20 01 06	Andrew Cox
It would be pretty funny if the majority prediction on this page was right and Marilyn Churley lost because of a jump in the Green vote. Bob Hunter would have laughed for an hour.
	20 01 06	jwe
Called Liberal eh? I have to wonder (despite the fact I was wondering a while ago why it was really too close to call). The Greens are not a factor. If Harris pulls over 5% of the vote, I'll eat my shorts. Politically aware voters who might consider a principled switch from NDP (or anyone) to Green, are aware that this riding is close and they are not going to "waste" a vote on the Greens accordingly. Layton and company are doing their darnedest to innoculate the electorate against the vote-liberal-to-keep-harper-out syndrome. No doubt many of the votes in Minna's 7000 margin of victory last time were scared NDP votes. I am not so sure that all of them will repeat the same procedure this time. If 2000+ votes swing from Minna to Churley, then Conroy only has to pull 3000+ votes from Minna in order to put Churley over the top. Has Conroy's campaign really been so ineffectual that he's not going to increase the CPC vote by 50%? I agree that he's not the strongest CPC candidate, and proclaiming your inexperience as your biggest virtue ("I'm not a career politician") is a sure way to get many people to write you off. But has it been that bad? The increase in CPC signs is enough to think they will have some increase in their vote (there's no where else to go but up!). Nonetheless, will it be enough to put Churley in striking distance? I think it depends on the Liberal campaign over the weekend frankly. If the Liberals can come on strong enough to Toronto voters, they will still get a lot of those soft NDP votes on election day, and Minna doesn't need many to keep her seat. If voters are once-bitten-twice-shy, and have resigned themselves to a Harper government, then a whole lot of soft Liberal votes may stay home or go NDP, which would mean the end for Minna. It's no coincidence that the largest NDP contingent ever in parliament was during a second tory majority; a strong conservative campaign is actually good for the NDP since it frees up soft liberals when nothing is at stake for them anymore.
	19 01 06	Bug Eyed Pete
Good to see this riding marked down for the Liberals. Churley has never had to run against a strong campaign team like Minna has. Churley has only had to knock off provincial Liberal stiffs for years and wasn't ready to take on a real organization. That's the biggest difference here. Jim Harris will get 20 per cent of the vote and surprise everyone. Minna will win because she has the team and all the planets lined up in her favour this time. I'm not sure what Churley does after she loses.
	19 01 06	Chris
Look, jim harris only received 6% of the vote against mr Layton in his bid in 2004 , the environmetal vote in Beaches will not be overwhelmingly parked with the Greens.. The NDP are running a candidate (ms. churley) who knows the riding's increasing environmental concerns (portlands energy centre etc.) The liberals have shown no movement on the Portlands issue, they have shown no support for the community's want to close the Portlands debate (with a new power plant not being re-opened within their riding), there has been almost non-existent Liberal representation during any of the consultations that have occured within the community.
	19 01 06	JJP
I say the Conservative, Peter Conroy, will take this riding for the following reasons. First, he is the only candidate who was in fact nominated by those in this riding. This matters. Both Churley and Minna are/were parachute candidates. Conroy actually had to run in, and win, a nomination contest. Second, the Greens have tremendous momentum in this riding, and are taking serious votes from the NDP. Third, the Conservatives really had no campaign in this riding in 2004, so to use the results of that election as any sort of guage is absurd.
	18 01 06	Chicken Wing Charlie
Churley is getting squeezed two ways in this riding. Strategic voting is alive an well and living in Beaches-East York as voters return to the Liberals as they try to take a last stand at holding Stephen Harper to a minority. The other way Churley is getting squeezed is as everyone knows is by Jim Harris. Harris has the Green Party ready to take it's place as the fourth legitimate party in English Canada and his vote total will reflect the advances the Greens have made. Just about every vote Harris picks up is from Churley and she hasn't been able to stop it. Minna on the other hand caught a huge break when the Conservatives ran a stiff here. Toronto is going to stay solid red and that includes Beaches-East York.
	18 01 06	Bear and Ape
Duck and Cover's math (and other posters) is correct, however we feel that it is only half the equation. True it is NDP minus Green vote, but the other half of that equation is Liberal minus CPC vote. Current CPC strength, though not anywhere near enough for them to pick up anything in Toronto proper, can and probably will be enough to make a dent in the Liberals (weak CPC candidate or not).
	18 01 06	LJ Amundsen
I don't think this kind of analysis "smacks of dismissing valid candidates out of hand without due consideration, and intonates strong partisanship." One doesn't have to be a Liberal to see that the other candidates are just dysfunctional. "Churley has been an MPP and prominent community figure for years", yes, but she seems to come to BEY every time she wants to pick a fight by making up stories (first against Bob Hunter, now Jim Harris). It isn't unreasonable to call this "stupid" though there are stupider people in the 416 running for office. As for Harris well do a web search for "GPC Council Crisis" or "Harrisite" or his name alongside "Pointy Haired Boss" and you'll find out some things. Michael Enright's program on Sunday had Adrianne Carr, Elizabeth May, Murray Dobbin and David Anderson debating the GPC's fortunes. Both May and Carr were clear that the GPC needs to exist to raise issues in the election that other parties don't raise. May and Anderson agreed that Harris wasn't doing that, and part of the reason he's not, is his obsession with winning this seat, which he simply can't do. That could be called "not intelligent". "Harris has published a few books" that sell for a few months and then go away, and whose contents he simply cannot practice (read Murray Dobbin's "Green Party Blues" in The Walrus on that, or do the web searches noted above). It wasn't him who "lifted his party out of near obscurity", it's time had come, and there were thousands of volunteers all desperate for someone who could borrow some money and hire an army of ants to get 308 candidates in place. Given the quality of the volunteer base and the rise of the GP of Ontario, of BC, and so on, it was inevitable. "Hardly the hallmarks of candidates lacking in intellect or prowess." Oh? Why didn't the NDP take this seat, and Chow's, last time in Toronto, then? Why are the knives so clearly out for Harris for running a clumsy campaign? His central party organizing effort, called hilariously the "GPC bunker", had to agree that its "we can" literature was so bad that the party's own riding associations wouldn't be forced to pay for it.
	17 01 06	Aric H
"The Islander may be a little too generous with his assessment that Jim Harris will get 45 per cent of the vote. The reality is Harris will come in with 17 to 19 per cent of the vote." I would say that 17 to 19% of the vote is also way too generous for Harris. Harris received 5% of the vote in 2004 when he ran in Toronto-Danforth and finished 4th behind Jack Layton, the Liberal Dennis Mills, and the far-behind Conservative. He will most likely finish 4th here as well and is not likely to get more than 8% of the vote. It is one thing to predict that Minna could pull out a small win here since that is possible, but predicting that Harris will get into such high double digits and achieve a record vote for the Green Party in Canada (I think their highest percentages are around 12% in certain B.C. ridings) is unrealistic. Because of her strong background and the fact that the Liberals are weaker in this election than last and more votes are bleeding to the Conservatives, I think Churley will win by a small margin in the split.
	17 01 06	James
To even suggest that Jim Harris has a shot at this seat is funny. He's spent more time running around trying to put up an environmentally friendly image than he has spent campaigning. The NDP have a good shot here and I think that Jack Layton, as a leader, has spent more time pushing for this riding than Harris has on his campaign. I predict Marilyn Churley will take it with the Liberals in second, followed by the Conservatives and then Greens.
	16 01 06	Who's Socks?
The Islander may be a little too generous with his assessment that Jim Harris will get 45 per cent of the vote. The reality is Harris will come in with 17 to 19 per cent of the vote. That will be more than enough to split the vote and Maria Minna comes up the middle. Churley lost this race the day Harris got in it. Put this riding in the Liberal column.
	16 01 06	EGM
I agree with Duck and Cover's logic on this riding. At least in Toronto, the Greens are most likely to draw support from NDP voters. The Conservative candidate is weak, but with the Conservatives doing so well nationally, there's not much incentive for them to vote tactically to defeat Minna. This should be a Liberal hold.
