Alberta’s turnout was among the lowest in the country, fourth from the bottom, with the Northwest Territories (48.6%), Nunavut (49.4%) and Newfoundland & Labrador (48.1%) the only provinces or territories lower.

In the case of Alberta … that 94.6% virtual seat sweep was courtesy of 34.2% of the Alberta electorate. The other 65.8% of Alberta voters either stayed home or voted other than Conservative.

Now consider Newfoundland and Labrador…. Reports were common of demoralized Conservatives and the CPoC’s struggles to find people willing to run as candidates against the moneyed avalanche which was the ABC campaign.

Should progressives be pleased with the demoralization of the CPoC’s supporters in the province?

No, not if they hold that democracy should be inclusive of and for everyone, not just those with whose views they can agree.

I feel as bad for the disenfranchised Conservatives in NL as I do for the 65.8% disenfranchised Albertans who either voted differently or didn’t vote at all.

The numbers are telling. No matter which political ideology you hold, surely you can see that forcing a multi-party democracy into a two-party voting system is unfair to the electorate, undemocratic and horribly wrong….

Full article goes on to respond to a Toronto Star item on proportional representation. Predictably, The Star once again employs scare tactics in its endless argument against reforming our electoral system.

Election 08 now goes down in history for being the first federal election campaign to have generated such public disdain that over 40% of the electorate didn’t bother even to cast a vote. Only 59.1 percent of us showed up at the polls.

Did vote swapping or strategic voting work? Not on your life. And the lowest voter turnout ever suggests that it helped achieve the opposite of what their proponents had wanted.

Someone over at another blog made the following comments:

All I am asking is that the rest of us … appreciate how those most informed on this critical issue are so conflicted in our allegiances… Let’s hope that in the next government … we begin the process of moving to a new electoral system where people no longer have to make such undemocratic decisions at the ballot box. [my emphasis]

My response.

The excerpt below is from a rather lengthy post written by a perplexed and frustrated Green Party member (me).

Help!

I just have to wonder how often Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, can be misconstrued in the media. Is it a concerted effort by ALL media types deliberately to distort her meaning or is there something about what May is saying which makes her position, at minimum, ambiguous? I mean this question seriously.

A few hours ago, the GPC issued yet another press release about May’s stance on strategic voting. I’ve lost count of how many there have been.

This is scary news. We are used to seeing such things reported from the U.S. and other countries, but not from within Canada….

A commentary by Elsie Hambrook, Chair of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women, is a must-read.

When Doris Anderson, former and famed editor of Chatelaine and lifelong activist, came to Saint John on a stormy winter night in 2003, drawing hundreds of women to hear her speak on electoral reform, she confided something that, years later, still makes some of us think…

Getting the message out to the public [no matter what it is] is damn hard these days. Not just because the media and corporate and party elites are so strongly against democratic and electoral reform, but because, among other things, locations where people come together are increasingly not available for canvassing or soliciting.

For example, at the All Candidates Meeting in my community, I wanted to distribute Fair Vote Canada flyers on the seats in the theatre. I’d printed off 250 flyers, plus sheets of the FVC petition for candidates and audience members to sign (was hoping to ask a question at the mic on ER/PR).

When I arrived at the ACM venue, I asked permission of the manager to distribute my flyers on the theatre seats.

Denied.

So I asked permission to distribute the flyers outside, at the front of the building.

Denied again.

Even the purportedly public sidewalk fronting the building was off-limits….

Full article

There’s an excellent money-for-dummies article out today, written by an Associated Press writer, which explains a basic economic fundamental in plain terms. Once you understand that basic principle and begin extrapolating from it, you soon realize the broader implications for “ordinary Canadians” of Stephen Harper’s “great buying opportunities.”

Announcement from the CNW Group, October 8th. Just came up on my Google News Reader a couple of hours ago.

Les Holloway, CAW Atlantic Canada Area Director, announced today that the union is throwing its support behind Green Party leader Elizabeth May, in the Central Nova riding….

“It is critical that we do not re-elect a Harper Conservative government that will continue with its failed right-wing policies which have already cost our country hundreds of thousands of good paying manufacturing jobs,” said Holloway.

Holloway stated, “This ideology that you give everybody their taxes back, cut government spending to do it by deregulating everything and let the market take care of itself has cost us dearly in both life and economic well being, and it has indeed put us on the same course as the United States.”

“Elizabeth May is an extremely intelligent and articulate woman and will do us proud as a Member of Parliament for Central Nova. She cares about what this unbalanced economy is doing to residents of Nova Scotia and elsewhere,” said Holloway….

