By Nick Fillmore
From the very start, the main issue in the federal election race has been as obvious as the beard on Tom Mulcair’s face, but it’s been largely ignored by mainstream media.
Canada’s NDP Leader Tom Mulcair
The big time journalists are rushing from the leaders’ pre-planned news conferences day after day, but the majority of voters have said in opinion polls that by far the biggest issue for them is to have either the NDP or Liberals emerge as the party that can soundly defeat Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.
During the fourth week of the campaign, it looked like the NDP might be the chosen party. They were at 33.9 per cent in the polls. http://www.threehundredeight.com/ The Conservatives were at 28.4 per cent, and the Liberals 27.9.
It looked like the NDP might jump to, say, 36 or 38 per cent in the polls and become the party to stop Harper. But it didn’t happen. Instead, the NDP fell back a little.
The NDP might be suffering because of Mulcair’s misguided promise to balance the budget. This is not playing well with Canadians who question how the NDP is going to both balance the budget and pay for all the promises they’ve made. Meanwhile, many progressives who believe the government should borrow to stimulate the economy – as Trudeau promised to do – are upset with the NDP for adopting an overly-cautious position.
If you believe Tuesday’s opinion polls, the NDP was at 32 per cent, the Liberals at 30, and the Conservatives at 29. http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/election/nanos-poll-three-way-contest-for-major-parties-continues-1.2565437
This week the NDP faces two big hurdles. In Wednesday Mulcair released figures showing how the party would pay for its election promises. And on Thursday was to join the other two leaders in a televised debate on the economy. If Mulcair survives the attacks he will face during Thursday’s debate, the NDP should still be in the race.
Some analysts have written off Harper – largely because they thought the Conservatives took a big hit during the frantic Syrian refugee acrimony. But in Tuesday’s Nanos Research poll, the Conservatives were back to 29 per cent. http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/election/nanos-poll-3-major-parties-remain-in-tight-race-1.2561859
As in past elections, Harper hopes to benefit from a couple of new “dirty tricks”:
- When the Conservatives oversaw the rejigging of ridings and the addition of new seats for Parliament, they rigged the system in their favour. Globe and Mail analysis http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-will-benefit-big-from-2015s-new-electoral-map-elections-canada-data-shows/article16630731/ of Elections Canada data shows that if everyone who voted in the 2011 election cast their ballots for the same political parties in 2015, the Conservatives would pick up 22 of the 30 seats that are being added in a riding redistribution. NDP would pick up six ridings and the Liberals two.
- The big sleeper in the campaign that could mean victory for the Conservatives depends on whether hundreds-of-thousands of people who favour the NDP or the Liberals can manage to vote. According to the Council of Canadians, the so-called Fair Elections Act makes it more difficult for at least 770,000 people to vote. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fair-elections-act-id-rules-block-voting-groups-argue-in-court-challenge-1.3136431
- There’s another factor favouring the Conservatives. A huge percentage of people who say they will vote Conservative do so. But a lot of people recorded in the polls as favouring the other parties end up not voting. Harper’s prayer is for the NDP and Liberals to stay tied in the polls so he can sneak back into power with just a few more seats than either of the two.
- Conservative opponents believe they have a powerful weapon in their back pocket: strategic voting. Unions and public interest groups used strategic voting to help defeat Tim Hudac’s Progressive Conservatives in last year’s Ontario election and, including all the work of small groups, there will be a much larger effort to unseat Harper. But can the anti-Harper campaign really do the job?
- There are a few problems that must be overcome.First of all, there are two anti-Harper camps. One group consists of strong NDP loyalists who dislike the Liberals just about as much or more than they hate the Conservatives.
- The other group is supporting either NDP or Liberal candidates in different ridings.Given that just about everyone agrees that Harper is the Public Enemy Number One, the two camps should avoid feuding that could reduce the chances of defeating the Conservatives.
- Strategic campaigning got off to a bad start when Paul Moist, national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and an NDP loyalist, blasted Leadnow’s approach of electing either New Democrats or Liberals in 72 ridings where the Conservatives are believed to be vulnerable. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/04/13/cupe-leadnow-federal-election_n_7058128.html
- Unfortunately, Moist supports the NDP over the interests of the country: an analysis of the 72 target ridings shows that Leadnow will be supporting Liberals only in ridings where the NDP has no chance of winning.The two sides need to have a truce concerning their campaigns.
