Taking a Closer Look at Maley Drive, Part 4: Time to End the Subsidies

Growth and congestion go hand in hand.  The more roads we build, the more congested they become.   But for decades, traffic engineers have told elected officials and the public that we need bigger, wider and more abundant roads to ease congestion.  After decades of experimentation, it’s now become quite clear that the more roads we build to accommodate growth, the more congested our roads become (see: “California’s DOTadmits more roads means more traffic,” the Atlantic CityLab, November 11, 2015).

Building new roads doesn’t come cheap – but you might be able to justify the initial expense if there is a strong case that the benefit of having a new road will outweigh the costs.  As with any new infrastructure project, taxpayers will need to derive a good bang for the buck, usually in multiple ways. A new road can connect two or more previously unconnected areas to increase their economic interaction.  The presence of a new road could open up additional lands for development – important in areas of high growth.  And of course, a new road might help alleviate congestion, even if just for a little while.  New roads are also often touted as providing an additional level of safety for road users, although this last claim is almost always dubious, given that most new roads are built to standards which facilitate a higher level of speed – and that almost always leads to conditions which are less safe than other alternatives.

Here in Greater Sudbury, the talk of the town is the Maley Drive Extension.  This new road - running between Municipal Road 35 (Elm Street) in the west and Falconbridge Road in the east -  is to be developed in two phases, and will come with a price tag of about $130 million.  Right now, the City is seeking funding for Phase 1 of the project, and the Province has promised to chip in 1/3 of Phase 1’s $80.1 million in costs.  The federal government may very well follow suit with a 1/3 share under the Build Canada fund in the very near future.  That will leave the City to come up with about $16 million more to add to its $10+ million already in the bank to fund our 1/3 share for Phase 1.  Phase 2 is estimated to cost about another $50 million, and it remains unfunded.

For this $130 million, Greater Sudbury will get a road which will not connect currently unconnected areas to increase economic interaction (except perhaps for saving ore trucks a couple of minutes of time); will not open up any new areas to development (see: “Taking a Closer Look at MaleyDrive, Part 3: Expectations for Growth,” Sudbury Steve May, November 12, 2015); will not alleviate congestion in the long term; and will not increase safety in any measurable way.

Fighting Congestion

Regarding congestion, we might get lucky with Maley for a little while because it will essentially be a highway on the fringe of our City – similar to the under-utilized southeast and southwest by-passes are today.  But if you really want to fight congestion, there’s just one tried and true method for doing it: don’t grow.  Better yet, contract.  But that scenario doesn’t appear to be in the books for Greater Sudbury – we are expected to grow by 10,500 people over the next 20 years.

If growth is in you’re future, you’re going to have to take congestion along with it.  There are things you can do to alleviate that congestion, but studies have shown time and again that despite what the traffic engineers tell us about building bigger, wider, more numerous roads, that’s not the answer (see: “Building roads to curecongestion is an exercise in futility,” Tanya Snyder, Property and Environment Research Centre, undated).  If you want to mitigate against the impacts of congestion, especially while growing (but not only when growing), you’ve got to get people out of their cars and put them on buses, on bikes or on their own two feet.

Right now, transit, cycling and walking options are more akin to a sick joke in Greater Sudbury than they are a viable alternative to vehicular transportation for most of us.  And yet – the 2010 Sustainable Mobility Plan identified that up to 1/3 of Greater Sudburians do not have access to a car (see: “Sustainable MobilityPlan for the City of Greater Sudbury,” Rainbow Routes Association, June 2010).  Although the report’s economic analysis did not pinpoint who exactly, on an income scale, these car-less people were, I think it’s fair to suggest that largely these are people who are existing on lower incomes than the City’s median, and who may be living in poverty.

Who Benefits, Who Pays?

That’s important for a number of reason, but let me just point out one thing regarding Maley Drive here: the Cost-Benefit report which identified $11.1 million worth of benefit also says that people who don’t drive won’t receive more than a few cents of that benefit, period (see page 4 of this document, “Cost-Benefit Analysis of Maley Drive Extension,” AECOM, October 29, 2015).  The lion’s share of that benefits identified by AECOM come from a reduction in vehicular travel time – and if you don’t own a vehicle, you won’t get the benefit.  And yet people who don’t own car will see their tax money going to pay for the costs of the project.  This certainly raises some questions about the vertical equity of the Maley project in my mind – and I hope it does in yours.

The "benefit" of reduced travel time and maintenance costs for vehicle owners/operators described by AECOM can also be called a "subsidy". 

Alternative Transportation the Key to Reducing Congestion

Getting back to transit, cycling and walking – what we’re calling “alternative transportation” (which is funny if you think about it, because the very first form of transportation was walking – shouldn’t driving a motorized vehicle be the alternative?  But I digress).  We know that if we’re going to reduce congestion, the best way to do it is to get people engaged in “alternative transportation”.  And yet we have consistently failed to invest much in the way of time or treasure in facilitating these forms of transport. 

Since we don’t see people in our communities walking, we presume that there’s no need for sidewalks.  Ditto for bike lanes.  And buses, for that matter.  And it’s true: we have fairly low incidences of alternative transport use in our City.  So the perception becomes the reality. Especially when you factor in the fact that building and maintaining pedestrian and cycling infrastructure costs money – as does running buses. 

Truth is, as recently  as the 1970s, are streets were filled with people walking, especially in the

vibrant downtown part of the City.  What happened?  Well, suburbia happened – and decision-makers made driving a government-subsidized activity.  Yes, our governments actually paid people to drive their cars, and gave hand-outs to rich land developers to build subdivisions which provided people with a disincentive to walk, ride their bikes or take transit.  Folly, you say?  Well, we’re still doing it today.

Subsidized Roads

Who pays for roads like Maley Drive?  For the most part, taxpayers do.  At the municipal level of government, the revenues which pay for our roads come largely from property taxes and provincial revenue transfers.  Yes, it’s true – user fees also make up some of those revenues, including taxes collected on gasoline.  But when it comes to roads, road users are nowhere near paying the full costs of use.  Throw free parking into the mix, and it quite quickly it becomes apparent that society subsidizes road use.

We like to think that government subsidies are going towards things which make society better for most people.  Good roads make life better for everybody, no?  For the drivers who use the roads, for people who take the bus, for anyone who shops at a grocery store where goods are trucked in.  Clearly, there’s a public good inherent in roads.

But at the same time, the proliferation of roads has led to a more sedentary society with contingent higher health-related costs.  More roads has led to congestion in our communities which takes time away from our families, leading to unhappiness.  Roads have led to building cost-ineffective low density suburban communities where the provision of services by governments isn’t sustainable. And of course roads have led to a transportation system comprised almost entirely of fossil-fuel burning motorized vehicles that contribute more to Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions than any other sector.  With this in mind, it’s difficult to make the case that roads are actually a net good to the public.

Net Public Good

That’s not to suggest that we shouldn’t build roads.  It is, however, to suggest that perhaps its time we, as a society, began evaluating whether it’s in our public interests to continue to subsidize the users of our roads to the extent that we’ve been doing for quite some time now.  If a net public good can’t be demonstrated, why are we continuing to throw tax dollars at the project?  Maybe it’s time for users to pay more for what they’re using, and to give the rest of us a break.

As taxpayers will be on the hook for the capital and operating costs of Maley (in other words, all of the costs), whether those costs are just the $80 million identified in AECOM’s Cost Benefit Report, or whether they are the approximately $130 million needed to actually complete Maley from MR 35 to Falconbridge Road, the fact is that all of the beneficiaries that AECOM has identified will be receiving their benefits in the form of a subsidy from the government – except those who will benefit from lower greenhouse gas emissions (which, frankly, is a complete joke.  See what Laurentian University Professor of Economics, Dr. David Robinson, has to say about Maley’s benefits on emissions: “Maley Drive: How Not to do a Cost / Benefit Analysis,” Economics for Northern Ontario, November 6, 2015).

Cost Sharing

With Maley Drive, AECOM’s biggest beneficiaries are going to be the trucking industry.  While motorists will receive a slightly larger share of those costed benefits ($8,464,000 in travel time and vehicle operating cost savings – about 51%), that share will be distributed among a much larger pool of participants.  Truckers will receive about $4,168,000 in savings, or 49% of the benefit, - but those savings will be split among a much smaller group – only about 1,000 to 1,500 users a day (and likely much fewer at peak times – maybe only 100 or so during rush hour).  Those are individual trucks, of course.  Many of these trucks are owned by just a small number of operators – so that’s where the benefit will accrue.

Given that the local trucking industry will be receiving about half of the monetized benefit of the public’s subsidy of Maley Drive, and given that the remaining benefits are of questionable utility to the public, perhaps it’s time that the public turned to the beneficiaries to help pay for some of these costs.

Preposterous, right?  We can’t ask the trucking companies to pay for the Maley Drive Extension.  We can’t ask users of our roads to pay for their use.  Who would ever think of such a thing?  They may do that in Europe or the United States, or maybe even in Southern Ontario with the 407, but this is Sudbury – we’re different.

Well, actually, we’re not that different after all.  As for who would ever think about asking users to pay for new infrastructure from which they will primarily benefit – guess what?  Greater Sudbury contemplates doing just that with specific regard to Maley Drive.  Or at least we did at one time.  The September 2005 City of Greater Sudbury Transportation Study Report, item #12 on page 112, indicated that funding will be provided through negotiated cost-sharing agreements with major industries when those industries benefit from the transportation improvement being proposed.  Right now, it’s the 2005 Transportation Study which is in effect in our City, as the more recent Transportation Master Plan has yet to be accepted by Council.