	16 01 06	Islander
Jim Harris has a much better chance in this riding than most people realize. Beaches-East York will be pretty evenly split between the all the major parties. As Green Party leader, Harris has a much higher profile this time around, and he is not competing against such a qualified adversary as Jack Layton. At the very least, Harris should triple his numbers from last time and receive around 15% of the vote.
	15 01 06	PC
JIm Harris is the biggest red herring of this campaign. The Greens may very well pick up a seat in BC, but Harris has done little to no work the ground in the riding. He isn't rinning a campaign here. Unlike other party leader he doesn't get the media profile that would allow to ignore his local riding. Harris will most likely take 5-6% of the vote, at the very most, just about the percentage of vote the greens will get noationally. He is a none factor here.
	13 01 06	Frog Mouth
Student Slack made a good point about Jim Harris making it impossible for Marilyn Churley to win in this riding. The Green Party is going to surprise people with some of the vote totals they're going to get in Toronto. One more reason to pick Maria Minna is that all the seats around her are save so Liberals from all over this end of Toronto are pouring in to make sure they hold on to Beaches-East York. The Liberals will out work the NDP on election day. I'll say Minna wins by 1500 votes with Harris a very strong third.
	13 01 06	J
That is, of course, assuming that NDP voters become Green voters at higher rate that voters for other parties become Green voters. I'm not convinced this is even true though...Left-wing voters are necessarily pro-environment voters, the same way right-wing voters are not necessarily anti-environment voters. Besides, Harris isn't that impressive of a leader. There are much more dynamic candidates (Chernushenko in Ottawa Centre) than he; but then again, in the last election Chernushenko greatly increased Green Party (4x larger, almost 10%) support at the same time that NDP support almost doubled (Broadbent).
	13 01 06	Duck and Cover
This contest is all about the math. Churley's support minus Harris's vote equals a Minna victory. It also helps Minna to have one of the lesser Tory candidates running in her riding. That means Minna doesn't lose any votes to the right. Churley loses her first election ever and Minna goes to the opposition side of the federal house.
	13 01 06	Bear and Ape
We still say that the CPC has no chance here and current poll numbers still support that claim (Tory's strong but stalled in Ontario as a whole but have not gained any real strength in Toronto). However the stronger NDP candidate, Liberal woes and some pull by the CPC from the Liberals could tip it NDP. Looks like the CPC will be the king-makers...err...queen-makers
	12 01 05	Student Slacker
Two words will tell you the reason why Minna beats Churley. They are Jim Harris. As party leader, Harris is going to take too many votes from Churley for her to pull this out. Any other Green Party candidate would have allowed a Churley victory but Harris will keep the Beaches in the hands of the Liberals. In my opinion, Churley should not have run in this riding.
	12 01 05	jwe
Amazing the difference a few days can make...with the supposed momentum for the Harper campaign building across the country, including in Ontario they say, then the $64,000 question is how many votes will Minna lose? Some will go to the NDP, and the core NDP support seems to be at the same level as 2004 according to polling results, so expect Churley to get 16,000+ votes, maybe more than 17,000 even. If the bottom falls out of the Liberal and Minna campaigns, and a Tory majority government would be in the making, then Conroy maybe has a sliver of hope. He would have to pick up 10,000+ votes, from voters that went Liberal last time I would expect. That would be quite an achievement, and unlikely I would say, but not inconceivable. The most likely outcome is that Conroy will take away some Liberal votes, but will it be enough to put Churley over the top? Or just enough to make it closer between the Libs and the NDP this time around? I don't think this riding is going to necessarily be close in the numbers, but it's definitely shaping up to be too complicated to call at this point.
	11 01 06	AG
As a resident of Toronto-Danforth, I just wanted to point out how horribly Jim Harris did in the last election. He didn't just lose to the leader of the NDP and the Liberal incumbent, he lost to a Conservative candidate who couldn't get the endorsement of his own brother. Now, the Greens have more money last time but Harris had an infinitely higher profile than the Conservative Cuddy last time and still lost to him. Also, Harris as a former PC -I know seemed weird to me at first too- will be looking for red tory support which is being drained by a strong performance by the Conservatives in this riding. I would call this one for the Grits but I know how good Marylin Churley is in a campaign, so I agree too close to call.
	11 01 06	PC
Partisan... You missed the first part of my post, "...the NDP is holding its vote...." This is actually being conservative as Churley will certainly attract a higher % ofvote than Tabuns on name recognition alone. With all remaining equal in terms of voter turnout, Churley will be between 16,000-20,000. My math skills tell me the low end of that beats 15,000 votes, the EXTREME high end for Peter.
	10 01 06	JJP
Conroy for the Conservatives is no longer a dark horse. He's poised to win in BEY, for the following reasons. First, He's the only truly local candidate with meaningful, livelong roots in this riding. Ms. Minna only moved here after she was elected, and obviously Ms. Churley is a parachute candidate. Most voters know this now, and it will make a difference on January 23rd. Second, Mr. Harris will surely take a sizeable number of votes from Ms. Churley - anyone who suggests this will not happen is being less than candid. Third, Conroy, based on the information on his web-site at least, appears to be a left leaning Conservative, which is not a bad thing in this riding. Liberals who do their homework on him should feel comfortable making the jump. Finally, and perhaps most obviously, the Liberals are now in a national freefall in the polls, and Conroy will ride this wave through to the 23rd.
	11 01 06	East Yorker
There seems to be a feeling that the Green Party is pulling votes only from the NDP. Wrong ... they are just as likely to take votes from the PCs, as they have a conservative fiscal policy. They will pull from all sides of the spectrum. The only reason that they will pull more Liberal/NDP supporters is because the riding inherently tends more towards Liberal/NDP. The rise of the Conservatives in the polls will only move this riding from Liberal to NDP, not to Conservative. I had thought this riding would go NDP - and may still, but with the Conservatives apparently leading, I now think this riding will swing back to the Liberals.
	10 01 06	Not Non-Partisan
Hey PC! If Conroy surges to 15,000 he may very well win. Last time approximately 45,000 voted here. With Jim Harris taking a fair share of vote, maybe 8% (wait for his TV ads), leaving 41,000 for the rest my guess is that 15,000 is enough. Especially if the turnout is less than last time which is likely given the January weather. Don't forget that the Tories got 29% in the '99 provincial and got over 13,000 in the '88 federal on worse boundaries and with a lesser campaign. Take a look at Parkveiw Hills or the Beach south of Kingston Road. Conroy looks solid. You can tell where he's canvassed personally because there are loads of signs. In places where he hasn't the Tories are still there -- they simply haven't identified themselves.
	09 01 06	jwe
I don't understand why this riding is being rated as too close to call. The Liberals are riding high in Toronto, way ahead of the other parties. Everyone thought Tabuns would put up a good fight against Minna, and she trounced him by 7000 votes or so. It is absolutely unimaginable that all those Liberal voters will suddenly think Churley is that much better than Tabuns, or Layton is that much better in 2006 than 2004. And anyone who thinks those voters are going to rush enmasse to support Harper, no matter how good Conroy may be as a candidate, obviously doesn't understand how elections work these days. Local candidate counts for maybe 2% of the vote. Sorry, I know Peter, he lives around the corner and I think on a personal level he'd be a great MP, better than either of the others without a doubt, but it just ain't going to happen. No reason to think Minna will get significantly less than what she got last time. Like all the rest of Toronto except for Danforth, baring some huge turnaround post-debate, this will go Liberal.
	10 01 06	LJ Amundsen
This is sure to go Liberal since the NDP has not picked up on its one huge strategic opportunity. That being, to deal with this annoying situation: "No matter what the NDPers say, the Green Party Leader is taking votes from Churley" and will cause her to lose unless people refuse to vote for him.
	08 01 06	Daver
I think it will be fairly close but the Liberals will win. Churley has more signs, but so did Tabuns in the last election. Maria is well liked and I don't think she has lost much support as a result of the Gomery findings. The conservative candidate has no chance at all. The conservatives got less than 15% in the last election here. Many traditional PC supporters (I am one) are still angry about the merger and may support the Progressive Canadian Party candidate, Jim Love.
