Crombie cruising to an easy win? Five reasons maybe not.

I speculated earlier in the week that Steve Mahoney might do great in southwest Mississauga, but Crombie could expect to do well in the other three quadrants. The last Forum Poll suggests that Mahoney may be trailing Bonnie Crombie even in his "home" quadrant in the southwest. Mahoney is also trailing with voters over age 65.

That is bad news for Mahoney.

Municipal elections are often decided by differential turnout. The big challenge for pollsters is not determining who citizens prefer, but rather who is likely to actually vote. Older voters who have lived in an area for a long time are one of the groups most likely to vote. In this election, I expect that is a big advantage for Mahoney, who last held elected office in 2004. People who have long supported Mahoney and his wife, City Councillor Katie Mahoney, in southwest Mississauga should be expected to be Mahoney's core base of support. And many of those who remember voting for Mahoney at the federal or provincial level are among the most likely to turn out to vote. Advantage Mahoney.

Surprisingly, the latest (and potentially last) poll, by Forum Research (see http://poll.forumresearch.com/post/179/crombie-maintains-wide-lead-in-mississauga and full results here: http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/Mississauga%20Issues%20News%20Release%20(2014%2010%2024)%20Forum%20Research.pdf) show Mahoney behind in both his home "quadrant," 49% - 41% and trailing among older voters. Actually, to be blunt, Mahoney is trailing in pretty much in every demographic category: young voters, old voters, men, women, PCs, and Liberals. This does not portend well for Mahoney.

However, be cautious when reviewing these results. This poll may be an accurate gauge of public opinion in Mississauga, but much can be wrong about these results.

This Forum Research poll is an automated telephone call conducted on a Friday night. Only 308 respondents answered the call and told Forum Research who they intended to vote for (or had already voted for). Forum Research included 286 of these responses in a proprietary weighting scheme based on the demographic information the respondents provided to give estimates that should reflect the voting population in Mississauga. There are five reasons to be especially cautious when reviewing this polls' findings:

First, automated polls are good at sampling households or phone numbers, but not household members. If certain demographics are more likely to answer the phone in a house - like they are in my house- that could bias the results. For example, many young people assume that no one they know will be calling their parents' home phone, so many do not answer that line. This can be minimized by the pollster's weighting algorithm, but only if one assumes that those who answered the phone had similar views to those with similar demographics who did not. In other words, a 22 year old living with her parents who did not answer her phone would be expected to have similar political views to a 22 year old living in an apartment (with a number that identifies her as a Mississauga resident).

Second, the poll was completed over just one evening. A Friday. Were you home all evening on Friday? Many people go out on Friday nights. Especially if they are celebrating Diwali, or honoring a soldier on the Highway of Heroes, as many did on Friday night, October 24, 2014. They didn't answer their phones. Neither did some who were enjoying a family dinner. That could bias the sample. Most phone surveys go out in the field for more than one evening to avoid biases caused by certain demographic groups being out one night compared to other groups. I am not surprised that about 40% of the sample were older than 65.

Third, most surveys are larger than 300 people. I suspect that Forum intended this survey to be larger; a recent poll of Brampton voters was a more typical 1000 voters. This may have been intentional, as Forum may have been working with a small sample to mute criticism that their previous poll was biased by a robocall sent out shortly beforehand by the Crombie campaign. Or, it may reflect a paltry response rate (it was a Friday night!). Forum didn't disclose their response rate (unless I'm misreading the difference between 308 calls and 286 respondents with demographic info). Response rate biases are not covered in the published margin of error (6 percentage points in sample of this size), but can be minimized by Forum's weighting algorithm IF there is nothing remarkable about the people with similar demographics who did answer the phone.

Fourth, Forum Research did not disclose the number of undecided voters. Forum's reported figures include those who have decided whom they are voting for, and those who are leaning towards one candidate or the other. Since the percentages sum to 100, Forum Research must have excluded all those who said they were so undecided that they were not even leaning one way or another. Or, maybe that is the gap between 308 voters they said they sampled and the 286 voters whose demographics they report - 10% of the sample, a likely proportion. If many voters are undecided, or are leaners, we could potentially see a big shift between this poll and election day - if those people vote. Undecideds and leaners are less likely voters than those who have already decided whom they are supporting. If they turnout, and vote in ways different than many of their neighbors, the results could be very different than this poll.

Fifth, all the usual problems with telephone polls in the early 21st Century still apply: many citizens do not have land line phones, some are not comfortable with speaking English on the phone, many simply do not respond to polls.

Remember this poll does not substitute for voting on election day. There is little or nothing promising in this poll for Steve Mahoney, but this poll is even more suspect than many other polls conducted by Forum Research. Treat these results with caution.

Tories Missing in Action

What happened to the Conservative/PC voters in Mississauga-Brampton South? 


