The spin is on; the reactions are coming in. Heather MacIvor over at the Star had some things to say about the Tory by-election win in Perth Middlesex earlier this week, in an article entitled "Whither Tories sans Joe?"
Interestingly enough, she doesn't try to answer the question that the title of her article seems to ask. Rather, she writes a long and misinformed tirade against the PC Party. So I've decided to take it upon myself to write some more crap on the subject. What's that, a rebuttal? Of course you'll believe what I say and realize that she's just plain wrong, because you are getting verrrry sleeeeeepy. OK, ready? Here we go (serious mode: on). She should have had someone proofread it prior to sending it to her editor, because some parts of her article seem to (I'm sure unintentionally) prove the case that the Tories are a national party still in a position to govern.

For instance, when she discusses candidate reimbursement (getting your deposit back), she says "Only 3 in 10 Tory candidates qualified for reimbursement after the 2000 election". From what I remember from my involved days, to get your deposit back, you need 15% of the vote in your riding. That is a figure that would be hardly worth mentioning, were it the NDP or the Bloq or the CA in question, because those parties have always been strong in the ridings they've won, and weak in most of the others (the NDP and Tory votes are more uniformly spread than the other two, which partly explains the low number of seats returned). But that is not normal for the PC Party of Canada, just as it would seem absurd if the Liberals only got such a small number of their depoisits back. I should mention here that the one third figure seems a little low to me, but I'm not posting frrom home so I don't have the resources with me to verify her numbers, and I'm using dial-up here, so I'm not going to go searching the net.
The Natural Law Party has run candidates, and I'm sure they haven't gotten any of their deposits back. So what Ms. MacIvor is really saying, is that only one third of Tory candidates got their deposits back, which is a remarkable fact only because the PC Party is one of the country's governing parties.

"the Tories' financial situation is so dire that they had to liquidate the Bracken House Trust in 2001"
This is true. However, what Ms. MacIvor neglects to mention is that since 2001, the party has paid off it's debt and is now building a warchest. When I say "paid-off", I don't mean in the way that the CA did it, by taking the money from it's riding associations with promises to pay it back at the end of 2003. While Stephen Harper may have declared his party debt-free, he still has loans for the same amount of principle as before, however with a slightly lower interest rate. And at the end of this year, he is going to have to borrow from the banks again to pay back the money owed to the riding associations. What a tangled web....

"Of the 10 by-elections since November, 2000, the Tories have won precisely two. If there's a Tory resurgence here, I can't see it."
Ms. MacIvor may or may not be right. At least she's honest when she says that she doesn't know. Without a crystal ball how could she possibly be expected to see the future of the Party?
And 2 out of 10 by-election victories may not, at first glance, seem like a victory. The thing is, that is 20% of the by-elections since the last general election. But when you consider that the Party only has 5% of the total representation in the house, that's a victory in itself. And it's here that she really begins to play around with the numbers.

"Schellenberger actually won fewer votes in his by-election victory than he did when he lost to the Liberals in 2000, although his vote share jumped from 30 to 40 per cent because overall turnout dropped by one-third."
By-elections always have a smaller voter turnout. Stephen Harper won his riding by less than half of the votes that his predecessor, Preston Manning, won in 2000. It's normal.
But what Ms. Macivor wants you to believe is that those almost all of those who didn't vote in last week's by-election in Perth Middlesex, but did vote in 2000, were Liberal and Alliance supporters. She tells you that those two parties were the only ones affected by the lower voter turnout, and that is the reason for the result. In fact all of the parties were affected by the lower turnout, and the only way to compare the numbers with 2000 properly is by the percentages.
Yeah, no if you want those numbers you've come to the wrong website. I'm too lazy to open up Internet Explorer and go to Yahoo. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
And the one thing that stands out in this particular by-election, even perhaps above the Tory victory, is the NDP vote, which rose from 6% to 15%. I read an article last week that suggested that the reason for this is that the "I hate everybody" vote is moving from the CA, and back to the NDP, where that vote has traditionally been parked. These are the people who distrust politicians and all parties, but still get out to vote.

There are always ways to spin political events, but playing spin doctor with numbers is usually dumb. It's just too easy to get called on it by someone who knows the facts. Better to resort to sloganeering (Reform Party), consistent name-calling (Liberal Party Ontario), or wedge-issues (Liberal Party Canada).


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Mike Wilson is a freelance moron, with a degree in something from Carleton university in Ottawa (he forgets exactly what). He has written for the diary of Mike Wilson, in which he once begged his future self to send money back to the year 1980, once time machines are invented, so he could attend a concert by the band "the Monks". Other writings include various assignments from 1972 through 1987 when he was based out of the Fenelon Falls Public School, and later the Fenelon Falls Secondary School.