That’s got to be a valuable endorsement!

Reprinted with permission from Fair Vote Canada.

Open letter from Fair Vote Canada to strategic voters and vote-swappers

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.” – Albert Einstein

Another federal election and another disaster for democracy.On October 14, millions of Canadians – possibly eight million – will become orphan voters, casting ballots that send no one to Ottawa. As usual, the election results will be wildly distorted.

Some parties will get a portion of seats far exceeding their portion of the popular vote, while others will get too little or none at all.We may even see a party opposed by six voters in every ten take majority control in the House of Commons.

Why we call this exercise “democracy” is a continuing mystery.

During every election in recent memory the frustration created by an undemocratic electoral system leads some to conclude that voters should try to “game” the system. Instead of marking the ballot for a party you support, they say, be “smart” and vote for a party you do not support in order block another party that you despise.

A recent poll by the Toronto Star indicated that about half of those supporting the Liberals, NDP and Green Party would consider casting a negative or “strategic” vote, abandoning the party they actually prefer, to vote for another party in the hope of stopping a candidate from the front-running Conservatives.

In addition to 40% of the eligible voters who choose not to vote we could now have another large group of people who have given up on sincere voting and genuine democratic representation.

This is no way to nourish pride of citizenship or public respect for the laws that emanate from an unrepresentative Parliament.

Citizens in most major democracies take for granted their right to cast a vote that elects the representation they want. In the upcoming election, the majority of Canadian voters will all but certainly be denied that right.Fair Vote Canada cannot advise voters whether to cast negative votes or to participate in vote-swapping schemes on October 14. It’s rarely a clear or easy choice.

What we can advise is that all Canadians should be coming together to demand reform of our country’s undemocratic election process.

If you have not already done so, join and support Fair Vote Canada. Sign the Fair Vote Canada petition calling for a national referendum on electoral reform. Urge other organizations to make active citizenship, equal votes and proportional representation for all Canadians a part of their basic mission.

Together we can win.

British Columbians showed the way in 2005 when 58% voted by referendum for proportional representation, only to be frustrated – in the short-term – by an undemocratic government-imposed threshold of 60%. On May 12, 2009, British Columbians will vote again in an electoral reform referendum. With our encouragement and help, they can lead Canada on the path of democratic renewal.

The electoral system has orphaned many of us. We must refuse to be silenced. Democracy has been long delayed, but if democrats are steadfast, democracy will not be forever denied.

Fair Vote Canada
Orphan Voters

Please help spread the word about the importance of reforming our electoral system – distribute this letter widely. – Ocean.

An explosive account in a major column today reveals that the federal NDP back in Ed Broadbent’s time, rejected the Liberal government’s offer to change our voting system to proportional representation.

Why?

Because “the MPs were afraid of losing their seats.”

The electoral crapshoot would long be a thing of the past had NDP leader Ed Broadbent and his caucus seized a never-before-disclosed offer from prime minister Pierre Trudeau immediately after the 1980 election. The Liberals captured 147 of 282 seats with 44 per cent of the popular vote, but failed to elect a single MP west of Winnipeg despite the support of about 25 per cent of western voters.

A Liberal majority with no western seats ignited western rage. Not only do ongoing unrepresentative and perverse electoral outcomes undermine democratic legitimacy and suppress turnout, they rupture the bonds holding the country together, artificially fomenting regional alienation and fracturing national unity.

Trudeau invited Broadbent to his office for a chat. The NDP had captured 26 of its 32 seats in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and B.C. with about one-third of the vote. Trudeau said he would introduce legislation for proportional representation if the NDP would co-sponsor it.

According to well-placed sources, Broadbent said he would take the proposal to his caucus. The answer was no.

Broadbent told the prime minister NDP MPs were afraid of losing their seats. Trudeau declined to forge ahead alone.

This is a lengthy column, with lots of info, and likely to get substantial attention.

Bloggers everywhere are writing about strategic voting.

Some argue that progressives should vote strategically. Others argue against, making the compelling case that it is never right to vote for the lesser of evils rather than for a party which best accords with one’s values.

This will be my last post on this topic.

As I responded in a comment on another blog, I think people of good conscience can take different sides on strategic voting and both be right.

I’ve weighed back and forth whether voting strategically is the ethical thing to do – for me – and I don’t pretend to know what’s right for anyone else.

But after thinking hard about it, having for a moment thought that, for the first time in all my voting years, it was right that I vote against one party and not for the party whose values most reflect mine, I just can’t do it.

