Talk:Canadian federal by-elections, 2008

"Major party"

To me a major party is one who gets per-vote funding. GreenJoe 02:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

A major party is one that actually holds, or has held, official party status in the legislature to which the election or by-election in question pertains. Bearcat (talk) 02:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Bearcat. I'm not too sure in what context this discussion is about, but I'm thinking it has to do something with the Green Party. They are a notable political party, movement and force, but it is definitely not a major party as it has no seats in any legislature in the country. Until this recent Alberta election, the Wildrose Alliance was a "Major Patry" and was allowed to participate in the debate because it held a seat, but now it is currently a minor party because it no longer holds a seat. If it hold a seat, it's a major party. No seat = minor party. nat.utoronto 02:32, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, the context is that in the subsection on gender representation in this article, a dispute has emerged as to whether the final sentence should read in two of the four by-elections, all three major parties have nominated female candidates or in two of the four by-elections, three of the four major parties have nominated female candidates. You're correct that the difference between the two sentences hinges on whether we define the Greens as a major party or not. Bearcat (talk) 02:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the section's now scratched entirely. Although it hasn't been well-publicized (not a peep on Google News; you pretty much have to go directly to the Guelph Mercury to get anything at all), Brenda Chamberlain has also announced her resignation from the House effective April 7, which means that any new gender record will now require women to win three of the four by-elections, not just two. And while that still isn't impossible, it's too far from being a sure thing (after all that's gone down, I sure ain't prepared to bet the farm on Joan Beatty taking Desnethé!) to be anything but OR until it's actually happened.

But at the same time, it's probably still worth clarifying how we do or don't define "major party" anyway, even if only so we can avoid hassles the next time such a dispute comes up. Bearcat (talk) 02:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

• My instinct is to also equate major party status with official party status, but I can see from the Green Party of Canada that there are some benchmarks by which some editors can claim 'majorness' for the Greens, as well, I suppose. That said, I should point out that major is there in the list of words to avoid. Now I see why. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 03:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with Bearcat. One test is this - when you say "the three major parties" in English Canada any reasonable person would know you're referring to the Libs, Tories and NDP; no one thinks "now is he talking about the Greens, Liberals and NDP or the Tories, Greens and Liberals"? The other, and more important test, is what is how is the major media using the phrase "major party" these days? Reggie Perrin (talk) 17:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

• I'd suggest that using the term "major party" in any definitive sense is almost always going to be POV and can almost always be avoided. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 17:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

• Good point. It would seem that the difficulty of defining "major party" can be avoided by simply not using the term. PubliusFL (talk) 00:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

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Guelph by-election will be held on May 26th. Regards . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.9.150.72 (talk) 06:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Source? Bearcat (talk) 07:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

I'd just like to point out, for what it's worth, that there's no policy requiring all of the by-elections to be dealt with in a single article. They were merged into one because they were all very short stubs with almost no content other than a results table, and very little, if anything, in the way of referencing. We don't even seem to attempt anything as comprehensive and well-done as the British contingent does — look at Haltemprice and Howden by-election, 2008, for instance. Can you even imagine a Canadian by-election article ever being even fractionally as long and detailed as that?

I'm certainly not suggesting that every one of our by-election articles has to be as long as Haltemprice's before it can be spun out on its own, but every section of this article could easily be expanded and referenced well beyond its current length. Is anybody willing to help make it happen?

I'm mentioning this now because if we're going to start adding campaign photos now, it's probably time to start seriously thinking about splitting this article again — but if we want to do that, the subsections do need to become better and more detailed than they are now. Bearcat (talk) 22:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Animal Alliance...

AAEVP is running Karen Levenson in the Guelph by-election. For whatever reason, I am unable to add her to the list correctly, so it would be appreciated if someone could do that soon. 74.14.130.185 (talk) 01:00, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I've temporarily added her as a manually coded row in lieu of a CanElec4Row, until we can get it sorted out properly. Bearcat (talk) 02:24, 10 August 2008 (UTC)