Canada with French parties

[PASOK Leader Hashemite]

I've decided to waste all my free time on this crazy project which seeks to make use of all I know about the two places I know best in terms of politics/political geography: Canada and France. As always when I do these things, I'm more or less trying to apply French voting patterns to Canada.

I'm still in the first steps of a few maps (going through Quebec - the toughest province - first). But a few points of order:

1. I'm assuming a fairly even matchup between left and right. I'm trying to take even the smaller parties (FG, EELV, PRG, MoDem, NC) into account, but it's quite tough knowing what you know about those parties and the franco-francaise uniqueness of stuff like the PRG. I have two basic maps: a map of which party (PS, UMP etc - basically assuming a French 2-round system) holds which federal constituency, plus another map to show how disputed the seats would be using my safe/favoured/lean/edge methodology.

2. I'm drawing another map which classifies all constituencies based on how the FN would do (very strong, strong, moderate, weak, very weak). For obvious reasons, this is quite tough, but again, I'm attempting to transfer French voting patterns over to Canada. And, no, Alberta isn't necessarily a FN stronghold.

3. Quebec is of course quite tough. It is the province closest to France in terms of political culture, which makes it both easy and tough at the same time. I'm assuming that the issue of independence or nationalism is not on the table (or else we're messing up the whole thing). And before anyone throws a fit, no, just because a riding elected a NDP MP doesn't mean it would obviously elect a PS deputy in this scenario.

4. I'm having a tough time making heads or tails of the Anglo vote in some parts of rural QC outside the West Island. Are we assuming that Anglo voters in this scenario would have a soft side for decentralization and local autonomy which could make them lean to the more decentralist PS/PRG? The PRG seems to have a profile which could have made it traditionally strong in a lot of Anglo areas but...

5. The question of the Catholic/Protestant religious cleavage in political traditions is, of course, a bit tougher to figure out than in France... Would the UDF/centre traditionally have been strong only in Catholic areas or would it have been strong in Red Tory areas of the Atlantic? How would the French vote outside of QC behave - especially in NB and ON?

Comments and ideas welcomed.

[Hatman]

This will be  very exciting. I would gather that PS would do quite well in most parts of Quebec, but I'll leave that up to you to decide. As for the FN, I don't think they'd do that well in Canada.

[Formerly Californian Tony]

Looking forward to it !

[PASOK Leader Hashemite]

An update on progress:

The Maritimes are really tough. Newfoundland's politics being almost a world of its own with its voting patterns based heavily on parochial and traditional factors, it is very hard to see how it would behave faced with French parties. While I think it's clear the FN would do terribly, I can't really say with much certainty (outside St. John's) how the rural areas would vote and how the old Protestant/Catholic divide would play out (if it did...). There's good arguments to be made for the rural areas between either PS or UMP strongholds, and my assumption that the rural areas would lean to the right on the whole is a subjective opinion and is really based on little substance.

Nova Scotia and PEI were easier. But New Brunswick's linguistic divide presents another problem. How would this divide play out? My assumption - and it's probably a safe one - is that it would play out rather similarly to the Tory vs non-Tory divide in the province, namely with the Francos voting for the PS and the Anglos voting, on balance, for the UMP, especially in the Loyalist areas of southern NB.

Any contributions on these quandaries?

[Smid]

I'm reading this thread and enjoying your contributions, but my knowledge is so sparse that I have nothing further I can add. I just wanted you to know that I'm reading it, even if I'm not saying anything.

[Hatman]

RE: Newfoundland: how do they vote in St Pierre & Miquelon? (PS I think?) It's quite similar to Newfoundland, and would likely have similar voting patterns as most of the out ports. So, rural Nfld would be PS while Avalon would probably be UMP.

[PASOK Leader Hashemite]

I've fixed the Newfoundland issue myself, but I've run into roadblock 2: the GTA.

The main thing is that the 905's high proportion of fairly affluent middle-class non-white suburbanites, especially in places such as Markham, Ajax, Pickering, Richmond Hill and even Woodbridge is fairly unique to Canada - especially compared to France. France has no shortage of wealthy foreign-born people, but they're basically all really rich white people and I don't think there's a very significant proportion of non-whites in France who are middle-class suburbanites. So there are few comparisons which can be drawn between these areas of the 905 and any kind of French suburbia.

Similarly, the high-growth American suburbia consisting of large new subdivisions with large treeless roads with a bunch of big new houses who all look alike doesn't exist in France, even if France does have its type of high-growth suburban developments which isn't *too* dissimilar. And while a lot of these places vote heavily UMP/FN, there are certainly a number of fairly middle-class new suburbia which are fairly left-wing.

The 905 areas aren't particularly left-wing, I think the high proportion of non-whites could certainly help the PS. And while I don't think a lot of the foreign born suburban types wouldn't have been enamoured in 2012 after five years of Sarkozy's law-n-order populism/immigrantsz-are-kriminalz style, I also think Sarkozy in 2007 could have had a Rob Ford-type appeal in a lot of the 416 and 905. I think the places like Markham, Richmond Hill and so forth would still lean UMP, the PS would likely have done very well here in 2012 (and, actually, Royal would likely have outperformed Jospin's 1995 performance in 2007).

Any comments or contributions?

[Hatman]

The Rob Ford appeal was a reaction to David Miller, so it was more of a municipal thing. So, if PS was in power for 8 years and wasn't popular, you'd see those areas going UMP.

[PASOK Leader Hashemite]

The Rob Ford appeal was a reaction to David Miller, so it was more of a municipal thing. So, if PS was in power for 8 years and wasn't popular, you'd see those areas going UMP.

For sure, yeah, but it kind of goes beyond that. Ford clearly had an appeal, despite being a racist scumbag, in the non-white suburbs with his right-populist rhetoric against the gravy train, wasteful spending and everything. I feel that Sarkozy, with a similar right-populist (though slightly more moderate and non-offensive) rhetoric in 2007, about personal responsibility, work ethic and so forth could have had a similar appeal in these areas (but none whatsoever in 2012, clearly).

[Hatman]

Im not sure if Ford is so much a racist as perhaps ethnocentric. If he was openly racist, the immigrants wouldn't've voted for him.

[Formerly Californian Tony]

That's just a guess, but I think that well-off immigrants in France, if they were a significant demographic, would lean right overall. There is not, as far as I can tell, a real "ethnic vote" in France, and while areas with lots of immigrants tend to be very left-wing, this is more likely to be due to the hopelessness of their economic situation as well as the right's offensive approach to criminality in these places. If you had a whole class of immigrants who are well-off (particularly if they owe their success to social promotion) and live in "pleasant" neighborhoods, I doubt they would vote very differently than their native counterparts.

[Peter the Lefty]

The 905 seems like it'd be a classic MoDem stronghold.  And yeah, I think the FN would probably have virtually no following.  The PS would be somewhat like the NDP, though far more with a corrupt establishment type of image.  I doubt the Front de Gauche would be that popular (minus among a very small far-left fringe of the NDP, like the Socialist Caucus, and maybe parts of Quebec Solidaire).  EELV's voter electorate might be similar to the Canadian Greens even though their policies would certainly be very much to the left.  They might also pick up some former PS voters who'd be angry at their newfound neoliberalism.  The UMP would be basically the same as the Torries.