How We Vote

There have been numerous calls to vote strategically from non-partisan sources working to further the cause of the environment. The popular online petition source, Avaaz.ca, has raised funds to create anti-Harper ads in three ridings where Conservatives could be vulnerable. One of them is my riding in Central Nova. Now Avaaz is launching a more national effort. They have brought together popular Canadian artists to create the song, “You Have a Choice”. This is accompanied by an online pledge to vote to block Harper’s Conservatives. This kind of cross partisan, post-partisan method of campaigning is a symptom of an electoral system that doesn’t work.

Media sources continue to refer to Harper’s numbers as putting him close to “majority territory”, yet he consistently polls around 35%, not even close to the majority of Canadians. In the upcoming election, we are faced with the possibility of a false Harper majority: a majority of seats in the House with a minority of popular support. Of course, there are also strong arguments to be made against first-past-the-post from the Green Party stance. With 660 000 votes in the last election, the Greens did not elect a single MP. It is no wonder that Canadians are losing faith in our political process when the results are so blatantly antidemocratic, reflecting the views of a limited segment of society.

It has been said that no government will replace the system that put them in power. But Jack Layton says that his party favours proportional representation. I think he would be hard-pressed to turn down an opportunity to go after it. The Green Party of course advocates proportional representation. We even include it in our top priorities for the first year of our hypothetical government. While the Liberal Party has never warmed to the idea of replacing First-past-the-post, Stephane Dion said on national radio this month that he would be interested in trying Preferential Ballot elections. In this system, voters would be able to mark their choices in order on the ballot and second and third choices would be taken into account somehow in the vote tally. This system would give a more accurate result of voter intentions than first-past-the-post, as would many forms of Proportional Representation.

If the opposition parties can unite on a single issue to challenge the hypothetical Harper government, this may be it. While Liberals and NDP have petty partisan differences on most issues, including the steps necessary to combat climate change, cooperation and respectful dialogue could lead to a lot of progress. If a Conservative government is elected, I’d like to talk about what we can do to form a coalition. I’d like for the other party leaders to coalesce around some common principles. One of these would be healthy democracy. The first action a Green coalition could take would be to work toward electoral reform so Canadians will never again have to choose between voting with their mind and voting with their heart.