I don't usually repeat posts, but this election is important, so for any who missed it, here is Contrarian's Guide to Strategic Voting in Nova Scotia. In the latest Angus Reid poll, 49 percent of Liberal voters and 36 percent of NDP voters expressed a willingness to consider voting for a candidate other than their true preferences, in order to “avoid a specific outcome.” If you are one of those Liberal, New Democratic, or erstwhile Progressive Conservative voters, and you want to avoid the specific outcome of a certain authoritarian demagogue getting unfettered control of the House of Commons, you may...

Since the debate, we've kept an eye on searches for the five party leaders, using the Google Trends tool that famously notices 'flu outbreaks before the Centres for Disease control. (Previous examples here and here.) Extreme caution is required, but look what happened to Jack Layton yesterday. On its face, this means a lot of interest in Jack. I assume that's mainly a result of the found-in story, but a friend argues otherwise: [I]ndications from previous elections (check 2008) seem to suggest [it reflects] popularity as well, though I don't know why. It's quite a spike, though. It is quite a spike, and...

CBC Sunday Edition guest host Robert Harris chided Elly Alboim this morning for the national press corps's failure to pick up on the NDP surge until the polls made it obvious. [caption id="attachment_7960" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Alboim"][/caption] Alboim responded, reasonably, that reporters couldn't be expected to pick up on a phenomenon before it existed. (He did credit Chantel Henert for noticing it a week before her colleagues.) Alboim went on to speculate that the NDP's dramatic rise in the polls reflected, not a sudden blooming of love for Layton, but widespread anti-Harper sentiment that coalesced around Layton following his good performance in the debates. If...

In the latest Angus Reid poll, 49 percent of Liberal voters and 36 percent of NDP voters expressed a willingness to consider voting for a candidate other than their true preferences, in order to “avoid a specific outcome.” If you are one of those Liberal, New Democratic, or erstwhile Progressive Conservative voters who would like to avoid the specific outcome of a certain dangerous demagogue getting an unfettered majority in the House of Commons, you may be wondering how to vote Monday. This post is for you. Contrarian’s Guide to Strategic Voting in Nova Scotia With three-way races and a still dynamic vote...

Perhaps this post deserves elaboration. By any measure, dredging Sydney Harbour is a dubious use of public funds. It may yield modest increases in commercial shipping, but dreams of a container terminal here are but a fantasy. Despite the massive boom in world shipping that characterized the 2000s, the two container piers in Halifax continue to limp along at half capacity. Plans for a third pier at Melford are years ahead of those for Sydney, where a putative terminal proponent seems to have vanished. Yet the Cape Breton public has been massively oversold on the concept as the only possible salvation of...