Profile 8: Thunder Bay—Rainy River

c9's Pretty Clearly Left-Leaning Riding Write-ups!

Riding: Thunder Bay—Rainy River
Map: http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/maps/P35090.pdf
More info on your riding

Riding 35090, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, contains several native reserves and the aboriginal population is more than five per cent.

Manufacturing and grain transportation are among the main industries in the riding. Average family income is $64,415 and unemployment is 9.1 per cent.

In 2004, Liberal Ken Boshcoff defeated New Democrat John Rafferty and Conservative David Leskowski.

Thunder Bay-Atikokan and its predecessor riding of Fort William voted Liberal from 1935 to 1980. The last elected Tory was R.J. Manion, who won in 1925, 1926 and 1930. Liberal Paul McRae held the seat from 1972 (when it was Fort William) to 1984 (when it was Thunder Bay-Atikokan).

In 1984 and 1988, New Democrat Iain Angus was elected. Liberal Stan Dromisky served three terms between 1993 and 2004.

(writeup above primarily from cbc.ca)

2006 Candidates:
Russ Aegard (Green Party of Canada)
Ken Boshcoff (Liberal Party of Canada) (incumbent)
David Leskowski (Conservative Party of Canada)
Doug MacKay (Marijuana Party)
John Rafferty (New Democratic Party)

Recent Election Results:

	LIB	CPC	PC	CA	REF	NDP	OTHER
2004	39.4%	26.3%				29.7%	4.6%
2000	37.0%		11.8%	29.3%		19.5%	2.5%
1997	42.7%		16.3%		16.8%	24.2%

Prior to 1997, the area's MP was: Liberal (1993-present), NDP (1984-1993), and Liberal (1935-1984).

Likely due to union strength, the NDP are first or second in this riding. The Green, NDP, Liberal and Conservative candidates from 2004 are all running again, so experience isn't much of a factor. With Liberal support dropping in Ontario, and a strong NDP showing, this is a real three-way horse race.

www.electionprediction.org says: Liberal, but close. I wouldn't be surprised to have them change this to "Too close to call" soon.

In this riding, the NDP will likely come in second. Voting for them could give them the riding, but voting Liberal could give them the riding. Vote with your heart, strategically approaching this one is pointless unless local polls show a strong bias.

Hot Issue: Equal Marriage. The incumbent is not very supportive, with C from Egale Canada.


( Explanations and non-riding-specific information )

Disclaimer: Your vote is your choice. If you think I'm wrong go ahead and (a) comment about it, and (b) vote your heart. I can take it.

I want to invent a meme.

Here's my attempt:

What would you do if you won

• $10?
• $1,000?
• $100,000?
• $10,000,000?

Here's my answer:

• $10: Put it in my pocket and maybe buy lunch one day instead of eating a frozen President's Choice meal.
• $1,000: buy an LCD panel for the computer and finally get rid of this lately-flickery cap_hill_latte castoff, put the rest on my debt.
• $100,000: Pay off all leapfish's and my debts, take an expensive vacation, buy a bunch of savings bonds for the four babies, donate $10,000 to currently-undecided local charities, donate $10,000 to Kitchener-Waterloo Little Theatre so they can get out of debt, give $20,000 to family, and put the rest on our mortgage.
• $10,000,000: All of the above, plus give $1,000,000 to leapfish's mother, give $1,000,000 to my parents, give $1,000,000 to fund a university scholarship program for disadvantaged teens, give $1,000,000 to the University of New Brunswick for theatre, fine arts, and music funding, and invest the rest for us to live off of.

What would you do?

How important is your vote to you?

40% of Canadians don't vote. That really bugs me. I don't understand how someone can not care enough to vote. Especially since there are so many options other than voting for the major parties, who are -- let's be honest -- awfully similar in many ways.

There are 14 different registered political parties, and 1604 different people running for office. Considering the fact that Liberal, Tory and NDP candidates make up only 924 of those, there's gotta be somebody you agree with. Additionally, you can spoil your ballot, or formally decline your ballot at the polling station. Both of these are actually counted. Imagine what would happen if more people spolled their ballot than voted for Stephen Harper? It could happen, if those 40% got off their asses.

Some people really think voting is important, and I like that. Check this out:

Thousands of dollars later, new Canadians can now vote
CBC News

A Nigerian-born man who spent thousands of dollars to rush his citizenship process so he could vote in the election says all Canadians should take their democratic role as seriously as he does.

"Make it meaningful," said Fola Soboyejo after his citizenship ceremony in Edmonton. "Contribute to nation building, contribute to civil society, because the alternative is brutal."

Soboyejo and his wife Titilope spent thousands of dollars to travel from Yellowknife to Edmonton so they and their children could become citizens.

The Nigerian-born family lives in Yellowknife, but its citizenship court is only held once a year, on July 1.

$886+taxes+fees right now to fly from Yellowknife to Edmonton. How many of you would still vote if it cost you $4.99?

In Australia voting is mandatory. A coworker of mine thinks we should pay people to vote in order to improve turnout. Both strike me as a way to get people who don't care to simply not care inside the polling station too. But I don't know what could be done to make voting more popular.