Unlike the Toronto Star,* the Catch 22 Campaign still thinks it necessary to vote Liberal in those ridings where a Liberal is the obvious choice to defeat a Harper Conservative.
*Edited to add: The Toronto Star is now recommending strategic voting for the Liberals in certain ridings: But vote strategically
Catch 22 takes no joy from negative voting. In this astonishing election campaign, however, some selective negative voting remains necessary.
We are democratic idealists, but also realists. The Canadian voting system is undemocratic. It always leaves roughly half of all Canadian voters and taxpayers — everyone who didn’t vote for a winning candidate– without representation in Ottawa or in our communities.
When finally the voting system is fixed, and Canada becomes a representative democracy, all of us will be able to cast sincere votes with no fear or risk of being ignored.
Unfortunately, we aren’t there yet. Canadians are still saddled with the voting system created in a pre-democratic 19th century colonial society.
Currently there are two seriously over-represented parties in Canada’s House of Commons: the Conservative Party and the Bloc Quebecois.
The voters of Quebec have signaled they will vote NDP in large numbers to (a) oppose Stephen Harper and (b) cut the Bloc Quebecois down to size.
Blocking the Harper Conservative grab for undemocratic control of government is not so simple for voters in the rest of Canada. Yes, there is a modest orange surge, but that is likely to have some unintended consequences.
The surge will protect the NDP’s 36 seats, about 12 per cent of the 308-seat Commons. In ridings where the NDP ran a close second to a Liberal or a Conservative last time, the surge is all but certain to deliver an additional NDP seat.
BUT
Where the NDP ran a distant third last time, a mild surge will not take the New Democrat over the hump. It is more likely to subtract votes from a Liberal and guarantee a seat to the Harper Conservatives – the very outcome Catch 22 was created to prevent. Such vote splitting has produced, as recently as 1997, a majority government in Ottawa based on a feeble 37 per cent popular vote. It could happen again on Monday.
The question for May 2 and beyond is whether Stephen Harper, freed of the compromises required by minority government, will do great harm. That’s a risk two out of three Canadians don’t want to take, yet the defective voting system could easily give Harper’s minority party a Parliamentary majority.
Our target ridings were chosen for their lack of ambiguity. In Catch 22 ridings, tactical negative voting is the only effective way to stop Stephen Harper. We stand by our candidate recommendations.
Please consult the Catch 22 list before voting. Good luck to all of us on Monday.