TNS Canadian Facts has  released some fascinating results from a new survey asking Canadians what they really think about the idea of a coalition government, and the results are not going to make Stephen Harper very happy. The survey clearly says that most Canadians accept a coalition government, and many of us would accept one where two minority parties form the government.

The survey results are shown here in easy-to-read graphical form. Here are some of the – to me – very interesting results:

• 48% of Canadians would find a coalition of minority parties acceptable
• In addition, another 18% answered that they didn’t know or “It depends”
• It seems to me that, if a coalition formed and did even a halfway respectable job of governing, most of this 18% would find the coalition acceptable

The surveyors asked two similar but critically different questions about coalition scenarios, but neglected to post the responses to the most interesting. The questions to which I am referring are (rephrased here for brevity and clarity):

• Which coalition scenario do you prefer?
• Which coalition scenario is acceptable?

The first question is certainly interesting (Liberal-NDP was the first choice at 29%), but to me the second is the most useful and interesting. As the Rolling Stones famously sang,

You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need

I think most of us accept this in politics, and many of us think a coalition could be just what Canada needs right now.

I have written the company requesting the answers.

UPDATE 18 April: Answers received, and it is very revealing. Thanks to Norman Baillie-David of TNS Global.

First, the acceptable results are shown in the chart opposite. Fully 70% of Canadians find a Liberal-NDP coalition completely or somewhat acceptable, or are ambivalent. If Mr. Harper has seen this, he must be very, very worried.

Coalitions that are Acceptable to Canadians

My second questions was about survey methodology, in which they called only landlines. Mr Baillie-David’s response quoted in full:

Secondly, while you raise a valid point about cell-phone only households, and this is an emerging trend in other countries, the proportion of Canadian households currently characterized as “cell-phone only, i.e. no landline, sits currently at approximately 8% (various sources).  From many previous studies, we know that while these households differ on a number of different demographics (more likely to be  younger, male and single), their opinions do not differ from the wider population in a strong enough manner to cause a “statistically significant difference” in the overall results.  In other words, for a survey this size, using cell-phone only households wouldn’t move the overall results by more than the margin of error of 3.1%. Therefore, due to the cost and logistical difficulty of obtaining and sampling cell-phone only households, we do not yet include them in our ExpressTel omnibus surveys; however, this is continuously open to review and will likely change as the number of cell-phone only households continue to rise.

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How about you? What are your thoughts on a coalition? Take the simple poll below.

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Note: I deliberately excluded coalitions including the Bloc because that option is not favoured by most in all surveys to date, and generally coalitions do not include the Bloc anyway. The Bloc simply agrees not to bring down the coalition government on a confidence vote.

Michael Ignatieff has repeatedly ruled out the idea of a coalition; this was a big mistake. He has both painted himself into a corner and hung the Liberal Party out to dry. Let’s look at the scenarios:

1. Conservative majority: Ignatieff will go, willingly or no.
2. Conservative minority: Ignatieff has said “No” to a coalition, so where does this leave him now? Many Canadians would have been willing to accept a Liberal-NDP coalition. Likely Ignatieff will quit or be pushed out.
3. Liberal minority: Looking very unlikely at this point; not even worth considering unless the poll results change drastically in the next two weeks.

Given current polls, those are the only realistic outcomes. The only one that keeps Ignatieff around is #3, and it is a remote chance at this point. Had he not ruled out a coalition, there would have been a fourth possibility:

4. Conservatives get enough seats for a minority, but Liberals and NDP form a coalition

But that’s off the table. I realize Mr. Ignatieff was trying to force people to ‘choose’ the Liberals, but that strategy has backfired. (And was pretty obnoxious to begin with. In essence, he was saying “Give me a minority or I’ll stick you with a Harper Government™ again.”)

So it seems to me that, unless Mr. Ignatieff can turn things around soon, he’ll be asking for his old job back.

That leaves the Liberals in a bad way. They’ll be leaderless, facing a Harper government that has promised to ram through some odious bills; how can the Liberals vote against those bills if they don’t have a leader? (Note: They may technically have a leader, in that either Ignatieff sticks around while they choose a new leader, or an interim leader is appointed. However, either way, the Liberals are in a very weak position with a lame-duck leader.)