Maley - Those Who Benefit Should Pay

So, AECOM produced a Cost-Benefit report which showed that the trucking industry will receive a significant monetized benefit from the construction of the Maley Drive Extension.  Given that the City has since 2005 contemplated entering into cost sharing agreements with major industries where those industries receive a benefit from a transportation improvement, one can’t help but wonder what the status of those negotiations might be.  How much are the beneficiaries of Maley chipping in for the costs? They’re going to receive a benefit – what are they going to pay for that benefit?

Or, despite what’s written in the 2005 Transportation Study Report, does our City expect that taxpayers alone will be on the hook for this major infrastructure project which will provide limited benefit to taxpayers, and a more significant benefit to a narrow set of business users, namely the trucking industry?  Why should taxpayers subsidize this road when the identified benefits to the community will be marginal compared to costs - and probably non-existent when you factor in opportunity costs (what we'll be missing out on doing because we're paying for the Maley folly).

Greater Sudbury - Future Development

Some believe that Maley Drive may be the lynchpin for other new roads, such as widening MR 35 to Chelmsford and building the Barrydowne Expressway from New Sudbury to Hanmer.  In these grand visions, a multitude of new lane kilometers will open up the Valley (East and West) to new residential, commercial and industrial development.

Unfortunately, that development just isn’t going to come.  With enough lands already set aside to

meet our development needs for half a century, we don’t need to build more roads to facilitate new development.  Yes, the outlying areas of the City will grow – in fact, the Hemson Consulting report forecasts that those areas will continue to grow through to 2036 at the same rate that they’ve been growing, and approximately two thirds of new residents will reside outside of the former City of Sudbury.  But in terms of real numbers, we are talking about just 10,500 people – and only several thousand new households.  These aren’t big numbers, and they can easily be accommodated on lands already set aside for development in both the former City of Sudbury and in the outlying areas.  The presence or lack of presence of Maley Drive will not change a thing.

However, should we really expect two thirds of new residential growth to 2036 to occur outside of the former City of Sudbury? This assumption may need to be tested, although I understand why Hemson has included it in their report.  If the future was going to be like the past, then the trend seems a logical one.  But the future isn’t going to be like the past – we know that.   As we become even more concerned about the costs of development, are we going to continue to subsidize a suburban built form? 

Prosperity: Getting Prices Right

We would be wise to take a closer look at where the lion’s share of anticipated growth in our City should be occurring – with an eye to making our City more livable while simultaneously keeping our collective costs down.  Right now, there’s a prevalent misunderstand at large in our community in which citizens believe that property taxes from the outlying areas are subsidizing the former City.  This misunderstanding, arising from an extremely limited discussion around area rating back at the time of amalgamation, has led to considerable resentment from those living in the outlying areas.

At the time of amalgamation, it was decided that property taxes would be area rated depending upon the level of service that parts of the new City would be receiving for fire protection and transit.  At the time, it was recognized that it would be prohibitively expensive to extend the level of service enjoyed by the former City of Sudbury to the outlying areas for these two services, and as a result, a formula was developed whereby outlying area property taxes were – and remain to this day – lower than those of inner city taxpayers.

Some – mainly those in the outlying areas – have always believed that this area rating didn’t go far enough, given the perceived lower level of services that they continue to receive from the City. 

Others recognize that the chances are the opposite is happening: that inner city ratepayers are subsidizing those living in the outlying areas.  This observation is not based on any specific study of the City of Greater Sudbury, but rather based on studies from a multitude of areas which compare the costs of suburban and exurban living to those of urban areas, and which show on per capita basis, the servicing costs of suburban and exurban living are much higher for municipalities.  So unless Greater Sudbury is different from just about everywhere else, our reality is that our municipality experiences higher costs servicing the outlying areas than the inner city – but taxpayers in the inner city are paying a higher share of taxes than those in the outlying areas!

This is an example of perverse pricing.  And it is examples like this which we can expect to see turned on their heads going forward into the 21^st Century.  Getting the price right is going to become extremely important to decision-makers.

For Whom The Road is Tolled

For Greater Sudbury, that means that we will likely see a shift away from the desirability of developing in the outlying areas in preference to areas within the former City.  With new policies promoting second suites, and smaller, denser and (in theory) more affordable built form in locations which are transit supportive and include cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, we can expect the former City’s predicted share of development will be more than the 1/3 forecast by Hemson.  And this will especially be true if we end the subsidies for suburbia and move to a user-pay system for servicing – particularly for roads.

While municipalities in Ontario do not currently have the authority to institute road tolls (only the province can do this), you can bet at some point in the not-too-distant future, as part of a larger suite of municipal revenue-generating powers, cities will get these powers.  We often think of tolls as being collected in person or electronically at a booth or gate of a highway, but there are many ways in which users of road infrastructure can be made to pay for the actual costs of their use (see: "We Can't Get There From Here: Why Pricing Congestion is Critical to Beating it," Canada's Ecofiscal Commission, November 2015).  New technologies finding their way into vehicles right now will be able to facilitate the collection of fees for each lane kilometre driven, and raise and lower those fees depending on the time of use.

We’re already smart-metering our energy use – one day soon it may very well be that we’ll have smart meters in our cars as well.

Turning the Future on Its Head

Let’s be clear: this approach to paying for our roads will turn the current situation on its head, because it will end the subsidy which road users have enjoyed.  By having users pay for their use, we’ll actually likely decrease congestion, as our roads are currently experiencing excess demand thanks to the subsidy.

When you pay people to drive, that’s what they’re going to do.  And that’s what we’ve been doing. We can’t afford to keep doing this – not only is it not equitable, but the “net public good” which we derive from subsidization is questionable at best, and likely non-existent (see: “The True Costs of Driving,” the Atlantic, October 25, 2015).

Those looking at Maley being the first in a series of new roads in our City, ostensibly to fuel suburban growth in the outlying areas, need to consider what the future is going to be like.  The pursuit of a 1950s-style dream of high-speed roads that open up vast tracts of new land for low-density single-family homes isn’t in the cards for the future we’re going to have.  That’s not to say it couldn’t happen – if our decision-makers want to make foolish and fiscally ruinous decisions to build more roads and maintain them over time when none are demonstrably needed, than it very well could happen.

But if we really want to get our financial house in order, and maximize our opportunities for prosperity going forward, we have to change the way that we spend public money.  If we choose to subsidize a project, program or activity, we have to be certain that we receive a net public benefit from our subsidy.  Making the case for new roads, particularly in a low-growth environment, is one which will fail time and again the test of net public benefit.

Getting Our House in Order

We here in Greater Sudbury are already going to be facing numerous, difficult challenges going forward, many as a result of past land use decisions which created our sprawling City.  As much as we might like, we can’t go back and change time – or wipe the map clean like you can in Sim City.  We’ve got to live with what we’ve got, and retrofit suburbia as best as we can.  But there are a number of things which we know we must not do – and perpetuating an unsustainable, fiscally unsound built form has to be at the top of that list.  One of the ways of accomplishing this is to stop new roads that we don’t need.

Maley Drive, like many of the road projects City engineers have talked about for decades, has no future – or rather, our future should not have Maley Drive in it.  If there actually is a benefit to be derived from Maley, it’s one which will accrue almost entirely to as specific industry.  Taxpayers should not be asked to foot the bill – upwards of $130 million – for a road that we don’t need and can’t afford, and is in the wrong place for development which isn’t going to happen anyway.  If the beneficiaries of the road believe that there is value in its construction, let’s figure out a way to make sure that they are the ones on the hook for the lion’s share of the costs – either through cost-sharing agreements as contemplated by the City through the 2005 Transportation Study Report – or through user fees.

(Opinions expressed in this blog are my own and should not be considered consistent with the views and policies of the Green Parties of Ontario and Canada)

Trudeau's Liberals Behaving Badly On the Day Obama Kills Keystone

On the day that U.S. President Obama nixes the Keystone XL pipeline because of concerns related to climate change, Canada's new Liberal government is falling all over itself to tell Canadians that we'll still be pursuing new pipelines. Prime Minister Trudeau is "disappointed" with the U.S. decision (see: "Justin Trudeau 'disappointed' with U.S. Keystone rejection," CBC, November 6, 2015). Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion insists that Canada "has no choice" but to develop the tarsands (see: "Keystone XL rejection proves need for sustainable oilsands development: Dion," the Canadian Press, November 6, 2015).

What should be coming increasingly clear now is that the Liberals reallyhave no plan or credibility when it comes to climate change. This talk of "sustainability" is clearly greenwashing - they don't understand the meaning of the word. Stephane Dion of all people should know very well that the tarsands cannot be developed sustainably.

Environmental groups praised Obama's decision today.  Of course it was the right one to make, but some of those very same environmental groups urged Canadians to vote for the Liberals in the recent election - or embraced strategic voting initiatives which accomplished the same result.  These environmental groups need to take a look at themselves today and ask whether their focus on getting rid of Harper was worth installing a Liberal majority government in his place.  

Canada will now waste more time, money and energy pursuing fossil infrastructure thanks to Trudeau and his kinder, gentler Liberal government.  Environmental groups that helped elect Trudeau will find themselves on the frontlines opposing his policies. And those pipelines? They're not going to get built - which is the good news - but we are all going to waste our energy, our own scarce personal resources, opposing our new Liberal's government bid to get dirty oil to tidewater and expand the tarsands enterprise.