For me, a vote for a party I don’t support goes against everything I believe in, and the principles and values which have guided me throughout my life. But I do understand someone arguing that to uphold their own values – which could be very similar to mine -, they must do exactly opposite to what I’ve decided.

It may be that the tension between the two positions is really that captured between two levels of thought or discourse, between the philosophically ethical and the specifically moral. Which is why each position can be both right and wrong.

From this point on in this election and for several months beyond to the May 2009 BC election, I’ll be spending my time working toward democratic reform. That must start with a change to our voting system, to proportional representation.

Had PR been in place for this election, no voter would be confronted with the dilemma of choosing to vote other than what’s in their heart.

[Cross-posted at Challenging the Commonplace]

 

I’ve very little info about this All Candidates Meeting except to report that:

• it was hosted by the BC Nurses Union;
• took place at the Coast Bastion in Nanaimo;
• was attended by Christina Knighton (Green),  Brian Scott (Liberal) and NDP incumbent Jean Crowder; and
• Conservative Reed Elley was a no-show.

A report in the Cowichan NewsLeader on Wednesday indicated a fifth candidate running: Jack East, for the Marxist-Leninist Party. 

Over at JimBobby Sez, the man has given me pause for thought and I’m so glad he did.

Perhaps all of us who have been thinking of voting strategically for the first time should think again and read his passionate reminder: about why we’ve never voted strategically before, about why we didn’t and that those reasons haven’t changed just because we’re facing another Harper government, about the feeling you get when you vote for the lesser of two evils, about ….

Here’s an excerpt from JB’s post.

It may take a strong dose of un-democracy to convince enough Canadians that we have a broken system in need of reform. So be it. When we engage in schemes and vote trading and candidate trading and all sorts of strategies to play the game by the unfair rules, we only perpetuate acceptance.

I voted strategically once… I felt slightly nauseous afterward and the experience still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Hmm. Well you’ve given me something to think about, JB. Because I’ve never done it and have always voted according to the candidate whose party best matched my principles and values. Even thinking of voting strategically makes me feel ill and brings a writhing sense of self-loathing.

Until this election, I never entertained the idea of voting strategically and, as you, thought that only some real tough medicine in the form of an ultra-right Canada led by Harper or the like, would – maybe, just maybe – get Canadians to rethink their voting system.

This election more than most, I’ve been working hard as a volunteer with Fair Vote Canada and had already signed up with the FVC-BC group to support the coming STV referendum in BC.

I continue to believe that democratic and electoral reform are THE issues for all elections now and into the future – until the change to proportional representation gets done. That is, the first legislation passed by any party forming government should be to begin the process of electoral change. And that process must ensure that the people, not the parties, ultimately decide on the basis of a simple majority – no simple majority of MPs imposing a higher threshold -, the system which gets instituted.

Because only then, when we have proportional representation, will the majority of Canadians have a reasonable chance of seeing the major issues which concern them getting addressed.

People should read JB’s entire post. He offers many arguments against strategic voting, including ones which suggest that it will fail anyway. Not enough people will do it – they’ll either vote for their party of choice, destroy or refuse their ballots, or simply stay home.

Cynic here didn’t think it would happen. The letter exceeded the Letter-to-the-Editor word limit. Times three. But my letter to the local paper made it anyway.

Originally titled Competition It Isn’t, here it is under the headline “Electoral systems needs change to promote democracy.”

The over confidence of Harper in his non-confidence technique is going to blow up in his face one of these days, particularly once Canadians realize what it says about his view of voters who didn’t elect his Conservatives. In other words, the majority of us.

Most public opinion polls taken in the months leading up to this federal election campaign suggested that another minority government for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives was very likely. Mr. Harper was well aware of this …; indeed he predicted another minority on the campaign’s first day. Now, however, he is acting as though he would in effect refuse to accept that result.

For the second time in two days, Mr. Harper announced yesterday that his party would reintroduce anti-crime legislation that the previous Parliament did not pass – and that, if the opposition stood in the way, he would be ready to force another election over it…

This is not how a minority government should work. Confidence votes are to be limited to money bills and measures at the core of the government’s agenda – not routinely invoked by a prime minister whenever he wishes to put pressure on other parties to support less important bills. If Canadians elect the Conservatives with another minority, they will be explicitly saying that they have not entrusted them with full power over the legislative agenda – that they expect them to try to work with the other parties…

If [the opposition parties] have deep-seated objections to an anti-crime initiative, or any other bill, then they should vote against it. Mr. Harper should not put the Governor-General in the highly controversial constitutional position of having to think about declining a request to call another election in the near future and inviting the opposition government to form a government.

