I know that Dr. Keith Martin, a good man, has won this riding repeatedly in the past – but he stepped down and a new Liberal candidate is in place.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Martin just before the last election in which we were opposing candidates, him the incumbent Liberal and me just trying to represent common sense as a candidate for the Green Party of Canada. Dr. Martin saw the writing on the wall; as more people moved into the suburbs of Langford, the riding grew more Conservative. In recent elections, the Conservative share of the vote had been steadily increasing, and indeed in the 2008 election, Dr. Martin won by only 68 votes.

I was accused of nearly handing the riding to the Conservatives in that election, as I garnered 8.2% of the vote, an increase of about 1,500 from the previous election and nearly enough to sink Dr. Martin. (Assuming, of course, that I was taking all my votes from him, and not from any Conservative/NDP/independent candidates. And rather unfairly ignoring the droves of former Liberal voters who stayed home.)

This time around and Mr. Ignatieff is no more popular than Mr. Dion was – less, even. Honestly, I don’t understand why. He seems like a sharp cookie, decent guy, a little arrogant but then they all seem that way; I think that Canadians are just done with the Liberals, at least for now. They’ve become too much like the Conservatives, so one of them has become irrelevant.

Given all this, Liberal turnout in EJdF is likely to be low again, to say the least, and that could easily allow the Conservative candidate to win.

However, Randall Garrison is back for the NDP, by all reports a strong candidate. Can’t say I’ve met him, but people I respect and who have worked with and/or campaigned against Mr. Garrison say he’s a good guy. In the 2006 election, he came in second place, not far behind Dr. Martin.

There is a real chance that this riding could change hands this election – the question is to whom. Liberal and Green voters are the deciding factor in this riding:

• If they vote Liberal or Green, very likely the Conservative will win
• If some switch votes to NDP, very likely the NDP will win

In the past, I have been totally opposed to strategic voting, but I’ve since realized that a) we must work within the political system we have, even while trying to change it, and b) there are better ways to support a party than simply voting.

Real Liberal supporters in EJdF should pair their votes; at least you would be helping elect a Liberal in another riding, given that this one is a lost cause.

I do think it is time to give the NDP a chance. The other major parties need to rethink their strategy, change leaders, and come up with a compelling vision. I wouldn’t say Jack Layton and the NDP have such a vision either, or if they have they haven’t communicated it very well, but at least the NDP is more likely to take some important steps in cleaning up Ottawa and in shifting us more toward the German/Nordic economic and social way of doing things, and less American.

If you’re a Liberal in Esquimalt Juan de Fuca, pair your vote so you see a Liberal elected somewhere, and vote NDP at home. The alternative is to see Esquimalt Juan de Fuca go Conservative, possibly at a time when the NDP will become the governing party.

Do you realize your power? Stephen Harper and his Conservatives do. That’s why they squashed on-campus polling stations. This young woman gets it:

“Youth can almost change the political landscape,” said Cooke, who’s excited to vote in her first election. “They have such different views than the people who do vote, it would be completely changed and more representative of the population.”

It would not take much to change the politics in this country, and you can do it.

15,000 swapped votes can change which party becomes government

Rick Mercer gets it. (He’s between a ‘young person’ and an ‘old fart,’ but not yet middle-aged, so not sure who he is. He’s hip but not a hipster.) But he completely understands how important it is for young folks to vote, both for the country and for themselves. His now-famous rant inspired vote mobs across Canada.

This is your election; you get to decide the direction this country takes. I hope you have seen that Stephen Harper’s anti-science, anti-environment, pro-US leaning policies are not what’s best for Canada – and I hope you get out there and tell him so with your vote.

Personally, I think it is time to give the NDP a shot. They’ll move us toward a more European society and economy, and look at how well Germany, Norway, Denmark, and other countries are doing compared to us in many ways.

But the choice is yours. This old fart humbly suggests you give the NDP a look – but regardless of your choice, take a hand in your future. Don’t let your parents pick your government.

Regular readers will know that I ran for the Green Party of Canada in the last election, and you will also know that, despite that, I am independent. (The best description I’ve come up with for myself is a Green Independent Conservative: GIC.) I am not running in the current election.

So, like millions of other independently-minded Canadians, I must decide whom to trust with my vote. (I don’t think that rejecting my ballot is a mature or useful thing to do in this election; there is enough differentiation among the parties and platforms, and they’re not all so hopelessly corrupt that I would take this last resort.)

Who then? If you’ve been reading me, you’ll know I’m leaning strongly toward the NDP, not because I’m a raving socialist – and neither is the NDP – but because they seem most likely to move Canada in a more German/Nordic direction, and we need that. Some claim that we must slavishly follow the United States, but I reject this. Look at Norway as an example of a successful economy and society (you need both); it is right next to the Russian bear, but Norway is no Russian stooge. They have a strong and stable economy, and they have very successfully embraced the new green economy.