I had hopes that maybe Mr. Dion would bring some sanity to a Trudeau-led cabinet.  I have those hopes no more - that sure didn't take long.  To insist that Canada doesn't have a choice as to whether we expand the tarsands is just so offside and unrealistic - I'm not sure what more there is to say about it.

Mr. Dion, Canada does have a choice - and it's one that we must make, and I'd argue we'd be better off making it sooner rather than later. It's time to begin phasing out fossil infrastructure. Building new pipelines to facilitate the growth of the tarsands isn't the answer. We have a choice - we can stop making stupid, wasteful choices, and start making smart ones.

Maybe we'll have to wait four more years for real action on climate change.  How long can this go on?

(opinions expressed in this blog are my own and should not be interpreted as being consistent with those of the Green Parties of Ontario or Canada)

The Incredible Shrinking Road: Staff Pulls a Fast One on Council with Shorter Maley Drive

It’s been a big week in Greater Sudbury for Maley Drive watchers like me.  Back in September, our municipal Council asked staff if it could review certain documentation which had previously been brought forward to past Councils which those Councils then used to support prioritizing the Maley Extension as the #1 roads project in the City.  Council also asked for a Cost / Benefit analysis of the project.

On Tuesday night, a 57-page documents package was tabled for Council’s review.  This 57-page included a new (October 29 2015) Cost/Benefit Report prepared by economists working for the Engineering/Design firm AECOM (see: “Request for Recommendation – Maley Drive Extension and Widening Project,” City of Greater Sudbury, November 3, 2015). Along with concluding that the monetized benefits of Maley would outweigh the capital costs based on AECOM’s analysis (which I provided some initial thoughts on here – see: “Some Initial Observations on the New Cost / Benefit Analysis for the Maley Drive Extension,” Sudbury Steve May, November 3, 2015), there were a few unexpected alligators wading around in the weeds – including a further phasing of the project.

Today, the Sudbury Star is reporting that Mayor Brian Bigger was “not aware of phase two” and that “he admitted ‘there may be completion to a different length of road construction that would add up to more dollars’" as well as supplemental elements that could drive up the price tag.” (see: "Maley project feasible: Report," the Sudbury Star, November 5, 2015).

In other words, City engineers have cut back on the scale of the project while nobody was looking.

A Brief History of Maley Drive - Scope and Funding

In a blog of mine from earlier this year (see: “Taking a Closer Look at Maley Drive, Part 1: Costs,” Sudbury Steve May, April  21, 2015), one of the things I looked at was how the scale of this project has shrunk in size over time, as costs have risen.

Maley Drive - the 2009 Version

Back in 2009, the City uploaded a pretty cool video of the Maley Ring Road project to YouTube.   At that time, a four-laned Maley Drive was planned to link MR 35 (Elm Street) in the west to the intersection of the Kingsway / Highway 17 in the east.  However, it was understood that the eastern portion of the ring road – that part from Falconbridge road looping southeast to the Highway 17 by-pass – just wasn’t feasible at present.  Instead, funding applications were applied for to senior levels of government only for that portion of Maley between MR 35 and Falconbridge.

Also in 2009, in a report dated April 23 2009, prepared by Greg Clausen, General Manager of Infrastructure Services, Council was urged to submit the Maley Drive Extension project to the federal Building Canada Fund.  Successful applications under Building Canada would see costs shared between federal/provincial/municipal governments at a rate of 1/3 each.  Total project costs weren’t identified in this report, but the report indicated that the City would be on the hook for $41 million in total – which includes the City’s 1/3 share along with other “ineligible” costs.

Maley in 2011 - Starting to Bloat

On January 12, 2011, Council reconfirmed its commitment to Maley Drive after reviewing a report dated January 6, 2011, prepared by Robert Falcioni, Director of Roads and Transportation Services.  In that report, we discover that the total 2009 costs for Maley Drive were estimated to be $115.  What’s not clear is whether this amount also included “ineligible costs”.  There is no reference to the amount the City applied for through Building Canada.

Maley in 2012 - 3-Part Construction

Fast forward to August 2012.  In a resolution of Council numbered CC2012-289, our previous Council reaffirmed its commitment to Maley, and resolved “THAT the Mayor and staff continue to pursue senior levels of government for funding to support the entire project and staff prepare additional applications for phased funding.”

What was the “entire” project in August 2012?  Resolution CC2012-289 refers to a report (also included in the previously linked 57-page documents package) dated August 8, 2012, prepared by David Shelsted, Director of Roads and Transportation Services.  This August 8th report outlined a project costing $129 million, whose scale consisted of a 4-lane road from MR 35 in the west to Falconbridge Road in the east.  That report also identified that the City had been committing funding for the Maley project from the Capital Roads budget since 2008 for its anticipated 1/3 municipal share.  At this time, the project was broken down into 3 parts.  Part 1 – between MR 35 and Lasalle - $13 million.  Part 2 – between Lasalle and Barrydowne - $54 million. Part 3 – from Barrydowne to Falconbridge - $26 million.  Together, these 3 parts totalled $93 million.  An additional $36 million was set aside for property acquisitions, utility modification/relocation and engineering & design.  Total price tag: $129 million.

The report indicated that costs had increased by $15 million since 2009 – but it doesn’t say anything about “ineligible costs”.

Figuring Out What Building Canada Will Fund

The 57-page document bundle tabled to our current Council earlier this week doesn’t include a copy of the application made to Building Canada back in 2009 – but we might be able to deduce that total eligible costs were $80.1 million, based on the provincial commitment to fund its 1/3 share - $26.7 million (see: “Province vows to ‘fulfil’ Maley funding promise,” the Northern Life, December 2, 2014).

Let’s do some quick math.  If total eligible costs were $80.1 million in 2009, and the total project costs were $115, that means that “ineligible costs” would have been $34.9 million – call it $40 million.  In 2009.  What might have those “ineligible costs” have been?  Initially, I thought maybe they would have been those additional costs identified in the 2012 report – the $36 million for property acquisitions, utility modification/relocation and engineering & design.  The numbers are close – so maybe that’s what they were for.

A lot of those costs would have to do with challenges related to existing infrastructure along Maley between Lansing and Falconbridge, where a rail crossing would need to be upgraded, and where electrical transmission lines and other utilities may need to be relocated.  Interestingly, that’s one of the areas now that is being left out of the current Phase 1 project.

$50 Million in Unfunded Costs

It’s reported in the Sudbury Star today that Phase 2 (from MR 35 to College Boreal, and from Lansing to Falconbridge), “is expected to cost at least $50 million, but David Shelsted, the city's roads director, said earlier this year completion of the project could cost millions more.”

Whoa.  Hold on a second there.  I think it’s fair to say that Greater Sudburians, including our Councils – current and past going back to the one headed by former Mayor John Rodriguez – have been under the impression that the City would be on the hook for just slightly more than our 1/3 share of the funding.  Back in 2009 at the time of the Building Canada application, total costs to the City were estimated to be just $41 million – or about $14.3 million more than our 1/3 costs.  And that was for a project which ran between MR 35 and Falconbridge.

Maley Drive Dismembered

And now?  Well, for the same project between MR 35 and Falconbridge, now split into 2 phases, it looks like the City will be on the hook for our 1/3 share of the Building Canada funding - $26.7 million for Phase 1– PLUS an additional $50 million (or more) for Phase 2.

This doesn’t look to me like what the City has signed up for – or what our previous Councils signed on to.  What we’re going to get out of Building Canada is a much smaller project – one which will see Maley extended between Lasalle at College Boreal to Barrydowne, and widened between Barrydowne and somewhere just east of Lansing.  At the east and west ends, traffic will merge into one-lane roads.  That wasn’t a part of the original plan.  At no time in the past has such a stunted plan been considered by Council.

No recommendation has yet been prepared for our current Council’s consideration regarding this stunted Maley Drive project, but certainly the AECOM Cost / Benefit report includes a recommendation that Greater Sudbury pursue the Phase 1 initiative.  I expect that Council will be asked in the near future to endorse this scaled-back roads project.

The Environmental Assessment - Still Relevant to a Stunted Project?

Council should be very careful how it proceeds.  The Sudbury Star also reports today that the approval of the 2006 Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Maley project runs out in 2016, so construction has to begin within the next year.  Here’s the problem with that: no doubt the 2006 EA contemplated a more, shall we say, “robust” vision for Maley – and not the stunted stub that we’ll be getting for our money now.  Given that the scale of the project has been significantly altered, does that 2006 EA still have any relevance?  The assumptions under which it was prepared are not the same as those of the current project.  Council ought to take a very close look at the EA and assure itself that the approval remains a good fit.

It’s not just that the ends are being cut off of the project, but certain transportation infrastructure – including roundabouts at Montrose, Barrydowne and Lansing, are being removed from Phase 1.  In the currently unfunded Phase 2, the City will go back to those three intersections, tear up what they had previously laid down, and re-engineer them with roundabouts.  I understand that if this never happened, it would please a large part of the community – but keep in mind that those roundabouts were being considered for environmental reasons, and to relieve congestion.  If you take them out of the project (as is being done), you’ve changed the underlying EA assumptions.

