Liberals and New Democrats together could unseat Harper

Electoral ceasefire would put nation's centre-left majority in political control

Michael Byers, Toronto Star, November 2, 2009

Negative ads have prejudiced voters against Michael Ignatieff, and brought Stephen Harper within reach of a majority government. The Conservatives now lead the Liberals by about 10 percentage points.

The situation seems unlikely to improve. The Prime Minister's divisive partisan tactics have diminished the public's respect for politicians in general. In just four years, he has changed the tone of media coverage and public discourse, shifting the mood of the nation toward cynicism and selfishness.

Liberal infighting has not helped, while the NDP has missed two opportunities – on climate change and macroeconomic policy – to capture the national imagination with bold ideas.

There is only one surefire way to prevent a Harper majority. The Liberals and NDP should agree to not run candidates against each other in the next campaign.

In each riding, the party whose candidate fared worst in the last election would pull its current candidate out, or refrain from nominating one.

Both parties would win more seats, with the Liberals potentially forming a majority government.

Based solely on the results from October 2008, the agreement would, in itself, deliver 30 to 40 additional seats to the Liberals and another five to 10 seats to the NDP.

The Bloc Québécois would not be part of the deal but could be expected to win around 40 seats in total.

Importantly, what is proposed is not a coalition, but a one-time ceasefire between two opposition parties whose combined vote share last time was significantly higher (44.4 per cent versus 37.6 per cent) than the Conservatives.

No effort would be made to coordinate platforms, though the absence of debilitating head-to-head races between Liberals and New Democrats would direct both parties' attention onto the Conservatives.

Nor would the agreement extend to post-election power sharing. If the Liberals were in a position to form a minority government, they would be free to seek support from any of the other parties – including the Conservatives.

The only post-election condition in the agreement should be an unqualified public commitment to holding a national referendum on proportional representation within the first year.

The commitment would include the provision of sufficient public funding to ensure in-depth discussion and widespread knowledge of the arguments both for and against the proposed change.

Proportional representation would produce a much fairer allocation of seats than our current first-past-the-post system and boost voter turnout and political engagement by making every vote count.

Many New Democrats might wish to make the immediate introduction of proportional representation a condition of the ceasefire agreement, since a referendum might not produce the desired result.

However, such an approach would enable the Prime Minister to make proportional representation the principal issue in the campaign, instead of his record and the alternative policies offered by the other parties.

A ceasefire agreement would likely be opposed by some insiders, in both parties, who benefit from the existing system. It would certainly inconvenience some candidates who have already been nominated, and would have to stand down. Most, however, would probably accept that larger, more important interests are in play.

The ceasefire agreement, once struck, could be expanded to include the Green party, which has always sought proportional representation and would benefit substantially from it.

The Greens obtained nearly 1 million votes (6.8 per cent) but no parliamentary representation in the last election. They finished second in five races, though the party's only realistic chance of winning a seat in the next election is in the B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, where Elizabeth May is running and the Liberal finished second to the Conservative last time.

An arrangement could be made to rectify this lack of representation by giving all five second-place Greens a clear run in the next election, with May having that opportunity in her new riding – in return for the Green party withdrawing its candidates from every other race.

The chances of the Liberals forming government appear to have slipped away. The future of the country is in the balance. Whether we like it or not, the parties of the progressive centre have reached a decision point.

Will we let an outdated electoral system deliver a majority Conservative government on the basis of the preferences of less than 40 per cent of voters – and less than 25 per cent of those Canadians who are eligible to vote?

Or will we seize the moment, pull together, and put the country back on course?

Michael Byers lives on Salt Spring Island and teaches political science at UBC. In October 2008, he ran for the New Democrats in Vancouver Centre.

For the original text, see: Unseating Harper

Comments

[Peter McMurtrie]

Since the Star isn't allowing comments on your piece, I will respond to some of the claims contained in it here.

"Negative ads have prejudiced voters against Michael Ignatieff, and brought Stephen Harper within reach of a majority government. The Conservatives now lead the Liberals by about 10 percentage points."

I think your chronology is a little mixed up there Professor Byers. If I remember correctly, the anti-Ignatieff ads made their debut in May. At that time, the Liberals were consistently polling ahead of the Conservatives. They continued to poll ahead of the Conservatives until the end of June, at which point they began a summer-long statistical tie with the Conservatives. That may have had something to do with the ads. More directly, it had to do with Ignatieff's poor performance relative to the prime minister's in June's election threat jousting match. The fact that the Conservatives are now polling at 40%, however, is quite clearly divorced from the ads. The Conservatives only shot up to that level after the Liberals' strategic blunder of threatening a Fall election. The shift in the polling trend was very obvious after the unveiling of that strategy. I don't see how you can imply with a clean conscience that there is a causal link between high Conservative poll numbers and negative attack ads (which is what you're doing, or else you wouldn't have referred to the ads right before referring to the poll numbers).