	08 01 06	Nicholas Fitzpatrick
A very interesting riding! I'm guessing that from the last election, Liberal support will bleed away, partly to the Conservatives, and partly to the NDP; while the Conservative and NDP candidates will hold most of their previous votes. The NDP candidate (and the Conservative) candidate are both much stronger than last time. And Minna has taken some knocks. I don't think realistically, the Tories have a chance, getting so few votes in 2004. I'm thinking that it will be a close race beteen the Liberals and NDP, with the NDP coming out in front, the Liberals close behind, and the Tories in third, but up a little from 2004. Green might well do a little better than 2004 with Harris running here, but no more than 7-8%.
	07 01 06	CS
There is a big difference here between Churley and Tabuns. Churley has been out at community events, listening and talking with people, for about 6 months now. Meanwhile Minna seems to be MIA at many community events. I've seen lots of people at those events who are not afraid to outright tell others that its time to change representation here. Conservatives? Took us two weeks to find out his name! He might have party connections, and have grown up here -- but increasingly, a lot of people (north of the Danforth at least) did NOT grow up here; for them, that local connection simply doesn't hold any water. Liberals, as incumbents, have at least avoided screwing up in this riding. That's a good start. But the NDP is very, very, strong this time. Anyone who is swayed by Gomery will likely go Conservative, but that won't be enough to even take a shot up the middle. It's a close Lib/NDP race, with an ever so slight edge to the NDP.
	06 01 06	PC
Churley is holding the NDP vote. Look for, at the very least, a slight % increase. I am on the phones and I know first hand. Churley's white knight is Conroy. He has a good image for the area, and he is certainly riding high on a national trend of Conservative popularity and Liberal collapse. If Conroy can get over 10,000 votes, the race will be within 1000 votes between Minna and Churley. If Conroy surges to 12-15,000 votes it is nighty night for Minna, and Churley is off to Ottawa.
	04 01 06	Not Non-Partisan
Churley is no better known here than Tabuns, the former Riverdale City Councillor was in '84. What she does have though is the benefit of good campaign records and paid staff. So does Minna. It makes a big difference in sign wars and identified vote but Conroy is making big inroads during the writ period.
	02 01 06	Bryan D
Hard to see where the idea of a Conservative collapse came from. If anything they look stronger, with a solid candidate and an active campaign. There are Conservative signs everywhere. But this has always been a two way race on the left between the NDP and the Liberals. The general Liberal collapse in this election will hurt them in this, one of the stronger ridings for the NDP. Some boost of Conservative support will also work against them.
	01 01 06	Aric H
I have thought about this riding and for a while I thought Churley would have a hard time, but now I think she will make it. She obviously thinks she has a good chance at it or she wouldn't have resigned her seat at Queen's Park. I also think Churley is the most effective NDP candidate to run in this riding since the the NDP lost it in 1993.
	01 01 06	East Yorker
The Liberals did okay last time round, but the NDP candidate wasn't that known. I think that we will see the NDP take the riding this time round, based on name value. This is also indicated by the signage - there has been a huge increase of both CPC and NDP signs versus 2004. Both these will take support from the Liberals, leaving the NDP with the riding.
	30 12 05	Easter Bunny
Here's why Minna is going to beat Churley and it won't be that close. The Tory vote in Toronto has tanked meaning no split on the right. No matter what the NDPers say, the Green Party Leader is taking votes from Churley. Finally, nobody talks about how this isn't Churley country. She's never run here. The two big NDP guns in Toronto, Chow and Churley will both go down to defeat.
	29 12 05	David Moss
Updating my earlier projection. Conservative campaign is now present in the riding. His support seems to be strongest in the East York part of the riding that was a huge win for Minna last time. If he is doing as well as some on this sight suggest, his support will come largely at the expense of the Liberal Minna. Although I don't put great stock in the lawn sign poll I do pay close attention to where there might be changes. I have noticed that the NDP signs seem to be located predominately where they appeared in 2004 - therefore I conclude they seem to be holding their vote. PC signs appearing where there were Liberal signs in 2004 - therefore conclude that the Liberals seem to be losing some vote to PC. Green party signs almost non-existent and no pattern to judge who might be losing support to Harris. Based on this very unscientific research I feel more confident that the NDP will take this seat in a close race with the Liberals. I do agree the Conservative candidate is running a better campaign than 2004 but the hill to victory is way to steep. His good campaign should help Churley.
	28 12 05	Aric H
A comment about Jim Harris and the Green Party in this riding. Although he is the leader of the party, that does not mean he will necessarily get a higher vote share than other Green Party candidates would. For example, if you look at the 2004 results for Toronto-Danforth, Jim Harris received fewer votes than a number of other Green Party candidates such as David Churneshenko in Ottawa Centre and some of the candidates in B.C. such as Andrew Lewis and Ariel Lade. Nevertheless there does appear to be some tension or bad blood between NDP and Green Party supporters over Jim Harris's decision to run against high-profile NDP candidates such as Jack Layton last year and and Marilyn Churley this year. This issue is even mentioned on the CPAC profile currently airing of this riding.
	27 12 05	MH
Once upon a time East Toronto and East York were dominated by the Tories, but the last time any Conservative won a seat with 'Beaches' in it was in 1979. Of the present election, two things can be said: 1) the Liberals have the inside track, but they could lose this one; 2) if they lose it, it won't be to the Conservatives. Predictions of Tory victory, here as elsewhere in Toronto, are very largely the products of wishful thinking, much as predictions of Liberal victories in Calgary are. Of course the election has almost four weeks left to go, and it's possible that a major shift of opinion towards the Conservatives may still take place. But it hasn't happened so far, and even if it were to happen, the beneficiary in Beaches-East York would very probably be the NDP's Marilyn Churley. The Conservatives are very weak here -- they got approx. 14% of the ballots cast in 2004 -- and the NDP's Neil Young did win in Beaches and Beaches-Woodbine in the 1980s. Absent a shift away from the Liberals, though, Maria Minna should keep the seat easily.
	26 12 05	td
The Liberals will win this riding, an interesting factor here could be Jim Harris and the Green Party- I mean call me silly and all but as leader of a national party Jim Harris could get some votes, not enough to win the riding but enough to make sure Peter Conroy of the CPC or Marilyn Churley of the NDP don't get in either.
	26 12 05	Bear and Ape
There is nothing wrong with being a Conservative supporter but those who keep posting a CPC win in this riding really need a reality check. It seems some posters know a great deal of the CPC candidate, as if he was a personal friend...? Hence we question the objectivity. Moving on to the "facts", lawn signs mean didilly. Look all over this site's 2004 page and you'll see countless examples of posters claims that "party A" will win because, evidence of the lawn sign count, something which continues in 2005/06. As for demographic changes, the CPC lost by something like 16,000 votes (say it: SIXTEEN THOUSAND votes). The last election was 18 months ago. Did about half the riding up and move off to someplace else in that time and was replaced by an equal number of more CPC friendly voters? Sounds silly doesn't it? Now lets look at something not so subjective, the actual numbers. We already mentioned the margin of votes in 2004. Poll numbers still indicate that the Conservatives have yet to make any real inroads in Toronto. Before predicting this one to turn blue, watch for places like Mississauga and other 905 ridings going blue first. Sorry friends, but the numbers and situation is favoring the Liberals or the NDP with alot of luck.