Council: Proceed With Caution - Or Don't Proceed

Ultimately, what is clear is that our Council is going to now be asked to endorse a Maley Drive extension project which was not the same as that which went through the environmental assessment process, the Building Canada application process, and which received support from two previous Councils.  Council is going to be asked to approve something new – something smaller and less robust than what has been contemplated at least since 2006.  It’s something which will not meet the current expectations of Greater Sudburians, and may not meet the expectations of senior levels of government who were asked to foot the bill for a more complete project.  It may not meet the regulatory tests of the Environmental Assessment Act under which a larger project received approval.

Even those in favour of building Maley Drive (of which I do not count myself) ought to urging our Council to proceed here with caution given all of the above.  Council could easily find itself in legal hot water with regulators, and in a political mess with project funders and voters.

All for a roads project which – in my opinion – we don’t need and can’t afford, for development which isn’t expected.

(opinions expressed in this blog are my own and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views and/or policies of the Green Parties of Ontario and Canada)

Some Initial Observations on the New Cost / Benefit Analysis for the Maley Drive Extension

A new report was tabled at Greater Sudbury Council tonight - an economic cost/benefit analysis for the Maley Drive Extension, prepared by AECOM.  The report looks at the costs (capital & maintenance) of the project, and compares them to the economic value of certain benefits.  On first glance, the report appears to be incredibly selective in what it identifies as a "cost" and as a "benefit".  I'm sure I'll undertake a more thorough analysis at some point in the near future, but I wanted to jot down my initial thoughts about this report.

First, let me say this about the scope of the project - it looks like the Phase 1 Maley Drive Extension is shrinking again!  According to this report, for $80 million, the new road project will run between Lasalle Blvd. near College Boreal in the west to just east of Lansing - and not all the way over to Falconbridge Road.  Likely the project has shrunk again in order to avoid the rail line / electrical transmission issue east of the Lansing intersection.  Greater Sudburians should know what it is that we're going to get for our money - and it seems to me that with ever new bit of information, the project just keeps getting smaller (see: "Taking a Closer Look at Maley Drive, Part 1: Costs", Sudbury Steve May, April 21, 2015).

Costs

For AECOM, there are only two costs associated with this project: the $80 million capital cost to build Phase 1, which is to be completed in 2019, and the $170,000 annual winter road maintenance costs.  The lifetime of the project is identified as 30 years (which seems very low, given the length of time that other roads have been around).  There is a one-time cost of $75,000 for crack sealing, which will be expensed in 2025.

There is no mention of risks that the costs for Phase 1 might actually be higher, thanks to inflation or whatever it is that seems to drive up the price of road projects over time.  Further, the assumption that the project will be completed in 2019 seems incredibly optimistic, given that the City won't have its 1/3 share of the capital costs available until 2021 at current rates (with $10.5 million in the bank in 2014, and just $2.3 million being added each year through development charges, unless the City chooses to raid the reserves to finance this project, our $26.7 million won't be available until 2021, two years after the AECOM estimates the project will be completed).

There is no mention of lost opportunity costs for other transportation projects, and I think this is a huge hole in the report.  Even if only the City's 1/3 share was to be made available for other projects, such as transit or the Notre Dame road widening, what sorts of benefits might the City achieve, and how do those benefits compare to those identified here for Maley?  Looking at Maley in isolation just isn't acceptable - a real cost/benefit analysis has to consider alternatives.  Certainly a Ministry of Environment and Climate Change mandated environmental assessment process requires an assessment of project alternatives - why hasn't this cost/benefit analysis considered them as well?

AECOM is clear in the preface to the report that its scope was dependent on direction given to it from the City.  So if the opportunity costs from viable alternatives haven't been figured into the equation, it's likely because AECOM was never asked to look at them.  Again, that's just not acceptable when we're talking about a major piece of infrastructure with $80 million worth of capital costs.

About Those Benefits

AECOM looked at a number of benefits, 3 of which it was able to monetize.  The first has to do with a savings in Vehicle Hours Travelled (VHT); the second has to do with the operating costs which vehicles can expect to save as a result of fewer hours spent in travel; the third has to do with the amount of greenhouse gas emissions which can be saved by vehicles spending less time on the road.  Let's look at each of these quickly.

AECOM used traffic modelling based on growth assumptions, likely from the Transportation Master Plan which is still under review.  Let's assume that these models are fine - I'm certainly not in a position to question them, not being a traffic engineer.  The draft TMP is at least based on a realistic growth projection of around 10,000 people over 20 years, so there's that.

Time is Money

AECOM estimates that at peak hours, 457 vehicle hours of travel will be saved.  What, exactly, does that mean?  It looks like that if there were 457 vehicles on the road during the peak hour, they'd each save 1 hour's worth of travel time thanks to Maley.  914 vehicles would save a half hour.  1,828 vehicles would save 15 minutes.

Now, I'm not sure exactly how many vehicles are actually on the City's roads during peak hours, but let's assume it's 15,000 (which is likely low for a City with a total population of over 165,000).  How much would each vehicle save in terms of travel time thanks to Maley?  That's about 1 minute and 40 seconds during peak hours.  Less than two minutes, anyway.

Well, whatever it is, the amount isn't negligible, and according to AECOM, it can be monetized over a year.  AECOM estimates that one hour of travel time is worth $16 for each personal vehicle and $75 for cars.  They've got a methodology to justify this, so again, let's take AECOM's numbers as given.

AECOM estimates a total annual benefit of $11.1 million per year in terms of time saved.  But time saved for whom?  Well, some of that will be time saved for the trucking industry (almost $4 million annually).  The rest will be those few minutes a day saved by the travelling public - or at least, that portion of the travelling public which uses personal automobiles (remember: the draft TMP doesn't look at modal splits for transit/alternative transportation, such as cycling, walking.  It just counts cars).

A couple of minutes a day for car users works out to over $7 million a year at $16 an hour.  But how much of that will individuals really save?

AECOM acknowledges that their report doesn't build in any assumptions with regards to changes in modal split (likely because the TMP doesn't either) between now and 2048 - and again, that's just not realistic, given what we know about the downward trend of car ownership.  Modal split for transit in this community has nearly doubled since data for the first TMP was collected in 2003 - there's no good reason to presume that there won't be additional changes over the next 30+ years.

Vehicle Operating Savings

Next, the report looks at how much vehicle operators can save based on reduced time on the road.  Wear and tear is minimized when cars are parked safely in driveways rather than when they're idling in traffic - so clearly there can be real savings from those 457 less hours on the road at peak times.  AECOM estimates the operating savings for motorists to be $1.15 million for cars and an additional $360,000 for trucks - not huge, but not negligible.  Divided by the total number of drivers (let's again use 15,000 for the sake or argument), that's almost $77 a year, or about 32 cents a business day.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

This one is of personal interest to me. AECOM estimates a savings of $218,000 per year.  It arrives at that figure by estimating fuel savings, and identifying how much carbon pollution would be saved as a result of fewer kilometers being traveled.

Finally, it put a price on carbon pollution.  This is where it gets really interesting.  AECOM estimates a price on carbon of $88.5 per metric tonne.  If  you're not familiar with carbon pricing, let me put that figure into perspective.  Right now in British Columbia, after 7 years of a rising carbon tax, the per tonne price of carbon pollution is just $30 per tonne.  In the recent federal election, the Green Party of Canada had the most aggressive carbon pricing scheme of any federal party - it wanted to see a per tonne price of $30 per tonne.

It is true that most economists believe that the price of carbon should rise to around $200 per tonne by 2030 if we are going to hold global warming at 2 degrees Celsius.  That's considerably higher than the per tonne price AECOM uses for a period much shorter than the 30-year life of Maley Drive.  But is it realistic?  As somebody concerned about the climate crisis, I certainly hope that it may be, but here's the kicker; if carbon is priced at $88.5 per tonne or $200 per tonne, when does that price start to have an impact on lifestyle choices - like driving personal vehicles?

Let's do some quick math here.  Wikipedia tells me that B.C.'s $30 per tonne carbon tax adds 7.2 cents per litre at the pumps (see: "British Columbia carbon tax," Wikipedia), so a carbon price of $88.5 per tonne represents about an additional per Litre charge on gasoline of about 20.5 cents.  Would that additional cost be enough to incent some drivers to leave their cars at home in favour of other modes of transportation?

Not according to the AECOM study, anyway - it assumes a constant number of drivers over time.

Economic Activity and Safety

AECOM indicates that the intent of the Maley Drive Extension is to "alleviate traffic congestion and promote economic activity while improving safety."  And yet AECOM's own cost/benefit analysis looked only at one of these factors: traffic congestion.  The costs and benefits of economic activity and safety are unknown, unassessed.  A lot of those potential costs would be opportunity costs for unimplemented projects which might generate more economic activity (think here how bike lanes and walkability increase economic activity along cycling/pedestrian routes) and safety (slowing traffic with congestion rather than increasing its rate of flow - there is a direct correlation between a higher incidence of dangerous collisions and speed - if safety is the issue, Maley isn't going to help, according to AECOM's analysis).

Oh, and a quick word about congestion - traffic models throughout North America continue to under compensate for congestion.  When new roads get built, they generally lead to higher levels of congestion.  I'm not a traffic engineer, but there is a great deal of work which looks at this activity - whether Greater Sudbury might be unique among North American cities which buck this trend, I just can't say - but we do have a lot of roads here already, and people seem to complain about congestion.  Does that mean that we don't have enough roads, or that we've made it so that if you want to get around, you've got little choice but to drive?  With that in mind, how will Maley really help ease congestion?