See the site below for what I've been referencing:

http://www.electionalmanac.com/canada/polls.php

"The situation seems unlikely to improve. The Prime Minister's divisive partisan tactics have diminished the public's respect for politicians in general. In just four years, he has changed the tone of media coverage and public discourse, shifting the mood of the nation toward cynicism and selfishness."

What situation? This paragraph comes right after the first one about poll numbers, but I don't really see how it's related. How does cynicism relate to poll numbers? Also, where does this point come from? Is this your honest impression? I am much younger than you are, but my impression is that there has been intense partisanship in federal politics for as long as I can remember. It seems more likely that the second paragraph is purely ideological.

As for your proposal for Liberal-NDP collusion that follows, I'll say the same thing that I say about coalitions and a merging of the so-called Canadian "centre-left" into one party. It makes the unwarranted assumption that Canadian politics exists in the following blocs: you have the Conservative bloc, the Bloc bloc, and then you have the centre-left bloc composed of the Greens, NDP, and Grits. The thinking goes that since the last bloc together has something like 45-50% of the vote, they ought to just cooperate, and they will have that kind of support in collusion with each other. This view ignores the fact that it's not just the leftist vote being split between the NDP and Liberals; the centre-right vote is being split at the same time between the Liberals and the Conservatives. There are a spectrum of views in the Liberal Party, and not everyone would vote NDP as their second choice. A great many people would vote Conservative as their second choice. When the Liberals start bleeding support, they bleed it in both directions. Consequently, if Liberal candidates are pulled out of some ridings, I guarantee you that a great many people who would have liked to vote Liberal would vote Conservative and not NDP (myself included). The NDP vote in that scenario would not be the normal NDP vote plus the normal Liberal vote.

"The only post-election condition in the agreement should be an unqualified public commitment to holding a national referendum on proportional representation within the first year."

I laughed out loud when I read this. It comes a bit out of the blue, doesn't it? Did you not have enough to say about your proposed Liberal-NDP scheme that you had to cram a second hobby-horse into this op-ed? Okay, I'll keep reading.

"Many New Democrats might wish to make the immediate introduction of proportional representation a condition of the ceasefire agreement, since a referendum might not produce the desired result."

Oh how sad. Imagine the people whose republican will you claim to support in one sentence being so blasted inconvenient in the next. I notice that you don't judge this idea by its own flaws, but only criticize it because it would be favourable to the prime minister.

"The chances of the Liberals forming government appear to have slipped away. The future of the country is in the balance. Whether we like it or not, the parties of the progressive centre have reached a decision point."

The future of the country is in the balance to who? You? What about the 40% of people who like the Conservative vision of the country's future enough to vote for them, and the usually greater numbers who are generally happy with the way the country is going? The second sentence reads like the prime minister is some bully who has found his way into the sandbox and is knocking down everyone's sand castles. The reality is that a (large) plurality of the kids have invited him in to make the sand castles better. Thanks for trivializing at least forty percent of your compatriots Michael.

Let the part about the Liberals/NDP/Greens representing this static "progressive centre" fall under what I said about the Liberals splitting much of the centre-right vote. It's also possible that the labour contingent comprising much of the NDP vote is not particularly "progressive," but this is just a hunch, and I don't presently have the data to support it.

"Will we let an outdated electoral system deliver a majority Conservative government on the basis of the preferences of less than 40 per cent of voters – and less than 25 per cent of those Canadians who are eligible to vote?"

(1) The Conservatives will not get a majority government on the basis of forty percent of the vote, let alone less than that. While Chretien was able to eke out majorities in the 90s with less than forty percent, Harper's support is less efficient since it is concentrated in the West. It would take a bit over forty percent for the Conservatives to get a majority. I would understand it if you said they could get a majority with forty, since that's the "magic number" so often quoted in the media. I have never once read or seen a figure of less than forty being possible to deliver them a majority, and I can't imagine that you have either. Do you usually stretch the truth to make your case?

(2) I'm not really understanding why you have referred to the figure of 25% of eligible voters? (a) Do you think that a greater number of people should have the franchise? (b) Do you realize that with or without proportional representation, a government of any party would have that defect? (c) Again, do you think it's a little rich that you are complaining about the level of support a majority government typically has in a five-party first-past-the-post system while simultaneously trivializing the desires of the greatest proportion of voters?

Now let's see if you'll respond honestly to what I've said, or if you won't even allow my comments to be posted. My disposition is scientific. My mind is open. Teach me if you can. If you don't respond, I'll assume that you can't, and my views will harden.

[Devin Johnston]

I think that this would be a non-starter for the NDP, as I outline here for a number of reasons:

1) It is not in the NDP's strategic interests to concede that much ground the to the Liberals. Our biggest strategic objective is to convince Canadians that we are a viable governing party. We can't do that by standing down candidates in two thirds of the ridings across the country.

