Canada -1984

[matvail2002]

PARTIES AND AVAILABLE LEADERS:

PC:

Brian Mulroney

Joe Clark

John Crosbie

Michael Wilson

LIBERALS:

John Turner

Jean Chrétien

NDP:

Ed Broadbent

Lorne Nystrom

Svend Robinson

INDEPENDENT/OTHERS:

Tony Roman

Denis Monière

[EGaffney]

I'll help you in some way. Shall I do the ridings_data file?

[matvail2002]

Yes, thanks, this would help a lot.

[EGaffney]

I will just do the results by province. Later, you can decide how they should be organised by region on the map.

[gopprogressive]

What are the issues you have?

Here are some suggestions (here is what I have so far):

Abortion

Constitution

Defense

Environment

Free Trade

Patronage

Provincial Powers

Quebec

US Relations

Women's Rights

[EGaffney]

I've finished results for Alberta, BC, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories and Nova Scotia so far. Next will be Ontario, then Quebec and the remainder. The West is annoying because they have lots of candidates for different fringe parties.

[matvail2002]

Abortion (medium)

Constitution (high)

Defense (low)

Environment (low)

Free Trade (medium, note that Mulroney was against free trade until he was elected)

Patronage (very high)

Provincial Powers (medium)

Quebec (medium, note that separation was not talked at that time even by the PQ expect by some more radical groups. For the PQ, this was the period beau risque approach at that time as Lévesque had publicly endorsed Mulroney)

US Relations (medium)

Women's Rights (high, a debate was made on that subject)

Liberal government (high)

The Deficit (medium)

The NEP (very high in Western provinces)

Western Alienation (medium)

Job Creation Programs (medium)

[EGaffney]

I don't think you can set different importances in different regions for the same issue in PMF, matvail.

[matvail2002]

I've finished results for Alberta, BC, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories and Nova Scotia so far. Next will be Ontario, then Quebec and the remainder. The West is annoying because they have lots of candidates for different fringe parties.

I honestly don't know how what the should be the parties standing at the beginning, but the thing is to put a VERY massive swing (or tidal wave) to the PC after July 25th (the English Debate). I remember reading somewhere that polls in mid-august were putting the PC at more than 55%-60%. According to some polls, the NDP was in a dangerous territory at the beginning of the election with some polls in the low 10%.

Alberta could physically not go under 65% for the PC.

BC is about 45-35% PC-NPD and Turner will be trying hard to win his own seat (and this with a PC incumbent)

New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have a PC majority, the Liberals will only keep their strongholds.

Newfoundland will be competitive with incumbents having a lead.

Saskatchewan is about 40-40 between the NDP and the PC.

Manitoba have an advantage to the PC, because of the unpopularity of the NDP provincial government.

Québec have a tendency to vote as a block and only two parties are competitive in 1984.

[EGaffney]

I have now finished every province except Quebec.

I always code the ridings_data files with accurate results from election day first, then fine-tune the numbers during testing if there is any persistent unrealism. So I have already seen most of the situations that you have described. An example of "testing" would be making sure that John Turner and Ed Broadbent have good chances of winning their seats; I gave them 3 stars to help them hang on against the PCs.

[matvail2002]

York North in Ontario had a particular story as an election of an independent Canadian MP is a rare event in a sense (and the speaker is usually not an independent by convention).

The incumbent PC candidate was known to have some extremist views and the Liberal candidate had some controversy. So, the mayor of Markham (a city just north of Toronto) who was situated in the riding had decided to run as a independent-coalition candidate having support from both Liberal and PC voters.

[matvail2002]

I have now finished every province except Quebec.

How many parties do you have?

[EGaffney]

How many parties do you have?

12.

Liberal, PC, NDP, Independent;

Rhino, Parti nationaliste, CoR, Green;

Libertarian, SoCred, Communist, Commonwealth.

My understanding of the way the file works is that the scenario just ignores any data for which it doesn't have a matching party definition. So if you want to make a 4-party version, it's easy to change the files to do that; you just need to replace the Independent candidate in each riding with the strongest minor party candidate.

[EGaffney]

Here's the file. http://edwardgaffney.com/files/ridings_data.zip

[EGaffney]

There is an error in the ridings_data file; the second Athabasca riding should instead be named Calgary South. The candidate "Darrly" should be named "Darryl". French names do not have correct diacritics, because I can only type the acute accent.

[matvail2002]

For the logos, do somebody has found something on the Parti Nationaliste du Québec, Commonwealth, the Socreds and the Greens?

[RI Democrat]

You might consider leaving Trudeau as an option for the Liberals, i.e. a "what if he hadn't retired?" situation.

Also, one possibility instead of having an automatic massive PC swing after the debate is to just give Turner a low rating for debating ability, or else do multiple outcomes for the debates aside from the historical one. I guess it depends whether you prefer scenarios that require you to work within the outlines of the actual big events at the time, or ones that allow you to deviate from history a little more.

[matvail2002]

You might consider leaving Trudeau as an option for the Liberals, i.e. a "what if he hadn't retired?" situation.

Yes, but Trudeau was supposed to be gone four year earlier!

He would have completed killed the party because he had alienated almost everybody in the country. Age was also a factor.

Also, one possibility instead of having an automatic massive PC swing after the debate is to just give Turner a low rating for debating ability, or else do multiple outcomes for the debates aside from the historical one. I guess it depends whether you prefer scenarios that require you to work within the outlines of the actual big events at the time, or ones that allow you to deviate from history a little more.

Let's make it clear, the Liberals had about a 20% chance to win the election because people wanted change and this especially with the PC having a new leader who was far more articulate and charismatic than their former leader (but even polls were also high for the PC when Clark was leader after his election loss in 1980). This is why many senior figures for the Liberals in the cabinet had decided to retire to avoid being beaten. Also, the fact that Turner was more popular then his party helped a little bit.

However, let's say that for Broadbent and the NDP, the election was better than expected. There was fears in the party that the party could be practically wiped off the map except for a few strongholds.

[TeenTory]

I think it's important, or at least would be very cool, to actually have that massive support for the PCs post-debate. It'd make for a more realistic scenario, and give anyone playing for the Libs a challenging game.

[matvail2002]

I think it's important, or at least would be very cool, to actually have that massive support for the PCs post-debate. It'd make for a more realistic scenario, and give anyone playing for the Libs a challenging game.

I think it's possible, if you look at the Nyarai fictional scenario, the high number of undecided voters makes a massive swing of the end of the campaign for the winning party.

[EGaffney]

matvail, how is progress on your end? What other file work do you need?

I've checked the ridings_data in the game using a modified 1997 scenario - it works perfectly.

[matvail2002]

I will need any good logos that could you find.

[EGaffney]

For the logos, do somebody has found something on the Parti Nationaliste du Québec, Commonwealth, the Socreds and the Greens?

In 1984, these were all tiny, poor and very new or very old organisations. I've designed old scenarios like this one before, but for the UK. In the early 1980s, parties often didn't even have a logo, let alone a consistent design for the logo. So I doubt you will find images for these parties on the internet.

[matvail2002]

I found a typefront for the commonwealth from the 1997 scenario.

For the Parti nationaliste, I will maybe use a fleur-de-lys.

For the Socreds, I will use their 1980 logo.

For the Greens, I will use their 1997 logo (a flower).

[graemp]

I think the original 1984 scenario was good.

I still have it on my PC and it seems to have all the right stuff.

The other good thing about it is that it is a 4 player game.

In my opinion matvail's scenario has a tough act to follow.