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Winnipeg Free Press > Opinion > The View from the West > The centre-left's last hope

The View from the West

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

The centre-left's last hope

By: Frances Russell

Posted: 16/06/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 13

A non-compete pact among federalist centre-left parties -- the favoured option of most centre-left Canadians according to a new Canadian Press Harris Decima poll -- could have elected a 173-seat Liberal/NDP/Green coalition government in 2008.

CP-Harris Decima reported last week that 71 per cent of Liberals, 77 per cent of New Democrats and 74 per cent of Greens support some form of co-operation between the centre and the left.

A non-compete pact is the first choice among Liberals (32 per cent), New Democrats (40 per cent) and Greens (32 per cent) respectively.

A coalition after the next election is the second most popular option while an outright merger has the least backing.

Retired University of Winnipeg senior scholar and political geographer John Ryan ran the Oct. 14, 2008 election results through a non-compete scenario that assumes all incumbent Liberal and NDP MPs and second-place finishers in Conservative and Bloc Québécois ridings run unopposed by coalition partners and beat their Conservative opponents.

His 173-seat projection is therefore highly theoretical because it assumes all Liberals will vote NDP and vice versa. In fact, the latest Nanos Research poll finds 38.7 per cent of Liberals and 22.6 per cent of New Democrats would rather vote Conservative than for one another. However, a comfortable majority of 173 seats provides some flexibility, particularly since the Conservatives would, under the same scenario, elect only 92 MPs.

Ryan's non-compete strategy would entitle the Liberals to field 207 candidates, the NDP 96, and the Greens five. The Liberals could capture up to 125 seats, the NDP 46 and the Greens two, for a majority of 173. The Conservatives would, as mentioned earlier, win 92 seats and the Bloc 41. There would be two independents.

Ryan's analysis of the 2008 federal election, published in November, 2008 on the website www.globalresearch.ca, has suddenly become news because the drive towards a centre-left merger just won't go away despite official denials on all sides.

Ryan made some surprising findings. The Conservatives finished just 12 ridings short of a majority government with the support of only 22 per cent of Canada's 24 million eligible voters because voter turnout dropped to an historic low of 59 per cent. The record low turnout also meant the Conservatives won 19 more seats than their 2006 shaky minority despite capturing 168,737 fewer ballots.

Conservatives also benefited from vote-splitting on the centre-left. Ryan found the Conservatives captured 51 of their 143 seats with less than 50 per cent of the vote.

The need for centre-left realignment has been a recurrent topic in political circles ever since the 2003 merger between the Progressive Conservatives and the Alberta-based Reform/Canadian Alliance created an entity clearly to the right of Sir John A. Macdonald's historic nation-founding party.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives not only embrace aspects of U.S. Republican social and theological conservatism, but are implementing some of its policies in foreign and domestic affairs, polarizing Canadian politics between the 30 to 35 per cent of Canadians who support the right and the 65 to 70 per cent of Canadians who back one of the four parties on the centre and left.

Making matters worse, the four-way rivalry among the 65 to 70 per cent on the centre and left could doom them to perpetual defeat due to rampant vote-splitting in a first-past-the-post electoral system designed for two, not five, parties.

Ryan's analysis uncovered some other interesting statistics: The Conservatives won 143 seats and placed second in 93 for a total of 236. The Liberals were not far behind, winning 77 seats and placing second in 130 for a total of 207. The NDP placed first in 37 and second in 59 for a total of 96. And the Greens placed second in five ridings, three in Alberta and one each in Ontario and Nova Scotia.

The Greens took votes disproportionately from the Liberals, not the New Democrats. The Liberals lost 12 seats due to the strength of the Greens, four times the three seats the rise in Green support pried from the NDP.

History, principle and tradition make a centre-left merger a non-starter, Ryan believes. But a coalition in which all the parties would retain their identities has a good chance.

"I am hopeful that in the not-too-distant future reason may prevail, that eventually two-thirds of the Canadian electorate would have a political entity to reflect their values and a government to represent them: a non-compete agreement leading to post-election co-operation and perhaps coalition among the federalist centre-left parties," he says.

 

Frances Russell is a Winnipeg author and political commentator..

 

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 16, 2010 A12

13 Commentscomment icon

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re:The centre-left's last hope

Obiwan Kenobi?

If we are to survive, if we are serious about our planet and taking care of it, if we are empathic beings, if we see a need for greater equality and support for more egalitarian ,sustainable projects, then, we should quit all the tom foolery, and strategic voting as well as wasted efforts, time and energy on these parties and MERGE.