Analysis

The most significant problem with AECOM's Cost/Benefit analysis of a shrunken Maley Drive Extension is the lack of assessment related to alternatives.  Using AECOM's approach, I suspect that the addition of any new road infrastructure would likely reveal a net benefit due to lower vehicle hours traveled versus capital costs (unless those capital costs were incredibly high due to site-related issues, that is - things like rail lines or electrical transmission lines being in the way - but I digress).

For a similar investment in, say, the Barrydowne Extension, would there be a larger net benefit identified?  Barrydowne's costs might be a little higher than Maley (but then again, maybe not, as Maley's costs/scope keeps changing) - but if we're going to blow $80 to $100 million on a new road, let's make sure we can get the biggest bang for our bucks.  Maybe that's Barrydowne.  Maybe it's widening MR 35, or MR 80.  Both of those are identified in the draft Transportation Master Plan as municipal priorities - where is the cost/benefit analysis for these (and other) road projects which we can compare this one to?

Further, what about investing in transit or cycling and pedestrian infrastructure?  Seems to me that this sort of cost/benefit analysis would almost be impossible to undertake if one was interested in evaluating those alternatives, mainly because data for these types of trips haven't been entered into Greater Sudbury's transportation models, which only look at cars.

Oh, and about those cars; let's be clear here - besides the benefits from a reduction to greenhouse gas emissions, the net benefits to Greater Sudbury are primarily accrued by motorized vehicle owners/operators - cars & trucks.  The Sustainability Master Plan identified that 1/3 of Greater Sudburians don't have access to personal vehicles when it comes to making travel choices.  That means 1/3 of the traveling population won't receive any benefit from Maley at all - or at least none that was assessed by AECOM.  So only a certain segment of the population will receive these direct benefits.

The costs, however, will be borne by taxpayers, who receive no benefit whatsoever.  Unless they own vehicles, of course.  Vehicles which travel at peak hours.  As an example, my family owns one vehicle, but it's not usually traveling during rush hour.  We're a family of 5 - we'll get no benefit from Maley, but our property taxes will nevertheless be used to maintain this new road.

The study didn't look at other ways of maximizing benefits, either - such as the imposition of road pricing through tolls or HOT lanes (which might be difficult to implement given that Maley is intended to be a two-lane road).  Sure, right now, municipalities don't have the ability to levy tolls.  But there may be other ways to leverage funds - certainly the 2005 Master Transportation Plan indicated that the City should explore financing options for Maley from those who will benefit most, presumably the trucking industry.  Looks to me like none of those options were explored - or if they were, they've been left out of the benefits column because they've all failed.

When the Benefits Outweigh the Costs...

AECOM concludes that since their analysis shows that the benefits of Maley outweigh the costs, there's no good reason not to pay the price and build the road.  But AECOM failed to look at the costs/benefits of building this road versus legitimate transportation infrastructure alternatives, some of which are roads projects which have been prioritized for the City almost as long as Maley.  An assessment which fails to look at alternatives is, frankly, not very useful.  It provides a single snapshot, rather than looking at the big picture - something which I thought transportation engineers were supposed to do.

Further, since the primary beneficiaries will be vehicle owners/operators, and the costs borne by property taxpayers, developers and federal & provincial taxpayers, it seems that it's quite premature to conclude that the net benefits will accrue to "Greater Sudburians" - which AECOM does.  Again, the opportunity costs of assessing alternatives would have been valuable in looking at whether Maley makes sense.

If this were the only piece of infrastructure that Greater Sudbury could build, AECOM makes a decent, if somewhat flawed case, of the economic value of costs vs. benefits.  But we have options in our community - and those options might prove to be better alternatives than Maley.  Our problem is that we've not looked at the costs and benefits of those other options, so we really have no idea whether Maley makes any sense at all in comparison.

AECOM paints a nice picture, but it's hardly a reflection of reality.

(opinions expressed in this blog are my own and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views and/or policies of the Green Parties of Ontario and Canada)

2015 Election Aftermath: Hard Lessons for Greens

Last Monday’s election results were a disaster for the Green Party of Canada.  Not only did the Green Party lose seats (2 incumbents at dissolution with only 1 returned), but our share of the popular vote continued its downward trend from a high of 6.8% in 2008 to 3.9% in 2011 to 3.5% in 2015.  Although some Greens are trying to spin a modest success story from the election by pointing out that party leader Elizabeth May was returned by a healthy margin in Saanich-Gulf Islands (54%), and that the Party’s total vote share increased by almost 30,000 votes over 2011 (thanks to a higher voter turnout in 2015 – which some Greens are also trying to take credit for), there’s really little good to say about what last Monday’s results really mean for the Party.

Let me tell you in no uncertain terms: what happened last week was very bad news for the Party.  We were wiped out.  Out of 338 contests, we finished in first in one, and in 2nd in one other.  We had a few third place finishes, but in those we were mostly well back, percentage wise..  Even in many of the ridings that we ourselves thought we had a chance in (and poured money and volunteers into), we finished 4th.

These results need to be a strong wake-up call to the Party.  What we are doing is clearly not resonating with voters.

Liberal Tide

I understand that there are many who subscribe to the belief that the Green Party, like the NDP, were largely swept aside by a Liberal tide.  Voters were looking for a strategic option to replace Stephen Harper, and a many turned to the Liberals under leader Justin Trudeau.  The NDP lost 51 seats, including seats held by Deputy Leader Megan Leslie (Halifax) and other prominent MPs like Peggy Nash, Paul Dewar, Pat Martin and Peter Stoffer.

I saw the Liberal tide wash away popular local New Democrat Claude Gravelle here in the Nickel Belt – it should have been a safe riding for the NDP.  Thomas Mulcair barely visited Northern Ontario at all, likely because the polls were all telling him that New Democrats would hold their seats in the region.  It didn’t work out that way for the NDP – and it didn’t work at all for the Greens.

Modest Green Election Strategy

Unlike the NDP, the Green Party had more modest goals to achieve in this election.  With only limited financial resources to spend on a national campaign, the Green Party had to be strategic in selecting which ridings to put in play.  When asked by the media what “success” would be defined as for Greens, Elizabeth May was originally on record suggesting that maybe 15 seats would be a success.  That number continued to trend downward throughout the election.

Our party’s strategy was a good one, in my opinion.  While I wasn’t plugged in to the national campaign, I did help local Greens here in Sudbury and Nickel Belt with their campaigns.  Although I was not a part of the national campaign,  it’s fairly easy to see where our Party was concentrating its resources (and when the financials are filed, it will be even that much easier to determine).

With only limited resources at our disposal, our leader could only visit so many ridings.  The National Post has maps of all of the Party leaders campaign trail visits (see: "Follow the Leaders," the National Post), and in comparison to the 3 old line parties, May’s travel plans were very modest. Since leaders are likely to mostly visit the ridings they are looking to win, we can put together a pretty good list of those ridings which the Green Party had identified as “to win” ridings.

"To Win" Ridings

Clearly, all of Vancouver Island was in play for the Party.  Vancouver Island includes 7 ridings, one of which was held by the Party at dissolution (Saanich-Gulf Islands).  Redistribution shook up the boundaries of Island ridings, leaving 2 of 7 ridings open.  North Island-Powell River (where Conservative Laura Smith was in the running), Courtenay-Alberni (where Conservative John Duncan ran), Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke (held by the NDP’s Randall Garrison) and Victoria (held by the NDP’s Murray Rankin. In a by-election in Victoria in 2012 when Rankin was elected, Greens came within 3 percentage points of winning there) all fielded incumbents from at least a portion of earlier ridings.

On the mainland of B.C., Greens were focusing efforts on a few Vancouver-area ridings, including the open ridings of Vancouver East (where long-term NDP MP Libby Davis had stepped down) and  Burnaby North-Seymour (a newly created riding), along with North Vancouver (held by Conservative Andrew Saxton), and West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country (held by Conservative John Weston).

In Ontario, Greens tried to defend the Northern Ontario riding of Thunder Bay-Superior North, held by Deputy Party Leader, Bruce Hyer.  Hyer had been elected in 2011 under the NDP banner, but ended up leaving that party in 2012 to sit as an independent in the nether regions of the lower chamber (beside Elizabeth May).  In late 2013, he joined the Green Party.

Guelph was also targeted by the Greens, with former Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller carrying the flag.  Interestingly, Miller’s connection to the community of Guelph was not all that firm – in many respects, he was a candidate parachuting into a “winnable” Ontario riding.

Deputy Leader Daniel Green’s Montreal-area riding of Ville Marie-Le Sud-Ouest-Iles des Sœurs also appears to have been in play, if only marginally.  And further east, the Fredericton riding in New Brunswick and the Charlottetown riding in PEI were also marginally in play, after provincial Greens David Coon and Peter Bevan-Baker managed to get themselves elected recently in similar geographies.

Crash and Burn

These 16 ridings (along with maybe Vancouver Centre, the riding in which former Deputy Party Leader Adriane Carr used to run) represented the best and brightest hopes for the future of the Green Party in 2015.  We fielded star candidates (and former CBC on-air personalities) Jo-Ann Roberts and Claire Martin to run in Victoria and North Vancouver.  Simon Fraser University professor and arrested Burnaby Mountain pipeline protester Lynne Quarmby ran for us in Burnaby-North Seymour.  These 3 candidates, along with May, Miller and Green, gave the party a certain small degree of star power in 2015 that, for the most part, the party lacked in previous elections.