- In fact, they should figure out where there are any strategic ridings where New Democrats oppose Liberals and decide how to resolve the issue. Given the importance of stopping Harper, perhaps they could support the same candidates in a handful of ridings.More needs to be done. With only five weeks left in the campaign, there’s practically no cooperation among the more than a dozen large and small groups working to elect either New Democrats or Liberals.
- Some groups have the impression that the Elections Act prohibit them from co-operating, but this does not appear to be the case as the Act concerns itself only with advertising.Groups need to co-operate to make sure that local polling is carried out in all ridings where Harper is vulnerable.
- Results must be shared and made public a few days before the advance polling dates, which run from October 9 to 12. Groups also should co-operate to publish a list of the target ridings indicating which candidate has the best chance of defeating the Conservative. Just publishing information on their own websites will not be enough to inform the hundreds-of-thousands of potential voters.
- If either, or both, of the NDP voting campaign and the strategic voting campaign are successful, the Harper government will fall on October 19. If the NDP wins, Mulcair has promised to launch a process to introduce proportional representation. PR could bring us the kind of democracy we deserve and, thankfully, the end of strategic voting.
- Nick Fillmore is a Toronto-based freelance journalist and activist who began writing about politics before Pierre Trudeau was elected Prime Minister. He personally supports the election of the New Democrats because Tom Mulcair has promised to launch a process to establish proportional representation and he says he will rebuild the CBC. Nick’s blog: nickfillmore.blogspot.com
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Nick
It is always a learning experience to read your take on events, happenings and the prospects for the future of our once glorious country and the peoples being subjected to Corporate manipulation. I say this because as you reiterate so often we have little control over the course our lives, and the lives of our children will most certainly be pushed down the same path.
Ralph Nader once stated it matters NOT which Party, Republican and/or Democrat one votes for they are both literally owned and controlled by the Corporate Masters and your, our voices are not welcomed or listened to.
The almost absolute control our resident Dictator Stephen Harper has somehow (?) managed to inflict over the very lives of Canadians through the Corporate owned media is a pathetic example of an ugly, evil gestapo like scenario initiated and on the rise much like Germany in the thirties. The reality that the Corporate sector, especially in the U.S.of A has through a Republican stacked Supreme Court and sleazy Corporate funded lawyers managed to instill a situation where Corporation have NOW more rights than the average citizen. During the years after the Glass/Seagall Legislation was initiated Lobbyists in league with certain elected representatives(?) chipped away the legislation until the early 90s when Clinton repealed the regulations that to some extent controlled the banking sector and 2008 is now in the history books without a look back on Clinton’s folly. Canada, in my opinion is following the same path as in the U.S.of A and it is just a matter of time.
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I enjoy reading Nick Fillmore, but I often disagree with him, and I do in this case. Like far too many writers “on the left”, he seems to take a certain segment of leftist opinion as representing the whole. Which it certainly doesn’t. For instance, indications are that support for LeadNow’s strategic voting initiative is waning, partly due to the fact that many of of have always seen it as a thinly disguised Liberal ploy. Fillmore obviously is one of those benighted individuals who considers the Liberals to be a party on the left. Well, it isn’t and it hasn’t been for at least the past two decades. Justin Trudeau is an entitled rich kid who should never have been put in the position of have to play with the big boys, because he’s not up to it, as he continues to show every time he opens his mouth to read from his cue cards—and even more when he goes off script.
Strategic voting is not strategic; it is simply a means of using scare tactics that stop Canadians from paying real and close attention during the election campaign, not only to the leaders and their platforms, but to the candidates in their own ridings. In other words, it is basically anti-democratic. Had strategic voting always been the norm, there would be no NDP, let alone one that has grown over the decades from a small party to one powerful and experienced enough to challenge the Two Big Parties. Stategic voting would have long ago wiped Elizabeth May’s Greens from the political landscape.
