There has been much
talk of late about cooperation
between the left
leaning political partys with a view to
stopping
the dismantling of Canada by the Harper regime
beyond 2015 by electing
a different government at that time. What form
that may take if it materializes is up for debate but there is little
doubt in my mind that if you care for this country and want that
“open
and accountable government” that these
secretive and dishonest ideologues promised when they first came to
power then we must seriously consider such 'cooperation' in order to
rid ourselves of this regime.
There is however that such talk at this
time is because it is currently 'politically expedient' for the
'left' to talk cooperation in the face of Harpers avowed intent to
cripple any oppositions chances of regaining power. Lesser partys are
already feeling the pinch of reduced funding from the per vote
funding that is being phased out as I write, attack ads are being
aired by the Cons trying to demonize the opposition leader as was successfully done during the last parliament long before
any actual election period commenced. We can expect further rhetoric
from them dishing such cooperation in the same manner that they, also
successfully, wrongly painted coalition governments as
'unconstitutional' even as they shut down parliament to avoid a vote
of non confidence. The opposition partys are not blameless on that
one, no sooner had the possibility of such 'cooperation' faded when
rather that keep the door open between them they started attacking
each other in speeches and the media.
In trying to elect a government from
the 'progressive left' the difficulty is of course our antiquated
voting system where the winner takes all and with several partys on
the left and but one or the right vote splitting pretty much ensures
that the Cons have a much better chance of retaining power. The
Green Party of Canada is currently considering
a couple of motions to be voted upon in their upcoming convention
(and being voted upon by the membership on line) to officially call
for “cooperation” during the next election on the condition that
if elected whatever party gains power would “make electoral reform
for proportional representation their highest priority”. How such
cooperation would work is left up to the party leader and council and
is of course the sticky bit. Elizabeth May in a past election made
reference to the difficulty posed by the need for strategic voting
where they had no chance of electing a Green and to consider voting
ABC (Any One but Conservative) and for whomever had the best chance
to defeat the Con candidate. This was later
'clarified' due to much angst from within the
party, as it turns out it was not only a very brave thing for a
leader to say but may well have saved us from the destruction of our
democracy and environmental protection by the Harper Regime. Will ANY
leader or party on the left have the guts to possibly alienate their
supporters in order to rid ourselves of this bunch of power hungry
crooks by urging such strategic voting? Will candidates be withdrawn
in favor of of the most probable non conservative candidate
irregardless of party? I highly doubt it, time will tell, but
strategic voting may well be the only practical choice to save Canada
from further abuse by the Harper Regiem.
Its going to get complicated and ugly
folks, we can only hope that the Cons self destruct before then but
thus far they have done a good job of hiding their many wrong-doings,
deflecting any criticism of that which does emerge, and using their
taxpayer funded PR department to make many of the public believe that
they are gods gift to Canada. I for one am daily collecting
'ammunition' for use during the next election period and hope that we
still have a reasonably secure and error free election system by then
..... or will Elections Canada be just a shell of its current
underfunded self by then?
I will leave you with this thought from
'Sudbury
Steve' with which I entirely agree “it could
very well lead to the NDP forming the next Government of Canada. And
as much as I find that idea a little scary, I can tell you that I
would find that prospect immanently preferable to four more years of
Conservative destruction of my nation.”
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