(Note: Information about these ridings, along with 2015 election results, appear at the bottom of this post)

Despite having a modest, workable election strategy to contest to-win ridings, and despite having some modest star candidates and two incumbents (three, if you count Jose Nunez-Melo, who joined the Party after dissolution – and I don’t count him), the Green Party crashed and burned on Monday, October the 19th, with but 1 Green MP elected: our leader, Elizabeth May.

And going forward – unless something beyond our control is to give – it looks to me like we’re going to face considerable hardship in the next general election as well. Here’s why.

Progressive Competition

Throughout this election, the Green Party came under fire from the NDP (especially in the west) for essentially having the audacity to challenge New Democrats in “their” ridings.  This notion of riding ownership is a peculiar one, in my opinion.  But the NDP seems to think very highly of it – especially since one of their rallying points in the election was “35 more” – a reference to the seats that the NDP thought they needed to win in order to form government. Of course, when you add 35 to zero – which was the number of NDP ridings they held throughout the election campaign, you get just 35.  Clearly, the NDP were also counting the 95 ridings they held at the time of dissolution, believing (wrongly, considerably wrongly, as it turns out) that they would hold all of these ridings.

Nevertheless, the NDP’s message about the Green Party clearly resonated with the electorate on the west coast.  New Democrats, never ones to let facts get in the way of their spin, were actually only facing real competition from the Green Party in two ridings where their incumbents were running (Victoria & Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke; although the NDP might also have felt that the open riding of Vancouver East was also “theirs” given Libby Davis’ retirement).  In all other non-Green held “to win” ridings, Greens were facing off against Conservative or Liberal incumbents, or the ridings were open.

New Democrats claimed that a Green vote was either a wasted vote, because Greens weren’t going to form government, or a vote for the Conservatives, because it split the progressive vote. Environmental groups and others (including strategic voting advocates) eventually bought into this narrative, and voters were being urged to vote for the NDP or the Liberals in west coast ridings (the NDP on Vancouver Island –except for Elizabeth May; and a mix of NDP/Liberals in the Vancouver metro area), rather than for the Greens.  Voters followed up by electing just one Green MP – Elizabeth May.

Clearly, this narrative was a powerful one, and it’s one that the Green Party is going to face in 2019 as well.  Only in 2019, more than 2 ridings are likely to be held by NDP incumbents.

"Fortress" Vancouver Island

Prior to the election, Green Party members were hearing about something called, “Fortress Vancouver Island”.  Apparently, the Party had done some polling throughout the Island which pointed to the Greens having a decent shot at electing MP’s in every riding (some, like Victoria, were better positioned than others - but all were "in play").  With a power base in Saanich-Gulf Islands and a party leader readily on hand to campaign throughout the Island, everything about the idea of a Green Fortress on Vancouver Island made sense.

What the 2015 election showed was the following: After all the votes were counted, Vancouver Island can appropriately be compared to a "fortress" of Green support.  Some of our best results of the election were on the Island, and voter turnout on the Island was higher than the Canadian average (you may have heard that when Greens do well, voter turnout increases - while that's happened in certain ridings, it's not actually a universal truth. Look no further than the two 2012 by-elections in Victoria and Calgary Centre).  Clearly, we had picked a winner with our Fortress Vancouver Island strategy.

Vancouver Island proved to be the most hopeful geography for Green supporters in the entire nation.

And yet we still failed to elect any additional MP’s beyond Elizabeth May.  Outside of Saanich-Gulf Islands, the NDP swept the other 6 ridings – a feat which they accomplished despite the national trend of seeing New Democrats going down in defeat elsewhere.  A near-sweep of Vancouver Island was one of the few election-night highlights for the New Democrats.

Going forward in 2019, Greens will face strong, progressive incumbents throughout the one region of Canada where we have a higher level of support than average.

Favourable Circumstances

Similarly, on the mainland, the Liberals swept away Green hopes in the Vancouver area ridings we had targeted to win.  The same results occurred in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.  In 2019, our 2015 “to win” ridings – those ridings we had identified as areas of strength for the party – will be held by Liberal incumbents, some of whom may end up in cabinet.

I understand that a lot can change in 4 years.  But Greens ought to keep in mind that the circumstances in 2019 are likely to be less favorable for a Green breakthrough than they were in 2015.  In 2015, Canada had an unpopular Conservative government with an even more unpopular leader.  The NDP were certainly strong in the beginning of the election campaign, and that likely did hold Greens back to an extent, but once the NDP’s support started to collapse, the Green Party might have capitalized on that collapse in some of our “to win” ridings, like those on Vancouver Island (and Burnaby-North Seymour, where a strong New Democrat was running, and to a lesser extent, Thunder Bay-Superior North, which the NDP had taken in 2011).  As for the Liberals, one might think that there are enough differences between the Liberals and the Green Party in the minds of voters that at least some of the anti-Harper sentiment that the NDP lost in the latter weeks of the campaign might have ended up with us.

But none of that happened.  Poll after poll continued to show that the Green Party was out of the race.  If anything, our support actually declined during the last two weeks of the campaign, and we finished with the lowest level of support that we’ve had since pre-2006.

Campaign Challenges

It’s certainly true that Greens faced significant challenges in getting our message out during the campaign.  At the very outset, voters were once again told not to take the Party seriously by those organizations holding leader's debates.  The fact that Elizabeth May was only in 1 of the English-language debates (and the very first one, held at a time that few voters were paying much attention) really did hurt the Party’s credibility.  As a result, the media coverage that we had hoped for never materialized. National media organizations (and especially the CBC) ignored our Party – failing in many circumstances even to acknowledge that Greens existed in much of their election coverage.

The polling companies followed up with polls that showed Green support was not growing, and a vicious circle was created.  Voters were ultimately offered little in the way of reason to vote for Greens – and that allowed the NDP’s strategic voting narrative to resonate with voters in many of our “to win” ridings (and especially those on Vancouver Island).  Eventually, even those like-minded organizations who support environmental progress, are against pipelines, and who are demanding action on climate change either refused to endorse the Green Party (think here about the Leap Manifesto people) or told their members and supporters to vote for other parties (think here about anti-Kinder Morgan group Forces of Nature - see: "Kinder Morgan pipeline protesters back NDP and Liberals over Greens," CBC, October 14, 2015).

Look, we knew that a number of things had to break our way in 2015 if we were going to experience even the modest successes that we were hoping we might.  We were at risk of being squeezed out by an NDP in Official Opposition and a third party led by a charismatic young leader.  We knew the challenges, and anticipated some of the curveballs that might be thrown at us.

Debates and Media Coverage

Our first order of business was to get Elizabeth May into the debates – something we almost achieved until Stephen Harper and Tom Mulcair opted out of the Broadcast Consortium’s debates, which ultimately killed the nationally televised debates..  Being in the debate would have garnered us more mainstream media attention – both before and (especially) after the debates.  It was critical that May be seen to perform well on a national stage, so that the media could continue to speak well of her performance.  In this election, the national stage never materialized - and the smaller, off-broadway debate productions mostly opted to exclude her.

The second order of business would be moot if we didn’t accomplish getting our leader in the debates.  Getting the message out that a vote for a Green MP was a safe, progressive anti-Harper vote just didn’t matter if voters didn’t believe that Greens were electable in the first place.  That we had star candidates in Roberts, Martin, Quarmby and Miller – that didn’t matter.  That our policies were at least as good or better on important issues just didn’t matter.  That we had the best leader in the race – didn’t matter.  Voters were told that voting for the Green Party was a wasted vote. This was proved correct, as every single vote for a Green candidate outside of Saanich-Gulf Islands DID NOT MATTER.

Looking Ahead to 2019 - Wild Cards

Will these challenges be any different in 2015?  There’s a chance they might be.  It is within the realm of possibility to think that there may be a concerted effort made to establish some integrity and actual rules around the broadcast leader’s debate process.  If Green members and supporters want to take up any task over the next four years, this is one that we ought to focus on. Let's ensure that a real process for the debates is established – one that provides us with some certainty that our party leader has a presence as of right at all of the debates.

A bigger wild card, of course, is whether Justin Trudeau and his Liberals follow through on their commitment to change our electoral system.  I think that they will – but I also think that they’ll do it in such a way that won’t benefit the Green Party.  Trudeau is already on record as favouring a ranked ballot process over more comprehensive reforms which move us toward some form of proportional representation.  Ranked ballots will not help elect Greens.  Instead, the old three parties will simply tell their voters to preference one another in order to shut Greens out of the running.  Although these decisions regarding preferences are ultimately left to individual voters, the mainstream media narrative will again be “the Green Party just isn’t serious. Even a second place preference for a Green candidate will be a wasted vote”.  It will become another self-fulfilling prophecy.

If the Liberals, however, do bring in some sort of proportional representation, that will be a game-changer – and it will benefit our Party significantly.  Along with advocating for rules to leader’s debates, Greens ought to get involved in whatever grassroots initiatives spring up which advocate PR. Trudeau is going to be lobbied hard by right-wing anti-democracy extremists to abandon needed electoral reforms.  It's already happening (see: "Tasha Kheiriddin: Why proportional representation will be bad for Conservatives," the National Post, October 28, 2015).  Canadians should be prepared to be bombarded by illy, counter-factual arguments against PR in our media - arguments like "PR is less democratic" and "PR is radical" or "PR leads to a lack of national vision".  In this hostile environment, will Trudeau ever seriously entertain real reforms to our anti-democratic system?

Unfortunately, I just can’t see the Liberals opting for PR over a ranked ballot.  There's too much risk - for the Liberal Party.  I've not given up hope on Justin Trudeau yet.  But I still don't think it's likely to happen.

