Sarah: Hi Pauline and Nik,

I think the big story of this past week is the dismally low voter turnout for the four federal byelections. Averaged together, turnout was 27 per cent!

The cynic in me wants to know: How can we even talk about democracy in other countries when our approach at home is so pathetically limp?

Certainly interesting were the gains that the Green party made in Vancouver Quadra. That was probably more interesting than the constant battle between the Liberals and the Conservatives. But whether that is a specific signal of voter temperament is still hard to assess when only a fraction of the riding voted.

The byelections say to me that Canadians are not ready for a federal election. In fact, I think the average Canadian probably doesn’t feel informed enough yet to go to the polls.

Climate change is a good example. Canadians are concerned, of course, but there is no easy or clear way to reduce greenhouse gases and each party has its own approach, none of which are easy to understand or particularly inspiring.

Likewise our role in Afghanistan. It is a complicated matter, with logic and compassion springing up on both sides of the debate. Should we be there? Is our presence working? Can you impose democratic ideals — when you don't bother to vote at home?

These are big, expansive issues that may be intimidating or even paralyzing to many people. But that is no excuse for complacency.

Nik: Sarah/Pauline,

I am at the Toronto Island airport blogging away and trying to make it home for Easter.

Grumpy, worried, cynical. They are not the seven dwarves but they do sum up how Canadians feel right now. I agree with you, Sarah, regarding the byelections and the low turnout.

But let's face it, if you were in any of the four ridings and had a choice between celebrating St. Patty's Day and voting, what would you do?

What I find interesting is that we may be seeing an increasing importance being placed on the local candidate.

Think of it this way, as Canadians disconnect from the big parties and their leaders, they may be looking at local candidates as a more important factor in their voting decision.

The results of the byelections seem to bear this out. Where the Grits ran their two star candidates (in Toronto) they did well. The Tories won the riding in Saskatchewan with what looked like a solid local candidate and they also did well in Vancouver Quadra where they had a strong candidate.

Also, think of our last round of byelections in September. The Tories won the riding in the Saguenay where they had a strong candidate and the NDP won in Outremont, running a well-known former provincial Liberal.

These last two rounds of byelections didn't seem to have environments where voters wanted to "send a message" to Ottawa. Hence the Tories have done reasonably well considering how bad it could have been.

The results have to be quite sobering for Jack Layton and the NDP, mind you. Set aside Layton’s election chest-thumping, NDP support was generally down and the Green party was up.

From a polling perspective the Greens can draw from all the parties. For Layton, this means he now has a two-front war to wage — one against Liberals (now with Bob Rae) and another against the Greens.

Pauline: I watched these byelections with great interest. To pick up on the theme of strong candidates: In Toronto Centre, Bob Rae demonstrated his ability to attract NDP voters to the Liberals.

The Conservatives suffered, I believe, from having pulled international trade lawyer Mark Warner, their initial candidate who had done an enormous amount of legwork in the riding. He wouldn't have won the seat, but he was a fresh face with strong affinities for the urban issues that matter in Toronto Centre, which is one of the country’s most diverse ridings and has become accustomed to electing strong politicians. ("Furious George" Smitherma, for example, is the deputy premier and minister of health in the provincial government.)

While the substitute Tory candidate, Don Meredith, is also a black male like Warner and has a track record with programs for youth at risk as a Baptist clergyman, he does not live in the riding and found himself struggling to defend the way Warner was treated. In the end, he only pulled 13 per cent of the vote.

I listened to a debate on media ownership held at UBC in Vancouver Quadra a few days ago. There, the Conservative candidate, Deborah Meredith, (is there a Meredith Conservative conspiracy?) didn't show up at
all and the NDP candidate was on the warpath against the Liberal, Joyce Murray, a former BC environment minister. She squeaked in with a 151-vote margin over Meredith, an outcome that might have been predicted by the riding's lawn sign battle, according to Vancouver friends who take an interest in these things.

In the Saskatchewan riding, it probably didn't help that the one organization on the ground that might have made a difference for the Liberals, David Orchard's, stayed home.

