How to replace Harper in next election

During the past two elections the Conservatives have been able to form a minority government with the support of only about a third of Canadian voters. The alignmet of the vote on the right through the merger of the Reform and Progressive Conservative parties while the vote from the center to the left is split several ways has allowed Harper to seize and hang on to power.

Philip Resnick and Reg Whitaker, writing in today's The Tyee, call on the Liberals, New Democrats and Greens to make an electoral deal. This is something I have been advocating for some time. Basically it would involve the caucuses and leaders of the three opposition parties whose principal support lies outside Quebec agreeing amongst themselves not to contest a sufficient number of seats across the country so as not to split the anti-Conservative vote. As Resnick and Whitaker point out,
"roughly 65 percent of Canadian voters do not want a Conservative government for a whole variety of reasons -- its contempt for Parliament and for an independent civil service, its poor environmental policy, its gutting of cultural programs, its weakening of Canada's international position as a respected middle power."

They suggest that these three parties focus on the 60-80 seats where a three-way split in opposition party votes has allowed the Conservatives to win ridings with fewer than 35 percent of the votes, or come within striking distance of defeating current Liberal or NDP sitting members. "The party with the best-placed candidate in 2008 would then be able to run its candidate, with the others stepping down. To ensure the Greens some representation, in particular the seat where its leader chooses to run, the other two parties would give its candidate a clear run."

I think that this is the right way forward. Identify those seats that could be taken from the Conservatives if the other parties cooperated and do just that.

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/02/08/GritsDemsGreens/