New Tory MP Eve Adams won 23,632 votes in May. Liberal candidate Navdeep Bains received 18,579 votes in defeat. 


A few months later, Liberal MPP Amrit Mangat won only 15,579 to win re-election. PC Candidate Amarjeet Gill won only 10,285 votes, less than 45% of Adams' total! 


That is a really poor showing even if we give Adams (a veteran politician) credit for attracting voters to the Conservatives who might not otherwise do so, even in a year where Prime Minister Harper enjoyed a strong tailwind. But she still might not have won without the strong showing by the NDP in Mississauga-Brampton South. 


I thought that the riding might still be in play if the PCs could only identify Adams' supporters and turn many of them out again. Gill (and Hudak) clearly failed. He was not alone: NDP candidate Karanjit Pandher only won 57% of the votes that the Federal NDP candidate won.Sure, Gill won 1000 more votes than his PC predecessor, but Mangat won almost 20,000 votes in 2007. About 4,000 voters who had cast their ballot for Mangat and McGuinty in 2007 did not in 2011! That is a missed opportunity in a district that has seen its population increase.


It often takes another election to write the analysis of the previous one. Now it is clear that the dynamics of Harper/Layton/Ignatieff, and a preference for a majority government clearly hurt Bains. A stronger Liberal (or NDP?) federal campaign could cost Adams her seat after one term. 


Gill emphasized taxes, taxes and more taxes that all of us must hate paying (or we'd live in Toronto). I thought the PCs could have done more damage reminding voters of the many missteps of the McGuinty administration (eHealth, eco-fees, HST). They tried to emulate Rob Ford, but in the end, they emulated the Libertarians (Christin Milloy won 691 votes) by calling for low taxes without creating a sense of anger that the Grits were wasting money at Queen's Park. Ford called for lower taxes, but also jumped on some relatively small-change symbols of waste at Toronto City Hall. Without this sense of anger, Gill failed to mobilize voters who would be most inclined to vote PC based on their recent voting habits, and could not attract many of the disillusioned supporters of his main opponent. They just stayed home, which is their prerogative in a democracy where they will be led again by McGuinty and represented by Mangat.

Mississauga Judicial Inquiry

Not many surprises in the report released this morning by Justice Cunningham. Mayor McCallion did not break any laws, which raises real concerns about the existing laws and the current governance structures to protect the citizens of Mississauga against corruption.

The mayor is unapologetic, but forgets that unethical is not the same as illegal. As a society, we try to make our laws consistent with our sense of what is right and wrong, but the circumstances surrounding OMERS and the City's dealings over Enersource and a proposed hotel near Square One show that incidents arise that are legal but not ethical.

Ex-City Manager David O'Brien clearly had a personal pecuniary interest that conflicted with his role as city manager when negotiating the veto by OMERS over Enersource.

Even if Peter McCallion was not the mayor's son, and even if he never actually made any real money on the deal, it is clear that two Friends of Hazel got a sweetheart deal to double their money to serve as the lead developers until a real, qualified developer could be found. Lucky for the McCallion family, they did not personally benefit, but this is cronyism and the only value these developers brought to negotiations with OMERS was that they were backed by the mayor.

Bad Ideas for Ward 5

I complained in a previous post that there were few good ideas proposed in the candidate speeches during the Rogers 10 candidates forum.

There were a few bad ideas floated. The three stars of the game:
*** Steve Bator wants to put more cops on bikes in Malton. I like community policing, but I'm not sure bikes make a lot of sense in Malton in February.

**Jamie Dookin promises to fund five university scholarships instead of spending money on campaign signs. IMHO, not a great campaign strategy and also not a very effective or efficient public policy (if the recipients qualify for financial aid anyway from the province, will this simply replace that aid?).

* Sandeep Patara will work for free, donating his salary back into the community. A noble gimmick, but I would be worried if working for free will cause him to work at one of his restaurants (or as a software developer?) more often than at City Hall. How do you fire someone who works for free?

Honourable Omission + Mention
I do give Cecil Young credit for not bringing up some of the ideas he advances on his website, like replacing taxes with a "government services fee" that looks like taxes, sounds like taxes, but is somehow different... However, he did promise to limit himself to three terms in office, which sounds noble, except that he's 55 years old and really, all he is doing is promising to work until he reaches retirement age and can draw his pension.


As an aside: I wonder why so few candidates do not have websites! How can one vote for a candidate who does not have a website? Jamie Dookin can still give away scholarships with a free site from http://www.weebly.com/!

Ward 5 Candidates Speak - 1

The southern end of Mississauga-Brampton South get to vote for a City Council by-election in September.

MIRANET, Mississauga News & Rogers Cable 10 brought over 20 of the 27 candidates together for a televised forum earlier this week. The forum will be rebroadcast repeatedly in the coming days (see schedule here).