	23 12 05	John Pirie
Anyway, some fair comments have been made recently by a number of people. First, its true that a sizeable portion of this riding can be accurately described as "cavier socialist". Its also true, however, that an increasing number of young professionals, with families, are coming into this riding. The demographic trend, in my view at least, is becoming more favorable to the Conservatives, and less favorable to the NDP and Liberals. As proof of this, take a drive through the new Woodbine development, or the development by Ted Reeve Arena (Main & Gerrard) -- you'll see that the lawn signs are overwhelmingly in favourt of Conroy (roughly 10 Conservative signs for every one Liberal or NDP). Second, I will repeat my earlier point. There was no Conservative campaign in this riding in the last election. Conroy is the first serious federal Conservative that this riding has seen in a long time. Despite the view of "DP", the Conroy campaign appears to be in full swing and well organized. Our home certainly received his literature during the first week of this campaign, and I know he's been door knocking non-stop. Third, Conroy is the only local candidate, born and raised in the riding. Say what you want, but in the end I think this is a huge factor for voters in our riding. Especially given Conroy's long history of charitable work in the community (Lions club, Centre 55 etc.) His history suggests that he is a left-leaning Conservative, probably not a bad thing in this riding. Regardless, Conroy has three children in our riding, ageing parents, a mortgage, local concerns about crime etc. He's dealing with, on a daily basis, all the issues that logically should matter to the demographic in this riding. The other candidates have nothing to offer on this front. Fourth, there is no doubt that Harris will take a substantial number of votes from the NDP and Liberals this time. That’s a given. To suggest this won't happen is absurd. This, combined with the recent Conservative friendly electoral boundary change, will be a factor in Beaches East York.
	23 12 05	Aric H
I heard from a Conservative last week that things in this riding are pretty rough between the Liberals and the NDP. Minna will prove difficult for the NDP to dislodge but Churley is a formidable campaigner and is probably better at connecting with voters than Peter Tabuns. I don't live here so I don't know which way it will go but I am pretty sure the Conservatives won't win here unless their vote goes way up in Toronto!
	22 12 05	DS
I don't think signs are a good indicator of what way things will go. If they were, Tabuns would have beat Minna by 7000 votes instead of vice versa. Curley is out-signing Minna, but so what??
	22 12 05	M. Lunn
I am going to against the crowd and predict a Liberal win. Why? the NDP has tried putting up strong candidates against Maria Minna more than once and every time they failed. The NDP lost by fifteen points in this riding and is down in Ontario so while they may pick up ridings like Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, Oshawa, and Trinity-Spadina, they won't win this one. I am guessing Maria Minna by five to ten points. Besides she is generally on the left of the party anyways. Even Warren Kinsella who hates Paul Martin voted Liberal last time in this riding and probably will if he still lives in this riding.
	21 12 05	MS London
I've worked a few campaigns in downtown Toronto ridings. If many homes have two signs (namely an NDP and Liberal sign,) the Marilyn Churley is in trouble. Folks in this riding, watch for this phenomenon.
	21 12 05	Vote-Split Pundit
Beaches-East York is but one of a handful of ridings where the tories could, if the stars align correctly, elect a member. Conroy's ability to raise money is a plus but he is also affable and photogenic. Churley's a force becuase she is well known, even if her riding is next door. she is also affable and has an elder statesmwoemn appeal to thsoe grits who could not stomach voting for a corrupt bunch or for stephen Harper.
	19 12 05	DP
here's where I see the main issues, in rough order of importance: 1. Incumbency: Minna is the incumbent. It doesn't look like she's done much to screw anything up, and her party is at a similar level of support from last election. There are no major local issues to get in the way. She has already won this riding four times, with an average of 47% of the vote. She always gets 1.5x to 2.5x the vote of her nearest competitor. This is huge. Don't discount the power of inertia and established local party infrastructure. (big advantage: L) 2. Conservative Party Organization: Electoral success requires strong local organization. I just don't see evidence of the Conservatives having their act together. Within days of the call I received literature from both Minna and Churley, but nothing to date from anyone else. Furthermore, there's some kind of splinter PC faction that's trying stir up support (got a flyer a few months ago), which means that the CPC's ground-level organization is probably not as unified as they'd like it to be. (advantage: L/NDP) 3. Layton Factor: A lot of people in the riding probably wish that they were a few blocks west so that they could vote for Layton. Look to the NDP to get "halo" support from Layton's popularity. (advantage: NDP) 4. Green Party: Nobody cares about the Green Party. At most they will pull a few votes from the NDP, which may be a factor in a close L/NDP race. (advantage: L) 5. Mobility: The Danforth has a very mobile population. The average length of home ownership is probably about 5 years. The north end of the riding (where most people live) is rapidly evolving from working-class to first-home professionals. This means more Conservative and Liberal supporters to balance the L/NPD influence in the south. (advantage: C/L) 7. Signage: If lawn signs mean anything (which is debatable), this riding is a pitched NDP/L battle. Minna/Churley signs probably number in the hundreds. To date I have seen exactly one Conroy sign. This means that either the Tories lack support or there's no CPC organization on the ground. (advantage: L/NDP) 8. Riding Political History: Most of the discussion on this board revolves around discussing past candidates, such as Peter Tabuns, Bob Hunter, Michael Prue etc... I don't know who any of these people are, and I assure you that I don't care (in no way will they influence my vote). It's also very cute to call the NDP "Dippers" and wax philosophical about some sort of "Bob Hunter Controversy", but you need to realize that the vast majority of voters could care less. If you are a party flak, please get over it and move on. (advantage: none) Prediction: Liberals hold off a strong challenge from NDP. Likelihood of winning: L 70%, NDP 25%, C 5%, others 0%.
	19 12 05	Scott
Mr. Christie has a few good points. I'm not saying that Conroy is going to win yet but my goodness he has a real shot. Especially since he is the only local candidate. The Green Party will get up to 10% which means mid 30's wins this battle.
	19 12 05	dmitri
It's funny how the Conservatives get people to write in that they have a chance in ridings where they are an afterthought. Marilyn has a very good chance of winning this riding. It was historicaly an NDP stronghold and although it is no sure thing she is the best NDP candidate here in years. The NDP may not win this riding but it will be within 1000 votes.
	18 12 05	Victor A.
To be honest guys, it was supposed to be close the last time as well, with yet another star candidate and we all know how it ended up. It ended up with the NDP's result falling from 3rd to 5th in Toronto (comparing to the 2000 election) with candidates in Parkdale-High Park and Davenport getting better results. While there is no doubt that Marilyn Churley is more known than Peter Tabuns, I am not at all convinced she could get within 3000 to 4000 votes behind Maria Minna. I am positive Churley will lose, she will get a good result, no doubt about it but it will be around 5000 behind Minna. The fact that Jim Harris a candidate certainly helps Minna's prospects as well, not to mention all the polls of ethnic minorities and in the old city of East York. The NDP is down in polls in Ontario (comparing to their 2004 results) so that will make it even more difficult to Churley. And just one note on the side, why do the NDP supporters seem obsessed about 3 or 4 Toronto ridings when they stay much better and realistic chance in the Northern Ontario to gain 1 or 2 from the Grits, even with their polls down at this point.
	14 12 05	Paul Christie
People who don't live here don't know what they are talking about. Marilyn is not the MPP here and never has been. She does have some recognition but not as much as pundits think. Minna has a much better chance of winning than Churley because Green Leader Harris will take NDP votes. Peter Conroy, the Tory, is doing really well. He says he's getting three supporters in every ten doors. He had Rona Ambrose out for a fundraiser last night and she was very enthusiastic about his prospects on the basis of a day campaigning with him. He's planning on spending serious dough. Can he get the 29% plus that Judy Burns got in the '99 provincial? If so he has just as good a chance as Minna. It's a real race -- including the Tory!!
	11 12 05	Viva VERDI
Sadly, I'm going to have to predict that Minna will win re-election. Mostly I base this on years of experience of federal politics in the riding as a Tory. Each election the NDP supporters on this forum make predictions of the massive public support their candidate will get (majority of the vote, popular city councillor, yadda yadda yadda) and each time they turn up short. You can switch the name Peter Tabuns for Marilyn Churley and all of the exact same things were said last election. Negative for the NDP chances: having Jim Harris running in the riding is more likely to take NDP votes than Liberal. Postive for the NDP chances: last election Nick Nikopoulos ran one of the worst campaigns I had ever seen anywhere at any time. Peter Conroy will do better no matter what simply because he can't do worse than Nick. That should lap up a few votes from Minna and the Liberals and put Churley in striking distance.
	06 12 05	MTC
Churley was popular as provincial MPP and already has high name recognition in this area. The NDP should easily defeat the Liberal Minna.