    

Would the opposition parties call Harper’s bluff? I doubt it. At least, given past performance particularly by the Liberals, there’s no evidence they would. But if they don’t, the situation is worse than Harper bamboozling his opposition into adopting untenable positions.

He would effectively, through our representatives, be blackmailing the Canadian public into submission and forcing us to accept his way or no way.

Harper’s blackmail has financial consequences too. Each election which must be run costs taxpayers millions. But Harper doesn’t care about that, because it’s all about forcing Canada into the direction he wants it to go.

Further, Canadians have elected three minority governments in the past eight years and is about to elect the fourth. We are demanding, through our votes, that parties work together.

Had we proportional representation and given the number of seats Harper is likely to get, he would be forced to form a coalition government – and if he couldn’t or wouldn’t, the other parties I’m sure would be happy to oblige.

• Sat Sep 27, 2pm. GABRIOLA ISLAND. Organized by Gabriola Ratepayers Association, Gabriola Island Community Hall, 2200 South Rd.
• Mon Oct 6, 6:30-9pm. NANAIMO. Organized by Greater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce, Vancouver Island Real Estate Board, Nanaimo News Bulletin, Island Radio, ‘A’ British Columbia. Nanaimo District Senior Secondary School, 355 Wakesiah Av.
• Tue Oct 7, 7pm. DUNCAN. Organized by Duncan Chamber of Commerce, Island Savings Centre (formerly named the Cowichan Centre), 2697 James St.
• Wed Oct 8, 1:30-3:30pm. NANAIMO. Organized by Vancouver Island University Students’ Union, Bldg 355, Rm 211.
• Thu Oct 9, 10-11:15am. MILL BAY. Organizer: Ric Snyder, Social Studies Dept, 250-746-6916. Frances Kelsey Senior Secondary School, 953 Shawnigan-Mill Bay Rd.

Yesterday, the Liberal Party of Canada issued a press release boasting that the LPC had placed first in the number of women candidates running in this election: 113 or 36.8% of 307 candidates.

Yet only 28% of those candidates are running in winnable ridings.

This places the Liberals third in terms of true female representation – behind the NDP (39%) and Bloc (32%), and one position ahead of the Conservatives (15%).

Canada ranks 51st in the World in representation of women, trailing behind Afghanistan (27th) and Iraq (33rd). Rwanda ranks 1st at 48.8%.

The top countries for representation of women use proportional representation.

Under our current first-past-the-post system (FPTP), nominations frequently are not transparent and are under the control of backroom boys. On average, 80% of the time, the backroom boys select men.

But 80% of Canadians want to elect more women.

Our FPTP system is not transparent and fails to represent women and minorities. In fact, the majority of Orphan Voters – members of the electorate who have been abandoned, neglected and abused by our archaic voting system – are women.

Just out in time for this election and available FREE online, The Harper Record, edited by my trusted friend Teresa Healy.

Here’s the summary from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:

This book is one in a series of CCPA publications that have examined the records of Canadian federal governments during the duration of their tenure. As with earlier CCPA reports on the activities of previous governments while in office, this book gives a detailed account of the laws, policies, regulations, and initiatives of the Conservative minority government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper during its 32-month term from January 2006 to September 2008.

The 47 writers, researchers and analysts who have co-written this book probe into every aspect of the Harper minority government’s administration. From the economy to the environment, from social programs to foreign policy, from health care to tax cuts, from the Afghanistan mission to the tar sands, from free trade to deep integration, and to many other areas of this government’s record, the authors have dug out the facts and analyzed them.

The Harper Record was necessarily researched and written long before an election was called, but its publication does coincide with an election campaign and thus may help citizens to make informed choices about the future of their country. Regardless of the election outcome, its contents will continue to be relevant between elections. In detailing what a minority Conservative government really did, or failed to do, it may serve as a guide and model for future elections.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, electoral reform is the most pressing issue facing the electorate – both those who still vote and those who have given up and no longer do.

Yet nowhere in the Liberal Party’s 66-page plan is there mention of electoral reform or proportional representation.*

How could a party claiming to care about making this country a “fairer Canada,” about “enabl[ing] every Canadian to realize their full potential” omit electoral reform?

How can they not see that a disenfranchised electorate means more and more citizens becoming disillusioned about and disengaged from their political institutions?