2) It leaves open the possibility of a Liberal majority, in which case we don't have a balance of power. Again, the NDP is better off strategically in a minority Parliament, even to the extent that a Conservative minority is preferable to a Liberal majority.

3) The calculus is not as simple as you suggest. A lot of Liberals would militate toward the Conservatives without a Liberal on the ballot. That might end up electing Conservatives in close NDP/Conservative races.

4) A lot of people (Liberals and New Democrats) would be frustrated by such an agreement, and would cast protest votes for the Conservatives, Bloc, or Greens, else else simply stay home on election day. Moreover, disgruntled former candidates might choose to run as independents instead of adhering to the agreement.

5) Although what you are proposing is not a coalition, most voters would not see the distinction. You can bet that the Conservatives would launch a campaign of attack ads and misinformation to cast aspersions on any Liberal/NDP electoral co-operation.

6) Both parties would stand to lose a huge amount of money in terms of per-vote subsidies.

There are two more moderate proposals available. First, the Liberals and NDP could split up ridings on a 50/50 basis. Second, there could be a more limited arrangement in which both parties stand down in 10 or 20 targeted ridings, but still contest most ridings against one another. I think these alternatives are better, but none of them makes strategic sense for the NDP.

[West End Bob]

Sounds very intriguing, Michael, and definitely worth a shot.

I see you're living on Salt Spring Island now - Do you love it?

[Rod Smelser]

I had asked this elsewhere, on facebook, but may as well do so here too. Does this column mean that you will not be seeking or accepting the NDP nomination in Vancouver Centre to run against incumbent Liberal Hedy Fry in the next federal election, as that would appear to be the logical implication of your column?

A non-aggression pact of the type you describe has two problems. One is enforcement. There is no way for either party to prevent post-agreement cheating and mischief by the other. For example, in BC it was clear in the 2008 election that many Liberal voters from 2004 and 2006 went over to the Conservatives, at least outside the central part of Vancouver. It's hard to believe this en bloc movement was not assisted by Liberal HQ as part of some arrangement with the Conservatives (we'll help you in the suburbs if you'll leave us alone in the City). What's to prevent the Liberals from doing the deal you describe with the NDP, then turning around and doing another deal with Tories as part of the two older parties long term game plan of joint maximization, the game of Red/Blue duopoly which is designed to exclude and suppress competitors who aren't part of the club.

Second, there's the problem of fundamental voter attitudes. Some voters are repelled by electoral gangups and I am one of them. The CCF/NDP has traditionally been a target of such gangups, no where more so than in BC (Coaltion, SC, BC Liberals). Some voters may rebel at being expected to vote for a traditional rival, and may either not vote or protest by voting for the target party, the Conservative.

Some of this may have happened in 2008 in Saanich-Gulf Islands, where the Liberals and lawyer Will Horter's "Conservation Voters" went to truly extraordinary lengths to exclude non-Liberal rivals in an attempt to force the election of Liberal Briony Penn. In spite of all these attempts at exclusion, some more successful than others, it didn't work. Lunn was re-elected.

[PJ Robertson]

Unlike your previous posters, I come by your article having listened to you on CBC's "Sunday Edition" this morning. With pleasure and strong agreement, may I add, having enormously enjoyed your book Intent for a Nation: What is Canada for? earlier this year. As I read your book, it struck me: There is hope, there is someone out there, who reads Harper, who gets what the Harper crowd is doing to the country, and sees what the stakes are, should they be allowed a majority. Someone, finally, with a progressive vision for Canada, and the ability to articulate it. Ironically, Peter McMurtrie, your first poster above, seems to me, for all his show of picking your points apart, to succeed in confirming your argument. He simply doesn't see what's happening with the Harper Conservatives,and what the stakes are, and instead displays an aggressive discourtesy that I find dismayingly all of a piece with Harperite attitudes. I do hope you will persevere.

[Lee Pethick]

Bravo for taking on this Herculean labour. It's good to see someone on the inside making a real effort beyond writing editorials. Lloyd Axworthy came out with the same point of view after the last election - hopefully he can assist you from his side of the fence.

Although alliances of this kind haven't happened federally, they have occurred in provincial elections. The United Farmers of Ontario unseated the Conservatives after WWI through a non-aggression pact with the Independent Labour Party. The Liberals and Conservatives combined in B.C. in the 1940s to keep out the CCF.

A Liberal/NDP non-aggression pact would certainly have unseated Mike Harris in Ontario in 1999. Having worked in that election I heard many pleas at the door not to 'split the vote'. We're in the same boat now. Do not be deterred by charges of 'backroom deals.' Your plan is open and aboveboard. And don't try to outguess the voters - no one can really predict what they will do. Trust your supporters to see the big picture and vote accordingly. If they really want Stephen Harper let them vote for him.

You face a very tough fight at the local riding level. Perhaps you can sway them with Ben Franklin's argument: We must all hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately. Hang tough and good luck.