Dear “next” Prime Ministers of Canada, Messers Mulcair and Trudeau:

It’s time to take action. Mr. Harper has spent the last two weeks taking control of the election campaign by throwing “dead cats” into the debate, and the result has been an ugly, racist media bloodbath about niqabs and terrorism. Both of you talk about avoiding fear-based politics, and this is nothing if not just that. Both of you are failing to prevent this fear-mongering. It’s time to throw your own cat on the table. A live one.

What “live” cat would that be? Strategic voting. Or maybe it’s an elephant in the room, not a cat. Everyone is talking about strategic voting; it’s everywhere in the media, both social and traditional. There are numerous grassroots strategic voting campaigns commissioning their own polls to enable it. Yet, both of you are largely silent on the subject.

This is understandable. You are both in this to win it, and talking about strategic voting injects some doubt into your messages. But let’s face some facts. A majority of voters see your parties as roughly interchangeable. A majority of voters think it’s more important to get rid of Stephen Harper than it is to elect either one of your specific parties. If polls are to be believed this majority is roughly 60%: the number of voters who count Liberal and NDP as their #1 and #2 votes.

So, it’s time for some strategic horse trading. Ali Kashani has identified 16 ridings where the Conservatives have a narrow lead over one of your parties, and the other party is significantly behind. These are all ridings where a Conservative victory is likely unless something changes, and none of them are three-way races. There are 8 Conservative-Liberal races, and 8 Conservative-NDP races. Both of your parties stand to gain 8 seats at the expense of Harper’s Conservatives, and in the process, one of you will likely win a minority government at Harper’s expense.

To gain these seats, you need to endorse strategic voting, and in some small way, each other. You both need to acknowledge that, while you would like your party to be elected, you would rather see each other in opposition than Mr. Harper. And, in doing so, you would need to cooperate to trade these 16 ridings between you. Have the weaker candidate endorse the stronger, and both of your parties will be better off, to say nothing of the citizens of Canada. Mr. Kashani has laid out the details in this Medium article here: https://medium.com/…/there-is-actually-a-way-to-guarantee-h…

If you truly want to derail Harper’s politics of fear, and re-take control of the campaign, I can think of no better way of re-taking control of the debate than by mutually endorsing each other in certain key ridings. Suddenly, instead of talking about niqabs, the conversation will shift to how the NDP and the Liberals have done the unthinkable: They are *cooperating*. They are acknowledging what every progressive voter in the country already knows: Harper is poison for this country.

The media will eat this up. The media has been reporting on strategic voting for nine weeks now. They have been reporting the same story for nine weeks because they know it gets attention. They know people care about this issue. Imagine what that media coverage would look like if you actually gave them something to report on. Imagine how many other voters would reconsider your parties because you are actually giving people what they want to see.

There is no downside here, except that you will both have to eat some pride. So, I’m calling on both of you: Please, just pick up the phone and have a conversation. See what you can work out. You don’t have to make it 16 ridings — your own internal polling is probably far more accurate than any publicly reported numbers. But, those close Conservative battles exist for both your parties. I’m sure you can figure out which ridings deserve cross-party endorsement.

I look forward to a Canada led by one of you as Prime Minister. Please, help each other make it happen. As a voter, I *desperately* want to see the two of you cooperate. I don’t care about your ideologies, or your platforms. I care about electing people who will work with others and make the right decisions. I can’t think of a better way that either of you can demonstrate that than to acknowledge the elephant in the room, and to work together for a better Canada.

All the best,

Devon Cooke
Vancouver South