The right to vote is the absolute cornerstone of the democratic system. Why in Athens’ name, then, are reams of Canadians yearning to trade their votes away? Since the writ dropped last month, membership in various vote-swapping sites has grown exponentially, the best example being Facebook group “Anti-Harper Vote Swap Canada,” which currently boasts over 10,000 members. The group has devised a scheme to prevent a Conservative majority, whereby users from different ridings trade votes in an effort to maximize the chance of stopping local Tory candidates. For example, an NDP supporter in an area in which the NDP is non-competetive, but that "needs" Liberal votes, will agree to cast his ballot for the Liberals. In exchange, a voter in a riding where the Liberals have little hope of winning but that "needs" NDP votes will vote for Jack Layton's party.
According to Matt Savelli, creator of the group, Tory-opposing Canadians are eager to swap ballots because they are sick of seeing their votes wasted. “How many times can someone vote Green or NDP in a place like Harper's riding before they just give up?” he asks.
Part of the problem, he says, is that the Cons have it too easy, facing an increasingly fragmented opposition. “Since the old PC party was hijacked by the Alliance, we've seen a situation where the Tories have almost no one to contend with for about 30-40 per cent of the 'right' vote,” he says. “Compare this with four parties on the left fighting for about 60 per cent of the vote, and you have a recipe for Tory majorities despite well over half of the country opposing them.”
Could this be a telltale sign that it’s time to "unite the left," as the Toronto Star’s David Olive put forth a few weeks ago? Has vote-splitting among progressives become so severe that only an amalgamated Green Liberal Democratic super-party can throw down the gauntlet to the almighty right?
VoteforEnvironment.ca suggests this to an extent, urging eco-conscious center-left voters to overlook their partisan loyalties and vote for the Liberal, NDP, Green or Bloc party candidate most likely to defeat their Conservative opponent in each riding. But Kevin Grandia, co-owner of the site, admits that a united left might be too utopian of a concept, pointing to the current dissonance between the NDP and Liberals.
“Jack Layton says a carbon tax is going to hurt the economy but a cap and trade won’t,” he says. “Well, in a robust climate policy you need both. That’s a perfect example of putting partisan politics and pathetic power grabbing above an issue like the environment. So this type of history [between parties] is going to make them very reluctant to merging.”
To others, the mere fact there is talk of merging parties indicates a deeper-seated problem in our electoral system. “The answer is not for parties to merge together, we need more choice,” says Gerry Kirk, owner of VotePair.ca, a non-partisan vote-swapping site. “We need more parties, not fewer, we need a system in which they can work together to form coalitions in order to govern in a balanced and stable way. We can’t get that in a first-past-the-post-system.”
In a system where parties can win majorities with less than 40 per cent of the vote, Kirk argues, strategic voting is the only way most Canadians can make their ballots count. “The majority of people will not vote for whatever party becomes government. If 60 per cent of people don’t vote Conservative and we want Parliament to reflect that 60 per cent of the vote, then we have to vote strategically. This highlights that there’s something wrong with our system — that we have to go through all these hoops, alliances and coordinations to try and make this darn thing work.”
Kirk works closely with Fair Vote Canada, a multi-partisan citizens campaign promoting proportional representation, a system which rations parliamentary seats based on the percentage of votes each party gets. If the NDP receives 30 per cent of the popular vote, for example, they would be allotted 30 per cent of the seats. The system is currently employed in 75 democracies around the world, including most European countries. Fair Vote Canada is vying to get British Columbia to adopt a type of proportional rep next May, when the province will hold an electoral reform referendum (a similar referendum in Ontario last year failed). If successful, the organization hopes this might spur a national movement to have the issue addressed at the federal level.
Savelli, however, is a harder sell. Of proportional rep, he says, "The parties with the most power would have little to gain, other than the abstract notion that they are making a healthier democracy. For a long time, the old Reform party talked about the need for electoral reform. When the Tories form the next government with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote, I can't imagine you'll hear a thing about those concepts."
But Conservative candidate Patrick Boyer begs to differ. "Canada is still operating with an electoral system that's suited to two parties, and since the 1920's we've been a multiparty system,” he says. “I believe strongly that proportional representation is one of the reforms we need to bring into Canadian democracy to make it upgraded for our present conditions."
Boyer, a former Etobicoke-Lakeshore MP, vows to bring the issue before Parliament if he's elected. While he claims to act for the common good, he admits the Conservative party can gain from proportional rep as well. "In the last election in 2006, across our city's 22 ridings, almost a quarter of a million voters cast their ballots for Conservative candidates. Normally, a quarter of a million votes would be enough to elect about five MPs. And yet for 20 years, Toronto has failed to elect a single MP to sit on the Conservative side of the House of Commons." Still, he insists a more representative democracy benefits all disenfranchised voters, whether they’re Stephen Harper blue, Jack Layton orange, or Stephane Dion red.
"It's the same if you're looking at Alberta, where there's an overwhelming number of Conservative MPs but a lot of Liberal voters too. It would be healthy for our national political system to have a voice or two from Alberta's Liberal caucus. So we're suffering from an antiquated electoral system. We've got to get support for this across all party lines and make it happen."