Other than the U.K. and Canada every Parliamentary democracy in the world has switched to some form of Proportional Representation, most often over the outrage of the elites who find FPTP elected politicians much easier to control. Each of Canada's opposition parties has pledged to change this system if/when elected but on Oct. 19th we all have to play by the FPTP rules.
The best overall solution to this situation is for each of us to first figure out what our individual goals are in this election. Second, each of us must devise a strategy that will accomplish our goal. And, thirdly, we must decide on what tactics to employ to make our strategy work and thus in turn accomplish our goal.
My goal, and that of the Heave Steve Day movement, is to defeat Harper because he is by far the biggest danger to my children's and grand-children's futures. The best strategy to accomplish that in a peaceful and supposedly democratic Canada is through the election mechanism, however unbalanced it currently is, and defeating him at the polls on Oct. 19th. And the best tactic to achieve that is through strategic voting IMO.
In the past couple of national elections this tactic has been called Anything But Conservatives [ABC] voting, but it had little success in large part because few voters employed it. But this time around things have changed as the national polling firm EKOS found out recently. Ekos, who conducts the largest person to person polling in Canada now says, "Canadians endorse strategic voting".
Canada's national election under the current system is really 338 separate riding elections so each of us who share the Heave Steve Day goal must do a bit of work to figure out which candidate in our riding has the best chance of defeating the Conservatives. Luckily their are quite a few tools to help. One is ThreeHundredEight.com, which is a poll of polls that aggregates the results of all the available polling info to generate it's results thus providing a riding by riding analysis of each party's relative strength and an accuracy percentage of their conclusions in each riding as well as overall national numbers for the CBC. Another is Leadnow's ongoing VoteTogether.ca campaign which is in the process of doing scientific riding by riding polling in the all important swing ridings and newly gerrymandered ridings that are considered to close to call.
Of course polls aren't perfect at the best of times and Oct. 19th is still 77 days away. One of the limitations of polls is that far from everyone comes out on election day, another is that far from all people co-operate with the pollsters, some will refuse to answer, some will be untruthful and some will of course change their mind in the interim. So basing one's tactical action on polls alone isn't the best idea. Another good source of info. is to lookup your riding's voting history. Another is to read the local news about how big the turnouts are locally when the candidates make public appearances near you.
Two thirds of Canadians want change this election, but Harper could win again because of the undemocratic FPTP voting system that splits our votes and undermines Canada's democracy. Regardless of which party's platform best suits your fancy the only way that true democracy can be wrestled from the grip of corporate money is to defeat Harper and his hoard on Oct.19th and hold whoever forms the next government to their promise of reforming the voting system in order to guarantee the next time there's a national election you can vote for whichever party or independent candidate you agree with secure in the knowledge that your vote matters.
Become part of the Heave Steve Day movement, part of the solution to Canada's captured democracy by voting strategically on Oct. 19th.