	06 12 05	W. Rowney
Marilyn backed down publicly on the provincial adoption issue? Give me a break. She had letters published in both The Globe and the Star, appeared twice on TVO (on one occasion filling in for the Minister who had another commitment,) debated the privacy issue on CBC, and wrote an opinion piece for The Post. In addition to all of this she hosted two press conferences and spoke in favour of the bill in the legislature at every opportunity she had. No way does Marilyn back down from "messy" issues - in public or in the legislature.
	06 12 05	david gates
Conroy must have a good campaign that he has people come on here and post that he will win. I would not mind if he did. But look at the results from last time. Liberals losing votes to the NDP puts the NDP over the top. The boundaries are about as realistically favourable as currently possible for the CPC. The electoral boundaries commission had actually proposed taking the East York tops off of Beaches-East York and Toronto-Danforth to create an electoral district called East York. The CPC would have had a shot in such a riding. The bottom two haves would have become Beaches-Riverdale. Minna and Denis Mills screamed like a couple of stuck picks and the originally proposed north to south split along the danforth was restored. The NDP has a shot here. Many conservatives might vote NSP just to get rid of Minna.
	06 12 05	Tally-ho
A very, very interesting riding to watch. I see a number of factors coming into play here, and it all depends on how things swing on the meter for Churley. By no means a slam dunk for either candidate. One factor is whether there is any lingering resentment over the "provincial fight" (re the Bob Hunter/Michael Prue battle). I doubt voters really care about it, but who knows whether it will affect the reputational calculation for Marilyn and her logistical support? In any event, Minna's own lacklustre rep probably leaves things at a draw, and we're supposedly in an election because of Liberal corruption, right? People also need to remember that Jack's riding and "the Beach" are areas going through a lot of residential turnover in the context of a very hot housing market, so it is unclear whether all the voters will have that informed or grudging a memory. What the Hunter episode would tell me (and this assumes such accusations about the campaign nastiness against Bob Hunter are true) is that Ms Churley is one tough, tough, take-no-prisoners campaigner. So from an organizational and campaigning point of view, Churley is likely a big step up from Tabuns and this will undoubtedly put the heat on Minna. On the profile side, while Tabuns was a decent candidate, name recognition as a former Cabinet Minister (and a reasonably capable one in an albeit highly unpopular government) for Churley, will also help to trim the vote differential further. The final factor and wild card is the Buzz Hargrove logic - i.e. the "let's team up to beat the Tories" message, which implies that NDP-leaning voters shouldn't go out and defeat urban liberals, for fear of allowing some distant Tory to slide up the middle. How this impacts Churley? Well like last time - - it will depend on the national campaign. I wonder whether Jack, Olivia, Marilyn et al will make a strong effort to explain to their local voters in their respective T.O. ridings (and others, like Parkdale-High Park), that the thinking should be: "the Tory has no chance in hell, so it's okay to vote NDP since the combined Liberal/NDP vote in the House will be no net change for your riding". It's a complicated argument to make to (potentially) panicky voters, but the irony is that the more comfortable it looks nationally like the vote will be at least a 'solid' Liberal minority, the better chance the NDP has of picking up this seat, plus Trinity Spadina, P-HP, Oshawa as well as a number of BC battles that were clearly polarized CPC/NDP dogfights (with a weak Liberal in third) last time... which would then lead to the NDP holy grail of getting a clear balance of power. Just some thoughts.
	05 12 05	David Moss
A Conservative win here - give your head a shake! Strictly a two party race between Liberals and NDP. Churley a well known provincial MPP well liked in the area and seems very well organized. Received a flyer on the first moring of the campaign! Lawn signs appearing all over the riding and the talk in the coffee shops on Queen St. point to a change in Beaches - East York. NDP gain from Liberals.
	02 12 05	PB
Um, Paul, even if you divide the "left" vote equally, you get three parties with more than 13,000 votes each. And that leaves the Conservatives with a gap of about 7,000 to make up somehow. When the country swept to the Tories in the 1980s, this riding was held by the NDP, as I recall. It won't go Tory, full stop. The NDP want this seat badly, but they've got a big gap to overcome - probably too big. It's not a done deal yet, but I'd have to give the edge to the incumbent, however regrettable.
	02 12 05	M. Lunn
To the poster who says this is a Conservative target, I have trouble believing that, but if it is, that obviously means they need a new campaign manager. The Conservatives won't win any seats in the 416 area and even if they did, this is one of the ones they are least likely to take. Even if the NDP and Liberals split the vote, the Tories would need to double their vote from last time to be competitive, which is highly unlikely. I would be surprised if the Tories even broke 20% let alone win this riding.
	01 12 05	AV
Minna's been counted out pretty much every election, but she's always won massive majorities. Of course, Marilyn Churley is a very strong candidate, but B-EY isn't just the Queen St. Beach corridor. It's also East York north of the Danforth, and that area is probably closest to Scarborough: ripe Liberal territory.
	30 11 05	Paul
Believe it or not, the Conservatives actually have a shot of winning this seat. They obviously know that something in this riding is really working in their favour since they have listed Beaches East York as one of their top 20 target ridings. Think about it, with the left vote being divided between the liberals/ndp/green and a better conservative candidate this time around, the Conservative should be able to sneak through.
	30 11 05	Jay B
This one is almost too close to call, but I think that Minna's plurality and popularity in the riding will hold off Churley. I've almost forgotten about her 'parachuting' into the riding way back when. As someone who has watched Churley over the years, I must say that her streaks of hypocrisy have overshadowed, for me anyway, her good intentions. Number one - her treatment of Bob Hunter. I will never forgive her for leading the charge to discredit him during his provincial by-election loss to Michael Prue (who is a great MPP, by the way). A New Democrat and social activist who is against literary license? Interesting, Marilyn. Number two - the recent adoption disclosure file that she has been capably carrying for years. She finally gets a government willing to support her goal and had little to say when the public coverage got messy. Number three - always advocating for more women in politics - with social liberal leanings of course - which I support greatly. So, she decides to challenge a hard-working social liberal in Maria Minna and wants to knock her off?
	29 11 05	Mark R.
With NDP support at 28% in the City of Toronto, this will have to be one of those seats that will tip into the NDP column. Marilyn Churley has been an effective MPP for several years. In an election where voters are cynical, the name and trust factor looms large. I expect that Marilyn will be successful as will Jack Layton, Olivia Chow, and Peggy Nash.
	29 11 05	mini phreek
this is the best chance the NDP have had to take B-EY, even better then 2004, they are up in the polls since last time, and they have one of there MPPs running in this left leaning seat (albeit not from the same riding). Expect this to be one of the NDPs pick ups in Toronto.
	28 11 05	Humble prophet
Churley cleans up here. Minna has been a very ineffective, even embarrassing MP, whereas Churley is a local star, and is seen that way by people from all party stripes. Her crossover appeal will determine this one, which she will carry by 1500. The Beaches is a perfect champagne socialist riding. People here may make $150,000 but they likely support Kyoto and gay marriages and they like Layton.
