It’s hard to know where to begin with a series of posts about why the Conservatives deserve to be turfed from office after nine years in power. But perhaps my answer is right there in front of me.
Because the fact is that the trend since WWII has been that Canada’s longest lasting governments have all ended up having their mandates end right around the 10 year mark, give or take a year. For whatever reason at that point, many Canadians (even those who support the long-standing government, whether it’s Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives or Jean Chretien’s Liberals) start to feel like the government becomes tired, old and that it’s time for a change.
One Conservative voter I know who even has a yard sign for his local Conservative candidate still told me that it’s time for Harper to go so we can get some fresh blood in Ottawa. I’m not sure if voting for your local Conservative candidate is the best way to get rid of Stephen Harper but on the fact that’s time for Stephen Harper to go, we definitely agree! 😉
So beginning tomorrow, I’m planning to have a 19 day series of posts with various thoughts and observations about the Canadian Federal Election.
My politics are no secret and much of the content will be focused on reasons why the Conservative Party of Canada led by Stephen Harper has to go but I’m hoping I can also find ways to inject some lightness and humour into some of the posts, even given the serious nature of the topic.
I’m only writing 19 posts but if you’d like to get a headstart, you can read The Tyee’s Compendium of Harper’s Abuses of Power as a free PDF which outlines 70 different major transgressions by the Harper government against Canadian democracy and values during their 10+ years in power.
Photo via Saskatchewan’s Own Tornado Hunter, Greg Johnson (https://twitter.com/TornadoGreg/status/648325988191891457/photo/1)
Watched some of the rare supermoon lunar eclipse with Shea and Pace tonight. Pretty cool, especially considering the last time it happened was 1982 and it won’t happen again until 2033!
In the current Canadian context, this usually means voting for a Liberal or NDP candidate to defeat a Conservative. VoteTogether.ca has just released poll results from 31 swing ridings with their recommendation on which party to support to maximize the chances of defeating the Conservative candidate.
Advantages of Strategic Voting
Many “winners” in our first past the post system end up winning with fewer votes than the combined totals of the other candidates in the same riding. This is especially frustrating in ridings where a Conservative might win by a few hundred votes when the third place party gets thousands.
Well-established patterns may exist in certain ridings where, for example, there’s been a long trend of the NDP or Liberals coming in second to a Conservative candidate and the idea is that flipping enough of the third party voters to the second place candidate could topple the usual winner.
With our increasing use of technology, it’s easier to get the word out to people to encourage strategic voting in ridings that are projected to be really close
Disadvantages of Strategic Voting
Different election issues can cause voters to change their longstanding patterns as we’ve seen with the unexpected breakthroughs for the NDP in both Quebec and Alberta in recent elections.
Demographics and numerous other factors will change in ridings between every election which means you can’t use historical patterns to determine what might happen in current elections.
Polling is also an imperfect science and often, the “polling” being cited by strategic voting advocates is nothing more than looking at the results of the last election and not much more.
The ABC movement (Anybody But Conservative) neglects to acknowledge that the NDP & Liberals are also very different and not-at-all interchangeable. For example, I’d struggle to vote for the Liberals, even if I knew they were the 1st or 2nd place party in my riding, given their support of Bill C-51. (Luckily I don’t have to do that but would encourage any Liberal or Green Party supporters in Regina-Qu’Appelle to vote Nial!) 😉
