The Rebel to Rabble Review: Progressive-left outlets ponder pitfalls of strategic voting, future of the NDP – iPolitics

In the aftermath of the now-wrapped federal election with “so many headline takeaways,” the “key challenge facing voters (was) really all about strategic voting,” according to Canadian Dimension contributor Dennis Pilon, who, as per his bio, is both a former member of the outlet’s “editorial collective” and chair of the politics department at York University.

“Canada’s single-member plurality (SMP) voting system simultaneously amplifies the pressure for voters to vote strategically while denying them adequate information to do so effectively, (and) the real shame is that there would be no need to vote strategically at all if we used a more representative, inclusive and ultimately democratic voting system — in other words, some form of proportional representation.”

To make his case, he offers a “concrete example,” courtesy of the riding of Nanaimo — Ladysmith, B.C., where one-term incumbent New Democrat Lisa Marie Barron “was defeated by a Conservative who secured just 35 percent of vote, while the Liberal, Green and NDP candidates secured 28, 18, and 18 percent, respectively,” he notes.

“Prior to the election, a voter opposed to the Conservatives had to ask themselves, which candidate can win? Given that the riding had a history of electing NDP and Green candidates it stood to reason someone other than a Conservative would likely triumph. But which non-Conservative was the best bet was not obvious, as the results clearly demonstrate.”

In fact, “to know which party could best defeat the Conservatives … voters would need riding level polling information about who other voters intend to vote for, which would be prohibitively expensive to produce,” he argues.

“Without this, voters have to rely on their gut level sense of who has the advantage, which is usually based on visible local campaign signage, national level polling, and any cues they might be getting from their preferred party.”

And yet, despite the fact that “adopting PR would make voting more straightforward and less negatively strategic,” there’s no widespread push to do so, which he blames on the “self-interest” of “our two main traditional governing parties” — namely, the Liberals and the Conservatives.

“Canada’s voting system is a pre-democratic hold-over and it remains in use because it serves those that benefit from it.”

Also parsing the results: The Maple’s Alex Cosh, who notes that, while the Liberals and Conservatives “enjoyed their highest vote shares in decades,” Canada “is not yet locked into a two-party system,” as “both parties have areas of support that are soft and could shift back to smaller parties in the years ahead,” according to “experts interviewed by The Maple,” including University of British Columbia political scientist Stewart Prest.

“Both the major parties — particularly the Liberals — drew support from strategic voters who were primarily focused on keeping out their least preferred option rather than supporting a party that they were genuinely enthusiastic about,” which “means the high levels of support both the Liberal and Conservative parties received could fluctuate over the coming months and years,” while “smaller parties, like the NDP, which took a pummelling on election night, are likely to re-emerge,” Cosh notes.

“The Conservatives have to reckon with the relatively soft and strategic basis of some of their support too,” according to Prest, who suggested that “some of the party’s supporters in this election — particularly younger voters — who helped tip it above 40 per cent of the popular vote for the first time in the modern party’s history are unlikely to be particularly enamoured with Conservative politics or ideology per se,” but were “frustrated with the current direction of the country amid the cost of living crisis, and simply wanted to see a change.”

Even so, University of Manitoba labour studies (and fellow Maple regular) Adam D.K. King warns that there is a “deeper issue” for the New Democrats — more specifically, “the phenomenon of ‘class dealignment,’ whereby some working-class voters who in the past would be more likely to vote for left-leaning political parties lend their support to Conservatives instead,” Cosh reveals.

“In last month’s election, some seats in the industrial heartland of Ontario’s Hamilton-Windsor corridor — an area at the forefront of Trump’s trade war — flipped to the Conservatives,” which, King contends, “is related to the larger question of the appeal of right-wing populism to non-college educated working people.”

Given that shift, the “challenge for the NDP … is to get voters to think of themselves as working-class in a reality where the composition of the working-class itself is much more differentiated than it has been in decades past,” King concludes.

Over at Rabble, Ashleigh-Rae Thomas flags the appointment of “longtime Vancouver politician” Don Davies to serve as interim New Democrat leader, a move that “comes after former leader Jagmeet Singh’s resignation following the NDP’s disappointing federal election results on April 28,” they note.

While “news of Davies’ appointment broke on Monday evening …some of the NDP’s seven re-elected MPs were apparently not consulted or informed of Davies’ appointment prior to it being leaked to the media,” the story notes.

“Davies’ key priorities as leader include making homes affordable during the current housing crisis, strengthening and expanding health care services, and fighting for better wages across the country,” while for its part, the party “will begin reconnecting with working people, and renewing its commitment to Canadians,” according to the release announcing Davies’ new role.

Meanwhile, The Breach’s Martin Lukacs examines how Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre “skillfully rebranded the Conservatives as a workers-friendly party,” including bringing forward backbench bills that at least ostensibly attempted to boost protection for workers, “even while they plan to make working people far worse off.”

It was all part of a “repositioning of the party” under Poilievre’s leadership, Lukacs notes. “Alongside rhetorical shots at corporate leaders and billionaires, a tactical shift toward supporting pro-worker legislation, a personal makeover for Poilievre, and a blitz of visits to shop floors across the country, it was part of a wider, concerted strategy to come across like they supported working people, and were willing to pick fights with their enemies. The goal was to woo working class voters ahead of the next federal election, and it appeared to be paying off.”

Rounding out the post-election musings, Ricochet contributor Taylor Noakes takes a “deep dive” into “how far-right media has warped Canada’s political discourse,” as demonstrated by the last-minute decision to cancel the traditional post-debate scrums, which not only “disrupted the work of real journalists, and prevented independent journalists in particular from taking advantage of one of the few occasions they have to ask the federal leaders specific policy questions,” but “garnered Canada’s cabal of far-right activists masquerading as journalists the most attention they’ve had in years.”

Trending on the right-of-centre side of the Canadian activist mediaverse this week:

• Rebel News commander Ezra Levant concedes that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first in-person meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump “went about as well as it could have for Canada’s new prime minister,” at least as far as the extended Oval Office media availability that followed the private tête-à-tête between the two leaders.
• Juno News founder Candice Malcolm had a very different take on the back-and-forth at what she describes as an “EXPLOSIVE Oval Office meeting” during which Trump “walked all over” Carney, as she explains in a “bonus episode” of her daily Youtube show.
• Back in Ottawa, Rebel correspondent Alexandra Lavoie was on Parliament Hill to stake out the first full Conservative caucus session since the vote, where the atmosphere was “charged with speculation and strategy” as Conservative MPs “are rallying behind their leader” even after he went down to defeat in his own riding.
• Finally, True North reporter Isaac Lamoureux provides an “exclusive” rundown of the “key groups vying to lead Alberta’s growing sovereignty movement.”