	28 11 05	Canadian Redhead
Having lived in this riding, and given recent comments, I feel compelled to add more of my own. Beaches East York is a left leaning riding. Yes, wealthy people live here, and I understand the assumption that all rich people are capitalists and want to protect their wealth by voting for a like-minded party (e.g. Conservative). However, some wealthy people are (believe it or not) left-leaning. They are called Champaign Socialists and BEY is loaded with them - especially in the Beaches! Given the three high profile candidates that are running, the Conservatives will not do well. Last election they got only 14% of the vote in BEY, and I'll be surprised to see them do as well this time. Sorry Mr. Christie, you're out of f(l)avour here (besides, in this neighbourhood it's all about Peak Freans). To state that some candidates are not "very intelligent" and are the "stupidest people running for office in the City of Toronto federally" smacks of dismissing valid candidates out of hand without due consideration, and intonates strong partisanship. Churley stupid? Harris not intelligent? These are two candidates who have done amazing work for their parties (and themselves). Churley has been an MPP and prominent community figure for years and Harris has published a few books and lifted his party out of near obscurity. Hardly the hallmarks of candidates lacking in intellect or prowess. Analysis: Minna's best hope is that her constituents vote their Liberal incumbent (not necessarily for her) as a result of anti-Conservative voting. Churley will do very well in BEY. She's left leaning, as the riding tends to be, well spoken, and is known as a strong advocate for the environment, womin's issues, children's issues and education; all of which will clearly resonate with BEY. Churley's reputation, her engagement and knowledge of the area/community, the neighbouring Federal leader, recent positive NDP polling (especially in Toronto) and a weak incumbent still make Churley the money-on favourite. Do not discount Jim Harris. Make no mistake: he will have an impact on this riding! Harris' stature as the leader of a party with a newly broadened profile will help him. In 2004, the Green candidate had a much lower profile and still managed to pull 4.5%. Expect Harris to do much better. And he will pull votes from all parties. He will attract many camps: environmentalists, the socially moderate-to progressives and, most notably, some fiscal conservatives with his eco-capitalist ideas. He is an accomplished public speaker which should serve him will; the question is: Is he an equally competent debater? I see BEY as a three horse race (well, maybe 2 and a half). The only solid prediction I'll make is that the Conservative candidate will come in fourth place. This is a left leaning, socially progressive, environmentally conscious riding. And for the love of God, leave Bob Hunter OUT OF IT. I mean, for pity sake, respect the dead! He did good work while he was alive. Regardless of accusations and what was clearly a nasty atmosphere during the by-election, let the poor man rest in peace!!!
	27 11 05	JF
In my mind it seems inevitable that the Green Party will make significant gains in this election, for a number of reasons: First, the party has seen support increase in every election since its inception. Second, the party has polled as high as 9% in recent months, and a poll over the summer (Decima? Not sure) showed that over 80% of those polled would consider voting green. Third, due to its success in the last election, the party became eligible for federal funding of $1.75 per vote, and has subsequently hired permanent staff and set up a telephone hotline. Fourth, the green party will likely be included in the televised debates (the decision by the CBC not to allow leader Jim Harris to appear in the debates sparked a major outcry, with most Canadians agreesing that they would like to see the Green Party in the next debate). Fifth, Jim Harris's riding of Beaches-East York is prime environmentalist territory; also, the incumbent is a Liberal, which makes for uncertainty of re-election. Together I think that these factors make it fairly likely that the Green Party will make big gains in this election, with a good chance that Jim Harris will be elected (especially if he appears on TV).
	24 11 05	Bex
With Marilyn Churley up for the Dippers this will tip the balance into NDP hands. Churley has been adept at representing the local community provincially for many years and her support reaches across party boundaries.
	23 11 05	M. Lunn
Okay, lets quit this nonsense about the Tories winning because of the high-end condos. Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Willowdale, and Don Valley West are all wealthier ridings as well as Mississauga South and Oakville, and guess what, the Tories got clobberred in those ridings. Stephen Harper's conservatism doesn't sell in the GTA amongst any socio-economic group. I don't live in this riding, but my riding Vancouver Centre is a mix of single dwelling rental apartments and high end condos and I can tell you the Conservatives have absolutely no chance at winning here. I expect the Liberals to have the advantage as Maria Minna won by 15 points last time around as well as she is on the left of the party, but the choice of a more high profile NDP candidate, Marilyn Churley, should at the very least close the gap and possibly pull off an upset.
	22 11 05	MF
A Tory victory here? Are you serious? If you think affluent professional people in the old city of Toronto vote Tory, you should look at the results of the last election! Lots of well-to-do professionals in Toronto in fact vote NDP! Look at North Riverdale, which is about the same as the Beaches in terms of socioeconomic measures, and the Annex which is higher than both of them! Tories probably get single digits in all these areas. Meanwhile, the city of Toronto north of the railroad tracks and the East York part still remain very working class and is not Tory-friendly territory either.
	23 11 05	JKY
The previous posting makes a big deal of how expensive it is to live in the Beach. True, but even in the south end of the riding where most of the expensive homes are concentrated, the NDP has always done well. The new demographics involved in newly built and infill housing such as the greenwood development may be different, and it will take a while to sort out how this will affect overall voting patterns in the riding. In the more established areas of the riding as well as the less affluent areas from Gerrard to O'Conner, the NDP vote should be solid. This area represents about 65% of the voters. The Federal NDP has had some difficulty penetrating the areas of former East York, although provincially Mike Prue is solid there for the NDP. It will be close, but with all things considered, I am calling for a somewhat improved Conservative showing at the expense of the Liberals and a marked increase in NDP support to overcome Minna's 7000 vote advantage of last time
	18 11 05	John Pirie
Beaches-East York poorish ?? How could anyone who actually lives here say that, especially with the new boundaries in place. A very large low income area has been completely removed from the riding eliminating thousands of "leftish" votes. Apart from this reality, the economic trend in this riding is clearly moving toward higher income voters. There are now more home owners than renters in the riding -- try finding a house in the Beaches today under $500,000, even for a semi. There was no Conservative campaign in this riding last time around - plain and simple. Conroy is the first serious Conservative candidate since the new boundary was put in place. The current campaign happens to coincide with a highly publicized and enormously costly Liberal scandal. Intelligent voters will find it hard to ignore the wide-spread fraud and theft of their tax dollars by the Liberal Party of Canada. I say the Conservatives take it with something north of 30% this time around. Conroy is a solid candidate with a well funded and well organized campaign.
	15 11 05	Bear and Ape
Yes Mr. Christie, bigger upsets have happened. But not when the riding is left-ish, poor-ish, smack-dab-in-the-middle of Toronto and the Conservative party is perceived in urban Canada as knuckle dragging republican Bush wannabes. Liberal/NDP battle with the CPC having a snowball's chance in hell of winning this riding. Sorry Mr. Christie, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
	11 11 05	Paul Christie
Hey why not? Young, serious,articulate candidate in Peter Conroy with lifetime-deep local roots. (Beaches Lions, St. Denis School, etc.) Lot's of cash through Bay Street connections. Maria has been lacklustre for years -- once parachuted here, no local legacy, unceremoniously dumped from cabinet, backbencher for life. Churley is a carpetbagger from Riverdale whose local credentials are photographs with local NDP dinosaurs Mike Prue and Sandy Bussin. Its been a while but the Tories are capable of 30%. They did it in the '99 provincial with their last serious candidate. If Jim Harris and the rest of the fringe can get 8-10%, which is clearly possible. 30-34% could certainly win here. I say Minna, Churley and Harris split the left vote, leaving lots of room for the Tories. Bigger upsets have happened.
	07 11 05	PC
I think this will be a battle, much like Trinity-Spadina was last election, i.e. won/lost by 1500 or less votes. Based on riding history, an approximate 1/3-1/4 collapse of the Liberal vote because of scandal, and a very strong NDP candidate, I think this will be one of possibly two pick ups in the GTA for the NDP. Churley has to make some breakthrough in immigrant populated northern reaches of the riding. A strong-ish COnservative candidate could make this a walk.
	01 11 05	DL
These Green Party flakes should stop with these ridiculous delusions of grandeur - as if anything they, their party or their leader do will have any impact at all on the outcome in this riding. get real. The Green Party is about as inconsequential as the Natural Law Party. Jim Harris took a derisory 3% of the vote in Toronto-Danforth and he will get no more than that in Beaches. There are strict limits on what parties can spend in individual ridings (about $80,000) and in any case Harris is really only in it to promote his motivational speaking business.
	25 10 05	Paul
Jim Harris will mostly steal NDP votes even though used to be a PCPC supporter before turning Green. The CPC is not in the race, this is Toronto after all. This will be an easy win for the Liberals.
	05 10 05	G. Draven
"Who gives a rat's ass about Bob Hunter?" Ah yes, the NDP. The great friend of the environment. Bob Hunter was a wonderful, beautiful man and a legend. I agree with R. Jackson. People actually do care about this man and what he did with his life. The NDP would do well to respect him just a little even if it was the NDP and Michael Prue's campaign that labelled him a pedophile in the 2002 by-election. Remember, in this riding people actually do care about the environment. They do, after all, live with beach closings so the quality of our environment actually does impact their daily quality of life in a more tangible way than it does for many.
