under Campbell, and Mazen’s dire warnings on a blog site won’t be enough to deliver the riding to the NDP.
I can’t believe that people are actually prediction that this riding will go NDP. The BC Liberals are ahead in the Lower Mainland 51-37%. They won this riding by 11% in 1996. NDP die-hards are clearly bombarding this page; I wonder how many actually believe their predictions. As bad as the NDP posters seem to think the Liberal candidate is, she won easily in both 1996 and 2001, and there is no reason why she, personally, should do significantly worse this time. Most people vote for the party and not the candidate anyhow. I’d love to bet some money on the outcome with these overly optimistic NDP predictors, but I’d hate to turn Milton’s prediction site into a gambling forum.
27 03 05 Pete Smith
Hmmm... how active at the Iranian community at any level. Do any run for Council? School Board? I doubt a Reform MP lost an election because a lot of Iranians voted for him in 2000 and not in 2004.
Provincially, you're ignoring the fact the BC Lib Govt just increased the film credits by almost 50% and made the announcement prior to the budget even to placate the film industry.
24 03 05 Mazen
Conservative Ted White lost North Vancouver for two main reasons. He alienated the Iranian community and he alienated the people at Lion’s Gate studios by advocating an end to subsidies for the film industry. There may be some parallels here. Campbell and the BC Liberal brass, a Conservative bunch in liberal drag, have made it clear where they stand on subsidies for business. He will “cut all subsidies to business, every single one” Campbell is on the record as saying. People in the film industry should pay attention to what he says. The "outsourcing" of the ferry contract is a good indication that when it comes keeping jobs in North Vancouver, Campbell has other priorities. Moreover, if this happens, film people living in the North Vancouver Lonsdale should not count on Whittred to fight for their interests. She certainly chose her party over her constituents when the ferry contract went abroad. As for the Iranian community, 7 years before the attempting “hijacking” of Ted White’s Conservative nomination, the community had an nomination battle with Whittred. Nerves are still a little frayed. Craig Keating will win in an upset.
21 03 05 M. Lunn
No matter how popular Craig Keating is, the NDP WILL NOT win this riding. The only left leaning parts are the apartments near Lonsdale, while the rest is pretty conservative so the NDP won't win. Besides people vote based on personality at the municipal level, while people vote for the party as opposed to candidate at provincial level so a strong showing at the municipal level means nothing. The NDP would need at least a 12 point lead for this to even come into play and that isn't going to happen. They only got 38% in 1991 and won due to the liberal/socred split.
20 03 05 Bob Cline
So what a lot of people seem to be forgetting is the strategy going into this election from both the Liberals and NDP. The NDP is targeting about 50 ridings. The Liberals are targeting about 70 because sitting MLAs are not willing to simply let their seats disappear. Even though the likes of Richard Lee, Lorne Mayencourt, Jeff Bray, and Sheila Orr have no chance of winning, those MLAs are not likely to concede defeat and will suck up resources that could be going to marginal ridings like Lonsdale. The NDP, on the other hand is only targeting one North Shore riding. That means money and volunteers can go from all across the North Shore to this one focal point riding of interest. The NDP is a real contender again, and this is a major riding of interest. Next, Keating is a far better candidate. He's been endorsed by the head of the North Shore Women's Centre, which his council saved after Whittred's government abandonned it. He's been endorsed by Rudy Lawrence, head of the Coalition of Senior Citizens Organizations (COSCO), and let us not forget how many seniors live in the Lonsdale area. Whittred has done nothing for the community except close 200 care beds as minister responsible and arrange for a bunch of school closures over the next few years. Also, Whittred will probably knock on about 3 doors in the riding between sitting down for oxygen; she's got no energy. Keating is young, articulate (a PhD, didnchya know?), and will probably knock on thousands of doors. He'll probably be spending more money than any NDP candidate has ever spent before in this riding on the campaign, and he'll probably have more motivated volunteers than ever before.
NDP Keating 44, Lib Whittred 38, Green Nobody 9, DRBC Nobody 7, Other Nobodies 2
NDP upset based on resources, candidate profiles, voter motivation, and political trends.
