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Stephen Harpers Conservatives have pulled into a neck-and-neck race with Justin Trudeaus Liberals, both nationally and in vote-rich Ontario, according to a newly released poll.

The poll, conducted for Global News by Ipsos Reid with a large sample size, comes 10 months before the next scheduled federal election.

If an election were held tomorrow, the Liberals would get 34 per cent of the vote and the Conservatives 33 per cent, according to the poll. The figures indicate the Liberals have slid four percentage points since September, while the Conservatives have seen a two percentage point gain.

Thomas Mulcairs New Democrats would receive 24 per cent of the vote nationally if a vote were held today, and dont hold the lead in any of the 10 provinces, according to decided voters in the poll. Fifteen per cent of voters remained undecided, according to the poll.

Critically, battleground Ontario remains a close race, the poll showed. The Conservatives and Liberals are tied in Ontario at 37 per cent a dead heat, Ipsos Reid said in a statement ahead of the NDP at 22 per cent. The Liberals were ahead in Toronto, the so-called 416 region, with 46 per cent of the vote, with the NDP at 26 per cent and the Conservatives at 25 per cent.

However, in the 905 region, a collection of suburban communities around Toronto, the Conservatives would get 41 per cent of the vote in an election held today, according to the poll, with the Liberals at 37 per cent and the NDP at 20 per cent.

In Quebec, another vote-rich province, the poll found the Liberals at 32 per cent, followed by the NDP at 29 per cent, the Bloc Quebecois at 21 per cent and the Conservatives at 15 per cent. It was gains in Quebec that helped elevate the NDP to Official Opposition status in the 2011 election.

In British Columbia, a close race is shaping up with all three parties within five percentage points of each other. The poll found the Conservatives at 33 per cent, the NDP at 30 per cent and the Liberals at 28 per cent.

The Liberals held leads across all of Atlantic Canada, though only narrowly in PEI, while the Conservatives held leads across the Prairies, though only narrowly in Saskatchewan, according to the poll.

The Conservatives had a one-point edge over the Liberals among male voters within the margin of error while the Liberals had a four-point lead among women over the Conservatives. The Conservatives lead among voters over 55 years old, while the Liberals and NDP lead Mr. Harpers party among voters aged 18 to 34. The Liberals hold a narrow lead over the 35 to 54 age group, with 35 per cent to the Conservatives 33 per cent.

Continued here:
Harpers Tories and Trudeaus Liberals in dead heat: poll

Reaction to the grand jury decision in Ferguson, Mo., not to indict police officer Darren Wilson largely divided Americans along racial and political lines, ripping open a chasm between conservatives many of whom supported Mr. Wilson's testimony and the decision and liberals, who saw the incident as an example of police brutality and racial injustice.

In the case of Eric Garner, reaction has been immediate and almost unanimous across the political spectrum.

In July, Mr. Garner, an unarmed black man, was confronted by several New York City police officers who suspected him of illegally selling individual cigarettes outside of a store in Staten Island. One police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, put Garner in a fatal chokehold when he resisted arrest. The incident was captured on video. Agrand jury decided on Wednesday to not indict Pantaleo.

Reaction was swift, and unlike in the case in Ferguson, many on the political right and left united to condemn the grand jury decision, a rare event in an age of acute polarization.

The cover of the conservative New York Post says: "IT WAS NOT A CRIME," written in big, bold letters, accompanied by still frames of Pantaleo putting Garner in a chokehold.

Fox News syndicated columnist and contributor Charles Krauthammer called the grand jurys decision "totally incomprehensible."

"I think anybody who looks at the video would think this was the wrong judgment," Krauthammer said.

"It defies reason. It makes no sense,"wrote Sean Davis at the Federalist. "Just going on the plain language of the law, the police officer who killed Garner certainly appears to be guilty of second-degree manslaughter at the very least ... All we have to do is watch the video and believe our own eyes."

Leon Wolf of the conservative blog Redstate wrote, "This decision is really and truly baffling to me, and infuriating besides."