	17 09 05	M. Lunn
I am not so sure the NDP will take it this time. Marilyn Churley will certainly help the NDP, but Maria Minna won by 15 points which is quite a bit to overcome despite the NDP's increases in recent polls. Also Maria Minna is a left-leaning liberal who appeals to many progressive minded people who might be tempted to vote NDP otherwise. And whoever said this would go conservative is full of it. The Conservatives definitely won't win this and may not even get into double digits.
	09 09 05	R. Jackson
"Who gives a rat's ass about Bob Hunter?" It's statements like this by the NDP that will swing major votes to the Liberals. Most Beaches residents see Bob Hunter as a genuine local hero, and the environmental movement is so strong in the Beaches that there is just no chance of winning if you belittle this local hero. "Or about the "tempest in a teapot" battles inside the Green Party." Again, a serious mistake to underestimate the need to swing their votes, or the fact that Jim Harris is going to spend a big chunk of the GPC windfall of $1M/year in this riding, trying to not look bad. It's a bad strategic expenditure, but, Harris is not very smart, and, he'll just go after NDP votes without limit, saying whatever he has to, to get them. If the NDP ignores the Greens, the Greens could rack up a lot of votes in what they thought were solid neighbourhoods. The NDP so lacks a winning strategy here, that I give this to the Liberals. I bet if you walk into the NDP campaign office and say "Bob Hunter" they will look blank, not knowing who that is or that he was on CityTV for many years. If you say "Jim Harris" they will laugh, which is reasonable, but, I think they will not know that he has $1M in central party funding which he will find ways to spend in Beaches East York on his campaign.
	04 09 05	Not Non-Partisan
Jim Harris is only a factor here because of the number of votes he will draw away from Marilyn Churley. Marilyn will play the environment card but will she keep Harris under 7 or 8 percent? If not, Minna has a real chance and surprisingly, so does Peter Conroy, the recently nominated Tory. Thirty-five percent of the vote should win this race. If you don't think a serious Tory can get over 30% here, you haven't looked at the riding history (and the boundaries are much more favourable to the Tories than any time, except their non-campaign here in 2004, in the last thirty years).
	09 07 05	Ronny
Who gives a rat's ass about Bob Hunter? Or about the "tempest in a teapot" battles inside the Green Party. This will be a battle between Minna and Churley that Churley will win. By the time the election is called the Gomery Report and Liberal corruption will be front page news again. Churley has been one of the most dynamic members of the provincial legislature. In a contest between a Liberal backbencher identified with the corrupt Chretien era and someone of Marilyn Churley's stature there just is no contest. Minna is going down.
	05 07 05	L. Anderson
I call this for Minna, but not easily. If she doesn't play the Bob Hunter card, she will lose for sure. It would be a walk for Churley except that Green Party of Canada Leader Jim Harris is chasing the same votes, and as noted could get up to 12%. Michael Prue, the NDP provincial MPP and popular former mayor of East York, could well be the deciding factor handing it to Churley. But here are some additional factors to consider: 1. Churley has not represented this riding before, but rather the next door Toronto-Danforth riding provincially. Jim Harris also moved in from next door. Those who don't like such drop-ins are not going to vote for either of them. And as a greenish NDPer, Churley is fighting for the same votes as Harris. She has a history of scrapping with Greens very nastily. 2. As noted, she was "forced out" of Howard Hampton's caucus. Many people think Prue is the next Ontario NDP leader - or if not that he'll shift parties. Churley is closer to Layton whom she worked with obviously for many years. A lot of people will be wondering "what is wrong with her - she has a reputation as a loose cannon. 3. There is still incredible bad blood about the 2001 provincial byelection tactic that Hampton insisted that Prue use, with Churley's help: slandering Bob Hunter, a founder of Greenpeace, as a "pedophile" (Bob was running for the Liberals in that election), based on a fictional story he wrote. Prue disavowed the tactic, Churley and Hampton never did. A lot of Greens are out for Churley's blood this time, and they have every excuse to go to town on her, since she is opposing their leader. With Bob Hunter recently deceased and standing as the icon of green unity in the riding, any mention of his name is likely to be explosive. The Liberals would be fools not to drop his name into every forum available. 4. Jim Harris is extremely unpopular, even hated, in the Toronto wing of his own Party, especially with women. He has far less than 50% support of his party at present and is basically a lame duck outgoing leader. Some very ugly resignation letters, most of them from Toronto area Greens and nominees Hayley Easto (the party's former women's issues critics and Parkdale candidate) and Kathryn Holloway (the party's elected fundraising chair whom Harris forced out in favour of cronies, and Toronto Centre Rosedale nominated candidate) and 905 area municipal politician Elio Di Iorio, are on the record. Churley's team would be fools not to use them. 5. Harris' record on downtown municipal issues is incredibly bad. He is the worst of the four major party leaders (even worse than Stephen Harper) on these questions. Recently on his blog electjim.ca his campaign manager Matthew Day stated that "municipalities are the creatures of the Provincial governments," and that they are "quite properly the responsibility of Provincial" governments. This is an inexplicable and indefensible shift in policy: the Green Party of Canada has a very long standing position that municipalities should have constitutional status, and Alberta grants them legal person status. The direction of the Greens under Harris on this issue is entirely against the grain of the district he is running in, where local autonomy and identification are high, and where resistance to the forced provincial merger into the Megacity was very high. Churley again would be a fool not to use this against Harris, and point out for instance that he was the only federal party leader not to attend the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in June nor to make any comment at all about the New Deal For Cities. 6. Neither Jim Harris nor Marilyn Churley is very intelligent. It is fair to say that they are two of the stupidest people running for office in the City of Toronto federally. They probably don't have the brains to back off from a nasty personal fight that will make both of them look terrible. They certainly don't have the power to compel their supporters not to go after the other. 7. As a final wild card, remember that Michael Prue, during the all-candidates meetings in 2001, proudly announced that he had been asked to run by the Liberals, the Greens, the Province of Toronto Party, and of course the NDP. He deliberately drew on multi-party support to be elected, his view of Toronto is very much like that of the Toronto Greens (which includes strong sympathy for the Province of Toronto movement which also includes David Miller and Michael Walker and of course Jane Jacobs and Mel Lastman and the late Tooker Gomberg) and he will be extremely wary of entering the race in any kind of partisan and divisive way, especially after what happened with the Bob Hunter situation. 8. Several Greens including former Head of Platform and Research Michael Pilling (whom Harris fired as part of a takeover of the party's policy from the membership, a well documented mess you can find an explanation of at Wikipedia) have vowed to run against Harris as independents or other. It remains to be seen if they will follow through, but certainly it will be very easy for the Conservative Party, Marijuana Party, Progressive Canadians, Canadian Action Party, to recruit former Greens who hate Harris - and they may also draw activist/protest votes away from the NDP if they are amusing and colourful enough. This is very likely to be the ugliest, meanest, funniest, stupidest and most divisive and embittering campaign race in the entire country. Watch it carefully. Expect among other things hilarious cartoon literature.
	03 06 05	A.S.
While Churley's candidacy is a blessing, keep in mind how, relatively speaking, the federal NDP's weight in Beaches-E York has slowly slackened since its days as one of the party's "Big 3" in then-Metro Toronto. Not only did Parkdale-High Park displace BEY for the #3 position in 2004, but even Davenport registered a higher NDP percentage. And that was in spite of BEY's history, in spite of its being next door to Layton, in spite of its offering an old Layton councilmate and confidant as NDP standard-bearer. And as blessings go, Churley could still turn out to be mixed, i.e. (and not unlike Tabuns) a little too downtownny light-in-the-loafers for a constituency that prefers a little more gravitas in its Dippers (Lankin, Prue). Lesson from past history in this seat: don't take all that ground-level lawn-sign noise too seriously. Mel Watkins underperformed; Peter Tabuns underperformed; and quite probably Marilyn Churley will underperform--then again, we might be seeing more of a Layton-vs-Mills underperformance than a Tabuns-vs-Minna underperformance...
