So, this is the most recent Nanos poll. It shows the Liberals and Conservatives as being close in polling. And we can't go by polls for predicting absolute results, but please notice, the NDP is polling at 16.5%. The Greens are polling at 9.8%. Neither party is going to form government. A coalition of the NDP and Green party is not going to form government. Please understand this.
I know some of you fervently want either a Green or NDP government or official opposition. This is not going to happen unless things change dramatically . And they won't. There are pockets of very committed Green supporters here and there. There are pockets of very committed NDP supporters here and there. But the vast majority of Canadians, who we cannot make vote Green or NDP, see the race as between the Liberals and the CPC. The Greens and the NDP are too fringe or radical for them.
I understand that a good many Canadians are frustrated with what they perceive as Liberal disappointments. They want to punish the Liberals. They want to make a protest vote for the Greens or the NDP. A protest vote is a vote for the CPC. There is no sugar-coating it. Unless you are in a secure NDP or Green riding, every vote you take away from the Liberals is a step towards the CPC candidate getting that seat.
To be honest, I would like an NDP government. An honest to goodness, CCF-principles-based NDP government. Where human dignity and egality is paramount, and corporate profits are not the point of everything. In 2011, I watched the orange wave creep across the country and I was so hopeful... And then all my hopes were dashed when Harper finally got his majority. And then Jack died. And I know he wasn't perfect, I know there were issues. but he really had his heart in it and he really wanted to see Canadians, especially working class and disadvantaged Canadians, treated better by government.
An NDP/Green coalition could do great things for our country, maybe. But that won't happen because at the federal level they are very far apart ideologically. They may share views on the environment, but other issues, not so much.
The CPC has a fairly static voter base. About 1/3 of Canadians vote CPC. They always vote CPC and they always vote. The only way the CPC can win a federal election is if enough people choose to vote for the Greens or the NDP instead of the Liberals. Or enough people who would have voted Liberal stay home instead of voting.
It's a numbers game. Between 28% and 35% of Canadians will vote CPC. Every single time. Unless you live in a riding where the Green candidate or the NDP candidate is a huge favourite, a vote for them is effectively giving the seat to the CPC. And your vote matters. So many ridings in 2015 were decided by fewer than 1,000 votes. Your vote matters. It will make a difference.
We all need to vote. And most of us need to vote Liberal to head off a CPC win. Again, if your riding has a popular incumbent Green or NDP, by all means, vote for them. We need their voices in the House of Commons. But in most of the ridings in Canada, it is going to come down to whether the Liberal or the CPC candidate gets the most votes.
CPC supporters always vote CPC. Progressive voters move their vote around. Some of them, anyway. If we dilute the progressive vote by spreading it too thinly between three parties, the CPC candidate wins. It is that simple.
I am not a Liberal. I am not a Liberal cheerleader. I am terrified of what the CPC will do to Canada. I am pragmatic about our options. It feels icky to reward the Liberals who have not done everything they said they would and they raised our hopes and couldn't deliver and we are angry and disappointed... But you have to ask yourself, DO YOU WANT A CPC GOVERNMENT JUST TO GET BACK AT THE LIBERALS?
I say NO! HELL NO!
We have been watching the great American shit-show. We know how this will end if the CPC are elected. Harper was very, very bad. Scheer would be much worse. Harper did things slowly, incrementally. He knew that too much, too fast, would make the public angry. It would endanger his re-election chances, even if they were busy cheating and rigging elections. So he did things slowly, incrementally. Believe it or not, he didn't do half the things he would have done if he had been able to stay in power longer. And, by the way, Harper is still pulling the strings in the Canadian conservative movement.
Now, so much that would have been incomprehensible, unacceptable, has been normalised by the demented orange menace to the south of us, that the CPC are emboldened. They feel they could push forward rapidly. In the US they are laying charges against women who have miscarriages, never mind abortions. In the US they are locking children in cages in concentration camp conditions. People are living in their cars. Police are shooting people for being black.People are shooting people en masse for being gay or Muslim or Latino. And the rich are gobbling up all the wealth as fast as they can. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Americans cannot afford to get sick or injured. And that is one of the first things a CPC government would do. We are already seeing the provincial conservatives laying the groundwork for bringing in two-tiered medicine, which will be followed by full privatisation.
You are concerned about climate change and the environment? Scheer wants to create a resource corridor to ship fossil fuels and other resources to ports and out of the country. And it is reasonable to think that Canadians will get a pittance for them, just so long as the big resource companies make a killing. Speaking of killing, such a resource corridor would likely be protected from protestors by military or private militia.
Scheer plans to let the Americans put American nukes in our arctic. In fact he plans to pay the Americans to put their nukes in our arctic. I would not be surprised if expanded presence and powers of American law enforcement and military followed soon after.
Scheer wants to make Canadian gun laws more like American gun laws, so we too can have massive school shootings. And mall shootings. And concert shootings...
Look at what Ford has done in Ontario. Look at what Kenney has already done in Alberta in just a couple of months. Look at Manitoba in the throes of a health care crisis under Pallister.
Look at our news media filling Canadians' head with fake news, like the truncated video of Trudeau allegedly being snubbed by the Brazilian President this past weekend.
We can be pissed off at the Liberals. We probably should be. But we cannot let the CPC take power. People will suffer. People will die.And it could be you, or your kids, or your neighbours and friends. The CPC are not here for us. They are here for the very wealthy, the right-wing evangelicals, and the American right. We can't let them win.
Please think carefully about who you vote for. Things need to change, but they don't need to change for the worse.