And just who or what is LeadNow? Does it have some specialized knowledge or understanding of the Canadian electorate and its shifting loyalties in the fall of 2015, when the most experience political journalists can only admit that the desire for change after ten years of oppression appears to be gaining momentum. If the pundits and the pollsters cannot predict what is likely to happen on Oct. 19, then what is LeadNow to use scare tactics to push its agenda? Also, basing probable outcomes in any riding based on the 2011 election totally ignores the tremendous and continuing shifts in the political landscape and in potential voter support over the intervening four years.
Canadians should be encouraged to pay close and critical attention during the election campaign, and then to vote their preference—but NOT to let anybody else, including LeadNow, tell them what to think.
Moral: beware anybody who tries to manipulate you through fear, because fear dulls your critical faculties. As a certain Mr. Harper knows only too well.
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I think it is time to elect an NDP federal government. In my view, they couldn’t be any worse than the other two parties and in fact, our voters might be surprised at what they might be able to achieve. Give it a chance, folks!
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Did anyone else hear Rachel Notley interviewed on CBC Radio’s THE CURRENT this morning? I can see why Alberta gave the N
DP such a ringing endorsement. She refuses to play games, and I really like the way she wouldn’t get lured into commenting on the federal election campaign, or comment on Harper’s (to me, almost hysterical) remarks on the NDP win and on the NDP generally. She’s finished with campaigning; now she’s focussed on governing. Notley is straight-forward, open, and determined to work with all sectors to come to an agreement about the best way forward for her province and its people, in the context of a federal system. I see a great deal of similarity of approach and attitude between Rachel Notley and Tom Mulcair—both are responsible, intelligent, thoughtful adults.
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if you’re considering voting Liberal, I ask you to think about this. If Justin hadn’t been born son of Pierre, with the trust fund that came along with it, where would he be today? Just ask yourself that. Ask yourself who and what you are voting for. Check out the voting record of the Third Party during the last session of Parliament. Check out how Justin performed as leader during that session, when Tom Mulcair and the NDP never ceased to call the Harper and his Conservatives to account. Andrea Horwath’s NDP is the Third Party in the Ontario Legislature, but she and her caucus call the Liberals out on very lie they tell (and there are many). That’s what a responsible opposition does, especially with a majority government and fixed election dates. The same cannot be said of Trudeau’s Liberals, who voted WITH the Harper Conservatives on important bills, including, of course, the infamous C-51. And you want to trust this man with our country? Please…THINK.
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I have just returned from an annual retreat with thoughtful women. All voters. Most with strong (or formerly strong card-carrying) partisan politics. Spread amongst the ‘old stock’ Progressive Conservatives, the Liberals and NDP, with most having a longing to vote Green.
Much consternation, but now all allied with anyone but Harper, Yet splitting the vote will get the ideologue Cons back in. What to do? One website I hope Doug will follow up on, asks that those candidates for Fringe Parties that KnowToday, Wednesday the 23rd, that they are going to lose, to drop out now, less than one week left to do so…. leaving three to fight it out. Makes some sense as surely we’d at least have a minority government, and there might be a chance of toppling the Dick Tator. I want my old Canada back.
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I’ve just returned from a wonderful evening in Hamilton, where journalist, Robert Fiske, gave a marvellous talk on the politics of the Middle East, on which he is a renowned expert (he lives in Beirut and writes for the Independent UK). His knowledge of the Middle East is extensive and comes from decades of first-hand reporting and interviewing all across the region. But what makes Fiske so special is not only his deep knowledge and understanding, but his humanity. He spoke for nearly an hour without a single note. During the long question period, he was asked whether he thought that the West should be intervening in the Middle East. His response: “The West should have NO military intervention in the Middle East. By all means, send in doctors, engineers, humanitarian aid. But it is THEIR land.” If you recall, that was just what Tom Mulcair said in the G&M debate. As for American bombing in Iraq/Syria, Fiske said says nobody there sees much indication that they (the US) is doing that in any serious way; it looks to those on the ground more like a training exercise than anything else. And with the US now looking to friendly relations with Iran, Harper’s policies seem to be isolating Canada; Harper’s insistence on getting tough with ISIS seems more than ever to be idle boasting designed to curry favour with his supporters, and to fuel the fires of fear and anti-Muslim sentiment here at home.
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correction to my comment. I meant, of course, Fringe Parties.
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