	26 05 05	Andrew Cox
NDP pick up. Reasons. 1) Prior to 1993, this was an NDP stronghold. 2) Its held by the NDP provincially. While this is not an extremely strong predictor of federal intent, it does mean there is a strong organization on the ground and a plurality of voters who have marked the NDP box before. 3) Marilyn Churley has significant profile in the area, but that in and of itself won't make a huge difference. Mike Prue probably would have added the most to the ticket, but then again, it wasn't Prue that Howard Hampton forced out of his caucus. 4) What does make a difference is Marilyn's ties to the substantial Chinese community in the riding (2000-3000 votes), which had previously been a Minna lock. 5) Minna is a pretty tired warhorse. She was in cabinet before and probably never will be again. 6) As a Chretien-era cabinet minister, it is hard for her to blame Gomery on Jean. 7) All that said, the NDP-Liberal swing vote could always run home to the Grits if the election polarizes around "scary" Stephen Harper again.
	23 05 05	Bear and Ape
Good gosh! We're (for once) absolutely at a loss for this riding. It appears many people have their opinions as to whether Maria or Marylin will win (is it us, or are all parties emptying Queens Park for candidates?). As for us, we just don't know and this is going to be one to watch during the campaign. In all honesty we can't see how anyone could have a basis to predict this riding for either party right now (we dare y'all to prove us wrong).
	17 05 05	Nick Boragina
The NDP is up, especially in 416, and with a well known candidate running, I agree with 11 of the past 15 predictors, that the NDP will win here. This is an urban riding with an NDP history with a strong candidate and gomery and poll numbers and a leader from the next door riding and a last minute swing last time against the NDP, etc etc etc. I cant really phrase it, because in my mind all I keep hearing is "come on, it's so obvious" but I know that's not an acceptable prediction.
	16 05 05	TracieS
I think if the Conservatives weren't such a factor at the national level that Marilyn Churley would win. But Maria Minna may win out. Maria is well-liked and push come to shove I don't think Beaches-East York residents want to see a Conservative government in power, and if the election is as tight as they say that it will be I can see people choosing to vote in a Liberal just to avoid a Conservative government. That is if there even is an election.
	16 05 05	Bear and Ape
Is it us, or does it seem that Queen's Park is being emptied for candidates in this election? In any case the NDP have a great candidate and are going to put up one helluva fight. Never the less, Maria Minna has been hanging in there and has the benefit of the incumbancy. For sure one to watch but way too early to predict. Message to ToJo; an approximate 7000 vote margin is not relativly close (even for the NDP).
	12 05 05	JKY
With Marilyn Churley running, and the general malaise in the Liberal party that will find many libs sitting on their hands if not switching, I would be flabbergasted to see a lacklustre perrenial backbencher like Minna repeat.
	11 05 05	JC
Maria has been great for this riding for years, but she just can't stand up to Marilyn Churley, she's too strong a candidate and there is just no way Maria can hang onto this. Expect Michael Prue to campaign wildly for Marilyn.
	11 05 05	AndrewB
Minna will hang tough - I think tabuns was a much tougher candidate than the MPP for Toronto-Danforth. Minna has all the connections with the New Canadian communities, and Churley hasn't lived in the riding for quite some time. Last time pundits claimed Minna was lost for sure - and she won with a bigger majority than many of the GTA candidates. Her's for the taking.
	11 05 05	MF
NDP pickup. With Marilyn Churley as the candidate, the NDP will be able to do respectably among working class voters in the riding, not just in the Beaches. Churley has represented an east side/East York provincial riding for years and knows how to win the different constituencies. Expect some Tabuns voters to migrate the Greens, but not enough to offset the gains with Churley as candidate. Prediction: 41% NDP, 37% LIB, 14% CON, 7% GRN
	10 05 05	MWG
Goodbye Maria...HELLO MARILYN. The NDP has just threw a curb ball into Liberal plans/hopes to keep this riding. Provincial Deputy Leader and 15 year MPP Marilyn Churley was given the nod this evening as the candidate. Even though she represented the riding next door and still represents a small portion provincially, this will be the NDP's to lose. The NDP has just doubled their Toronto seats tonight.
	10 05 05	ToJo
Beaches-East York is a left leaning riding. With NDP veteran MPP Marilyn Churley running here for the NDP - expect an NDP win on election night. They came relatively close with Tabuns last June and I expect a higher profile candidate running against a low profile MP will produce a Especially since Jack and his team won have to fight as hard in Toronto-Danforth and some of his volunteers and his staff can lend a hand in a neighbouring riding.
	10 05 05	Craig
The word on the street is that Marilyn Churley is stepping aside from Queen's Park to run here. Coupled with the fact that the Liberals are self-destructing and the fact that the Conservatives are deemed as "scary" here, Churley should take this seat from Minna. (The question is who will run in the provincial by-election to preserve official party status) This is NDP target #3 in Toronto. Predicted results: NDP 44%, LIB 38%, CPC 12%, GRN 4%, others 2%.
	10 05 05	IGB
Well, it looks as if Minna's goose may just be cooked with the announcement that Marilyn Churley is running for the NDP nod in this riding, which is next door to her Danforth riding in the Ontario Legislature. With the addition of the popular Churley to the ranks it looks as if the NDP has a really good shot at winning this. Minna has defied the odds before, however -- but it looks like a very good chance at an NDP pickup.
	10 05 05	Canadian Redhead
I've heard rumblings that Ms. Churley is going to run for BEY. If this is true - game over, thanks for coming out. She'll waltz away with it - she'd win if she ran as an independent!
	10 05 05	Brandon
Ontario New Democrat MPP Marilyn Churley has just announced she will seek the nomination to run for the NDP in Beaches-East York. Churley has been around for a long time (15 years) and was a Cabinet Minister, if I am correct, under Premier Bob Rae. She is extremely popular in this area of Toronto (noting her actual riding provincially is Toronto-Danforth, already held federally by Jack Layton). Maria Minna should be shaking in her boots. Against a strong candidate like Churley, the gig is up!
	08 05 05	Not Non-Partisan
Maria Minus. Peter Who? The NDP should win but I just cant see it happening. Peter should be running where he lives -- in Riverdale, but --oops, Jack Layton is the member there. Find somebody local. It will be interesting if the Tories can generate any momentum coming out of their nomination on May 14. Two interesting candidates -- Galen (Not That One) Weston and deep Beach rooted Peter Conroy. Both are well connected and well funded. There will be a real Tory campaign here -- not like Nik Nik's in 2004.
	05 05 05	M. Lunn
Certainly a possible NDP target, but Maria Minna is one of the more left-leaning liberals so this should appeal to many NDP voters. She also won by 15% last time around so I would still give the liberals an edge, although it will likely be bit closer this time around.
	02 11 05
If the NDP runs a well-liked candidate such as Michael Prue, Sandra Bussin or Janet Davis, they'll slide through a win. However, if they run Tabuns, they'll be disappointed just like the last time. Tabuns has very little connection to the community, especially in the northern half, and many, many volunteers of his past campaign were upset at the poor organizing and use of resources
	06 05 05	MF
I wouldn't call Tabuns a particularly strong candidate. This is one of the most NDP-friendly ridings in Toronto and Tabuns was pretty easily defeated by Minna. Tabuns basically just won the champagne-socialist Beaches vote which he would have won anyway without campaigning, and ignored unhip working class East York. If the NDP wants to win here, I would advise that they don't nominate Tabuns, but rather nominate someone who can do respectably enough in EY to win the riding. Right now I'll say it's too close to call.
	02 05 05	Dave S
It will be close, but I predict an NDP win. The NDP MPP is very popular. This riding has gone NDP in the past. More importantly, a lot of soft Liberals are fed up. Peter Taubuns will be running again for the NDP and he has good name recognition and is a strong campaigner. Maria Minna will do well for the Liberals if she runs and could possibly hold on. If she doesn't run, it should be an easy NDP gain. This riding has a strong NDP base as well as a lot of support for Minna. There is very little Conservative support here. I predict 40% NDP, 35% Liberal, 12% Green, 12% Conservative.