Conservative commentator Erick Erickson endorsed this statement from the conservative Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "[A] government that can choke a man to death on video for selling cigarettes is not a government living up to a biblical definition of justice or any recognizable definition of justice."

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Why conservatives and liberals are united on Eric Garner case

Jeremy Thorpe in February 1970 when he was Liberal party leader and MP for North Devon. Photograph: Getty

Jeremy Thorpe, who brought the Liberal party to the brink of coalition government in 1974 but resigned amid scandal soon after, has died aged 85. He died on Thursday morning after a long battle with Parkinsons disease, his son Rupert has announced.

From the age of 38, he led the Liberals for nine years. Between 1967 and 1976, surviving a poor performance in the 1970 general election, he turned the Liberals from a tiny party of six MPs into a small one of 11. In the 1974 general election, Thorpe played up his relative youthfulness by vaulting a security barrier wearing his trademark trilby.

The Liberals made a breakthrough, winning 19% of the vote (then a post-war record) and got 14 MPs. Although Ted Heath had not won a majority, he had won the popular vote and refused to resign. Thorpe went to Downing Street for secret coalition talks with Heath (at one point being smuggled into No 10).

The talks eventually collapsed as the Liberals couldnt stomach coalition with the Tories and feared being tainted by Heath, whom even the Spectator was calling a squatter in No 10. It was the the closest to actual government the third party had come for decades , with the failure of the talks leading to a minority Labour government led by Harold Wilson.

Two years after walking up Downing Street, Thorpe resigned as leader of the party after being accused of conspiracy to murder a former model, Norman Scott, who claimed to be a former lover. Scott had been out walking his great Dane, Rinka, and, though he survived, the animal was killed. Thorpe was acquitted on all charges in 1979, but had by then had lost his seat and his party.

Not long after the end of the trial Thorpe was found to have Parkinsons disease and retired from public life. For many years, the disease has been at an advanced stage. However, in 1997 he visited the Liberal Democrat party conference and was given a standing ovation by party members, and he attended the funeral of Roy Jenkins in 2003.

In 1999, Thorpe published his memoirs, In My Own Time, in which he described key episodes in his political life. He did not, however, shed any further light on the Norman Scott affair.

If it happened now I think ... the public would be kinder. Back then they were very troubled by it, he told the Guardian in 2008. It offended their set of values.

Harold Wilson thought the allegations a Conservative smear, asking in a memo to one of his ministers, Barbara Castle, why damaging details surfaced later in the 1970s at a time when Labour might want to go into coalition with the Liberals, rather than earlier when Heath wanted them.

See the article here:
Jeremy Thorpe, former Liberal party leader, dies aged 85

The Liberals and the Tories are statistically tied as Canada heads into an election year, a new Ipsos Reid poll suggests.

If Canadians went to the polls now, 34% would vote for Justin Trudeau's Liberals, while 33% would support Stephen Harper's Conservatives, according to the poll.

The NDP, under Thomas Mulcair, registered at 24% with surveyed voters.

Mario Beaulieu's Bloc would receive 5% of the vote nationally (21% in Quebec) and other parties, including the Green Party under Elizabeth May, would get 4%.

Those percentages are broken down from decided voters.

Of all voters surveyed, 15% said they were still undecided.

Tracking the data over the last three weeks suggests that either the Conservatives or Liberals could jump out in front, Ipsos Reid said.

The poll, conducted for Global News, surveyed 8,268 Canadians in November.

Ipsos Reid estimates it to be accurate to within 1.2%, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadian adults been surveyed.

The federal election is expected no later than next fall.

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Liberals and Tories neck and neck in new federal poll

Liberals low-ball security cost for Pan Am games
Ontario #39;s auditor general says the security budget for the Pan Am Games in Toronto next summer was too low, and warns purchasing of security services is behi...

By: jagmeetndp

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Liberals low-ball security cost for Pan Am games - Video