Strategic Voting on the Left

Posted by Colin Temple on October 13, 2008 in Politics

The biggest thing that Stephane Dion wants to get across to Canadian voters before the election is that he’s your only hope of replacing Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of this country.  Last night, Global’s Decision 2008 interview with Dion saw him driving home that point at every possible opportunity.

He’s got a point.  It’s pretty unlikely that the NDP will win enough seats to form a government.  It’s even less likely for the Green party, which may win its first elected seat ever in this election.  So Canadian voters left-of-centre who aren’t normally Liberal Party voters have two options: vote according to their ideals, or vote strategically to prevent a Conservative government.

So what to do?  If you’re a liberal who doesn’t like the Liberal party, or Dion himself, what do you do?  Do you risk a Conservative majority government by voting for a seemingly hopeless cause, or do you try and get NDP and Green supporters to band together and vote for the lesser of two evils?

For the first time in years, I’m still undecided on my vote.  I have a pretty good idea or where I’ll be placing my vote, but I don’t feel so committed to it as I have during previous elections.  It seems even more futile in my riding, where a Conservative MP is usually elected by fairly wide margins.  Since I’m not going to vote Conservative, it’s likely that it won’t matter who I vote for.

I sometimes like to tell my American friends (some of whom sometimes liken Canada to a communist state because they fear even minor socialism) that Canada is more democratic than the U.S. because we have more viable choices on the ballot.

This year, it feels like a two-party system may actually help those of us on the “small-l” liberal end of the spectrum.  That, or a more representative election system.