Germany has also done exceptionally well, and consider that the reunification imposed enormous costs on the country; essentially, everything built by the Soviet regime was crap in comparison to what had been accomplished under social democracy in the free half of Germany, and had to be scrapped and rebuilt.

I watched Peter Mansbridge interview Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, and Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservatives, and I have to say that Layton came out as the more mature, wiser leader. Harper came across as such a…politician. He had a couple of decent points, but on the whole was one slippery character. It didn’t seem to matter the question; Harper’s response was either “OMG! Coalition!” or “I must have a majority.” Every time Mansbridge would pursue a non-answer or a contradiction, well, it was like trying to catch a greased pig.

Layton, on the other hand, seemed like a reasonable guy, willing to – expecting to – work with others to govern the country. Harper comes across as a petulant boy, wanting it all his way or not at all.

But the economy!

Harper constantly fearmongers that anyone else will wreck the economy, but is that really true? He was pushed into a ‘stimulus’ after the recession hit by the other parties, which he then directed a disproportionate share to Conservative-held ridings; that’s porkbarrel politics, plain-and-simple, and it ain’t conservative.

But even worse, the Conservative stimulus was misdirected in a more fundamental way. The Harper Government™ absolutely refused to direct the stimulus in a way that moved the Canadian economy forward. It paid for people to repave their driveway or build a new deck, but is that really a productive use of taxpayer money? If you’re going to dole out the largesse, shouldn’t it at least be productive?

And here’s an important reason why I favour Layton: Had Layton and the NDP been running the government, they would also have done the stimulus, but without being forced by the other parties and with more sensible direction. The NDP would have looked at things like rebuilding our rail system, or perhaps invested in electric cars, or in wind and solar energy, or helped people insulate their houses so they would need less energy, thus saving money permanently.

Harper’s stimulus was not as wasteful as the Bush/Obama U.S. version, where people paid down credit cards or bought big screen TVs made in China, but really most of what it did was create temporary construction jobs. Layton’s NDP would also have spent money, but on things that move Canada toward the economy that is rapidly developing in Europe and China, and that we are equally rapidly falling behind.

On the whole, I’d rather taxpayer dollars be spent, if they must be, on productive, forward-looking projects, not simply make-work-vote-buying gimmicks.

Is the NDP perfect? Is any party? In politics you must choose among what is available, and I believe it is time to give the NDP a chance.

*************************

By the way, why not the Liberals? Let me sum it up like this: Jean Chretien signed the Kyoto Accord – then did utterly and absolutely nothing to make it real. Imagine if Chretien had redirected tar mining subsidies to wind and solar manufacturing and generation – as Germany and Norway and many other countries are doing? That would have created many thousands of secure, well-paying, clean manufacturing jobs in the Prairies. Chretien did not, and Ignatieff will not, either. Status quo, yo.

And why not the Greens? Simple pragmatism; they are not going to get elected (with the possible exception of Elizabeth May). It is not only our first-past-the-post system to blame, either; the reality is that other parties have arisen and captures seats under this system.

I just received an update from the polling company, and the news is so big that it needs to be said again: 56% of Canadians find a Liberal-NDP coalition completely or somewhat acceptable, or are ambivalent.

As you can see for yourself in the chart below, if you add up those who are not opposed to a Liberal-NDP coalition, that amounts to 79% of all those who are willing to accept a coalition.

Acceptable Coalitions

No wonder Harper spends so much effort demonizing the idea of a coalition; many more Canadians want a coalition than want a Conservative government.

UPDATE 1: Many thanks to Redditor Hikury who found a major mistake I made; the results shown here only apply to “those who do not find any coalition scenario completely unacceptable (72% of total).” That means I must multiply 72% by 0.79 to get the number of people who find a Liberal-NDP coalition acceptable, and this number is 56.88%.

This is still huge, given that approximately 35% of the population is likely to vote Conservative.

[And if you're afraid of a Liberal-NDP coalition, perhaps you should check this out: One such government gave us much of what we think of as essentially Canadian today.]

UPDATE 2: Some folks have pointed  out that I didn’t provide a source for this data. That’s partly an oversight and partly because it’s an ‘exclusive.’ First, the original survey was cited in this recent post: Survey: Coalition Government Acceptable to Most Canadians, which also provides a link to the survey company’s site and data. Second, this particular data was omitted from their original report; I emailed the company to ask about it, and they were kind enough to send me the entire report, from which I copied-and-pasted the chart you see here. Still, I should have provided a link to the original data that is online. My apologies.