The Green Party - Next Steps

Where then do we go from here?

Short answer: Right now, nowhere.  Let’s let Elizabeth May get through Paris, and then let’s let the rest of us get through Christmas before we do much of anything.  Although some (not many - and the most vocal aren't Greens. see: "It's time for Elizabeth May to go," Maclean's, October 27, 2015) are calling for May to step down as leader, I think we all know that if she were to do so right now or in early 2016, that would be a death-blow to our party.  We don’t have a “leader in waiting”, and a leadership contest after our dismal 5th place/1 MP finish isn’t going to generate much in the way of media interest for the Party.  Unless some hugely impressive leadership candidate crawls out of the woodwork (like a David Suzuki or a, well, I don’t know who else), for the sake of the Party’s health, May better not step down.

It may be in all of our collective interests to do a little more wait-and-seeing, too – to wait and see what form of electoral reform the Liberals adopt.  Trudeau’s plan is to have something in place in 18 months.  That’s a good timeline for us (although even sooner would be better).  If proportional representation is on the table, well, it’s game on for the Greens in 2019.  But anything other than some form of proportional representation should cause our Party significant consternation – and in those circumstances, I think we should re-evaluate the need for our existence.

What Will New Democrats Do?

Another wild card that could be thrown at the Green Party comes from the New Democrats. Although Tom Mulcair has vowed to stay on as leader, there remains a possibility that he might still step down – or be forced out by his own Party’s members at a mandatory leadership review scheduled for the new year (see: "NDP Leader Tom Mulcair promises to stay 'for the long haul'," CTV News, October 21, 2015).  If Mulcair quits/is forced out as leader, the NDP will have a real opportunity to begin a rebuilding process along the lines of what the UK’s Labour Party recently went through.  If the NDP opts for a positive, progressive leader who talks like a Green, well, that could be it for our Party.  In the UK, many Greens supported Corbyn’s leadership bid (see: "Corbynite Greens beware: Corbyn-led Labour is unlikely to benefit the Green Party," Psycho Politico, August 4, 2015).  The same could happen with the NDP under, say, Nathan Cullen, or Naomi Klein.  If such a leader arose in the NDP - and actually managed to move the party towards a more sensible course, what relevance would there be for a Green Party?

In all seriousness, what are the policy issues which currently differentiate us from the NDP?  I think there are a few, but most are more of a question of nuance and degree than anything else.  We have a better policy for the climate crisis, for sure.  But with a new leader who talks like a Green, the NDP could certainly play catch-up.  Arguably, the NDP already has better health care and education policies.  And as for fiscal responsibility, what does that even mean any more after both the Greens and the NDP ran the last election on “no deficit spending”?

We party insiders might have our own specific issues with NDP policy (I really despise the Sherebrook Declaration, for example), but in the mind of the average voter, where’s the difference?  Maybe they think that Greens are a little better on the environment, and the NDP a little better on everything else.  Whatever they think is influenced by the pitiful amount of media coverage our party generates, along with simplistic voter identification tools like the CBC’s Vote Compass, which placed the NDP and the Greens in almost the exact same position on its two-axis chart.

In the minds of voters, the biggest difference between the NDP and the Greens is this: the NDP is electable, and the Greens are not.

Electoral Success - Worth Pursuing?

Policy and quality local candidates have little to do with electoral success at this time in Canada’s history.  As the NDP proved in 2011, you don’t have to campaign in a riding to get elected.  As the Liberals proved in 2015, you don’t have to have much in the way of concrete policy proposals to get elected.  For electoral success, it's the debates, the polls, and media mentions – that’s what matters.  I realize that may be a difficult message for many in my party to hear, but even those who rebel at the notion of electing a government on the basis of spin and PR (in this case, 'public representation') know in their heats that this is true – and that the past few federal elections, outside of a handful of ridings, have laid a firm foundation for this assessment.

Indeed, if Greens are seriously to contest the next election, whatever else we do, we should focus only on between 3 and 5 issues/messages, period.  And we should do so in an easily understood, positive, media-friendly way.  Our candidates throughout Canada should talk about nothing else, other than these 3 to 5 points.  If we truly want to leave voters with an impression of what the Green Party is all about, 3 to 5 succinct talking points from the 5th Party is likely the best that we can do.

Think back to what message we may have left with voters during this past election.  Other than supporting free tuition and opposing pipelines and fossil fuels, what were our key messages?  I can think of maybe one more: Electing more Green MP’s – and that’s hardly an earth-shattering message that’s going to resonate with voters.  All of those other good things we had to say about free trade agreements, carbon pricing, pharmacare, seniors and cities – nothing.  No one remembers them today – probably including many of my readers.

Of course, the strategy that I've outlined here really goes against a lot of what led many of us to join the Greens in the first place.  We like having good policy. We don't care for the PR side of campaigning.  We really don't like being told what to say.  If a strategy like this is implemented, will we even recognize our Party any longer?  But if we are to experience success at the ballot box, it's pretty clear to me that we have to get serious about message control. The question that we should reflect on as a political party is whether we want to experience success at the ballot box.  And that's been an existential question facing our Party long before I became a member.

Greens Can't Wait for the Green Party

Unless the electoral system is changed in such a way that every vote in 2019 is made to matter, it may be that the best vehicle to achieve the policy goals that are important to grassroots members of our party will be one that is built outside of the Green Party.

As someone who joined the Green Party because of my concern with the climate crisis, I can’t help but recognize that we are rapidly running out of time to take real and meaningful action.  I don’t believe that Canada’s new Liberal government is serious about the climate crisis, and had Canadians elected Tom Mulcair’s NDP last Monday, I don’t believe that they would have taken the climate crisis seriously either.  To me, climate change is far more important than party politics.  I just want something to get done – and I know that many of those reading this blog feel the same way.

If Greens can’t wield influence inside of parliament as Greens, maybe we need to think about becoming something other.  Of course, at the present moment, there does not appear to be any legitimate options for Greens in our parliament, other than to continue to support Elizabeth May.  We must do what we can to ensure that there are real rules in place for the next leader’s debates, and we must advocate for PR.  That’s what we can do ourselves.

If, however, circumstances within the NDP change – meaning, should the NDP finally get serious about climate change, ditch their neo-liberal austerity policies and abandon their culture of spin and fear-mongering in the process, by electing a Corbyn/Sanderson-type leader, than it may be time to admit to a re-evaluation of our circumstances.

I’ll leave you with this final, unlikely thought - one which no one in their right mind would dare think.  What if New Democrats reject Tom Mulcair’s leadership next year?  What if a grassroots movement within the NDP starts to seriously call for new, green leadership, and what if the person that they turn to is Elizabeth May?  Could May cross the floor and run for leader of the NDP?  If she did, would you go with her and help her with that task?  It wouldn’t be easy – but nobody in their right minds think Bernie Sanders will get the Democratic Party's nomination, and nobody in their right minds thought Jeremy Corbyn could become leader of the UK Labour Party, either - much less on the first ballot.

I know, I’m dreaming in technicolour here – but what if Orange really did become the new Green?

(opinions expressed in this blogpost are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the Green Parties of Ontario and/or Canada)

Green Party of Canada "To Win" Election Night Results

“Fortress” Vancouver Island

• Saanich-Gulf Islands. Incumbent: Elizabeth May, Green. Green Candidate: Elizabeth May. Finish: 1st Place, 54%
• Victoria. Incumbent: Murray Rankin, NDP. Green Candidate:Jo-Ann Roberts. Finish: 2nd Place, 33% Winner: Murray Rankin, NDP, 42%.
• Nanaimo-Ladysmith. Incumbent: None. Green Candidate: Paul Manly. Finish: 4th Place, 20% Winner: Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, 33%.
• Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke. Incumbent: Randall Garrison, NDP. Green Candidate: Frances Litman. Finish: 3rd Place, 20%. Winner: Randall Garrison, NDP, 35%
• Cowichan-Malahat-Langford. Incumbent: None. Green Candidate:Fran Hunt-Jinnouchi. Finish: 4th Place, 17%. Winner: Alistair MacGregor, NDP, 36%.
• Courtenay-Alberni. Incumbent: John Duncan, Conservative. Green Candidate: Glenn Sollitt. Finish: 4th Place, 12%. Winner: Gord Johns, NDP, 38%
• North Island-Powell River. Incumbent: Laura Smith, Conservative. Green Candidate: Brenda Sayers. Finish: 4th Place, 8%. Winner: Rachel Blaney, NDP, 40%)

Vancouver and the Lower Mainland

• Vancouver Centre. Incumbent: Hedy Fry, Liberal. Green Candidate: Lisa Barrett. Finish: 4th Place, 6%. Winner: Hedy Fry, Liberals, 56%.
• Vancouver East. Incumbent: None (held by Libby Davis, NDP, at dissolution). Green Candidate: Wes Regan. Finish: 4th Place, 9%. Winner: Jenny Kwan, NDP, 50%.
• North Vancouver. Incumbent: Andrew Saxton, Conservative. Green Candidate: Claire Martin. Finish: 3rd Place, 8%. Winner: Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, 57%.
• West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country. Incumbent: John Weston, Conservative. Green Candidate: Ken Melamed. Finish: 4th Place, 9%. Winner: Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Liberal, 55%.
• Burnaby-North Seymour (Lynne Quarmby) 4th Place, 5% (winner: Terry Beech, Liberal, 36%)

Ontario

• Thunder Bay-Superior North. Incumbent: Bruce Hyer, Green. Green Candidate: Bruce Hyer. Finish: 4th Place, 14%. Winner: Patty Hajdu, Liberal, 45%.
• Guleph. Incumbent: None (held by Frank Valeriote, Liberal, at dissolution). Green Candidate: Gord Miller. Finish: 4th Place, 11%. Winner: Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, 49%.

