Byelection countdown

On Monday, byelections will be held in four vacant federal seats: Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley (Nova Scotia), Hochelaga (Quebec), Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup (Quebec), and New Westminster-Coquitlam (British Columbia.)

Each race has its own fascinating narrative.

When I last wrote about these vacancies, the byelections hadn't even been called yet. A lot has happened since then.

The ultimate update and collection of all things byelection -- statistical and otherwise -- is here. (Thanks again Alice!)

And as I noted in today's First Reading, L. Ian MacDonald has an interesting take in today's Post. I was particularly interested in his belief that the Rivière du Loup riding is too close to call -- I'm not sure that's expected, given that the Bloc won by a double-digit margin in this riding just one year ago. More from my colleagues at Radio-Canada here. Most importantly, If you follow this riding, you'll want to hear my colleague Nick Gamache's piece on Saturday morning's edition of The House. He also blogged about it for Inside Politics. 

(Fun fact I learned here: the Bloc candidate in this riding, Nancy Gagnon is married to BQ House Leader Pierre Paquette, who sits as the MP for Joliette on Quebec's north shore. If she wins on Monday, they will be the second married couple to sit together in the House of Commons, joining Jack Layton and Olivia Chow in the current House of Commons. Previously, Nina and Gurmant Grewal also sat simultaneously as MPs.  And who can forget the Ministerial-Senatorial one-two punch that is Diane and Doug Finley. The Library of Parliament collects all sorts of historical trivia about spousal relations in Parliament here.)

Far be it from me to question the government's motives, but it was interesting to see a Government of Canada Building Canada Fund (infrastructure) press release come out at this week's end, announcing an investment of more than $240 million for the widening of Route 185. "To make road traffic more fluid for the Bas-St-Laurent population," enthused junior cabinet minister Denis Lebel in the release. We're told this will be a very popular move in a riding headed to the polls on Monday. Even more fun is the dateline on the release: Saint-Louis-du-Ha!Ha! You can't make this stuff up.

MacDonald's take on the byelections also calls the race to succeed Bill Casey in Nova Scotia 'a test for Peter MacKay as the regional warlord.' The CBC's Stephen Puddicombe has written a special blog entry for this space about the political culture of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, and why Bill Casey's leaving some big shoes to fill in that riding. It *should* be safe Conservative turf, but a cruise through the data from the last provincial election suggests the NDP will have a much better showing than they did in Casey's day.

Hochelaga should be safe east-end Montreal turf for the Bloquistes, and wouldn't be all that interesting if the BQ candidate hadn't had a bit of a kerfuffle over his nomination, and didn't use to be an advisor to Stephen Harper's Conservative government. But both are true. And the NDP has been hitting hard -- to not only increase their own credibility in the province, but also further challenge the Liberals' sense of entitlement as the federalist alternative in urban Montreal. NDP Leader Jack Layton has some campaigning here on his weekend agenda, so clearly Team Orange intends to fight to the end. Former PQ cabinet minister Daniel Paillé will not arrive unbattered nor unbruised at the finish line on Monday night.

But the race expected to be the closest -- based on the margin of victory in the last election -- is New Westminster-Coquitlam. This used to be a Reform, and then Canadian Alliance, seat before the NDP's Dawn Black came along, and now that she's left for the provincial scene, they want it back. Both parties have campaigned hard and brought out their big guns (only the latest: Jack Layton's there today (Friday)...) And skeptical eyebrows shot up yesterday when the federal government appeared to heed the NDP's call for an inquiry into disappearing salmon stocks on the Fraser River in a very timely fashion, considering the geographic location of a certain upcoming by-election.

There's been an interesting 'who's to blame' tussle over the HST issue here -- with the NDP blaming the Conservatives for the unpopular idea, and the Conservatives getting caught in a very uncomfortable position on a very populist tax issue -- turf where they're more used to playing offence than defence.

How badly do the NDP want to hold this riding? They used a question in today's (Friday) Question Period not really to hold a Minister to account, but to attack the Conservative candidate in the by-election:

At the end of the day, what's perhaps most interesting is that I've pulled together this round-up and not talked about the Liberals being a factor. At all. In any of them. They didn't use to hold any of these seats in the recent past, mind you, but still. We're told Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has no plans to visit any of the by-election ridings before Monday's trip to the polls.