Conservative Rob Clarke's decisive victory, aside from the fact that he ran a great campaign, feels to me like a black eye for Saskatchewan Liberal pooh-bah Ralph Goodale. He's the one who convinced Stephane Dion to impose
Joan Beatty as the local candidate over David Orchard.

If I were Machiavellian, I might think that had David Orchard run for the Liberals, the Conservatives who have a lot of experience with him might have let him win, just to be able to stand back and see the mayhem that would have
ensued. Lots of fun to watch, although none of this advances the public interest very much.

Sarah: I wish I had attended the debate in Vancouver Quadra, though it is not my riding. As a former minister, Joyce Murray has a strong political profile and track record, so I wonder what went wrong? How could Deborah Meredith come in so close behind?

Is it a simple matter of economics in the riding? As Vancouver's wealth increases, the politics do seem to be shifting towards fiscal conservatism.

IAs for the NDP, I will say that in Vancouver Quadra they ran a candidate who, dare I say it?, is too young!

The Green party occupies a unique position being able to siphon votes away, not just from the Liberals and the NDP, but also from the Conservatives. If there were such a thing as single transferable vote in Canadian politics, the Greens would have some seats by now.

Unfortunately, their appeal is broad and spread out, not focused in any one riding. It doesn't matter if they gain by a percentage point here and there, they need to win a seat.

Pauline: Rebecca Coad, the NDP candidate in Vancouver Quadra may be young, but she is tenacious and she had supporters in the audience for the debate that I listened to. Who knows how representative this audience was, but the environmental bent seemed very strong to me.

Maybe that’s why the Green candidate ended up very close behind the NDP, with 13.5 per cent of the vote to its 14.4 per cent/ Such results will certainly increase the pressure to consider some form of proportional representation over time.

As for the Conservatives, they are well-financed, well-organized and highly disciplined. I’m not surprised that they are making progress in some ridings.

What does surprise me is the range of polling numbers we are seeing about national voting intentions. How can Strategic Counsel and Harris-Decima be showing such different numbers? Strategic Counsel says the Conservatives have an 11-point lead, while Harris-Decima shows them tied with the Liberals — on the same day!

Sarah: Did I really say Rebecca Coad is too young. I'm ashamed of myself. What have I become? I know that Joyce Murary was responsible for many layoffs, the BC Liberals gutted every ministry, but I do believe she made some important gains. Acquiring Burns Bog, a unique habitat just south of Vancouver, was monumental.

Nik: Speaking of voting, did you see that poll about a majority of Canadians who would consider giving up their vote in the next federal election here to vote in the upcoming American election, yet another harbinger of a grumpy electorate.

Regarding the Greens, although there is potential there for growth, byelections do allow "smaller parties" to punch above their weight. They can bring limited volunteers and resources to bear on a handful of ridings, which is much easier than a general election.

In the past, the Green party commitment to run candidates in all the ridings meant they had to spread their resources (financial and volunteers). Making some sort of breakthrough will be more likely if they decided to focus on a handful of ridings.

On a tangent, I still am hard-pressed to understand why Green leader Elizabeth May is running against Peter MacKay in Nova Scotia. That can't really be the best opportunity for the Greens to win a seat.

But regardless of how or why they picked up the extra support, this last round of byelections has to be a psychological boost for the Green party of Canada.

Sarah: I did not see that poll. I can understand the sentiment, but I think Canadians underestimate our own political influence. We have some enviable policies when it comes to harm reduction, same-sex marriage, health care and peacekeeping. We also have lots of room to improve.

One thing that really baffles me, is that while we seem to grasp the need for foreign aid abroad — look at our overwhelming response to Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami in Thailand — we are reticent to lend the same support to the poor in our own country.

I'm personally not embarrassed to say that I believe social programs are important, but it feels like I'm in the minority these days.

Pauline: I think that strong local candidates and building loyalty on the ground are very important to electing MPs across the country.

But it would interesting to explore how a single transferable vote or some kind of proportional system might allow a more sophisticated reflection of the reality of this complicated, shades-of-grey country.

Happy holiday weekend to you both!