I just finished watching the candidates' opening speeches. Each candidate was allocated 3 minutes to talk directly to the camera. For me, this was exciting. Throughout most of Europe, parties are allocated free time to broadcast advertisements one after the other. So, these speeches were like a little taste of Europe in my Mississauga basement. All that was missing was some brie and chablis.

The event drew little press coverage (see here, here, and here). Most of the coverage focused on three big names in the race, Peter Adams, Bonnie Crombie and Carolyn Parrish, and none of the reporters said anything about the taped speeches. So, I thought I would watch and comment...

Its not going to be an easy choice for many in the Ward 5. Many candidates echoed the same issues, the same concerns and made similar promises. What I was looking for was whether any candidates could come up with a clear reason why people should vote for him/her. Canadian Political Strategist Geoff Norquay calls this a "ballot question". In a crowded race like this one, I think its a critical one. There has to be something distinctive that sets a candidate apart from his/her competition. Something that will allow voters to succinctly explain to their peers who they are voting for and why.

Academic digression:
This tendency to construct or desire a set of reasons to facillitate a difficult choice was identified by academics studying decision-making in a range of different contexts. Shafir, Simonson and Tversky call "Reason based choice" in a seminal paper.

I sat through every single three minute speech and was dutifully unimpressed. There were few good new ideas or policy proposals floated. Candidates promised to be accessible, reliable and trustworthy. I'm not suggesting these are not valuable traits. After all, eight years ago, the Ward 5 councilor went to jail for bribery. So, three big cheers that no candidate publicly signaled that their vote could be bought. <snore>

Every candidate stressed uncontroversial valence issues that no one would argue against (We need more efficient government! We need more health and social services in Malton! We need to get tough on gangs!). Most talked about their qualifications and personal backgrounds. Thats a great, low-risk strategy, but with more than 20 opponents, I'm not sure its a very smart strategy except for those candidates with the highest profile in the Ward.

Ok... So voters can choose from candidates who emphasize cutting taxes or those who emphasize increasing services. Most of these candidates called for more services and less taxes which may be impossible unless they find gold while widening Eglinton Ave. Voters can choose between fresh faces or experienced politicians, independent voices or buddies of the mayor. And lets not forget that some candidates live in the Ward 5, some candidates are visible minorities, some are women and a few speak foreign language(s).

It would have been a better evening if my wife had agreed to join me in a drinking game whenever a candidate mentioned the Goreway Bridge or the new community health centre in Malton. She didn't. Pity, but I'm not sure we have enough wine or beer in the house to accomodate all of the drinking we would have had to do.

I was impressed with Dianne Douglas, Eve Adams' executive assistant while she was councilor. I was not alone- Gerry Timbers called her the winner of the race.
Douglas' speech was well-practiced, smoothly delivered and did a great job recognizing that the needs of Malton were quite different than the needs of the Heartland area. She clearly came off as someone who understands the area. That leaves me with two questions:

1. Why doesn't Douglas have a website? I would link to it. Promise.
2. What does it say about a candidate if your former boss' husband runs against you? Or, perhaps the appropriate question is: what does it say about your former boss' husband if you decide to take a leave of absence from your job to run against him?

Some quick judgments and questions (again, just based on the candidate speeches):

• It took Peter Adams less than 15 seconds to mention his wife's name and remind everyone that they live in the Ward.
• Bonnie Crombie was surprisingly negative towards her opponents considering she says she has a positive vision and promises to refrain from the infighting that supposedly has plagued Mississauga City Council in recent years. She says she "plays on the mayor's team," which tells me that the only infighting she disapproves of is the criticism that occasionally gets directed at Mayor Hazel McCallion. 
• How angry and bitter is Kulvinder Bobbie Daid? Do the voters in Ward 5 share her angst?
• Jake Dheer's cheerful on-camera presence was a sharp contrast to Daid's anger, but who originated the line about traffic taking away from family time? Because Mark Cashin said the exact same line.
• There are jobs and there are the jobs that Jamie Dookin promises to bring to the community. Funny how the number of jobs always ends in a multiple of ten.
• Why does Grant Isaac need to secure his glasses with a string while he sits in front of  TV camera? Isaac was surprisingly unprepared and unscripted for his three-minute talk. What kind of law does he practice?
• I'm not sure I want any elected official to promise that I'll know in advance how they will vote on major issues, Olive Rose Steele! After all, those votes take place after debates, after amendments to a bill are proposed, and after votes are traded and negotiated over. Declaring in advance what you'll do could render you both close-minded and ineffective.
• Did Barbara Hazel Tabuno get tips on delivery from Elle Woods?
• I expected the novice candidates to have trouble speaking to the cameras. But Rick Williams is an experienced, elected politician. Could you look up once in awhile?
• Cecil Young was the last to speak, and surprisingly, brought up issues and proposals that no one else did. That is not easy to do after more than 20 other speeches. Snaps for Mr. Young!