Quebec

• Ville Marie-Le Sud-Ouest-Iles des Soeurs. Incumbent: None. Green Candidate: Daniel Green. Finish: 5th Place, 5%. Winner : Marc Miller, Liberal, 51%.

New Brunswick

• Fredericton. Incumbent: Keith Ashfield, Conservative. Green Candidate: Mary Lou Babineau. Finish: 3rd Place, 12%. Winner: Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, 49%.

Prince Edward Island

• Charlottetown. Incumbent: Sean Casey, Liberal. Green Candidate: Rebecca Viau. Finish: 4th Place, 6%. Winner: Sean Casey, Liberal, 56%.

Trudeau No Climate Champion

Monday's election, which saw Justin Trudeau's Liberals swept into power, has given rise to optimism that Canada will play a more positive role at December's Paris climate summit. Success in Paris is critical for a new international treaty limiting global warming to just 2 degrees Celsius. Trudeau is set to overturn Canada's reputation as a climate laggard, after Stephen Harper's multiple “Fossil of the Year” awards, driven by the Conservative's refusal to take the climate crisis seriously.

During the election, Trudeau committed to going to Paris with Canada's 10 provincial premiers.  The Liberals also promised to sit down with the provinces within 90 days of the summit to produce a strategy to meet Canada's emission reduction target (see: “A New Plan for Canada's Environment and Economy,” Liberal Party of Canada, August 2008).  Had Monday's election returned Harper's Conservatives to power, Canada would almost certainly have been doomed to miss yet another emissions target – the woefully unambitious target of 30% of 2005 levels by 2030.  Although Harper had long insisted that targets would be in keeping with those of our largest trading partners, Canada is now out of step with the U.S. and Mexico, as both NAFTA nations have pledged deeper reductions.

Like Ontario's Premier Kathleen Wynne, Trudeau has been talking about putting a price on carbon pollution, which is a critical step needed to begin reducing emissions.  Right now, business and industry are free to pump climate changing greenhouse gas pollution into the air for free – a practice former U.S. Vice President Al Gore says treats our atmosphere as an “open sewer”.

It may be that Trudeau can walk into the Paris talks and convince the world that Canada is ready and willing to take climate change seriously.  His charm and personality, backed up by the participation of the provincial premiers, should be enough to change the tone and perception of Canada among the international community. Don't look for Canada to win 2015's Fossil of the Year award, even though Trudeau will have only been in power for a few weeks.

Yet, at a time when national leadership is needed to begin the process of decarbonizing our economy, Trudeau's approach to climate change has been criticized as one that leaves the actual heavy lifting to the provinces.  Trudeau has made it clear that carbon pricing should happen at the provincial level.  This will likely lead to balkanized pollution pricing schemes where some provinces are doing more for the national good than others.

Although committed to restoring the environmental assessment process gutted by Stephen Harper, and reforming the National Energy Board, Trudeau has often characterized these changes as a first and necessary step to approving bitumen pipelines (see: “Pipelines, reassuring business on lengthy to-do list for Canada's next finance minister,” Embassy, October 21, 2015).  More pipelines are only needed if the intention is to expand tar sands production  – and that's completely incompatible with a serious climate change plan.

Dr. David Suzuki revealed that in a personal conversation with Justin Trudeau in June, Trudeau called Suzuki's science-based observation that  80% of the tar sands will need to stay in the ground, “sanctimonious crap”.  This revelation made headlines for the Suzuki's response to Trudeau (Suzuki admitted to calling him a “twerp”), but the real story appears to be that Trudeau and the Liberals lack a firm understanding of the best available climate science (see: “Why David Suzuki called Justin Trudeau a 'twerp',” Maclean's, September 26, 2015).

Despite Trudeau's desire to price carbon pollution, don't expect Canada to suddenly emerge as a climate champion under our new Liberal regime.  What Canada opted for on Monday was a government committed to building pipelines and expanding the tar sands, albeit in a kinder, gentler way.  Without a science-based plan to reduce emissions, Canada under the Liberals will continue to miss out on creating 21st century jobs that fuel the green economy while tackling the climate crisis.

(opinions expressed in this blog are my own and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the Green Parties of Ontario and Canada)

Originally published in the Sudbury Star as "Trudeau no climate champion," on October 24, 2015 - without hyperlinks.

Can we Finally Retire Useless Poll-Based Seat Projections?

Another election, another problematic night for Canada's pollsters.  Although national polling picked up the late election Liberal surge (some say the polls themselves were responsible for that surge - but that's another blogpost), they failed to predict the magnitude of upset.  The Liberals finished with 39.5% of the popular vote - fractionally lower than the Conservatives received in 2011.  At the end of the night, the Liberals finished with 184 (54.4%) of the seats, giving Canada yet another false majority government (in 2011, the Conservatives finished with 166 of 308 seats, or 53.9% of available seats).

The extent of the Liberal surge wasn't the biggest surprise for pollsters - the collapse of the New Democrats, and to a lesser extent, the Conservative parties proved to be the biggest story of the night for pollsters - or more specifically, how those collapses played out on the ground.

I'll use one pollster as an example here, as all of the pollsters either under-predicted the Liberal surge, or over-predicted the Conservative/NDP vote to a degree.

EKOS released its final poll of the election on October 18, 2015.  That poll had the Liberals at 35.8% - almost 4 points lower than where they actually finished.  The Conservatives were pegged at 31.9% (which was actually bang on what the Cons ended up with), and the NDP were at 20.4% (less than 1 point of where the ended up at 19.7%). EKOS once again over-estimated the Greens, giving them 5.6% on the 18th, compared to our election-night finish of 3.5%,  To a lesser extent, EKOS also over-estimated the Bloc, awarding them 4.9% on the 18th versus their actual finish of 4.7%.

Those numbers aren't out in left field when it comes to final tallies - at least not percentage-wise.  Election night surges appear to be more commonplace now that we find ourselves in a 24-hour polling cycle, so it stands to reason that there may be big shifts happening on that last day of voting.  Certainly the trends for all three parties over the final week showed that the Liberals were heading for a victory of some sort (although few were predicting a majority - shoutout to Mainstreet Technologies here, who predicted the majority two weeks ago), and that the NDP was in free-fall.

The real big polling failures, however, happened when the polling numbers were used by pollsters and others to forecast the number of seats each party was likely to have on election night.  Most seat-based projection methodologies start with a snapshot from the last election, and use national and/or regional polling data to predict outcomes in various ridings.  A lot of the criticism leveled at this
approach has to do with the fact that local personalities, issues and other factors are left out of the equation.  However, for those watching Canada's elections, it is increasingly becoming apparent that the "local" aspects of electoral success have little to do with election outcomes - save maybe for

having a strong ground game in place in various ridings to pull the vote on election days.  Local issues, candidate's personalities and credentials, are having less and less of an impact on which way the vote goes.  The national campaign is everything.

Given the lack of importance of the "local" in electoral outcomes at the riding level, it should be that the job of the pollster's is made easier for seat projection forecasts.   And yet, instead of accuracy, what we've seen is a failure.

The Liberals ended up with 184 seats; EKOS projected just 151.  Poll aggregator ThreeHundredEight dot com predicted 146, with a range between a low of 124 and high of 161.  The Toronto Star's The Signal had the Liberals at 160, ranging between 140 and 177.

The NDP finished with just 44 seats, yet EKOS projected 54, ThreeHundredEight 66 (range: 51 to 90), and The Signal 50 (range: 29 to 71).  

Even for the Conservatives, the seat projections were off the mark, despite the polls coming closest to predicting that party's popular vote count.  The Conservatives finished with 99 seats.  EKOS had the Cons pegged for 116.  ThreeHundredEight - 118 (ranging between 100 and 139).  The Signal - 120 (ranging between 109 and 133).

Although the popular vote polls all experienced some problems predicting outcomes, the seat projections for the parties proved to be quite out of synch with where the parties ended up on election night.  How can it be that projections based on data that was only somewhat off led to such wildly problematic seat forecasts?

Frankly, the seat projectors starting points are in the wrong place.  Just as pundits were quick to point out that when the writ is dropped, it's a whole new ball game (made in response to the NDP's on-going claim that they just needed 35 more seats to form government - a claim that failed to recognize the fact that some or many of their seats at dissolution might have been at risk of loss - and perhaps the NDP believed it's own hype, and mistakenly took those 2011 electoral successes for granted during the 2015 campaign), so too should pollsters come to recognize this fact: Past results are a poor predictor of future outcomes.

That's something that PunditsGuide's Alice Funke has been on about for years (see: "Pundits' Guide weighs in with a caution against strategic voting," Scott Piatowski, Rabble.ca, October 1, 2008).  PunditsGuide, of course, is storehouse for actual election data.  Funke has done a lot of analysis to come to this conclusion - and yet, election after election (federal, provincial, municipal), pundits fail to take into consideration the wisdom she's gleaned from crunching the numbers.  

As a result, a great disservice is done to Canadian voters - voters who are likely far more influenced by the polls than the parties - or the pollsters - want to give them credit for.

(opinions expressed in this blog are my own and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the Green Parties of Ontario and Canada)