If the Conservatives, even in a minority position, decide to take advantage of Liberal weakness and attempt to push through some of their particularly nasty bills, the NDP and Bloc may well vote against them. Why? Well, look at the potential outcomes for those two parties:

1. The Harper Government is defeated – but instead of an election, the NDP proposes an NDP-Liberal coalition, with the Bloc promising not to defeat them on confidence motions. If the Liberals say “No” to this, then:
2. There is another snap election and the Liberals have no leader. Worse, they rejected a coalition, which many Canadians would prefer to another election.

Frankly, I don’t see a winning strategy here for the Liberals. Perhaps Ignatieff will go back on his word and form a coalition anyway, but he and the Liberals will take a hit for that. The Liberals already have enough credibility issues, especially in the West, without such a blatant and self-serving flip-flop. (The Conservatives do similar things, but so far nothing is sticking to them.)

The only hope I see for Ignatieff and the Liberals is this (assuming Ignatieff wants to stick around): In the event of another Conservative minority, Ignatieff will go back on his word and form a Liberal-NDP coalition. Yes, they’ll get roasted by the Conservatives, the press, and many Canadians. However, if the coalition can hold together for, say two years, and can also do some good things, then Iggy will be forgiven and should do much better in the next election.

If this does not happen, the NDP could pass the Liberals in the polls as they come to be seen as the only viable alternative to the Conservatives.

It is enormously frustrating for many people that Stephen Harper is apparently so respected and trusted as a leader. There seemed to be a chink in his armour after the latest scandals came out about the ‘misallocation’ of funds to Conservative ridings, meaning pork. Harper’s leadership rating took a dive that day.

Predictably, however, he is back on top by a huge margin. I say predictably, because I predicted it. When Layton, Ignatieff, and Duceppe pile on to Harper, and he responds coolly and calmly, guess who comes out looking like the mature adult?

Shoulda called me, Jack.

First, let me say that I have been utterly opposed to strategic voting in the past, and I feel nauseous even thinking about it now. I ran as a Green candidate in the last federal election, and it was depressing the number of people who told me they wanted to vote for me, but…they wanted to ensure that the Conservatives did not get in, more.

Ultimately, it harms democracy when people have to vote for someone they don’t want, because it only ensures you will continue to get what you don’t want.

That said, however, there are some complicating factors.

[For those who already accept this, the TL;DR version is: Don't waste your vote, don't vote strategically - Pair Your Vote!]

In Canada, we are faced with the Conservative Party, which many of us feel advances some un-Canadian policies. We really don’t want them to get another minority, God forbid a majority. (In fact, if they could be defeated this time around, there’s an excellent chance that Harper would retire and the party would split again, as he was the glue – maybe the vise – holding it together.)

That certainly doesn’t solve all our problems because many of us are not totally thrilled with the alternatives, but they benefit from being the lesser evil. For example, while normally I go Green, I would like to see the NDP end up with more power this election. I believe they would help move our economy and society in a more German/Nordic direction – and given how well those countries are doing, that would be a huge benefit to us. (The Green Party would also move us in this direction, but realistically they have a shot at only one seat this time around: Elizabeth May in Saanich-Gulf Islands.)

Why Vote Strategically

In theory, voting for a small party causes the larger parties to steal their policies and thus moves those parties in that direction. The Green Party is often cited as an example. However, there are other ways to get the other parties to adopt progressive policies than voting every few years.

Our First Past The Post (FPTP) system is not fairly representing millions of voters, and neither the Conservatives nor Liberals have any plans to fix that; the status quo benefits them. At the same time, keeping democracy working well requires more than just voting. Donations, volunteering, and actively working in a party are also – arguably more – important.