There is too much work to do and time may well be running out for us, and our children and grandchildren.
Wake up and smell the oil and exhaust.

Completely agree with the comments so far. "NeoCommunist" - love it!

Ummmm ... Before you count your chickens, I think we have to have an election ... don't you?! This seat count projection based on the latest poll and ignoring the influence of a future election campaign on the final results seem sorta unrealistic maybe?!

Btw .. isn't this "non-compete pact" the same as "strategic voting" ... which depends a lot on the brilliant electorate either recognizing their task, or being directly told who to vote for???

A non-compete strategy may even be more risky than a covert coalition or overt merger. But if the Libs, Dipps and Greens can organize it, I say good luck and bring on the election battle ... Three against one .. and then let's see what Canadians decide, democratically.

Lib-Dipp-Green coalition troika gov't .. or .. a straightforward Harper Conservative gov't and what you see is what you get..!!!

So, I'd like to know why it was OK for Chretien to have a huge majority in Parliament with about 40% of the popular vote, but if the Conservatives get a minority government, it is suddenly time for either democratic reform or a juggling of the parties.

The reality is that the present situation, like it or not, is effectively short term. Change to government will come. Leaders will come and go, and people's thoughts about voting will change somewhat. Yes, the system works better with only two parties, but with multiple parties, perhaps the parties either need to listen to the electorate, or take a stand on issues and stick to them regardless of whether or not it gets them votes. People respect that more than flip-flopping depending on public opinion, regardless of whether or not they agree with the position. That respect would have been earned and could actually change the light of how politicians are viewed.

Since the successive Liberal Red Books were ignored once in power and the current government running Parliament as if it has a strong majority in the house, it is no wonder that the electorate is cynical.

Governments are cyclical. We don't need to change the system. Time will change the party in power. All the extra pontificating isn't helpful.

I REALLY hope the NDP and Libs go for a merger/coalition. It could be the best thing for Canada since Free Trade!

Ms. Russell has capitulated to the anaemic, tactical thinking typical of pollsters. How people might think they'll vote and how they will actually vote after their party of choice has effectively turned itself into a rump of its former self for the sake of short term are, I'd wager, two different propostitions.

Anyhow, why any NDPer SHOULD vote for a Liberal Party that has always governed with corporate interests closest to its heart is a mystery. And all this unprincipled expediency simply because there's been a minority Conservative government for a few years??

It's must my opionon, but Ms. Russell should stop thinking deep thoughts about shallow polls and return to writing about real issues.

A very very simple solution to this all: introduce a ranked ballot in which a voter can rank all their choices as 1,2,3,4 etc. Count the #1s. If after one round, nobody reaches 50%, drop the last place person and redistribute those ballots according to the #2s marked on them - second choice. Has anyone reached 50% yet? No? Repeat, dropping the last place.

This is a simple way for people to follow their hearts and sign their #1 choice to the party that best speaks to them, maybe marking #2,#3 according to the parties they'd dislike less than the one they normally vote against. So instead of worrying about splitting votes, this system simply does not allow for the party most disliked to get in, and the combined choices sort out between the NDP-LIBERALS-GREENS or whomever who gets the seat.

If the result is minority governments, so be it, that cannot be helped in so diverse a country and the parties have to learn to compromise to either form coalitions or navigate issue by issue in a spirit of moderation and compromise, which is part of the Canadian history and spirit.

Simple solutions. Why not embrace them? I have yet to see a reason this ranked ballot should not be introduced. I prefer serious electoral reform to this: mixed member proportional or STV, but in terms of where Canadians are at this is a simple thing to introduce.

neocommunist
what a great comment.
Frances should also mention in this op ed piece that because of her chess board politics pipe dream, the Conservatives would be the only true national party. The Libs and NDP would be reduced to bit, marginal, regional rumps.
This "plan" is almost as dumb as the merger. Frances, you and I both know more Liberals would vote Conservative before NDP - NANOS polling tells us this.
Elite, smug lefties think they're so clever. Too clever sometimes...

It sounds like what you are really suggesting is the left wing parties pretend to be different parties so they can spend more than the legal limit on their campaigns when in reality they would be a single party. I am guessing they would also want three representatives from their "party" at the leaders debate as well. I wonder what you would say if the CPC split into three regional parties that collectively spent 54 million on their campaign and sent three "leaders" to the leaders debate. Somehow I'm guessing that you would think it was wrong for the CPC to do that.

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