Blessed by the Potato

My political idealogies lean to the left, as I’m sure you all can tell. I believe in strong, effective social programs such as health care, subsidized education, etc. Most of all though, I believe in taking a long-term view, working towards goals that extend beyond the next 4/5-year election cycle. With that mindset, I’m supporting the Green Party in the upcoming London North-Centre by-election.

One thing that has hurt the Greens in the past is “strategic voting”: people see a large threat, namely the conservatives, and feel that they have to vote for the candidate who has the best chance of blocking that greater threat, even if that candidate doesn’t best represent their interests. It’s all about perception: people believe that the Green party is too new or doesn’t have enough support to win outright, so they back the next-best party, which drives more people to valiantly throw their votes out to stop the party they least want from gaining power.

It’s a concept that isn’t entirely without merit in our first-past-the-post system. However, this is not a general federal election: it’s a by-election with only one seat in Ontario at stake. Strategic voting doesn’t apply at all since the Conservatives already have control of the government. Electing a second-choice candidate to “stop” them here will do nothing to change that. Likewise, in the “worst-case” scenario — a Conservative win — the federal government won’t have any more real power. At best it would be a short-term moral victory, but a weak one: every party is running new candidates, and the Liberals (the incumbent party) are in chaos as they’re in the midst of their own leadership race.

Even that pale threat is mostly illusory: the Conservative candidate in this riding only got 30% of the vote in the last election (the NDP were close in 3rd place with 24%). Since that time, the minority government has not pleased the voters, and a broken election promise is fresh in everyone’s minds (the income trust tax). Plus, the new tory candidate is hiding from the local media which can’t be a good omen for them.

Conversely, a Green win here could have larger ramifications later. It would show people in other ridings for the next election that yes, the Green party can take a seat, making them a more reasonable choice when considering “strategic voting”. It would also clue the other parties into paying more attention to some of the issues and positions that matter to us, and perhaps to alter their stances to overlap the position of the Greens a little more.

The by-election also presents the perfect opportunity for those who are worried about the opposite “strategic” issue; namely those people who believe in at least some of the points in the Green party platform, but didn’t want to risk voting them into power when they are largely inexperienced legislators. A single seat is the perfect starting place.

Those larger party issues are somewhat abstract, however, and don’t mean as much to me personally. At the end of the day, our vote in the by-election is to send a person to Ottawa to represent London North-Centre, and in that regard I have to say that Elizabeth May seems like a perfect candidate. True, she’s not a full-time resident of the area, but her situation is certainly not unheard-of. What seems more important is that she has a very impressive resume, including her status as an Officer of the Order of Canada, no small honour in this country. In her interviews she comes off as very personable, coherent, and energetic; I had the opportunity to meet her in person and was impressed.

Whatever your views, do a bit of research, get involved, and be sure to hit the polls and vote.

Today I spent my evening at the Poacher’s Arms to meet some of the other Green Party supporters in London. It was a pretty quiet night, and most of the people there were those who had already become members of the party and/or were volunteering with the campaign. It was a fairly last-minute deal and I only heard about it last night myself. It made for a friendly, intimate atmosphere though. I thought it was going to be more like a rally, but instead I got to chat with a lot of supporters for the Green party, many of whom came from all over Canada (well, the GTA for the most part) to help out in this very special by-election.

Elizabeth May was unfortunately delayed because of a fundraising dinner (for non-political charities). Everyone was really dragging and tired after a long day of campaigning, so there was a huge upswing when she finally arrived, and then a quick exodus as everyone trudged off to bed. There were just a few of us left at the end of the night, and we shared a plate of nachos with Elizabeth and chatted. I can tell you that she’s a bright, caring person who’s absolutely full of energy, and I think she’d get my vote no matter her party affiliation. When she arrived the musician played “Paved Paradise (and put up a parking lot)”, the unofficial theme song of the Greens.

Turns out I’m not much of a conversationalist (who would have known?) so I mostly let the other people do the talking. We talked about life out East, what the door-to-door canvassing part of the campaign is like, politics in Ottawa (particularly Garth Turner), and getting out the student vote. There was very little talk about the campaign platform, I think largely because everyone who was there pretty much agreed on the generalities so there wasn’t any call for debate. I know I read through the platform and couldn’t think of any questions to ask even when I tried.

All-in-all a decent night of politicking, and I feel much more comfortable recommending Elizabeth May and the greens after meeting them.

Here’s a link to Garth Turner’s page where he has a video chat with Elizabeth May (this was back in October when he was still a Conservative MP). Look for the October 17th video, about halfway down the page.

Also, apologies for the site outage on Saturday: it was a combination failure with my domain host and the server box under my desk. This was a scheduled maintenance, but I didn’t get the email until it had already started (partly my fault for only checking that account every 2-3 days, and partly theirs for only giving like 20 hours notice of the outage).