Let’s take the reasons given to not vote strategically one at a time and see if they hold up:

1. Thanks to public funding, every vote for a party gives them $2.25 per year. This is not peanuts; it gave the Green Party millions of dollars, for example. However, if this is your main concern, you could easily vote strategically and then donate to the party you really like – and get a sizeable tax-deduction. The tax break benefits you and the party gets more money: If you donate $100, you get a tax credit of $75, so you are only out-of-pocket $25. The party, meanwhile, gets $100, far more than the $2.25 per year they would have received from your vote.
2. Sending a message: Every vote does send a message, and the more votes a party gets the more influence it is likely to have. I say likely, because look at the Green Party this time around: Excluded from the debates and generally more marginalized than in the previous election, despite getting nearly one million votes in that election. Also, if non-strategic voting puts a party you really don’t want in power, then how much influence did you have? You may have actually helped to  move the country further from the values you hold dear.
3. You should vote for what you want, not what you don’t want; voting for the lesser evil is still voting for evil. True, and fair enough. That said, if your pure vote results in the greater evil gaining more power….
4. You really only find one party palatable, and can’t stand to give any other party your vote. Again, fair enough, but you should think very seriously about this, as it is ultimately the same as #3, above. Your principled vote could end up putting someone you really don’t want in power.

If you really want to see your preferred party gain more influence and power, your vote is probably the least effective action you can do. That is the sad reality of our FPTP system and only moving to some form of Proportional Representation will change that.

Vote One Way and Support Another

If you care about democracy (and you should) here’s what you should do: Hold your nose and vote strategically to get the best electable choice in your riding elected. The best way by far is to Pair Your Vote, described below.

But you can’t stop there. You may be forced to vote a certain way, but all your other actions can and should go to support your values.

• Per #1 above, donate to the candidate/party you really like. This is critical; it is why the Conservatives have such a big war chest and want to eliminate public financing of elections. If we all supported the party we liked, public funding would be much less of a concern and the Cons would face some real competition. If those approximately one million Green voters each donated an average of $10, the Green would have the largest campaign war chest they’ve ever had. The NDP would have more than $25 million.
• Work between elections for the candidate/party you really like. Democracy fails if the only effort we put into it is 30 minutes to vote every few years. Get involved or stop complaining that more people don’t vote for your party. Work to make them more popular next time, to find really good candidates, raise money, craft great policies, get out their message in ways that broaden their appeal, and so on. The NDP and Greens, for example, could be far more popular if they would learn to communicate outside their respective bases.

Voting, whether strategic or not, is not enough to preserve democracy, and certainly will not give us the best government. Ultimately our actions are what will make the difference.

How to Vote Strategically

Here’s how not to do it: By looking at the aggregated, or nationwide polls. They are meaningless for strategic voting. You must look at your riding. Here are the three scenarios:

1. You like the incumbent party, and they won by a wide margin; the seat is considered ‘safe’ for that party. Vote for the incumbent.
2. You dislike the incumbent party, and they won by a wide margin; the seat is considered ‘safe’ for that party. Pair Your Vote.
3. You dislike the incumbent party, and they won by a narrow margin; the seat is not safe. Vote for the party most likely to beat the incumbent or Pair Your Vote.

For example, in the Surrey North riding:

• Dona Cadman, Conservative: 13,714 votes
• Rachid Arab, NDP: 25,366 votes
• Marc Muhammad, Liberal, 5,227 votes
• Dan Kashagama, Green, 1,925 votes

The Conservatives won this riding by only 1,106 votes. You can see that it wouldn’t take many Liberals or Greens voting strategically for the NDP to toss the Con.

Some ridings are more complicated; you need to know the history, who’s running, and so on.

Pair Your Vote

The best way by far to ensure that your vote elects a candidate from the party you like best is vote pairing.

I recommend this method far-and-away above anything else. It mimics proportional representation, it greatly increases the chances that a candidate from the party you like most will get elected, and your vote actually counts! What a concept.

• http://www.votepair.ca/: ”Vote swapping a mere 15,000 votes can control the outcome of this federal election.”

Here’s how it works: You swap votes with someone in another riding, meaning you both give a vote to the party you most favour, just not in your riding. For example, you agree to vote Liberal in your riding, even though you prefer NDP, because realistically the NDP doesn’t have a chance in your riding. Meanwhile your vote-pair buddy agrees to vote NDP in his riding, because his preference, a Liberal, has no chance.

Someday, perhaps, we’ll have a fair electoral system. But until that day, we must do the best with what we have.