Tonight about 250 people gathered into a local Guelph banquet hall to see the Prime Minister, who was finishing up a swing through southwestern Ontario today. I was personally happy since not only did I get a picture with the architect of the Conservative coalition of the 21st century (I lost some pics taken during his 2005 summer tour later that summer) but also got to connect with many old friends, as well as new ones who apparently know me via The Politic (hi guys!).

For those who aren’t politically obsessed, let me bring you up to speed:

The Liberal caucus, just itching for yet another rematch after their four seats became two-and-a-squeaker is now going to be short another member as Guelph MP Brenda Chamberlain is calling it quits after representing the riding for the past 15 years (maybe this is Dion’s strategy of making sure he doesn’t accidentally trigger an election…). Two ridings will have to have by-elections before Guelph if the Prime Minister decides to call them separately although Saint-Lambert, Quebec is a Bloc fortress (the Liberals came second for the record) and Westmount-Ville-Marie will likely retain its Liberal tint since Marc Garneau is running as a star candidate in that highly federalist Montreal riding. Of course, with Don Valley West — famous for denying John Tory a seat last fall provincially — also due to have a by-election, the Prime Minister will likely call the lot of DVW, Guelph and Saint-Lambert for some time in the early fall, likely in September (WVM must be called by July).

As Monday showed, Don Valley West needs no John Tory to demonstrate Toronto’s addiction to Liberal voting paterns, and Saint-Lambert might see the Tories replace the Liberals as the runner up although the outside chance of a federalist party taking the seat at this point is less than the seats of Vancouver Quadra and Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot changing hands. Guelph, on the other hand, used to be considered to be the safest Liberal riding in Southwestern Ontario — a title that now belongs to Kitchener-Waterloo.

In Guelph the Tories halved their distance from Chamberlain between 2004 and 2006, where they were 10,000 and 5,000 votes behind the Liberal MP each time respectively. The riding has gone PC in the past though and is very bellweather. The NDP does very poorly in the riding traditionally which isn’t all that strange when one considers that the University of Guelph is more of a farming university than a bastion of leftist thought. The rest of the city, 100,000 strong, is very similar to the tri-cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge with tech, hardware and farming companies, along with factories. Suburbs are growing in the city, although without proper GO Transit and a 1.25 hour drive to Toronto, commuters are not a big component of the city’s population. There is still an agricultural element to the city, although it has largely transfered to the rest of Wellington County. In other words, this is going to be another dog fight between the Liberals and the Conservatives and will be used as a gauge for support that each party has when the election comes.

The Conservatives, rallied tonight by the first of many expected visits by Prime Minister Harper, are running a local star candidate, Gloria Kovach who served as Guelph Ward 4’s city councilor, the president of the Canadian Association of Municipalities and is quite popular in the area. The Liberals are running Frank Valeritote, a local lawyer, Catholic school board trustee and community volunteer. It’s quickly becoming a rematch of Vancouver Quadra, with a little less urbane flare and a few more farm animals.

Much of the result will depend on local organization, but it will primarily centre around what happens in Ottawa during the spring session and whether the voters in Guelph trust Stephen Harper versus believe Stephane Dion. Given the underlying trend of the past twelve months, it’s starting to become believable that the Liberals will begin to see, quite appropriately in a farming city riding, the chickens come home to roost after squandering more than a year in opposition under a clucky leader.