20 03 05 koby
Most people vote for a party and not a candidate. Too bad really. As a member of North Vancouver City council, Keating has represented his constituents well. Katherine Whittred, on the other hand, has been nothing short of a disaster. Case in point was the way Whittred handled the outsourcing of North Vancouver jobs. Whereas, fellow North Vancouver Liberal MLA, Daniel Jarvis spoke up for the people of North Vancouver and condemned the outsourcing of the ferry contract by calling the deal “blatantly stupid”, Whittred preferred to put a positive spin on things; “it looks like BC ferries has negotiated a very good deal” she said. Good deal, indeed, for foreign workers, but certainly not for the people of North Vancouver. Whittred also has a bit of reputation for being pompous, aloof and out of touch. With comments like these on child care I can see why: “That is about the cheapest babysitting anyone’s is going to get, if you want to go and have a tennis game.” All that being said, leave it to political columnist Mike Smyth to put Katherine’s abilities into the proper prospective. “The likeliest victim of any cabinet shuffle shakeup would appear to be Katherine Whittred, who has been nothing short of disaster as long-term care minister. Its been one screw-up after another with her: She claimed she didn’t know how many nursing-home beds were being closed the day before the government chopped 3,000 of them. The government was forced to apologize to residents of a nursing home in Revelstoke after it issued, then retracted, 30 day eviction notices. She sat on her hands as the government spilt up elderly married couples in nursing homes, provoking more apologies.” Campbell must have read Smyth’s column; she was eventually removed from cabinet. I hope the people of North Vancouver Lonsdale heed Smyth's words and vote for the better candidate, viz., Craig Keating.
14 03 05 Pete Smith
Only half of the riding is in the City of North Van and the NDP has 4 Councillors to three for the Liberals so I doubt Keating has much of an advantage there as he's running against a left wing Liberal.
10 03 05 James
I don't think that this riding is a slam-dunk for the Liberals. This riding is becoming more and more urban. Craig Keating probably has more name recognition in this community than Kathrine Whittred. Kathrine has kept a pretty low profile on the North Shore. One shouldn't forget that the City of North Vancouver regularly elects left leaning city councils. I think this is going to be close and if Craig works really hard and doesn't put his foot in his mouth I think he could win this riding. I think looking back at previous elections is difficult as we all know that 2001 was an anomoly and the City of North Vancouver has changed a lot since 1996.
I would say this is the only riding that is going to be close on the North Shore, all the rest of the Liberal candidates can sleep walk to victory.
13 03 05 A. Vancouverite
This is a marginal NDP target, and their only reasonable shot on the North Shore. This area has a lot of renters so they won't be crushed like they will most likely be in the other ridings. Craig Keating is a good candidate and had enough popularity to make it on to local council. Nonetheless I doubt it will be enough in this Liberal leaning riding. The NDP would have to be ahead by around five to ten points provincially, they aren't, or as has been pointed out face a divided right. And besides their areas of support or realistic competitiveness, in the Lower Mainland, are mostly on the Vancouver's Eastside (somewhat in the NW and Central portions of the city), Burnaby, The Tri-Cities (minus Port Moody-Westwood), New West, Northern and Central Surrey, North Delta and Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge/Mission. There would have to be a significant swing in the polls for me to believe otherwise.
08 03 05 M. Lunn
The NDP no matter who they nominate will NOT win this riding. True, they won it in 1991, but that was because of the liberal/Socred split and the NDP only got 38% of the popular vote. With the liberals now leading in the polls, the other parties being a non-factor, and considering the NDP has never gotten more than 40% in this riding, the liberals will hold this. I am predicting 35-40% for the NDP and around 50% for the BC Liberals.
01 03 05 Scott G.
The NDP candidate is Craig Keating, a local council member who got some attention as the first candidate to enter the NDP leadership race in 2003. Keating's leadership run gives him provincial experience that most NDP candidates lack. Also, like the previous NDP MLA David Schreck, Keating positions himself as a moderate New Democrat. These factors could give him a chance against Whittred.
02 03 05 Bill Smith
Katherine Whittred will ride the coattails of the government to re-election. The NDP's schoolteacher will fall far short of beating the BC Liberal's schoolteacher.
23-Feb-05 M. Lunn
Even though this went NDP in 1991, considering the NDP only barely won it 1991 and the fact the Liberals only got 33% and 17 seats, whereas next election the Liberals will likely get over 40% and over 30 seats, they should have no trouble holding this one even if they lose the election. North Shore is solid liberal territory, so I expect them to take all the North Shore ridings.


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