With just
over a week to go before the election, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has made a
rookie mistake and reduced his party to the tail trying to wag the Liberal-dog.
Singh has ruled out his
party supporting the Conservative Party under any circumstances.
Because the Conservatives
will not win a majority of seats in the House, based on current polls, the
rules that apply to our Parliament provide that the next Prime Minister will be
Justin Trudeau.
Even if the Conservatives
won more seats than the Liberals (but less than 50% plus 1 of all seats), Trudeau
will table a Throne Speech and the House will then vote confidence in him or withhold
such confidence.
Because the Liberals will
need support from other parties to gain a majority of MPs expressing support in
his government, they will need MPs from the NDP, the Green Party and/or Bloc
Quebecois to survive that confidence vote.
Singh has tabled his list
of 6 Must-Haves for his party to vote confidence in Trudeau, and in doing so
has shown his political inexperience and lack of politicial acumen.
The undemocratic
first-past-the-post system we have means that the 25% or more of voters who
cast votes for the NDP and Green Party effectively have votes that are almost
valueless compared to votes for the Liberals or Conservatives.
THERE WILL NOT BE 25% MPs
IN THE HOUSE TO REPRESENT THE 25% OF VOTES THE NDP AND GREEN PARTY WILL GAIN ON
OCTOBER 21.
The single most critical
thing that the leaders of the NDP and Green Party can do in a minority government
situation (whether that government is a Liberal or Conservative one), is to use
their votes to insist on the electoral system being changed from FPTP to the
democratic proportional representation one.
Only this change will give
equal value to the 25% of votes cast by Canadians for these two smaller
parties. This democratic principle of each vote resulting in equal representation
has been adopted by the most democratic governments in the EU.
BUT SINGH, BY HIS DECISION
TO REFUSE TO NEGOTIATE A CHANGE WITH A MINORITY CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT, HAS
CONDEMNED HIS NDP PARTY TO DECADES OF
BEING A PROTEST PARTY AND NOT A PARTY OF POWER IN PARLIAMENT.
Go figure!
If the Bloc does not vote
in the confidence motion (as is likely), then the NDP will be forced to vote
for Trudeau without any commitment to the electoral change removing FPTP (something
Trudeau promised voters hundreds of times during the past election).
THE BEST HOPE FOR
ELECTORAL CHANGE IN CANADA IS FOR VOTERS TO VOTE FOR THE GREEN PARTY RATHER
THAN FOR THE NDP.
Ms May, leader of the
Green Party, if she holds more seats than the NDP, and if neither the
Conservatives nor the Bloc vote confidence in Trudeau, will be in the position
to obtain a written agreement from Trudeau that provides these things:
1.
That
Trudeau will in the Throne Speech commit to legislation that provides that the
next election will not use the FPTP system but will use the proportional vote
system of electing MPs;
2.
This law
will also forbid Parliament to be dissolved by Trudeau until such time as the law
changing the voting system has been passed and will apply to the next election
Only if this is done, will
Canada be able to have a democractic election system.
Singh blew it with his
rookie decision to not vote under any case for the Conservatives.
If May
should publicly announce within a day or so that she will be proceeding as
above, then hundreds of thousands of Canadians will switch votes from the NDP
and Liberals and Conservatives to the Green Party.
This should
give May the negotiation leverage to make sure every vote cast in future
elections will result in equal representation.
In doing so, she will earn her
place in Canada’s political history as a major reformer of our undemocratic
political system.
How about it, Ms May?