Under an eroding democracy, only the few can realize their potential – the corporate backers and moneyed lobbyists who stand closest to and pull the strings of those (seen to be) in power.

The voices of the many, the majority who vote other than for the party which forms government, are left out.

If we had proportional representation, then all votes would matter in this federal election. And if they did, then likely more people would return to the voting booth, more would become re-engaged not just federally, but locally and provincially.

Because then, we’d see that our opinion and voices do count.Instead, with our first-past-the-post system, there is a chance that Canadians will get the “majority” Stephen Harper has been threatening, and on the basis of less than 38% of the popular vote – not 50% + 1, as a true majority would warrant.

(more…)

The following was written to the editor of The Cowichan Valley Citizen. Unfortunately, the paper hasn’t a website so I can’t point readers to the original article. Voters in the Cowichan Valley, however, all receive the paper free at their doorsteps.

Dear Editor:

I read your article by Sarah Simpson, “More than a two-horse race,” with a growing sense of irony.

Superficially, the topic was democracy.

Certainly, the article started off describing Canada’s democratic deficit, telling of the media consortium’s decision to exclude, and subsequently include, Green Party leader Elizabeth May in the upcoming televised debates.

Left out of the account was that the NDP and Conservatives colluded to block May’s participation, both Jack Layton and Stephen Harper having threatened to boycott the events should she attend. Only Layton’s and Harper’s reversal due to intense pressure from angry citizens, including from within their own parties, precipitated the change in the consortium’s decision.

The article stated that only three parties have represented this riding since 1988. These have been the NDP and the Reform or Canadian Alliance, the latter two being earlier versions of today’s Conservative Party.

The situation for voters in this riding is far worse than this polarization would suggest.

We have not elected a member to the government in 29 years. In fact, we have done so only twice in the past 50 years. And you’d have to go back 68 years to find a Liberal candidate who had been elected

With the article’s headline, one might have expected that more than the two horses in question would be mentioned, yet only the NDP and Conservative candidates’ names and photos were included. Both Liberal candidate Brian Scott and Green Party candidate Christina Knighton were left out.

This kind of editorial omission helps perpetuate the two-horse race and the dominance of the NDP and Conservatives in our riding. But what troubled me most was not this omission, but the response by one of those two horses, NDP candidate and incumbent Jean Crowder.

Referring to the number of candidates which typically run in our riding during federal elections (up to ten), Crowder responded: “There is a lot of interest and that does a lot of good for the democratic process, that people get involved.” As to the prospect of facing the extra competition, she stated: “I think it allows us to get some perspectives on the issues. It generates good conversation. I think it’s very healthy.”

Within the NDP’s platform one can find a small section on electoral reform. Yet rarely does one hear NDP candidates voicing their concern that the votes of the majority of Canadians, including those of citizens in this riding, fail to be represented in the House of Commons.

For example, in Nanaimo-Cowichan during the 2006 federal election, the votes of 53.2% of us elected no one. That’s 32, 499 votes. That’s 32,499 of us whose opinion didn’t matter.

Since only first place matters in a winner-take-all system, even the votes for the Conservative who placed second didn’t count.

This Citizen article was a golden opportunity for Crowder to raise the issue of the lack of democracy in our voting system. That she didn’t has to make this voter wonder how committed she and the NDP are to democratic and electoral reform – and not just the kind of reform which the party prefers, but that which the people decide.

(I omit the Conservatives because they do not profess to want change to our voting system.)

It’s fine for Crowder to state, in response to a question about facing added competition, that “it allows us [presumably the horses in the two-horse race] to get some perspectives on the issues, [that] it generates good conversation.”

It’s another to acknowledge that with our first-past-the-post electoral system THERE IS NO COMPETITION beyond that between the two front-running horses.

Clearly and once again, politicians in the lead don’t care about this issue and would prefer that it be buried.

Will voters allow this?

We’ve shown what we can do when we get angry, when we witness a threat to our democratic choice. We got Elizabeth May into the televised debates.

We have the power to force change. Therefore, I urge anyone who cares about our country’s growing democratic deficit to visit Fair Vote Canada’s new website, www.orphanvoters.ca. It pulls together the facts about electoral reform, answers your questions and offers constructive suggestions on what you can do to promote this change.

In the words of FVC’s Executive Director, Larry Gordon, “The abused, neglected and abandoned voters of this great land will no longer meekly say ‘Please sir, we want some democracy’. When the new government takes office we will remind whoever forms the government that they do not have a democratic mandate from the people.”

Chrystal Ocean, Duncan.